Chasing Reality.

28 - Strange Questions.

"Shut up Sam! I'm reflecting here!" Ronnie explodes at a startled yet amused Sam.

We're in the hall next to Summer's locker where students placed flowers to honor her. Principal Higgins allowed it because Summer was an honour student and well loved among all. It's more or less a tribute to her.

It's been weeks now but the flowers just kept coming. Turns out everyone was affected by Summer's death, even Violet has reached out to us. Shocking, I know.

But the flowers tend to be a constant reminder of our dear friend. Every day we stop by her locker to reflect in silence but today Sam decided to say a few cringe-worthy and totally unnecessary words, it pissed Ronnie off instead.

And she just stormed away, leaving me with a Sam, "What? What did I do? Did I say something wrong?" He looks at me sincerely for answers and all I do is laugh.

I smugly pick up my backpack, "I don't know. Why don't you ask her yourself." And start walking off in the opposite direction, "I still don't believe you don't understand!"

I turn around to still find him looking at me quizzically. I doubt he'd ever understand.

Walking into Mrs Greg's class without Summer will forever be difficult for me. Who will explain everything to me before Mrs Greg even gets the lesson started.

Time to toughen up and learn, can't wait for school to end– high school at least.

School went by as school always go by and by the end of the day, I'm grocery shopping with my mom, carrying a basket checking nutritional value of  salted peanuts– my dad's favorite.

My wonderful mom left me alone once she heard from Mrs Julian, who we met at the supermarket, that Mrs Stacy, who is also in the supermarket right now, is thinking about surgery for conception.

It's not my fault that I heard the whole thing, I was right there but they all conveniently forgot about me.

So now I'm doing the shopping all by myself. I wish I called Ronnie or Eden. Worst comes to worse, Sam would be an option.

Here I am looking for mom's special brand of butter and she didn't specify the brand. How am I to know which brand. Oh, I know...use your five senses.

This is not going as I planned and I'm...

"Um miss. Excuse me." A dude is snapping his fingers in my face, like I'm some kind of crazy person.

"What do you want?" I ask in a very agitated manner.

"You're standing right in front of the refrigerator." He looks at me like he's recollecting something. In this process, I slip past him.

Apparently, I've been blocking his way by standing in front of the refrigerator. He probably wanted to get something inside.

"My apologies," I squeak, when I realized I was to blame for the awkward situation. He didn't reply, just stood there with his thinking cap on.

Well, time to make my getaway.

"Hey wait! You're Clary, right?"

I turn around to face the now smiling stranger, "Yes, I am. Have we met before?" I question. How did he know who I was.

You do live in a small town.

Whatever. So what.

"I'm Jace, Jace Reynolds." He flashes me a dazzling smile that temporarily renders my mind mute while his eyes roam around my body.

I don't like the way he looked at me but I can't get judgemental on someone I just met.

So I also, flash him a dazzling smile. Until I realized who he was.