˖ ࣪ AGAIN, AGAIN, 𖥔 ࣪ ᥫ᭡
AGAIN. . . !
━━━━━ ( 001. real life )
✶ ・・❛ BITCH BOY. ❜
( ☼ )
CHRIS REALLY WOULDN'T have minded if clementine had moved on with anyone else—actually, that's a lie. she could move on with the nicest guy in the school and he'd still lose sleep over it.
so, with that being said, it's understandable for him to slowly begin losing his shit due to her moving on with jax cunningham. jax fucking cunningham out of all people.
chris and jax have absolutely had it out for each other ever since the start of freshman year. long story short, they were friends in middle school until jax became the biggest douche chris has ever met, so after he tried to shove his hands up his cousin's skirt at a football game, he punched him in the face and they became enemies from that day forward.
it's now mid april of their senior year and it was only christmas break that chris had broken up with clementine. it was a complete disaster and chris is pretty sure he shattered everything that was once between them, so it's understandable for her to move on. he was just kind of hoping she would wait until after school ended so he wouldn't have to see it. he was also hoping it wouldn't be so soon, and at the very least, not with his sworn nemesis.
he's not sure when they started talking. they must've kept it a complete secret because when they suddenly walked through the school doors on a random day in february with his arm around her shoulders, it was a complete fucking shock. chris can't even think back on that day without feeling genuinely nauseous.
see, he liked to think that clementine was just trying to get back at him, just trying to get revenge after he broke her heart.
it's been two months since then though.
he grew up with clementine and they dated for almost two entire years. he knows her like the back of his hand. that's why he can so unfortunately tell that the smiles she gives jax in the hallways and the admiration in her eyes when she looks at him are real. it's not just an act to make him feel like shit.
it makes it all the more worse for him.
honestly, it makes him hold some unfair hostility towards her. he knows that he's the one who messed up their relationship and destroyed everything they built together, but he still feels betrayed. he still feels like she's gone completely behind his back and lied to him somehow.
most of the time she doesn't even look at him anymore. they could walk right past each other and she wouldn't even spare him a glance. it's like she's completely erased him out of her life, like they weren't planning their future together just five months ago.
"chris, oh my god. are you even listening to a word i'm saying?" a voice snaps him out of his own trance.
he looks away from said couple he was staring at, not wanting to see the admiration in clementine's eyes that gives him a cold sense of deja vu. he instead, looks back at his brother in front of him. "sorry, what?"
matt rolls his eyes at his brothers lack of attention, glancing over at clementine and jax by the lockers across from them before looking back at chris. "it's been like three months, bro. glaring at them isn't gonna break them up."
"it's only been two months actually," chris corrects him, immediately hating how obsessive it sounds and shaking his head at himself.
"okay, just further prove my point then," matt sighs.
chris just zones him out, glancing back at the couple across from them again. this time, jax unfortunately notices him looking and smirks. chris already knows its coming from his cocky expression before he suddenly grabs clementines chin and pulls her towards him. when their lips meet, chris scowls, looking away from them as the nausea he's gotten used to this year returns in his stomach.
chris really, really wishes he wasn't a jealous person, but he can't help it. he can't help the constant craving he gets when he sees clementine and jax together to just punch jax in the nose and take back his rightful spot that's always been next to clementine. he fully knows that should be him, that used be him, and that never should've stopped being him—even though he has no one to blame except himself for that.
chris also really, really wishes he was some sort of time traveler, all so that he could go back five months ago to the night of decemeber twenty-fourth and talk some sense into his foolish past self.
he had always, always been an overthinker and his one greatest regret is letting the thoughts get to him and practically handing the one real thing the boy has ever known into his enemy's arms.
but also, he had no idea jax would be there waiting for chris to slip up and lose the one thing that's always been his, the one thing that he's always been so sure of.
if he had known, he probably never would've never let clementine walk out of his house that night. if he had only known how foolish he was being then.
"why is chris staring off into space?"
"oh hey, stori," matt greets astoria as she comes to stand behind him. he notices nick isn't with her and raises his eyebrows. "where's nick?"
"oh, he left for world history earlier to study, i think," she answers, shrugging her shoulders.
"what a loser," he sighs jokingly.
"what's up with chris?" she asks him, noticing how he's still staring off into the distance until he hears his name.
"still moping over jax and clem." matt rolls his eyes, nodding his head in the direction that chris was staring in.
astoria follows where he gestured towards and finds clementine and jax against some lockers. she sees her looking up at him so happily and resists the urge to roll her eyes. she also notices bianca fulkerson, clementine's new best friend that astoria's hated for literal years, on her phone next to them.
if it wasn't obvious, chris and clementine's break up forever ruined the dynamic of their previous shared friend group.
"why are you still calling her clem? she hasn't talked to any of us in like a month," chris suddenly speaks up grumpily, crossing his arms as he leans back into the locker behind him.
"uh, i don't know," matt's lips twist to the side awkwardly, momentarily taken off guard. "just feels kind of weird not to."
astoria turns back to the group and narrows her eyes at chris' now sour mood. "don't be a bitch, chris," she tells him. "we've always called her that."
"whatever." he rolls his eyes right before the bell rings. once it does, he doesn't spare a goodbye to the pair, instead holding his stuff against his chest and starting his way to his class.
SOON ENOUGH, IT'S THE last class of the day. chris' last class is gym, one he unfortunately has with jax. luckily though, the class goes by pretty quickly since astorias also in the class and they just take turns jogging laps.
when he enters the locker room to change and hears jax's obnoxious voice, he internally groans. he maneuvers through people to get to his locker, dapping a few people up who say something about him doing good in the last lacrosse game on his way. jax notices him as he makes it to his locker and murmurs something to one of his friends that makes them chuckle quietly.
"yo jax," someone a few lockers down from chris suddenly shouts out, "you coming to tony's tonight?"
"nah," he yells back. "my girls waiting for me outside."
chris' ears immediately perk up, a familiar anger settling in his gut. he ignores the inappropriate responses from jaxs friends asking if he's gonna 'hit that' and opens his locker.
jax apparently, has a different idea though. "hear that, chris?" he calls out, beginning to walk towards him.
chris rolls his eyes and grabs his clothes from his locker. he shuts it behind him and turns around, now finding jax in front of him. he doesn't give him the time of day, trying to move past him and failing when he steps in his way. he takes a step back, jaw almost clenching. "out of my way, cunningham."
"why? you mad now?" jax furrows his eyebrows in mock confusion, a smug smirk resting on his features.
"out of my fucking way," he reiterates harshly, now shoving past him and beginning to walk away successfully.
"come on," jax sighs loudly at his retreating figure. "don't get mad just because i stole your bitch, bro."
chris' jaw is definitely clenching now. if there's anything he hates more than jax himself, it's the way he talks about clementine like she's just an object belonging to him. he turns around abruptly and stomps back up to him, now a storm brewing within his eyes. "alright man," he shakes his head. "if anyone here's a bitch, it's you."
jax's eyebrows raise, taken aback by him actually biting back for a second. chris speaks up again in the time he's silent for too long. "what?" he furrows his eyebrows. "you can dish it out but you can't take it, bitch boy?"
a couple 'ooh's and 'ah's come from the guys surrounding them still watching as jax snaps back into it, his jaw clenching as he takes a step forward to get in chris' face. "you better watch your fucking words before you end up with a black eye, bro."
chris raises his eyebrows, beginning to laugh dryly. "i think we both know you'd never do that because not only would i beat your ass, but you'd lose that football scholarship that's already barely hanging on by a thread."
jax narrows his eyes at him, taking a step back, but continuing to respond. "well, what have you got, chris?" he asks, catching him off guard. "you haven't got any scholarship and you don't even have the girl anymore. why? because it's mine, and she's mine. it's all mine."
chris is taken aback, the words actually piercing through his heart this time at the lack of dishonesty within them. he shrugs it off and scoffs loudly, not saying anything else and instead shoving past him. other guys watch as he storms past everyone but don't say a word.
he shoves through the locker rooms door, hating how much jax's words are affecting him and hating even more how they're right. he sighs and runs a hand through his hair, instantly pausing when he looks up to see clementine leaned against the hallway wall across from him.
she's on her phone, but glances up once she realizes someone's come through the door. she's obviously waiting on jax, and chris painfully watches as her face falls when she finds him instead.
there hasn't been a single word uttered between the two in at least a couple months and he can't remember a time they've come face to face like this since the breakup.
she just stares at him for a few seconds, a blank look on her face that doesn't express many emotions at all. he isn't sure what he looks like in her eyes, but he's sure there must be a lot more emotions visible in his face compared to hers from just taking one glance at the pair of them. just as she's about to look back down to her phone and decidedly ignore his existence, he forces himself to speak up. "uh, hey," he says quietly.
her eyes instantly come back to his, slightly wider this time. she looks at him, now in disbelief that he's even speaking to her, and he gulps, already feeling extremely stupid before she's even given a response.
a silence spreads between them, the two just staring at each other wordlessly. just as her lips part to presumedly speak, a couple loud footsteps come around the corner, causing them to both dart their head in that direction.
"yo, chris, are you almost read-" astoria comes shouting around the corner, immediately cutting herself off when she sees clementine across from him. "oh... hey clementine," she says quieter than before, awkwardly glancing at the girl and giving her a small smile.
"hey stori," she greets back quietly, returning the same awkward smile.
stori? chris didn't know she still used a nickname for astoria, and judging from astorias slight raise of her eyebrows, she didn't either.
an uncomfortable silence washes over them and he absolutely hates it. the three all used to belong to the same group and now only two of them do, clementine being long gone now. it shouldn't be like this, and he knows he's to blame.
the silence ends when the door behind chris suddenly opens, him instantly stepping aside to not get hit by it. when jax comes into view, chris holds in a groan. of course.
jax notices clementine first and instantly begins walking towards her, pausing once he then notices chris to the side. he immediately raises his eyebrows, noticing astoria a few feet away as well, before ultimately looking back at his girlfiend. "what's this?"
clementine's eyes flicker over to chris for a second, chris' heart dropping as they don't hold a thing he can decipher, before they go back to her boyfriend in front of her. "nothing," she eventually sighs, putting her phone in her back pocket and stepping up from where she was leant against the wall.
jax narrows his eyes in response to her before suddenly turning to chris. he storms over to him and raises his eyebrows. "do i have to warn you to stay away from my girl now?"
chris just rolls his eyes in response. so dramatic. he notices clementine frown and cross her arms in the corner of his eye.
jax opens his mouth to say something to chris again, but clementine steps forward and grabs his arm. "can we just go?" she asks.
he narrows his eyes at chris once more before turning to her, now shaking his head with a sigh. "whatever, babe," he says, pulling his arm from her grip quite roughly chris notices.
babe. his face scrunches up slightly. the thought of someone else calling her things he used to call her makes his skin crawl—in fact, having to hear it disgusts him. definitely the universe's method of psychological torture on him.
after recovering, he notices clementine's face scrunch up just slightly as well at the pet name escaping his lips and presses his lips together to refrain from smiling amusedly. it's nice to know the relationship isn't as great as it looks.
jax begins walking ahead of her without saying anything and she sighs, glancing at chris once more with a frown before adjusting her backpack on her shoulder and speeding slightly to catch up with him. when they pass by astoria, clementine sends her another awkward smile that she returns before they turn the corner.
astoria instantly comes speed walking up to chris once they've disappeared. "yo, what was that?" she immediately asks.
chris just shakes his head, causing her to narrow her eyes. "what?" she asks.
"i've gotta get clem back."
instead of her face morphing into one of shock like he suspects, she just tilts her head. "i thought we shouldn't call her clem?"
"shut up," he just says, shaking his head slightly again. "i've gotta win her back."
"yeah no shit," she deadpans, chris' eyebrows raising. "now come on!" she exclaims, beginning to turn around. "everyone's waiting outside so we can leave."
💌
i'm so excited for this plot chuckle
u guys are gonna LOVE this chris 😊
sorry if chris is a little out of character in this story but it's worth it for the high school cliche come on now 🥱🥱 just remember this is fanFICTION!!
also writing a character dylan o'brien plays as an asshole is surprisingly easy after the atw short film help
<3
jaden