˖ ࣪ AGAIN, AGAIN, 𖥔 ࣪ ᥫ᭡
AGAIN. . . !
━━━━━ ( 027. real life )
✶ ・・❛ RESCUE TEAM. ❜
"SOOO... ARE WE GOING to talk about it?"
"nick," matt sighs exasperatedly. "what is there to even say?"
"i don't know." nick frowns, looking between astoria and matt sat in the booth across from him before sighing loudly. "we can't just sit in silence for our entire free period guys."
"well, what do you want to discuss?" astoria says sarcastically, tapping her fingers along the edge of her jaw as her head rests on the palm of her hand. "the ass chewing you know marylous definitely giving chris right now?"
"no," nick rolls his eyes. "i was thinking more like clementines insane switch up."
"was pretty crazy," matt murmurs in agreement as astoria shrugs.
"beats me," she says.
nick huffs at the lack of interest in their answers and looks elsewhere, decidedly zoning out. his plan is changed though, when he spots clementine literally walking through the hallway. "speak of the fucking devil," he instantly speaks, gaining matt and astorias attention, making them turn their heads as well. his eyes linger on her for a moment before he looks back to them and hastily suggests, "i feel like one of us should talk to her."
matt's eyes widen and astoria laughs it off. "yeah, right."
"no like," nick frowns momentarily at astoria taking it as a joke. "i'm serious."
astoria pauses, examining nicks expression before a slight scrunch forms between her eyebrows. "umm," she starts. "no."
"why?" nick questions, now making astoria frown because she doesn't get why he's pushing it. "i feel like you should talk to her," he goes on to suggest, missing the wave of frustration washing over her. "you haven't talked to her at all."
astoria shrugs, nonchalant as ever when she avoids eye contact and mumbles, "we were never really that close, so."
at this, matt looks to nick, the two sharing a look of confusion. matt, his face all scrunched up, turns to astoria. "you guys were the closest out of all of us," he points out.
she instantly snaps her head around to look back at him. "uh, no," she forces a laugh, looking at them like they're the crazy ones. "nick and clementine were always the closest."
nick narrows his eyes at her, seeing past this whole act she's got going on right now. "that's fucking bullshit and you know it, stori," he says seriously, making her face drop.
her jaw drops momentarily before scoffing, "look, nick, i'm not talking to her."
nick rolls his eyes, actually getting annoyed now, and taking matters into his own hands—as per usual. "whatever," he says, getting up without explanation and walking off.
astoria and matt both watch his retreating figure, him going in the same direction clementine went in to assumedly try and speak to her. astoria turns her head to matt, hoping to see an understanding look on his face and coming up unlucky. he's quick to carefully ask, "why are you so scared of facing clementine?"
"scared?" she repeats, taking offense. "i'm not scared."
"mhm," matt hums, tilting his head as he's known her long enough to be able to read her like a book. he's not stupid; he knows what she's doing. "you can try and bullshit all you want, but everyone knows you guys were a lot closer than you've been acting like."
astoria frowns, hating how he can see right through her and looking to the table in front of her instead of him. she's silent for a moment before giving in and letting him hear some of her inner thoughts. "do you ever regret how we went about things?" she asks after a while, referring to when chris and clementine first broke up.
"yeah," matt answers without hesitation, giving her a look when he throws the question back at her. "do you?"
"all the time," she reveals quietly.
matt watches her wordlessly for a prolonged moment before speaking, "you act so indifferent about it when she's brought up, but i know that's not you, stori." astoria listens to him with a consistent frown on her face. "i just feel like there's something you're not telling us."
astoria sighs, glancing over his features with a small scrunch between her brows. "matt, i—"
"the fuck..." matt cuts her off in a skeptical murmur, his eyes trailing from her to something behind her. she furrows her eyebrows and turns to catch sight of what's caught his attention.
when she finds bianca and finnley approaching their table, she's sure she's entered an alternate dimension. immediately, her eyes are narrowed. "can we help you?" she sassily speaks.
bianca is quick to hold the same energy, making it known that she doesn't want to be here just as much as she doesn't want her here. "drop the attitude, it's about clementine," she tells her with a crossing of her arms.
at this, she perks up, sharing a look with matt before looking back to her. "what about her?"
"oh, so you didn't forget she exists!" bianca exclaims sarcastically, not being able to help herself as astoria scoffs. "great to know since—you know—you act like it."
"bianca," finnley grumbles, shooting her a look to say that they must have discussed her keeping her mouth shut before this.
bianca sighs, looking over to him and stepping back. "okay, you have the floor, finn," her voice is laced with sarcasm as she ignores astorias glare.
he sighs of relief and claps his hands together when he looks to astoria and matt. "i don't know what to the fuck jax did to her, but," he pauses for a second. "clementine is acting weird as fuck."
"agreed," matt hums.
"no offense, but..." astoria glances between finnley and astoria. "how is this our problem?"
bianca scoffs momentarily before stepping forward to be face to face when she says, "look astoria, if you knew clementine at all—which from what she's told me, you did—then you'd know that she's not herself." her tone is genuine and it makes astoria grow more serious as bianca looks from her to matt and reveals, "the same day she went back to jax, she was texting me about how she was finally ready to give things with chris another try. she would never willingly go back to him guys, trust me."
"oh shit," matt mumbles, him and astoria sharing a wide-eyed look.
NICK SLOWLY WALKS OVER to clementine who is currently holding a paper and opening her locker with her other free hand, feeling almost afraid to approach her.
he takes in a breath though, and forces himself to breathe out a, "hey."
clementine freezes at the sound of his voice, slowly turning her head to find him. "nick," she says, her voice indecipherable as her eyebrows furrow slightly. "hi."
"i was just..." he trails off once he takes notice of the paper in her hand. when he takes a closer look, he realizes that it's the painting of chris she must be doing for her art class. his eyes widen as it's absolutely beautiful and seems to be complete. "is that your art project of chris?" he asks before he can help himself, clementines face dropping. "you should really show him it, i'm sure he'd love it."
clementine stares at him for a few seconds, not saying anything. nick feels stupider the longer the silence goes on and without explanation, she continues unlocking her locker. "i'm turning it in today."
"oh," he murmurs, thrown off by how cold she's being because despite their lack of communication, he feels like they've been getting along better. "well," he pauses for a moment, rubbing at the back of his neck and thinking about how to be gentle with his words. she opens her locker and sets the finished painting inside, then turning back around to him expectantly. "i just wanted to make sure you were okay because i know jax has probably been—"
"what are you doing?" she interrupts him, causing him to freeze up.
"um," he hesitates for a few seconds, not having expected her to cut him off so suddenly. "just checking up on you?" he says questionably.
"oh, great!" she exclaims mockingly, his eyebrows raising to the top of his head at her sarcastic tone. "where was that energy the first day back after christmas break when i felt completely alone?" she pauses just long enough for his jaw to drop before continuing, "oh right, you were laughing your ass off, completely unbothered by my absence — in fact, where was any concern for me at all? because if it was the other way around and you got dumped and isolated yourself from me back then, nick, i wouldn't have fucking let you!" she tells him harshly, clearly using this opportunity to let out some feelings she must have been keeping inside.
hurt washes over nicks face from her painful, yet truthful words. he's speechless for a while, just staring at her, before he begins attempting a response. "okay," he lets out a sharp breath. "i deserve that," he says honestly, internally collecting himself before going on, "but pushing away everyone that cares about you isn't going to do you any good when this is all over."
clementine stares at him blankly, and he hopes that the girl he knew is still down there somewhere because right now, he can't find a trace of her. he waits for her to say something, but she doesn't. she just turns around and walks away from him without a word.
nick presses his lips together, turning right around and beginning his way back to his friends in the cafeteria. he knew astoria should've fucking went.
still though, he can't help the guilt eating at his heart from the words clementine just shot at him. he tries his best to ignore it as he approaches their booth and quickly comes to a stop, his eyes widening at finnley and bianca sat across from matt and astoria. "um," he says out loud, causing them all to turn their heads. "hi?.." he says cautiously, extremely weirded out by everyone sat together peacefully.
"hey, nick!" finnley says cheerily, scooting over in his side of the booth and gesturing for nick to take a seat beside him. nick shoots a weird look to astoria and matt who nod their heads for him to do what finnley said, causing him to only give them a weirder look in response. he skeptically walks over and takes a seat. "how'd it go with clem?" he asks nick as if he was apart of the previous conversation.
"not great," he says blankly, looking around the table, specifically at bianca and astoria, before finally exclaiming, "now, what the fuck is this? seriously."
"this is our 'rescue team,' nick," astoria tells him with air quotes, sending a glance in finnleys direction that tells him that it's finnleys choice of words, not hers.
"rescue team for what?" he furrows his eyebrows.
"clem," finnley answers without hesitation. "duh."
"oh." nick blinks, struggling to feel the same motivation he apparently has. "great!"
💌
no chris or clem pov is how u know they're RLLY suffering 😬
self sabotaging speaking her mind clementine is nawt a fav
<3
jaden