Too Good To Be True.

Chpt. 15.

Clara.

The next day, I spent the remainder of the morning filling up two buckets of water and grabbing a bottle of joy. I took my time as I lift the heavy bucket, as I can only carry one at a time, and began my task. I was now in the back yard which was very spacious to my astonishment. And clean. I shook my head and focused on my job as I pulled the sheet off of Demari's car and yanked the sponge out of my back jeans pocket. I left Demari asleep as I did this and prayed he was okay with it.

"Crap!" I whispered harshly as some of the soapy water from the bucket went onto my thin shirt.

I sighed dramatically at myself, realizing that I didn't actually care if I got wet, and continued to wash Demari's dirty car. To be completely honest, I hated it. Gosh, who could stand up for at least two hours and clean a-

"What are you doing?" I jumped at Demari's voice.

Oh boy, he didn't sounded too happy. I turned to look at him and his face matched his tone.

"Uh, your car. It was dirty so I-"

"Wait- you're cleaning my car? Why?" His features changed from anger to confusion.

He was now standing in front of me, peering down at my face.

"Because, I didn't know how else to show you how sorry I am for being a jerk." I admitted as I toyed with the sponge in my hands.

Demari blinked, not saying a word as he processed this.

"Well, you were being a jerk, and you were very ungrateful and-"

"I think we got all of that, Demari." I said as I rolled my eyes.

He chuckled and brushed a few strands of hair out of my face. I looked down at my feet since he was watching me too hard.

"Can I be honest with you?" He asked softly and I almost didn't heard him.

I nodded for him to continue since my voice would betray me if I speak.

"I'm still madly in love with you, like crazy. You don't have to be in love with me also, but I just need you to know where I stand and how I feel. Yes, I admit, you shouldn't love a guy like me especially after finding out some things about me, but I'm coming to you with clean hands now." He confessed as he raised both hands in the air as if to justify himself.

He eyed me curiously as he waited for me to speak.

"God, I hate you." I whispered to myself but he heard it as well.

"What?" He leaned closer to me.

I sighed before speaking. "Thing is, I never stopped loving you from you...."

"Oh." Was all he said. Gosh, this is awkward.

"Okay, tell you what. How about we start over, yeah?" He stepped even closer to me.

I nodded even though I don't know exactly how we're going to do this.

"Good." He said as he surprised me by kissing me.

I surprised myself by kissing back as well, but something loud stopped us. I pulled away from Demari as he quickly reached for his phone from his back pocket and looked at the screen. His features changed into something very horrific and horrid. I was almost afraid to ask him who was calling but he beat me to it by showing me the screen.

"Clyde?" I was beyond shocked at the unusual phone call.

"If I answer this, I'm sure he would track me down with how many men working for him, he's powerful like that." He explained as he did something drastic.

I watched as he threw the already broken phone into the bucket of water next to my feet. I looked on as the two pieces of an old phone sank to the bottom.

"Let's go inside, I need to show you something." He said even though he pulled on my arm.

I can tell he was upset at the phone call but I had a feeling he was upset at something more than Clyde calling him unexpectedly. I followed him into the house as he locked the door and all the windows leaving the place a little too dark. Before I could get a word out, he turned on the lights and the ac as he gestured me to follow him to his room. The house actually looked better from the inside than the outside, weird but okay.

"Look at this text, it's from Clyde." He said as he handed me a phone.

"How many of these do you have?" I asked as I looked at the message anyway.

"Enough to know what he's dealing with." He answered me with a sigh as he sat on the bed.

"Have you read this message yet?" I asked him. He nodded.

"You're messing with the wrong woman, if you don't hand her over before I get really pissed off, then you will regret My next move." I read out loud.

I looked at Demari with anger. "What is wrong with this man?"

"He's hopelessly obsessed with you, Clara. I mean it." Demari said as he stood from the bed. "Did you know that he has pictures of you in his work office?"

I shook my head. "Are you serious, that's insane?"

He sighed as he raked his fingers through his hair. "Well, like I said- he's obsessed."

I shook my head in disbelief as I looked up at Demari with fear. "I don't think I would be okay for the rest of my life, knowing there's a man stalking me and obsessed with me."

Demari opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a beeping sound filled the room. It was his laptop this time. Demari took a long pause before walking over to the laptop and opening up the message. When he did, he jumped up from his seat and walked over to me with wild eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked as I tried to look at the screen.

"Don't look at-"

Before he could stop me, I was already standing in front of the laptop screen. I was shaking, shaking hard as I looked at the horrifying image on the screen. I opened my mouth to say something but instead I had to make a run for the bathroom and threw up last nights dinner since I didn't have any breakfast. On that screen was a picture of the cat that Demari and I had kept while we stayed at his first house. The cat was laid on its back, stomach opened up and guts hanging out. The image kept replaying in my head as I continued to hurl into the toilet. After seeing that picture, I knew now. I knew that Clyde wasn't playing and whatever was happening, was real.