That Girl We Knew

o2 | c l a r k

Clark arrives arm in arm with his wife of two months, Holly. She is the equivalent of a Barbie doll with her white teeth, painted on smile, straight bleach blonde hair, pink heels, and skimpy silver cocktail dress. She struts off to get herself a drink while Clark is left stranded holding her heavy white purse.

They met only five months earlier. She was the daughter of one of Clarks father's business partners, and it was essentially an arranged marriage. Not that Clark minds. He doesn't know what love is and doesn't plan on finding out, so having a hot wife who is forced to stay with him due to countless contracts is perfectly fine with him.

He quickly catches the Liam's eye and walks over to join him near the patio, where he is talking with Jennifer and Maria. He wasn't really friends with them but then again he wasn't friends with any of the people here, so he might as well talk with some one.

Being a loner was his choice. He had always known what his future would be. Inherit his dad's company, make tons of money doing nothing and get a hot wife. He didn't see the point of making friends along the way and so far hasn't  come across a situation in which he would have needed them.

"Hey Clark, whadup?"
He nods his head at Liam and shrugs. "I'm doing pretty good. What are you guys talking about?"
Maria speaks up. "How much this thing sucks. Nobody's even dancing. Are we really expected to stand around and    talk all night?"
Liam rolls his eyes at her. "Dude Maria, we're grown ups now. We can do whatever we want to do. If you want to dance, go dance!"
"Nah...", Maria falters. "We we're also comforting Jen over here", she tells Clark. "She's getting divorced!"
"Mar!" Jennifer looks up for the first time since Clark arrived. "Oh, hey Clark."
    Clark grins. "Well I'm gonna leave you sad people alone, that's not my thing. Have fun!" He hears Liam mutter the word 'asshole' to Jennifer as he leaves, but he doesn't care. He only has to put up with these people for one night, and the way things are looking he might be ending that night early.

"Oh Liam", he calls over his shoulder, "why are you talking to Jennifer anyway? I thought you and Richard were besties?" He says the last part in a high pitched and girly voice, and chuckles to himself as he steps out onto the patio.
"Asshole!"

Clark shrugs the whole thing off and looks for someone else who could be entertaining. Juliet M. and Juliet T. are sitting on a bench talking. He isn't close enough to make out what the conversation is about, but they seem to be having a pretty good time. "Hey guys, my life is awesome", he announces as he plops down next to Juliet M.

"Ugh, Clark, get away from me!" She scoots over till she's almost sitting on Juliet T.'s lap. "You've somehow managed to become even uglier since I last saw you."
Clark rolls his eyes. "You know what, you don't exactly look ready for America's Next Top-model either. Unlike my super hot wife, that is."

Juliet M. laughs. "You know what Clark, my life is pretty great too. I have a husband who loves me and a job I enjoy. Seriously the only bad part of my life is that I'm sitting here talking to you right now. So could you please leave?"
"Oh come on, I haven't even talked to Juliet T. yet! I thought the point of this whole thing was to reunite with people, not to stay in tiny groups with the people you talk to all the time anyway!"

With a groan, Juliet T. pushes Juliet M. off of her. "Alrighty Clark. What do you wanna know?"
He contemplates. "On second thought, this is too much work. I'm just gonna grab my super hot wife and get out of here."

He stands up and goes back indoors, not bothering to listen to their replies. After heading over to the bar he sees that Holly is not there, so he scans room for her. Nowhere to be seen. With a sigh, he plops down on a barstool. "Whiskey, double, on the rocks", he orders. Once he's drained the drink he looks up once again. Still no sight of Holly, but a commotion on the other side of the room catches his attention. Beth and her weird friends, of course. They all act like they belong in kindergarten, the exact same way it was back in high school.

Clark could never stand any of them, but to him Beth was always the worst. She was just so goddamn annoying, with her goody two shoes, teachers pet act. She acted like she could never hurt a fly, when in reality she was insulting people left and right. She made fun of him as well, all the time. It pissed him off.
    As he stares at her laughing with those other idiots, he feels the rage come back. What is her fucking problem? He just knows that they are talking about him right now. Probably laughing at the fact that his wife has already abandoned him.

    He knocks down five more whiskeys and slides off his seat to go over and confront them. As he stumbles  across the room he holds on to a shoulder here, head there, trying to stay upright. He's not very successful and ends up sprawled on floor in the middle of the room. Music and conversation blares around him and causes a layer of sound that keeps him glued down. He doesn't even bother to try and get up, simply lies down and closes his eyes.

    What seems like only moments later he is roughly pulled up by a pair of hands under his arms. He hears a voice mumble "come on, you idiot", and then everything goes black.

Before he even opens his eyes he can hear what can only be Richard and Logan's voices in the background. They are discussing some recent or upcoming football match, a conversation Clark would normally gladly join, but right now his head is pounding far too much.

When he finally manages to pry his eyes open, he sees pretty much what he expected. He's sitting on the ground, slumped against the wall, and Logan and Richard are standing nearby. Clark groans and pulls himself up, smoothing out his tuxedo with his hands. He gives a nod of thanks to the guys and starts heading back outdoors, still in search of Holly. They catch up with him quickly though and hold him back. "Clark, my man!", Richard almost yells, "watcha been up to?"

"Just comforting your ex-wife... You're life's really going great, huh?" He holds up his hands in self defense as Richard lunges himself at him. "Woah, calm down dude. I'm just kidding, relax!"
    Logan manages to hold Richard back before he can harm Clark in any way, and shoves him away. Richard heads off back towards the bar. Clark sighs in mock relief. "Thanks man. Hey, I almost didn't recognize you! You wearing wigs now?"

Logan has alopecia, an autoimmune disease which causes his body to not grow any hair. During high school he mostly wore baseball caps, the only student allowed to wear hats during class. Now he has a crop of brown hair on his head and bushy eyebrows.

"Yeah", he shrugs. "The hats didn't seem appropriate for an office job."
Clark doesn't inquire any further as he is starting to feel a major headache coming on, and also he just doesn't give a damn.

He finally makes it back onto the patio, but Holly isn't there either. He groans and slumps down on the bench the two Juliets were on earlier.

This is going to be a long night.

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This one is shorter, I know, but it doesn't mean I'm slacking. The Beth chapters are going to be the longest and the most frequent as hers is the main story line, and these other chapters are there to give you some other perspectives.

Anyway, hope you liked it!

Shoutout to paineni , MoonlightSuNflowers , Iridescentforever  and xxscentedlettersxx for voting and leaving such lovely comments on the first chapter!

Love,
Ellie