Chapter Six

In the small, faraway corners of her mind as she stands there---even as the rest of her doesn't want to remember---she's on another normal night in their house, three hours late after the dinner and seated across her mother who's forever waiting at the occupant of the sit next to hers, never saying a word to her as she grows more aware of the frequent absence of the big part of their family, where his promises will be nothing but nothing and nothing.

Haniel snaps out of the memory, aware all at once of eyes on her from her place beside Eurielle, watchful and quiet, their faces written with nothing but multiple questions of why. She brings a hand to the table, startled, before it registers that the star of the celebration party were now pointed of the mic from the host.

"I have to go to my Mom", she mumbles, walking away quickly from the table. The party is almost in the middle of it's joyful part where the whole family are sending good luck to their daughter, and it seems everyone on the garden are raising their toast to Eurielle. Even Danny and Mom were enjoying the whole scene, and Haniel pulls her phone from the pocket of her dress and squints at the screen, which is still, unhelpfully, not too late for them to go home.

She runs a hand through her skirts and then glances sideways at her mother, relieved that there's no sign of her taking notice of her slowly heading for the unoccupied part of the garden, especially where the shed perfectly hide her from any view.

"Why are you here?"

She almost run from the sudden disturbance in her wish to be alone, and when she looks down, it's to find the person she sadly did not see with his mother at the start of this night, but here's Clementine Haynes, sat in the ground in a faded jeans and polo shirt.

"Did you go here in hopes of avoiding the whole caravan of clowns?", he says, the end of sentence swallowed by a yawn. He didn't look up nor bother to wait for a reply. "Again. Why are you here?"

She shrugs, trying not to look so much on his face. "Normally, this is my hiding places from Eurielle"

"Is this where you'll ask me to go?"

She shakes her head. "No, I should go somewhere else here"

"No", he says again, and waves for her to stay. "I'll be going home, anyways"

Haniel looks at her own watch. "You mean right at this moment?", she says, then looks forward to the direction where the party is getting noisier. "Won't anyone miss your company there?"

"No one", he says, yawning again. "I'd rather stay at home and imagine my dream girl I've never met before"

"Dream girl?", Haniel asks, her voice attempting at the end of the sentence to not sound interested.

Clementine laughs a small, uncertain laugh. "Isn't it a little childish for me to even have on in this new generation?", he says. "When the majority of our peers all do are to hook up and chill"

"And when the girls got pregnant, the boys be realizing their mistakes from letting their libidos won", Haniel explains. "And then they didn't call anymore...."

"That's the awful end of every stupid love story nowadays"

"Right", she says, a word far too awkward and short to mean anything in her first conversation with her crush. But though she thought it would be the end of it, she gets the feeling that Clementine might want to stay there with her. It's something about the way he's looking at her now, as if he's noticing her for the first time clearly.

Haniel knows it must be her imagination working against her: It's the illusion of his eyes punching an impact in her stomach, the struggles to keep calm in such a darkened place with him, but she doesn't mind. For a moment, at least, it feels good to be able to talk to him before she leave.

"You must've find me annoying now", he eventually says after a few minutes. "We're not close yet here I am talking to you like we are"

"At first, yes", she lied through her mouth. "But I think it's better to be here than hear all the adults there gossips about our future"

"You going to College?", he asks. "Where will you go after summer?"

"I don't know", Haniel says truthfully. "I haven't search for any University that might be interesting. I believe it's better to be sure for what I wanted before I plunge myself into any recommendations for me"

"Not a fan of any advises from the wisdom of some adults?"

"I could say yes to that", Haniel crinkles her nose. "It's not that I'm against to any of them. I just kept picturing once I followed it, I will find myself in such a wrong choice and it will be too late for me to take back whatever it is"

Clementine frowns while looking at her. "As for me, I think it's brave to face it than never"

"What do you mean?"

"That you're facing up your own mistake. That you'll realize when it's too late and still go. It's better to face you fear in that way"

"It doesn't feel that way for me"

"That's because you're afraid to", he says, "but you'll see if you try"

"That'll be nice", Haniel says. "If I will not leave for my greatest but heavy choice of mine"

Clementine opens his mouth to ask why, then closes it again when Eurielle comes running from the party, the cans making noises that she holds, then turns her head to Haniel to begin dragging her back to their table.

It happens so quickly, so quickly that Haniel doesn't feel it at all, but it's real; Clementine reaches into the pocket of his jeans, which he rolls into a small fold. Then he reaches across for her, grabbing her hand and tucks something in it, just seconds before Eurielle twists back in her direction.

When they were back to his mother and Danny's table, Clementine still safely away in the back of the shed and Haniel stares at her hand in a barely concealed shock.

She remembers thinking, when the teachers extended the idea of the reality after highschool all those months ago, that there was nobody in the world she hated enough to even changed her mind. But now, looking at the number in the paper, she wonders if she should leave for her greatest escape at all.

To her surprise, she lifts her chin to look around and find that he's looking at her from their table with the same expression she saw with him earlier, when she gives him a last nod before going to Eurielle. It's almost as if he doesn't want to look away and Haniel takes a deep breath to do it herself. But then a tap from his shoulder by his mother and Danny were asking her about to get that desert from the food's table.

And just like that, the moment is over.