Clementine had become a wild child. Born in America but raised abroad, she now had little regard for the expectations of high society. But her reckless ways eventually catch up with her when she is kicked out of college in New York City and forced t...
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Clementine was released out of the hospital the next day.
Her parents came back in the morning, and drove her home, being extra careful with her. As if she was adequate vase, that may break and shatter at any moment.
And maybe, in a way, she was.
If before, she had some sort of hope to hold on to in the shape of Zico, now she had nothing. She was hopeless and feeling completely...vapid.
And what Zico did wasn't exactly graceful, either. She was upset with herself, for being rejected, and with him for running away.
This didn't make him seem any better. If before, there was some hope for reconciliation between her family and him, now there was none.
She was still feeling a little bit fragile, if she was being honest with herself.
Even Ernesto and Laticia, whom she expected to scold her for not listening to them , ETC, were being really kind to her. Making her favourite meals (Brazilian chili) and letting her fall into childhood again, redacting old favourite movies (The Parent Trap). She was looking desperately for something to hold on to, for a comfort long forgotten. Or, at least, a comfort which has lost some of its meaning.
Paradoxically, she was even excused from having to see the psychologist, on account of her frail physical state.
All she had to do, really, was be treated like a plant.
Drink water. Get some sun in the greenhouse. Take her medicine. And every once in a while, visit the gardener - except in her case - the doctor, to whom she was driven to and from by the driver and usually one of her parents. Her mother, and on rarer occasions when he wasn't working, her father.
It was like this one event, the snake bite as they call it, changed everything. Everything between her and Zico, everything about her life. What she could get away with before, she had no strength to do anymore. Physical, or mental.
Mostly, she was surprised that they haven't discussed it yet. Everything. Zico's arrival and disappearance to the hospital. Zico, in general.
She still couldn't believe it. That she was bit by a snake, lost consciousness, and somehow, Zico managed to carry her and drive her to the hospital in time.
But if he worked os hard to save me, why did he run?
She did't even know how much interaction he had with her parents, but it felt a bit scandalous, being exposed like that.
Externally, it was a quiet existence. Mostly solitary, surrounded by nature and books and some music.
Dancing was out of the questions.
But internally, she was wrestling her own self. Her own desires, and ego and everything that was left unsaid.
She wondered what would have happened, where would they have been at this point if what happened, didn't. It was no use wishing to change the past, she of all people knew that.
But still, she wished so badly that they could talk again, and yet, at this point, why did it feel like there was nothing left to say?
