Obstacles

7

Warnings:
-NONE

George's POV

Clay came back a few minutes later and smiled, sitting back down next to me. 'Do you want to continue? We can better read as much as we can so we don't take weeks to finish it. What if we try to read half? Or maybe a quarter.'

'Yeah, that's fine,' I mumbled, looking down at my hands to hide my nervous face. 'Let's just see how far we can come.'

Clay nodded and grabbed the book. 'I'll read again,' he smiled, sitting closely next to me.

'You can lay down if you want,' I offered before he started reading. 'I'll sit here.'

'We can lay down together,' Clay smiled.

He laid down with his head on my pillow and grabbed my shoulder to pull me down too. I noticed our shoulders were touching and Clay almost fell out of the bed, giggling after that.

'Come here,' he chuckled as he pulled me closer to him. 'You can rest your head on my chest if you want to. You don't have to obviously. I just want to make sure if you're okay with this. Do you mind laying down together?'

'N-no,' I stuttered with a bright red face. 'Don't tell your friends though.'

'I wasn't planning on that, but why do you say that?' Clay asked me.

'Because uh- they don't like me that much.'

'Is it because of the videos?' Clay questioned as he pulled me close to his body.

'I know they are dumb, I'm sorry,' I whispered sadly. 'I just enjoy singing.'

Clay smiled. 'It's great to have a passion like that. Anyway, let's read again.'

I nodded and rested my head on his shoulder while he continued to read.

We read until my mother called me for dinner and Clay let go of me as he smiled shortly. 'I think I have to go home now.'

'Okay, thank you for coming over.'

'No need to thank me for that. See you tomorrow at school if my dad doesn't give me house arrest,' Clay sighed with an eye roll.

'Good luck,' I mumbled, walking downstairs with him. I awkwardly walked with him to the door and said goodbye as he grabbed his bike to cycle away.

I walked back to the table and sat down, having my dad frown at me.

'Who is that boy, George?' he scoffed as he looked down at his food. He apparently didn't remember him from the past.

'That's Clay. We are working on an assignment together,' I answered with a fake smile on my face.

My dad gave me a short hum and started eating again as my stepmother smiled at me.

'How did your last video do?' she asked as she grabbed my hand.

I shrugged. 'Not that great,' I whispered. 'I thought this video would do a bit better because I think I did decently, but I guess it's fine.'

'You should just quit with that stuff,' my dad replied. 'It's not going to work out.'

'No! It's his passion,' my stepmother defended me. 'I forbid him to quit doing what he loves to do.'

'I don't think anyone likes it,' I mumbled. 'Maybe it's better to quit. It makes me so insecure.'

'Honey, they are just jealous of you. If you actually were a bad singer I wouldn't have told you to keep going and embarrass yourself, but you sound beautiful and I love your voice. Of course, everyone is off key sometimes but at least you don't use loads of autotune to hide the imperfections.'

'Is it actually fine?' I questioned with a soft voice.

'You sound beautiful,' she replied. 'I don't want you to quit because of those haters.'

'Maybe I'll record a new video tonight,' I sighed. 'I'll show Quackity to give me feedback.'

'Okay, sweetie.'

My dad gave me an annoyed look, causing me to eat faster so I could go away quicker.

I finished my dinner and went upstairs, warming up my voice as I grabbed my phone to film myself. Before I started filming, I quickly went to my last video to check some comments.

Anonymous
You sing so bad, pls quit and spare our ears. You are for sure tone deaf because this sounds like absolute shit.

Anonymous
You're just making a fool of yourself, just spare yourself and mostly us.

Anonymous
Oh my goodness, it's better if someone beats you up so we won't have to listen to these terrible videos anymore.

Dream
I love the way you sing, you sing amazing and you're really handsome <3

My heart fluttered as I read the last comment and a smile filled my face. I liked the comment immediately and noticed they placed another comment.

Dream
I miss you a lot <3

I smiled and liked that comment too, feeling way more confident than I did before. I put the camera in front of me and turned the song on, singing with it as best as I could. I redid some small bits and then smiled. I was happy with the end result and went to Quackity and my chat.

You
Hi :)

Quackity
Hi! What's up? Can we call?

I answered him by calling and he accepted the call.

'Spill. The. Tea,' he insisted, pausing between every word for a dramatic effect. 'Did you talk about the past?'

I giggled. 'We didn't, idiot. We just talked, read the story and just hung out. I don't have the courage to bring it up and I hope he just forgot.'

'I'm passing away, goodbye,' he yelled. 'JUST TELL HIM, MY GOODNESS!'

'I don't know,' I giggled. 'It made me very happy that we talked already. Also, another thing.'

'What's up?'

'Someone called Dream commented on my videos and said really sweet things. I recorded a video of the song I talked about last week. I wanted to send it to you to see if it's good.'

'Sure! I'm excited,' he answered. 'Send it to me on WhatsApp.'

'Okay. Can you give me honest feedback?'

'Of course, I always do,' Quackity replied as I sent him the video. 'I'll be right back.'

He hung up and I sat down on my bed, smiling as I realised Clay just sat here. I wished he would talk to me more often again, but I accepted that he probably wouldn't.

I waited for a call from Quackity and he called me back five minutes later.

'Hi. I watched it and wrote down my feedback. I'd say you're only off key with the high note at the end which you can easily redo.'

'Thanks, I will,' I answered with a smile.

'No problem, you can do it. I'm excited for the new video.'

1117 words