Drowning » Rafe Cameron & JJ Maybank

030

(chapter thirty)

Clara was awaken by Topper, who slapped her feet. The brown haired girl looked down at the sleeping Sarah and then moved her glare at him. "I'm not going."

"You're not gonna make me drag you outof bed, right?" He crossed his arms, their tone still low to avoid awaking the young dirty blonde girl. "If I'm going, you're going. I'm not gonna suffer alone."

"I don't have my uniform," she tried but Topper was not having it. He pulled out a shirt and one of the shorts — they were made for the boys, but there was once in a while that you would see the girls using it too.

"C'mon, first class is Mr Andrews," he said as he walked out, leaving a sighing Clara.

The girl moved slowly to get Sarah off of her, then she grabbed the clothes. They were a lot bigger, but she could make it work.

The white buttons up were tucked on the shorts, along with the loose tie around the neck, so she just put her shoes and grabbed her phone. Topper was sitting in one of the benches by his pool, and he got up when she appeared, pulling her messy wavy hair on a ponytail.

Clara had no makeup, no backpack, just her phone with almost to none battery and not a single will to go. The boy just offered her a half a sandwich as she grabbed it without stopping walking, and then sat on the passenger seat defeatedly.

Topper knew his friend was going through a rough time but he couldn't help but want to laugh at how annoyed she looked and acted everytime someone woke her up.

But for Clara, obviously she wanted to just lay down on the ground and sulk. Yeah, as if. It was monday again, so that meant she also had work. Their first class? Chemistry with the worst teacher possible. What a shitty day, and it barely just started.

As the man explained the subject, Clara was holding her head up with her hand, the sheet of a notebook — that Topper ripped off for her and lent her a pen — blank in front of her as she was in deep thought.

She missed Rafe. Her hand went up to her necklace unconsciously. She had to take it off eventually?

No, no she couldn't do that. Even if it was a present from him, it was not something that consolidated their relationship, was for to diverge her attention from the hand marks of her mother around her throat she still felt at times.

But still...

Grace, who was sitting on their class this year due to her chemistry AP classes, looked over at Clara. She missed her, a lot. But it wasn't just for that reason. She had seen Clara fall into a hole of madness in the last week, yet she couldn't do anything to help.

Of course the Anderson girl still cared about her. She did one thing, she thought it would be okay to tell her mother just to ask for an advice on how to handle the situation. What she didn't expect was that Ella would gossip to everyone around her about it.

It was her fault. She knew that, but she never wanted to hurt Clara.

So Grace leaned to the side, touching Topper's arm as he was on her diagonal left side, and the boy turned a little, brows pulling together. "What?"

It hurt Grace to know that her actions also drove away the boy she was in love with. But she could move on from that. She knew she would never have a chance anyway.

"Is Clara okay?"

"Now you care?" Grace flinched. She should've expect that, but it didn't make it less painful, anyway. "She's fine."