Chapter 5 | Not A Reason

Song For Chapter: Cowboy Casanova by Carrie Underwood

Quote: "Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself."- Coco Chanel

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The bell rung and every student shot up from their seats. I was one of the last students up from their seats. I didn't want to be run over by a pack of wild students ready to leave school. Nothings worse then getting in their way. Before I could leave the class my history teacher pulled me aside.

"Clare, can I talk to you? Your not trying to catch a bus are you?" She was a small lady. She never yelled at students. She was quiet. So when she pulled me aside from everyone else I got a little worried.

"Um...no, it's fine. Am I in trouble Mrs. Sandra?" I couldent help from it coming out of my mouth. She smiled and shook her head.

"No, not at all. But I did want to talk to you about the essay I gave out Tuesday." I could feel my arms and legs go weak. I turned in the paper. I know I did. And I did a decent job. Sweat formed around my hair line and in my palms. I awkwardly tried to wipe them on my pants with out her knowing. She turned around and grabbed a stack of papers. She shuffled around threw them before she pulled one out. Mine out.

She handed me my paper, but when I saw a B plus written on the front page I became confused. Why does she want to talk about my essay? She gave me a fine grade? I looked up at her.

"The topic was about something in history that really inspires you." She lifted up both eyebrows waiting for me to figure out what she was talking about. I wrote about America gaining independence from Britain and how it inspired me to do do things when no one else expected me to. The whole thing was a big lie but all the other students wrote about the same thing so I thought there was no problem.

"I'm still confused." I laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of my neck. I could feel my face redden.

"Clare, I have been your history teacher for almost three years now. That paper right there is not you. And honestly I don't believe it. Of course I don't believe anything, any of the other students wrote about, but I know you can do more then that."She paused before she turned around and sat down at her desk. I felt uderly stunned

"I know your not some English honor, but I believe you can do more then the rest of the studnts. I want you to give me a real essay. Something in history that really inspires you. Not just the same old same old. Turn it an whenever, but I want it to be from the heart. Also I'm not going to grade it. I...I just want to see what that shy girl has to say." With my eyes wide open I nodded my head. She laughed at my expression.

"Sorry if I have scared you Clare. But honestly when I see you I see me. And trust me I have a lot going on in my head." I smiled and nodded my head once more. Im starting to feel like a bobble-head with all the nodding I'm doing.

"No, it's fine. Umm...thanks Mrs. Sandra. It-it might take me a while." I looked at the door to make sure no one heard our conversation.

"I wouldn't expect you to turn it in right away." She smile at me and put on her big red glasses and started to type something into her computer.

I smiled and turned around. I waved to her once I reached the door out. She smiled in return, I raced out of her room as fast as I could.

What am I suppose to write about? What thing in history inspires me? I groaned out in frustration. A couple of students turned and looked at me funny. I smiled at them and made my way to my locker so I didn't have to talk to them.

When I reached the empty hallway I saw Jackie on the phone talking to someone.

"Umm...yeah I think so." I turned the numbers on the lock until it clicked open. I reached in and grabbed my school bag. Jackie closed my locker for me and pushed me out the doors of the school.

"No, we are leaving right now. Did you ask Lucas if he was coming?" She waited a few minutes until the person on the other side finished talking.

"Yeah, okay I'll ask her." She looked at me and winked. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms.

"Okay, bye mom." She hung up the call and shoved her phone into her back pocket.

"What do you want to ask me?" I got into her car and put my bag next to the bag I packed last night. Jackie picked me up from my house this morning. "Wait, is it to marry me? Whoa, I didn't know you swang that way, I mean, I knew you were a little-" She slaps the back of my head. I started laughing putting my hands up in surrender. She pulled out of the school parking lot and onto the road.

"No, my parents and my brother and one of his friends are going to go camping at this lake. And I wanted to know if you wanted to come?"

"When?" I asked looking out the window.

"Well since we don't have school next Thursday and Friday we thought then."

I looked at her confused." Yeah I want to come. We don't have school Thursday and Friday?" She stopped at a red light and turned to look at me suprised.

"Clare you are the most oblivious person I know. It has been played over the intercom all week. It's like some teacher meeting thing or whatever." I shrugged my shoulders and reached to pull a piece of gum out of her purse.

"I didn't know." I stuck a peace of gum into my mouth.

She shook her head and chuckled. As we reached closer to her house I started to feel nurvous. I'm going to meet her dad. What if he doesn't like me? I think Jackie saw how scared I was.

"Hey. Don't worry, my dad's going to like you. Hell, he still can't believe that we are still as close as we are when I told him you were coming to the barbaque. He said he can't wait to see little Clare all grown up." She chuckled and started to pull into her driveway.

"Okay." I smiled at her and looked at the unfamiliar truck it the driveway. She parked the car and we both got out.

"Ready to go smoothe killer." I rolled her eyes and continued to walk side by side with her into the house.

"You have really crapy nicknames you know." I said. She mimicked me and opened the front door.

We walk into the kitchen to see a man and Jackies mother talking to each other and laughing. The man looked just like I remembered him. He still looked young. He had black hair, and blue eyes. Unlike Jackie he was pretty pale. When we entered the kitchen they both stopped and looked up at us.

Jackies father instantly got up and hugged her. "Ohhh...I've missed you cupcake. It looks like you've grown a inch or two. Did you cut your hair? It looks like you cut your hair-" She rolled her eyes at her dad and pushed him off her.

"Dad...stop. No I didn't cut my hair." She mumbled and looked up at me. I smiled at him and held my hand out for him to shake.

"Hi. I'm clare, it's nice to see you again Mr. Lakewood." He didn't say anything. He looked at my hand and then back up at me. His face was blank and I couldn't read him. Just like earlier today sweat started to form on my palms and hair line.

Suddenly he smiled. I was taken back by his suddan change. "Clare Ann Jackson. My word, your not a little girl anymore. How long has it been since I've seen you, six, seven, years." He pushed aside my hand and pulled me into a hug. I huged him back lighty while laughing.

He pulled away and put a hand on my shoulder and on on Jackies. "God, I can't believe it. It seemed like a few years ago when you could barley tie your shoes correctly girls." Jackie playfully rolled her eyes. I smiled and let out a small chuckle. I can't even see now why I was worried.

"Oh and, I just asked Clare if she wanted to go camping with us and she said she loved to." I nodded my head in agreement. Mr. Lakewood removed his hands and crossed his arms standing next Mrs. Lakewood. He had the same smile Jackie had. Almost every thing about her resembled her father.

"That's great. Wait Clare when was the last time you saw Lucas? You two will get along just fine. Won't they Martin?" Mr. Lakewood nodded his head in agreement.

"Umm...I haven't seen him for a long time." I shrugged and watch Jackie take a seat at the island. I felt cold and unarmed with out Jackie beside me.

"Well...he should be coming tonight. But there's a pretty bad storm so he might be here a little late." Mrs. Lakewood drifted off at the end of her sentence as if she was thinking of something else.

"Oh. I thought he was coming tomorrow?" I looked at Jackie.

"He was. But then he decided he didn't want to drive a long ways tomorrow. So he said he'd just come tonight. "

"How far away does he live?"

"Like an hour from here. But he had work tonight so he couldn't get here till late. He's moving closer to small appointment not far from here." I nodded my head and looked over at Mr. And Mrs. Lakewood they weren't paying any attention to our conversation.

Jackie grabbed my hand and led me up stairs. I grabbed my clothes bag that fell on the floor when Mr. Lakewood hugged me.

Jackie pulled out her computer and started to type fast on the key board. I settled myself on her floor.

"What are you doing?" I asked as she tried to type even faster onto the labtop.

"Damn, math teacher wants us to write an essay on trigonometry. Well I don't have time to do that this weekend. So I'm doing it right now. I mean this is math, how the hell am I suppose to write an essay on trigonometry?" She huffed out a large angry breath and pushed the back button multiple times.

"At least you don't have to write another history paper." I mumbled pulling out all of her nail polish.

"Wait is that why you were late to your locker?" I looked up and nodded my head.

She snickered but stopped quickly. Suddenly she got off of her spot on the bed and sat down next to me. I looked up at her suddenly concerned face. It was weird how fast she changed moods. It wasn't bipolar, but it was strange. "Clare, why did you really call me last night?" I gave her a shocked face, but she didn't seem to care.

"Umm...a girl dumped a smoothe..." I stopped short when I saw she wasn't believing my lie. She glared at me with a straight face.

"Okay, okay fine, how did you know I was lying?" She shook her head and pulled out a bright pink nail polish.

"Clare, when you lie, your voice gets soft, and you wouldn't call me to just gossip about some bitch." She waved the pink nail polish in my face.

I frowned and looked down. "It was nothing really." I tried to ingore the conversation by pulling out diffrent colors of nail polish. "Do you think this one would look good?" I pulled out a random one which turned out to be a ugly green-yellow color. She rolled her eyes and took it out of my hands.

"What happened, I know you were going to say Jacobs name. So what the hell did that jackass do?" I looked anywhere but her face. She's like my best friend but do I really need to get her involved in my problems. She helped me out with him two years ago, I'm sure she expected me to be done with him by now. But I just can't forget him. It's hard to leave someone you love.

"Jackie... I don't want to talk about it. It wasn't even a big deal." I took the nail polish out of her hands.

She was starting to get frustrated and I could see the annoyance as she rolled her eyes once more. She's too stubborn, and I know she won't let go of this that easy.

"I swear to god, if you don't tell me right now I'm going to call him and chew his ass out." She stood up taking the nail polish with her and putting it away to stop distracting me.

"Fine. He just called me, and well, um, he said somethings and I said somethings back."She looked at me again giving me the same death glare she gave me earlier.

"He said that he wanted to tell me why he...well you know. Then he told me that he couldn't tell me two years ago because he didn't want to believe that it was over. And I told him he was unbelievable and a coward." I stopped to see if Jackie was still listening. She no longer had a death glare but a blank face. "And umm...that was it." I didn't want to tell her the last part because honestly, she would probably agree with him. And I don't need that right now. I don't even want to think about it. I'm trying to move on, it's just not as easy as everyone says it is.

"Clare, I'm sorry. You know that." I looked up at her to see she was looking at me with a worried expression. It was weird seeing her with that face. She always had a smile on her face. I felt guilty and a knot formed in my stomach, I knew I shouldn't have told her.

"Jackie, why the hell are you sorry?" I playfully rolled my eyes at her. She smiled but I could see the pity behind it.

"I just think you needed it. That's all. Plus next time I see that jackass, I'm going to personally tell him off. You can count on me for that." The pity was gone and her natural happy, energetic mood was back.

For the rest of the night Jackie made sure my mind was off of Jacob. She made me help her set up tables and lights in her back yard for tomorrow. Her dad and mom pitched in to help as well. When the sun went down and it started to get late we went inside to watch a movie. But however when I came back from the bathroom Jackie was passed out on her bed. I chuckled and grabbed a blanket that I put on top of her.

I laid down next to her and tried to fall asleep. But like many times I couldent close my eyes and simply fall asleep. My mind will get to deep into my thoughts and I couldn't focus on sleeping. I would get frustrated with my own thoughts until I couldn't stand it and just open my eyes. And like those nights that's what I did. I could only think about Jacob. Jackie tried to keep my mind off of him but she wasn't up to distract me anymore.

I got out off of the bed and made my way down stairs. It was dark inside and no lights were on. It was raining with a little thunder.

I got a glass out of the cabinet and poured some water into it. I took a sip of the cold water. It felt refreshing on my dried lips. I bit the bottom of my lip tasting the light metallic taste.

I ran my fingers threw my hair. I turned around with the glass of water in my hand. As I turned I ran into something, at first I thought it was just a chair, but then it let out a grunt in suprise.

I let out a small squeal in suprise. I droped the glass in my hand on the floor and it shattered. Luckily when it fell it didn't make much noise. I placed my hand on my heart and closed my eyes trying to calm down. It wasn't that I thought he was a burglar, but I didn't expect to see someone standing behind me. I opened my eyes back up, I couldent see him very well, or where the glass was. Carefully I stepped away and turned the kitchen light on.

I looked back over to see the man, with the same suprised look I wore. "Umm...sorry. I didn't expect to see someone. You must be Lucas, I'm Jackies friend Clare." Unlike when I met Mr. Lakewood I didn't hold my hand out for him to shake. His suprised face suddenly turned into scowl.

I looked over him to see he was rather good looking. He didn't look like his mother or his father. He had dark brown hair, he had a strong jawbone and green eyes. He was tall and well built, but he looked rough. He didn't have any smile lines or any hint that he was going to smile back at me. I felt intimated by him. His eyes glared at me looking straight at my face. I looked down trying to avoid his face. He didn't shead one emotion but a stone cold blank face. After a minute of no reply from him I droped my smile and took a step back towards the closet.

"I'll just clean this mess up."I muttered more to myself then to him. He just rolled his eyes and looked out the window.

"I'd sure hope so. Your the one who fucking droped it." He mumbled, I just ignored his comment and grabbed the broom and dust pan. He crossed his arms and took a step back so I could clean the glass surrounding his feet.

After I made sure there was no more glass I wiped down the floor drying up the water that was spilt. I set the rag down in the dirty basket and turned to face Lucas who held a duffel bag in his hands.

"Good night, sorry again for dropping a glass on you." I quickly left the kitchen and went up to Jackies room.

After that event I suddenly felt like I had just run three miles. I was out of breath and the only thing I wanted to do was sleep. My eyes felt droopy and I didn't want to moves. I wrapped the blanket on Jackies bed around me and with out even thinking I feel asleep.

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Chapter 5 is done!!!