Clementine wakes up on Monday morning and is immediately hit with an immense feeling of regret about last night when a rush of tiredness hit her. She'd stayed up super late to do practice routines for her guitar playing because she hadn't played in so long.
So, it's a Monday morning, the first day of school, and Clementine's head feels like it's been hit by Kanye West's ego. She groans as she drags herself out of bed towards her guitars. Tired or not, she still has to do her scheduled guitar practice even if she'd stayed up hours doing the exact same thing the previous night. She starts running up and down the modes of the minor scale, occasionally switching it to harmonic minor. After fifteen minutes of doing this, she hangs her guitar back on the wall and saunters towards her desk. Letting out a grunt of annoyance because of her sleep deprivation, she grabs a small can of fish food. She carefully screws loose the lid and grabs some of diversely colored flakes, dropping a few of them into the bowl. She watches them as they slowly drift along the small shockwaves created in the water, almost in a majestic manner.
"There ya go, Peanut. Eat away," she says, smiling as the goldfish starts snacking away its meal.
It's the simple things in life that bring someone the most joy... I love my goldfish, and I don't care if anyone judges me for it.
Clementine quickly changes from her pyjamas to her sports outfit, and goes on her morning run. It's something she does everyday to get some endorphins flowing through her body, as it really wakes her up better than anything else. Pair that with her morning coffee, and she's good to go for a long time.
She runs her usual route, which consists of her doing two laps around the soccer field, then towards the fishing shack, then back to the soccer field and doing five more laps, and then back to the dorm entrance. Her friends say that she's ridiculous for running so much, especially this early in the morning, but she doesn't care. She walks into her room and opens the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulls out her bag with showering supplies.
Walking towards the showers, she doesn't run into anybody. Then again, she's probably the only person who's going for a shower at 7:15 in the morning when school doesn't start until 9:30. Clementine has always been an early bird, which is something that she didn't share with any of the other kids. There are always kids late to the first class of the day because they slept through their alarm, or because they simply don't care and just decided to sleep in.
Now feeling more awake after her run, she decides she wants to take a quick, cold shower rather than a long one, to make sure her energy doesn't go to waste. She enters the bathroom and swiftly scans the inside of it. It hadn't changed a single bit since she last saw it. On the right side wall were sinks and mirrors while the showers were on the left. On the back wall were a bunch of posters regarding school events, and there was also a tampon dispenser. And of course, the walls were covered in a bunch of profanities and a shitload of disturbingly detailed penises.
She chuckles lightly at the drawings. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't the one who drew them.
The brunette moves the shower curtain out of the way and steps inside the small cabin. She removes her sports clothes and starts the shower. The sudden cold makes her shiver, but it's a pleasant shiver. She looks at the shower curtain that had small drops of water plummeting down at its hem. It bothers her how the only thing separating her and her naked body from the outside world is some dumb piece of fabric, instead of a door with a lock. It has happened before that other girls mindlessly walk into the stall that she was using, which usually resulted in them getting a bunch of obscenities yelled their way.
As she's drying herself off, she notices that she left her clothes in her room. She curses loudly at the realization, because she'd washed her sports clothes in the shower as well, meaning they were soaking wet. It's something she always does so she doesn't have to waste her time washing them later when she could just do it right then and there.
Still mumbling swears under her breath, she grabs her towel and wraps it around her body. After she made sure that it was secured tightly and not just about to fall off, she slides the shower curtain to the side and steps outside. Staying completely still, she listens if she hears anyone walking in the hallway. After a few seconds of complete silence, she creaks open the door at a moderate speed. When she spots no one, she gradually slips her body through the door opening and starts hurrying down the hall, but making sure not to move so quickly that her towel would drop.
As she rounds the first corner, she's startled by someone staring at her. It's the same girl from the piano room from two days back.
Jesus Christ, she's staring again. She must be fucking obsessed with me or something.
"Staring at me again, huh? Must be nice now that I'm wearing a towel. I'd suggest you stop and look somewhere else," Clementine threatens as she huffs.
The girl's head snaps down and her faze immediately drops, causing her hair that hangs on her shoulders to swiftly move with. Clementine couldn't deny that her hair was majestically beautiful, especially due to the slight purple hue in it that she'd noticed earlier.
"I'm sorry," the blonde mutters, awkwardly shuffling her feet. "I wasn't staring. I'm bl--"
"I don't care, just don't do it again," Clementine cuts her off, now swiftly making her way towards her room again.
What the hell is her problem?
She hears the blonde let out a long sigh as she opens her room door. But it wasn't just an ordinary sigh. It was one filled with agony, sadness and stress. The kind of sigh someone has that's about to give up on something. She couldn't help but feel at least a little bit bad about snapping the way she did, even if it was just her personality. Maybe her regretting snapping like that meant that she's actually 'outgrowing' her troublesome behavior?
Shrugging aside her worries, she drops her towel to the floor and walks over to her bed where she has her trousers and shirt laid out. The pants are a pair of blue skinny jeans, and the shirt is a black band t-shirt from a local metal band called Sacrificial Offering.
Once fully dressed, Clementine gazes at the clock hanging from her wall and sees that it's still very early. It's 7:40 and breakfast doesn't start until 8:20. She doesn't really mind that though, it gives her some time to play some more music.
Music really is what completes Clementine's life. She plays so damn much, and it's an amazing method for her to vent her emotions. It has already helped tremendously with releasing anger, which resulted in getting less reports of verbal assault against fellow students in her file. Again, it wasn't like she gave the slightest shit about any of that. The only repercussion of her misbehavior is detention, during which she would just do the homework she'd be doing in her room anyway.
As soon as the clock hand hits the number twenty, Clementine gets up from her stool and walks over to her door, which, compared to her earlier experience in the bathroom, she confidently opens in one swift motion. When she steps outside, students are already roaming the halls, most of them talking about how they don't feel like going to classes again. She notices a tall redhead towering above all students, who just happens to spot her at the same time and their eyes meet. Minerva immediately winks at Clementine and blows a kiss her way. The shorter girl doesn't hesitate for a single second and flips off Minnie, who just smirked in triumph.
It's almost like pissing me off is what she was born for, Jesus Christ.
Walking into the cafeteria, she spots Marlon, Mitch and Sophie sitting at their usual table. Louis was nowhere to be seen. She was kind of surprised to see Mitch and Marlon there, as they would usually have breakfast with their group of bombers.
Maybe Mitch has... a certain motivation to be here, and Marlon just got dragged into it. That motivation being a girl with long, red hair and a lot of freckles. It's cute how oblivious the two are. I'm sure that I would notice if anyone ever had a crush on me.
She changes her pace to be a bit quicker, and soon enough she's jogging through the cafeteria to get to her friends. As soon as Marlon spots her, he starts frantically waving his arms around and signaling for her to come over, as if she wasn't already.
Clementine seats herself next to Sophie, who was in a deep conversation about something with Mitch. She glances at Marlon, who shrugs his shoulders.
"They've been talking like that for almost ten minutes now," he whispers, making a heart shape with his hands as he does so. Neither Sophie or Mitch seemed to have seen that though.
Clementine smirks at the two, and then faces back to Marlon. "Let's let them have this. Let's sit down somewhere else."
Marlon nods and he slowly gets up from his seat, Clementine following suit almost immediately after. Neither Mitch or Sophie seem to realize that their two friends had left.
As Clementine and Marlon sit down at another table, Clementine sees Louis entering the cafeteria from the corner of her eye, but he's not alone.
Oh god, no...
Clementine's eyes go wide in shock when she notices the distinct features of the girl walking with Louis. The purple hue in her hair, piercing green eyes that always seemed to be pulled in Clementine's direction, and that frown always seems to be plastered on her face. A frown so big it was almost like it was resonating deep in her soul, like she was in pain on the inside and that's the only thing she can do to show how deep the pain is buried.
Violet stays quiet as she walks by Louis' side, unable to really perceive anything that was going on. The loud talking and yelling of countless students make it difficult for her to tell who was who and how far away they are. She follows the sound Rosie's collar makes, with Louis leading the way.
"Clementine!" she hears Louis exclaim. "I wanna introduce you to someone very special I met!"
Violet becomes a bit uneasy, as she was never really a people person to begin with, and now that she was blind that had become even worse. She hates introductions as well; she always feels like people act 'fake' during them to come off as nice and trustworthy as possible, even if they aren't. Violet begins fidget with her hands in anticipation of having to speak to the new person Louis seemed so fond of.
"I've... run into her before," she hears a familiar voice say, and she instantly freezes up.
It's that piano girl, and she already hates me... that's just great.
Louis looks between the two girls "You have? That's weird, she just showed up yesterday. How'd you two lovely ladies already meet?"
"Let's just say, she has a bit of a staring problem," Clementine says coldly, her tone causing Violet to shrink even lower than she was before.
"Staring problem? She's blind, you pancake," Louis says with a chuckle.
Violet hears that Clementine lets out a stifled yelp.
"Oh, I uh... I didn't know, sorry," the girl murmurs.
"I-I tried telling you earlier..." Violet begins after finally mustering up enough courage to speak her mind freely. "But... you wouldn't really listen, so, yeah..."
Violet's tone is laced with sadness and slight disappointment in herself, making Clementine feel slightly more guilty for snapping at her on more than one occasion.
Clementine stands up and moves in front of the blonde she was so rude to earlier. Looking into her eyes, Clementine can see just how nervous and upset the girl truly was. Her raspy voice indicating that she doesn't speak much, obviously not being able to get a word out without being judged harshly. Feeling worse than before by a far margin, Clementine puts her hand on Violet's shoulder, causing the slightly taller girl to stiffen at the unexpected contact.
"Look, I didn't mean to snap at you all those times. I honestly thought you were just creeping on me or wanting a lock of my hair or something. I didn't even know you were blind, but now that I do, can we maybe...start over?" Clementine apologizes, much to Louis and Marlon's surprise.
Clementine wasn't one to always apologize for her outbursts, instead shrugging off the judgement and dirty looks that would come her way. Louis and Marlon had only ever seen the brunette apologize to one or two other people at the school and right now they're looking at her like she grew an extra head on her shoulders.
Violet listens to every word and tries to detect any hint of sarcasm or malice in Clementine's voice, finding none, she relaxes her shoulders and allows herself to let a small smile form on her lips.
"I... sure, I guess?" Violet croaky voice rustled, reminding Clementine on the snapping of leaves and twigs that she steps on during her morning runs. Again, she can't help but feel sorry for how she acted so hideously towards this girl, without even thinking about why she would be 'staring' like that. Clementine might be an asshole in many instances, but it was always with a good reasoning. Now that she realizes that her assholeness was in fact not justified, she genuinely feels terrible.
It's something that other students at the school never really realize. They always remember moments where she's being an asshole, and not the ones where she's actually nice and apologetic, like this one.
"Well, that's good," Louis comments dryly as he sits down next to Marlon.
"Observant as ever, Lou," Marlon snickers, standing up as soon as Louis sits down next to him. "I'll grab all of you some food, what do you all want?"
"My usual," Clementine says, helping Violet sit down on a chair. The fair-haired girl already feels a lot more comfortable around Clementine now that she found out that Clementine does in fact have a non-bitchy side to her. She can tell it's one she doesn't show very often though. Once you lose your ability to see, you have to start being able to sense bullshit and intentions by the tone of people's voices, rather than the expression of their faces. Violet's become pretty good at that by now, luckily. Mainly because she had her dad to practice on; he always had an incredible amount of mood swings.
Marlon rolls his eyes and laughs whole-heartedly. "You're literally the only person who actually has those fuckin' chicken nuggets as their sidedish."
"They have chicken nuggets?" Violet questions without skipping a beat. "I mean... I'd, uh, like some of those too, if that's okay," she adds quietly, her enthusiastic attitude instantly getting substituted for her usual timid one again.
It stays quiet for a short while, but soon after Louis bursts out laughing. "Dude! It looks like Clem has finally met her soulmate!"
Violet turns a bright shade of red and tries to hide her face behind her hands while Clementine lets out a whine that contained a mixture of aggravation and embarrassment.
"Louis, I swear to god if you don't shut the hell up I'll force feed you baby food with a fucking ladle," she threatens.
The boy suppresses a laugh. "Point taken, Orange."
"Anyway, I suppose it's gonna be the usual for everyone else as well?" Marlon asks as he quickly scans the people around the table, who all throw him an appreciative nod. The blond boy gets up from his seat and walks away towards kitchen take-out area. As he walks past Violet, he notices her dog lying on the floor besides her.
"Dude! You've got a dog!" he exclaims eagerly as he crouches down and starts giving Rosie affectionate rubs on her head.
"Marlon! You can't pet service dogs!" a girl exclaims. Marlon turns around and sees Brody approaching him.
He shrugs. "Why not?"
"Because it's at work! If you distract it and something happens to Violet, it's your fault. That's how that works."
"That's fucking dumb," he retorts as he huffs and continues to pet Rosie, who had now rolled onto her back. Brody glares at him as he gives the dog a plethora of loving belly rubs.
"Violet, say something about it!" Brody says defiantly when she catches onto the fact that the green-eyed girl was in fact tolerating Marlon's behavior.
Violet moves her head in Brody's direction and shrugs. "I mean, I don't really care... if he wants to pet her... it's fine, whatever."
Brody scowls at Violet as if she can see it, but her expression quickly softens when she realizes how nervously the blonde had said that. It's clear to Brody that Violet isn't used to being around people at all, let alone telling them what they're allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do. She turns her attention back to Marlon. "Just remember, if anything happens, I'm holding you responsible."
"Yeah, whatever," Marlon scoffs, standing back up and going his way to grab everyone their food. Brody shakes her head at the boy as his figure shrinks slowly as he walks off into the distance. She sits down next to Louis.
"So, you met Violet?" Louis asks Brody, who nods in return.
"Sure did, I talked to her a bit when she first arrived since she's my roomie," she replies, glancing over to see if Violet was listening to her speaking. When she saw that the blonde was focused on saying something to Clementine, she sent her voice into a whisper. "She's really nice but seems like she's gone through a lot. I just hope she's okay, you know? I want to help her but I don't feel there's a lot I can do for her right now. She's got no reason to trust us at all."
Louis looks at her sympathetically and puts his hand on her shoulder. "She'll come around. It's normal that she's nervous around new people in a new environment, you know? Especially if she can't see."
"I don't think I've ever seen you act so mature, Louis," Clementine, who was apparently paying attention to what they were saying, chuckles as she grabs her plate of food from the tray that Marlon had just returned with. She takes Violet's as well, and places it in front of her. "I put your plate in front of you, Violet."
The girl just nods silently and reaches for her fork, which she manages to grab after missing it a few times. She just starts poking at her chicken nuggets with it for a bit, not really paying any mind to anything around her and she wasn't eating either. Clementine's insides started to twist lightly, as she was worried that she might be the cause of Violet's noticeably odd behavior.
"Violet, are you okay?" Clementine asks sweetly, her motherly side showing, for what might just be the first time in her life.
Violet visibly trembles at the sudden call of her name and she shuts her eyes tightly. No matter the intent of Clementine's question, getting her name getting called out to her out of the blue scared her. It reminds her of home, but most importantly, her dad. About how he would always shout her name whenever he was mad. About how he would tell her that everything's her fault whenever he broke a glass or cup against a wall. About how he would always break her against a wall.
"Violet?"
About how there would be bruises all over her body and about how there were always gashes on her forehead. About how her feet would be bleeding most of the time because of the countless shards of glass scattered around their floor. About how that situation always made her dad insane in the brain.
"Violet?!"
"I... I'm fine. Just thinking," she mumbled as she takes her first bite.
Clementine notices that her posture seems to ease a little as soon as she eats a nugget, so she must've indeed 'just been thinking', or whatever that meant. She decides to disregard Violet's behavior for now and starts mindlessly looking around the cafeteria, and sees an Asian boy coming towards their table. She recognizes him to be James, the boy that sat in front of her during her math classes the previous year. He was really nice, very intelligent and always helped her out whenever she didn't get anything, even if that was a rare occasion.
"Uh... hey," James mutters as he nears the table, catching the attention of everyone else.
"Hey James," Clementine says, eyeing him curiously as she wonders why he's here. "Take a seat anywhere, I guess."
James nods in silent gratitude as he sits across from Louis and looks around at the group's faces, checking to see if it really was okay to sit with them. When his eyes meet with Louis', he quickly drops his gaze back down to his food, hoping no one had noticed the growing redness of his cheeks. James raises his head a moment later once his face returns to its normal color, believing since no one had said anything, they hadn't noticed his severe crush on the dreadlocked boy that he'd been very secretive about for the past few months.
However, Clementine saw the entire thing unfold before her very eyes with a sly smirk on her face.
Wonder what he's so gushy about? It's just Louis, for crying out loud.
Deciding not to call James out on his odd behavior in such a public setting, Clementine instead shifts the conversation to another topic at hand.
"So...James, what made you drop by so early today? Something or someone catch your eye?" Clementine asks, looking at the quiet boy as his eyes grow wide in shock.
"Well, whatever it was, it's definitely not this horrible food. I don't know how they can serve shit this bad without it being illegal," Louis interjects glumly while picking at his food with his fork in disgust. Clementine stares at the boy with an eyebrow raised, wondering just how much of his head was empty space.
Clementine sighs before another idea pops into her head hoping it was enough to get Louis to realize what she's trying to get at.
"Exactly, this food is hella rancid, Lou. I wonder if someone like James would like something a little more... rich in flavor?" Clementine smirks at Louis, noticing James begin to fidget more and more as time went on.
Louis just stares blankly back at Clementine, much to her annoyance.
"You still don't get it? Are you kidding me?"
"Get what, exactly?" Louis questions.
"Okay, let me slow this down for you, Lou," Clementine begins. "The food here is basically a trash dump mixed with raw sewage gravy. Poor James here is looking famished and this food isn't satisfying him. So...he wants something more rich in flavor, maybe even a little on the darker side. Get what I'm saying?" she finishes while leaning forward on the table.
Louis' eyes widen in realization as he nods his head. "Oh...I get it now!" Louis looks over at James, making Clementine smile to herself at her cunning plan working its magic.
"James, I have some dark chocolate in my bag if you'd rather have that." Clementine drops her head on the table in disappointment before Louis winks at her for a second. He once more returns his attention to James immediately after. "Or I could always give you my milk instead."
Everyone at the table is now staring at Louis, their jaws all lying on the table in disbelief. None more so in disbelief than James himself, whose face was such a deep shade of crimson that the group feared he would pass out any second. Everyone except Violet, who was trying to stifle her laughter over the whole ordeal being played out in around her.
Brody shakes her head in disgust. "Really, Lou?"
"What?" Louis asks innocently as he fishes out a bar of milk chocolate from his bag. Everyone stares at him dumbfounded.
"I've had this line prepared for a while now," he shrugs. "What better time to use it than when a cute Asian boy is sitting across from me?"
Nobody really knows how to respond to that, so they all just to go back to eating their meals. After a few minutes the initial awkwardness dies down, and Louis and James start conversing about their hobbies while Violet and Clementine make sure that they're actually on good terms so they can completely start over.
Neither of the girls would admit this to the other, but they were both very excited about getting to know each other.