Across From Me

Ten

Clementine's life was a consistent circle of stress. Every day, she would wake up, pick out the worst parts of herself in the mirror, and try to cover them up. She would greet her family, smile at them because that's what she did, and go to school. Where she would smile again and again because that's simply what she did.

She did her work, like a good student, even if the pressure was great, she never cracked, she never broke, because she had to be the best. It didn't matter that her older brother never tried in school, or that her older sister was entirely mediocre in everything she did because none of that mattered. The standards were already set for Clementine, and straying from that would be worse than continuing to suffer under the circumstances she was in at the moment.

So she kicked and fought in turbulent waters. All consist of her social life, her family life, and keeping up with school. She had to be the girl everyone liked. And while all this was happening, she was ignoring the arising feelings inside of her.

That was middle school. A time in Clementine's life when she floated among the rest of her friends. She was in a daze, each day passing with the same awful routine of waking up and making herself look pretty. And for what? For who? Because it wasn't for herself. She knew that much. All Clementine wanted, in her deeply exhausted soul, was simply to be comfortable, relaxed. The true bliss you get when laying down with someone you actually enjoy being around and laughing, not caring. At least, she tricked herself into thinking that's what it was like to be around her old friends.

In truth, she did like to be around them, sometimes. But she had no idea that they hated each other, that the reality of it was not lining up with what Clementine had created in her head. It was her awakening, her cold water splash to the face, that not everyone was made up how they presented themselves to others.

Well, shouldn't Clementine know that? She put on a show herself, a front to protect herself. Maybe that's what they were doing too.

But what would it all mean in the end for her? She lost them, she lost her friends and all of the comforts she could find in anyone because that's all she had. She heard the rumors, knew everything about them, and all they said about her. It deeply bothered Clementine, she was so upset when she had first heard about it, that she wanted to hurt someone very badly. But as time passed, both the pain and the anger subsided, and she was left finally cracked.

And then there was Beth. She had never noticed her before, Beth was naturally good at that, blending into a crowd of hundreds of faces and names. Gliding along in life, headphones in her ears, slipping away into another world, and forgetting about the problems of the present.

That's what Clementine admired about her. She didn't care, she never did. She didn't care about the people who whispered nasty things to each other in the halls. She didn't care about people who would ridicule them, or be mean to them simply because of a belief passed along through friends.

But knowing that, Clementine feared that Beth would leave her. Like all her friends did. That she would get bored of her, or she would get tired of all the trouble Clementine caused just by hanging around her. Maybe Beth didn't want to be around her at all, maybe she bothered her more than she thought she did? What if Beth secretly hates her and wants more than anything to get rid of her but doesn't know how to? What if-

What if. What if. That was Clementine's life. All filled with what-ifs, and fears about her future and what she believed about herself. She let others decide for so long, she let her parents decide her career path, her old friends decide her personality, and her teachers decide how she was to do in school. She was tired of letting others decide.

Beth was her choice, the only thing she could manage to get for herself and not feel like she was cheating everyone in how she did it. But Beth wasn't an object, she wasn't something Clem won because of talent. Beth decided for herself, that she wanted to spend her time being around Clementine, despite what everyone was saying. Beth chose to stay around her, not caring about the opinions of others.

And Clementine admired her so much for that.

So this was Clem's choice, not her mother or father, or teachers or friend's choice. It was hers and hers only. And the idea of that...scared her slightly, because at the moment, her sitting on the swing with Beth standing in front of her, arms crossed and waiting for a response, Clem suddenly felt terrified. There was the worry, the worry that came forward anytime she had the choice, one for herself, that she was making the wrong choice.

She locked eyes with Beth, and there were her eyes that stood out the most, blue, vibrantly so. Bright in the dark of the evening around them. There was a fierce look about them that Clem couldn't place. Not anger, not even annoyance, but something else. Something she couldn't quite describe in one word.

And then, in Beth's eyes, came forward her own worries, Clem recognized her. And Beth's eyes strayed from hers. Maybe there was part of Clementine that hurt when Beth did that because Clem wanted to keep looking at her, trying to decipher what was going on in her mind.

Maybe that's when Clementine realized that there was no other choice. Beth was her choice. And maybe, in time, she would learn to stop caring like Beth. Not go numb, but simply go through life, a smile on her face, a real one, with a true friend by her side. Where she wouldn't have to worry about her straying away, or judging her simply because of the untrustworthy word of a person she barely knew. Maybe it was a promise, the idea of that, and maybe it was also a lie.

But Beth was someone she wanted to stick by. So there would be no other option.

"I want to be friends," Clementine muttered, just barely above a whisper. But it was not because of fear, it was because, finally, finally, she was saying something without anyone else influencing her.

And came to meet her eyes with Beth once more, and Beth nodded, liking that answer. She looked much more confident, a grin almost forming on that normally stone-cold face of hers.

"Good, now will you stop doubting me?"

Clem could only nod.