Secret Singing Superstar

Forty-eight ~ ♫♪♫

Claire fiddled with her pencil as she drew. She glanced at her drawing and rubbed out the lines she had just sketched with irritation. It had been three hours, and she couldn't draw a damn archangel - Lucifer, to be exact. She'd always hailed Lucifer, who was also known as Satan, along with Anna and Joy. 

What was wrong with her? She always used to capture Lucifer perfectly when she drew him.

She knew exactly what was wrong...

No, she chided herself. Don't think like that. NEVER think like that. You're trying to forget about it. So forget. Why is it so hard to forget?!

She decided to give up on drawing the archangel and instead doodled on a spare piece of paper that she ripped out of her sketchbook. It was Sunday; the last day of the holidays. It had been three days ever since she'd camped with everyone else at the farmhouse in the countryside, and now she had nothing to do but study and draw. She chose the latter, obviously. 

"What are you drawing?" her sister asked. 

She blinked and stared at her paper. She had drawn a katana and a gun. She mentally cursed herself. "I have no idea."

Elaine studied her. "You do know that you've been acting weird for a long time, yeah?"

"Weird?"

"More closed up. Less bratty."

"Thanks," Claire rolled her eyes. 

"No, seriously."

"I don't need your pity or whatever it is."

"Fine, I was only trying to help," Elaine said angrily, turning on her heel and storming into her room. Surprisingly, she managed not to slam the door.

She was so not helping. Claire groaned as she decided to draw a Grumpy Cat that mimicked her sister's constant expression perfectly. Hopefully it would make her feel better.

She had just finished sketching it (it had turned out more successful than the archangel, surprisingly) when the doorbell rang. Claire looked up in surprise; both her parents were out shopping for groceries and they weren't supposed to be back for another two hours or so.

Elaine opened the door and Joy stepped in. 

"Is there something wrong?" Claire asked. 

"Well, she said - " Joy managed to say before she was interrupted. 

"I invited her over," said Elaine. Of course she did. 

Claire sighed. "You don't really get the concept of 'there's nothing wrong', do you?"

"But there is," Joy persisted. "Elaine didn't have to tell me anything, I already knew. You can stop hiding and just let it out, you know?"

"You don't know anything," Claire snapped before gathering up her paper and pencil and heading towards her room.

Joy grabbed her arm. "Claire, stop it! Just admit it already!"

"Admit what?" she replied harshly.

"That you're scared!" Joy practically screamed.

Claire stopped dead, and everything that was in her hands basically dropped to the floor. She turned to look at Joy. Elaine was standing further away with her hands crossed.

"I'm not scared," Claire said, her voice barely controlled.

"Yes, yes you are! You're forgetting that I know you! You are never like this!"

"There is something called changing, you know!"

"No, you need to know, not me!"

Claire was severely tempted to scream at Elaine for standing there and not even bothering to restrain Joy, who looked like she was going to have a seizure. Her anger took over and she wrenched her hand out of Joy's, and stormed out of the house. She made sure she slammed the door, unlike Elaine.