Beyond the Sun

23

Annie fell into a routine of monotony then. Weeks had passed, and even a month, and she still hadn't crossed paths with Clark again. She didn't want to intrude. She stuck by it, if space is what he needed then she'd give it to him. But a month. A whole month without contact was seriously hurting her, she perished to think what he felt like. The amount of emotions and feelings which were likely to be travelling through Clark now far outdid any selfish pain she was feeling.

Rebecca and Robert got on with day to day life rather well. They included her in trips out on weekends, when Robert had time off, and they oddly became quite a good little family. Which Annie found odd considering how much her father's attempts had failed at making another family. School had become quite dull, not that it wasn't anyway, Annie was naturally surprised on Monday morning to see Clark standing beside her locker. He had been away from school for a while, but apparently, he was back now; unless he was just here to open her ever annoying locker and then go again.

"Clark?" Annie questioned with a confused look, she shifted her hold on her bag and looked up when he opened the door and watched as she took to putting books in and taking others out. "What is it?" He was naturally a quiet person, kept himself to himself, and she could tell when something wasn't right, apart from the obvious, on the outside it looked like he was coping, but there was something lingering in his gaze which said otherwise. In reply, Clark just shook his head. That was it. She didn't even get a verbal answer. Annie just nodded in return, if he didn't want to talk yet, that was fine.

But the problem was, her and silence didn't totally mix. Each day it was the same routine, he'd meet her at her locker, he'd open it, they'd walk to class, they'd eat lunch under the same tree in the field, and then they'd leave school together; Annie getting picked up by Robert, because neither himself nor Rebecca wanted her to put strain on her leg, and Clark made his way to his vehicle, seemingly taking to driving than catching a bus now. But each day, Annie just talked through the silence, about anything and everything. She couldn't deal with silence. To begin with she could, she accepted he needed it, but it was driving her mad. So, she talked about anything that came to mind, he never seemed to care about her rambling away about utter nonsense.

Annie at times did sit in silence to see if he'd notice the sudden lack of talking, he never did. He just seemed to sit mentally tormenting himself, there was usually always a distant look in his eyes as a worried expression was etched onto his face. He needed to talk to someone, Annie knew that much for certain. Jonathan used to be the one to listen. And in part he did use to talk to her about any troubles. But he'd stopped now, thinking he could clearly handle it all on his own. But no one could carry the weight of the world's worries on their shoulders and not get beaten down by it all.

She decided at that point, that she was going to try anything and everything to get him to talk. Only all her determination to do so was for nothing when one sunny afternoon she settled down in her usual seat under the tree and relaxed, she was aware to someone sitting down beside her, and her eyes slowly opened as a hand enveloped one of her own. Looking over to Clark, she wasn't really surprised to see him looking down at the ground instead. But his thumb rubbed over her knuckle gently, "I'm sorry, Annie."

"There's nothing you need to be sorry for, Clark." She replied while moving away from leaning against the trunk and turning to look at him.

"I do. Despite not wishing to shut you out and push you away, I did so anyway. The one person who I honestly couldn't replace, and who would try anything to listen to me...and I shut you out." Clark said while slowly looking up at her. He looked as defeated as he sounded, and it broke her heart really. It was a look she never wanted to see him have, ever again.

"I'm still here." Annie said while sending him a small gentle smile. "I will always be here, Clark. Just...don't bottle things up, yeah? You can talk to me, remember?" He looked at her with clear yet tear filled eyes before retreating into himself because of the bell suddenly signalling that break was over. Annie shook her head, it was like for a moment they were making ground, yet no, that upped and went. Standing up she nodded her head to the side and the two commenced walking back to the school.