i could be your pretty girl [clairo fan fic]

twenty two

Claire's pov
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Soon after I finished eating, me and Moon headed to the book store, it was one of Moons favourite shops to go so we decided to before we headed home.

The book store smelt like an old clean cottage, the books filled stalls high surrounding you and every corner you went. Millions of words stored all in dark pages in one space. Words which had not seen light since they had been printed.

I took in a deep inhale feeling the smell of the shop fill each crevice in my lungs.

"Don't you just love the smell of book shops?" I asked Moon in a dreamy voice, but before I could say a word she had darted away down the isles browsing story to story.

I rolled my eyes sarcastically and laughed to myself, before making my way down to meet her.

Moon pulled out a small book, it looked like a comic. A picture of two girls on it in a school environment with uniforms on, one had a short black Bob and other long blonde hair. It looked like it had been hand drawn. It was captioned.

"Not your usual love story"

"Wow the art on that is so good!" I exclaimed, placing my index finger to the glossy cover and tracing over the outlines of the girls.

"I know right!" Moon squealed in excitement and clutched the book tightly to her chest.

"I might buy it, oh and look! This one's me and this one's you!" She pointed to each character assigning the blonde one to me and the brunette to herself. She talked in such a cute manner it made me explode on the inside.

"You're so cute" I said not being able to help myself.

"Stop it you're making me blush" Moon tilted the corners of her lips down suppressing a smile.

"Well are you gonna buy it?" I asked curiously.

"Yeah I might" she smiled.

"Okay I'll give you the money for it" I offered generously.

"Are you kidding. You always buy me presents and stuff, im just going to buy my own thing for once I'm not even allowed to do that without you insisting you pay, why are you so generous. You're too kind." she pouted.

"Ohhh im sorry hah, I just love giving gifts I guess" I shrugged my shoulders and help my hand out with the money in towards her.

"Noo!" She denied and pushed my hand back towards me. However when I still insisted she take it, she just walked away giggling, refusing to take my money.

"I'm going to buy it... MYSELF!" she yelled across the store from the queue.

"Okay! I'll be waiting outside for you!" I laughed and headed to wait outside if the store.

Once outside, I pulled out my phone and went onto Instagram. I had a lot of notifications I needed to get rid of. I went from my feed to likes and mentions. Then I went onto my tagged photos and I saw the selfie me and the younger boy took in the Uneeka cafe.

"Wow he uploaded those fast" I admitted

Clicking on it, I scrolled to the next attached filter and saw a few photos of me and Moon which i dont remmeber posting or sending anywhere. My heart beat began to rise, as I realise that the boy had infact taken photos of me and moon without out permission.

One was me and moon at the counter holding hands, and the other was me sat next to her squeezing her hand as she ate chocolate cake.

"Oh god" I whispered to myself. I knew  Moon would freak out about this considering that she was so worried about having those photos taken.

I went to check the comments and they were filled with remarks such as.

So they must be dating!

I saw them both on Claire's story but I thought they were just friends.

No way they are dating?

I KNEW they were going out, I thought it from the start!

I was unsure if Moon wanted the world to know about us being together. And I'm sure it was bad enough with her while school speculating about her. She wasn't even out to anyone yet, so I doubted this would be good for her.

As fast as I could, I reported the photos and hoped they could be taken down before anyone else saw them.

But before i could finish, I felt Moon's warm hand I my shoulder.

"Hey Claire you okay?" She asked holding the comic to her.

"Yeah I'm fine," I forced a smile, and we made our way back to her house

*

"Ahhh finally back, this is nice and i feel good after going out" moon said, sighing as she collapsed back onto the sofa.

"Yeah same... Oh are you going to read that book of yours soon?" I asked curiously

"Yeah I will, I'll let you know how it goes!" She smiled and flicked through the pages gently. Her soft fingertips every so slightly grazing the edges of the paper.

I began to head to the door since I was not spending tonight with moon, she had college the next day and I didn't want to interrupt that.

"Moon you're going to college tomorrow right?" I asked as I started walking.

"Yes I do, I take it you're not staying with me tonight" she shot her head round to look at me with her big puppy eyes.

"Well... I don't want to get in your way and plus waking up early sounds like a hassle." I joked.

"Oh pleaseeeeee, it's not even that early. Plus I can't survive too long without you" she whined.

"Moon, I'm going to see you again after don't worry, in not going anywhere" I grinned.

"True that, and I do think I'd probably regret it in the morning" she finally admitted.

"Okay moon ,well I better get going if you want to get a proper sleep, I need you to relax and you can read your book before classes tomorrow" I smiled and skipped back to her to give her a small goodbye kiss.

"I will don't worry." She giggled. As I was putting on my shoes she called out.

"Oh! And Claire?"

"Yes moomin?"

"You look sorta stressed when we were outside the book shop.... Is everything okay?" She asked with worry in her tone.

"Oh yes it's fine, I was just... Wondering why your queueing was so long, and you startled me when you tapped me on the shoulder haha..." I laughed awkwardly making up my story as I went along.

"Oh okay, that's fine then, just promise me you'll tell me if anything is wrong" she smiled as she began to read her comic.

"... I... Promise" I blurted out.

"Good... We'll see you soon love" Moon smiled

"Bye bye... I... Lo- bye Moon" I smiled and shut the door.

For some reason eventhough me and moon had been dating for a month, it felt like an eternity... And I felt so lost before I met her, now I finally had, everything was perfect and had fallen into place. But weirdly, I still felt strange saying "I love you" those three words meant a lot to me, it was a very serious thing, and although she would probably think nothing of it... It was a big deal for me.

I told her across the phone but... By accident, and in person was a totally different matter anyways... I would find a way sometime soon...

After all the thinking, I hopped into my car and made my way back home before I could overthink anything else...