Chapter Text
“Drew, I swear to god if you say one more thing about fortnite, I will actually push you into the road.” Gabe glares at his long time friend as they walk to school.
Not taking the threat to heart, Drew shoves his phone into Gabe’s line of sight, “Dude, c’mon! I’m about to brag. I finally fucking won a game all on my own.” He points to the victory screen on his phone.
Gabe pushes the phone away with an eyeroll, “And you’ve been playing the game for how many months now? If anything, I’m more disappointed in you.” Gabe shakes his head, before turning to look back towards the parking lot as the telltale sound of a motorcycle reaches his ears.
Both boys paused as the motorcycle pulls into the spot right next to them. The rider in question parks and checks their phone for a split second before getting up, sliding the helmet off their head and the backpack off their shoulders.
As they shove the helmet in their bag, they look towards the two boys, as if they knew they were being watched.
Gabe feels himself tense up as he meets eyes with Clementine. The girl looks him over before meeting his eyes as she swings her backpack back over her shoulders. Gabe is surprised when Clementine gives him a quick, slightly confused, smile--- a stark contrast to the dark look she always seemed to have.
Gabe smiles back at her, though he’s a little more cautious. Clementine’s gaze shifts to Drew, who is seemingly just frozen in place, and her features turn back to a frown before she turns and walks into the school.
Once she’s out of earshot, Drew seems to unfreeze all at once. “God, I can’t believe she’s still here.” he shakes his head, tucking his phone away as they start walking again.
Glancing towards his best friend, Gabe frowns again. “What do you mean?” He asks, gripping both straps to his backpack.
“I mean, I can’t believe she hasn’t been expelled. She’s beating someone up like every other week.” Drew shrugs.
At that, Gabe just rolls his eyes. “It’s not like she’s actively looking for a fight. Clementine is... well, she’s more often stopping a fight than starting one.” he explains, ignoring the confused look he gets from his friend. “Like, remember the first day of school? When she helped Sarah?” Gabe offers.
The memory was still fresh in both boys heads, even though it was over nine months ago. Seeing as it was the first time anyone had really ever seen Clementine, it was a pretty unforgettable memory for everyone.
It was the first day of senior year. Up until this year, Clementine had been homeschooled by her father who use to be a history professor. Around town, people had been spreading rumors about her for years. Talking about how her father was an ex convict and her uncle had lost both his wife and child a few years back and had basically gone insane, so she was bound to be crazy as well. She took boxing lessons on Wednesday’s, so that didn’t help the fear of the crowd either. But back to the first day.
The morning went by pretty smoothly, she was in Gabe’s PE hour, but not with the same teacher. Things didn’t really start getting heated until lunch. Most of the kids who can drive go off campus for lunch at a square of fast food places not too far from the school, that’s where Gabe and a pretty decently sized crowd decided to go the first day back.
One of the more aggressive girls, Becca, had started picking on Sarah as usual. Making fun of her hair, her glasses, just being a general nuisance. It wasn’t anything new, so no one really paid much attention to it, but Clementine on the other hand didn’t seem to happy about it.
Apparently Sarah and Clem knew each other, so Clementine had been sitting with her. She had been silent the whole time, but with that bone chilling glare leveled on Becca, as if daring her to do something. And that’s what Becca did.
All it took was one finger on Sarah’s glasses before Clementines first was connecting with Becca’s cheek. As Becca fell to the floor, Clementine stood up, grabbing her and Sarah’s bag as she looked down at the other girl with clear distaste.
“Stop being such a bitch.” was all Clementine said before she and Sarah walked away. It was probably the most amazing thing Gabe had ever witnessed.
Over the course of the year, Clementine continued getting into a multitude of fights and disagreements. Most of the time she could be seen fighting with the Russian exchange student, Arvo. They despised each other since apparently they had some history. According to rumors, back in the day, Clementine’s uncle beat Arvo within an inch of his life. The circumstances were still unknown, but Arvo does have the scars to prove it.
It’s not like Gabe feels bad for Arvo--- not at all. That kid was an asshole to everyone. If anything, Gabe felt bad for Clementine, she was the one who had to deal with Arvo, and the only one who had enough nerve to put him in his place.
Back to the present, and speaking of the devil, Clementine wasn’t the only person that was in Gabe’s PE hour. Arvo was in that class, and even though they’d never really talked, Gabe had always felt the judging gaze of the other boy when he couldn’t do the activities as well as others, as if Arvo could do any better.
Thankfully, this class was the last of the day. Once time was up, they were changing back into non sweaty clothes and waiting for the bell to ring. Gabe doesn’t like dealing with the crowd of kids swarming the exit, so he typically waits until the bell has rung and the hallway has cleared before leaving the building.
At the sound of the bell, Gabe stands from his seat on the bench. Taking a minute to send a quick text to Drew, he moves to open the double doors leading to the empty hallway. But before he could push them open, someone pulls him back by the collar of his shirt.
Gabe stumbles backward, choking a bit before whipping around to face the person. Unsurprisingly, It’s Arvo, and two of his cronies. Arvo glared at Gabe while the other two grinned maliciously.
Rubbing his neck where his shirt had assaulted him, Gabe frowns. “The fuck do you want, Arvo?” He asks, dropping his hand back to his side.
“I saw you were chatting with Clementine.” Arvo accused.
Gabe rolls his eyes at Arvo’s dramatics and shakes his head. “I literally just smiled at her? Sorry, is that a hate crime now?”
Arvo squints at him, “No--- last week. You gave her a uh- сода, a soda!” Arvo struggles with the English word for a moment.
Again, Gabe rolls his eyes and then laughs, “Oh my fucking god, are you serious? I was putting my soda back because I didn’t want it and she was going getting one, so I just handed it to her. Get off your high horse.” Deciding he’s done with this conversation, Gabe turns to leave.
Again, he’s tugged back by the collar of his shirt, but this time with more force. Gabe falls back, just barley catching himself with his hands as Arvo steps back into his vision.
“You are pathetic, Gabriel.” Arvo laughs as Gabe rubs his wrist. He must have put too much pressure on it when he fell, because it hurt like hell. And it seemed like that wasn’ t going to be the only thing that’s going to be hurting like hell tonight, as he watched Arvo pull his arm back, getting ready to punch Gabe in the face.
On instinct, Gabe brought his arms up and squeezed her eyes shut as he braces for the impact.
The sound of skin on skin is made, but Gabe doesn’t feel any pain. A snap is heard and then Gabe finally opens his eyes, slowly lowering his arms to see what was happening.
First thing Gabe sees is Arvo on the floor next to him. His glasses snapped and a few feet away from them with the right frame shattered. Glass is scattered around the linoleum, and Gabe follows the trail of blood to the owner.
“He’s pathetic? At least he didn’t get beat up by a girl.” Clementine scoffs at Arvo, who’s grabbing at his shattered glasses. “Now can you just fuck off for once in your miserable life?”
Not wanting to be around the girl anymore, Arvo and his friends scramble away with their tails tucked between their legs. Once the trio is out of view, Clementine turns her attention to Gabe, holding out a non bloodied hand.
“Hey, uh… are you okay?” She asks softly as Gabe takes her hand and stands.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Might have a sprained wrist, but other than that I’m fine.” Gabe tells her before looking down to the still bleeding hand. “That doesn’t look too good, do you want some help?”
As if she just noticed there’s blood dripping from her knuckles, Clementine looks down at her hand. “Uh, yeah, sure. Thanks.” Clementine nods, glancing back at Gabe before he’s leading her to where his car is parked. He misses the grateful smile she gives him from behind.