CLARITY

||09|| Sunshine

Chapter song: I love you so by The Walters

C H A P T E R  N I N E
Clarity's POV

What's that saying about rain...?

After rain comes sunshine?

Yeah, that's it.

That saying makes me think of Jonah. He can be the biggest rain storm cloud and the biggest bully sometimes, especially when he saw Olias and me. But he always makes up for his actions. We ride through our problems, and that's what relationships are all about. Right?

When my skin is stinging and my eyes are puffy from crying, he always puts in double the amount of effort to make up for the hurt he caused me.

Jonah leans down to press a kiss on my lips, "I love you, baby."

Though, recently, his kisses have felt foreign. Like a stranger is kissing me, like he's someone I haven't spent all of my high school years with. His once warm lips now freezing mine.

Where is that sunshine at right now?

What is wrong with me?

"I love you too." My cold lips twist as I bite down on my lips as we walk the streets of New York City.

It's been nearly a week and a half since I've seen Olias Grey. And now, walking into the same Starbucks we had gone to the day we met makes him crash my thoughts.

Not that he ever left them.

Jonah had picked me up from work and told me to choose somewhere to go and he'd take me. I chose Starbucks, of course. Not like either of us have the money to go anywhere more expensive.

I open the door to the Starbucks and walk in after a few people file out. It's packed with coffee addicts, which isn't unusual considering we're downtown manhattan.

Everyone lives off coffee here.

Jonah turns to face me, "I'm not ordering that long-ass order you like, so choose something simple."

The corner of my lip drops slightly. That's the whole reason I like Starbucks.

"A Mocha is fine," I resort to. He nods, wearing his Yankee hat and a white T-shirt under his coat. I watch him as he walks on the order line, my eyes falling on the girls in front of him that begin checking him out, smiling. Jonah's lip raises and he says something that makes the girls giggle.

I look away, not wanting to see how easily I could be replaced if he really wanted to do so.

But what my eyes lay on now is far worse.

Jasmine Miller.

Her blood hair is pinned up in a bun, a nose identical to one on a barbie doll, and eyes that don't hold bags or caca-colored iris'.

Micheal sits across from her and so does a darker-skinned boy, all of them laughing. And sitting beside her is Olias, leaning back in his chair, his dark hair falling over his forehead as usual. A concentrated expression sits on his face as he stares at his coffee intensely. Like he's waiting for it to talk back to him.

I thought he didn't like coffee?

And why does it look just like my favorite order?

Jasmine's hand grabs his cup as if going to drink some, but Olias' eyes snap to her hand, then reaches out and grabs her wrist, pushing it away from the cup.

She rolls her eyes. But what catches mine is her outfit.

My head tilts, my eyes squinting as I examine from afar the black dress that looks awfully like the one I left at Olias' house a week and a half ago. The low neckline and short-cut sleeves on it.