Seeking Hope

Seeking Hope: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

“So she doesn’t like me?” Claire mumbled, soaring as high as she could on the swing set. It’s been about a month since mom and I had moved to this small town, and I have to say, even though this was nothing like New York at all… I loved every single minute of it. Mom seemed to be happy with how her business was growing; the teachers at school were awesome as well as the kids in my year. I don’t mean to sound cocky, but I guess I was actually, well, ‘popular’ I grabbed everybody’s attention and happen to pull a few strings with girls to date some of my friends, including Chase. I’m not the type of guy that would mess around with a girl’s heart, that’s just stupid. However, there was someone that was always on my mind who I was interested in. Therese. Even though I’m smooth with the ladies, I was still nervous on asking her out.

Back to this town, yeah, I really like it. Especially how wherever I go, it’s so quite and peaceful. Claire and I had stumbled upon this park that was about a half an hour away from the local town. Even though it was abandoned, it was still in pretty decent shape. Actually, the both of us had been talking a lot more with each other recently. She’s pretty cool if you get to know her. However, Claire still comes across ‘uptight’ if you mess with her. The girl has eased up a bit with me and improved on talking with other’s at school, including the group that I had been hanging out with. Most of the people had accepted her to be apart of the group; two people in particularly weren’t really to please to hear. Those would be Chase and Therese. It suck’s because they won’t give her a chance. Claire is this type of girl that like’s to keep a lot of things to herself, stuff that could be troubling her and need’s someone to listen and give her a hand. I promise to be that someone, but she just laughs every time I insist. There are some days at school, if she doesn’t feel comfortable being surrounded by a large group of people, she would sit by her own in the school library that day. I always checked up on her, but she assured me that she’s fine and just like’s her space. She enjoys being alone. Weird,

“She doesn’t hate you,” I groaned. “Mom just thinks you’re a bad influence, clearly theirs a difference.” We were discussing about places to meet up on weekends when Claire wasn’t working. I suggested my place, but then I remembered why Claire and I weren’t supposed to hang out. “Ha! Me? A bad influence? How so! I haven’t mugged anybody! I don’t even talk to a lot of people, so what in her screwed up mind gave her the impression of me being troubled?” I rolled my eyes. “Hey, my mom’s not screwed up. I think it’s because of the attitude you portrayed in front of her as well as the heavy eye make up you wear. She isn’t a fan of the ‘gothic’ look, you know?”

The jet-black haired girl stopped dead in her tracks and smirked. “Me? Having an attitude problem? Man! She is screwed up in the head Mike!” I shot her a look while crossing my arms. She babbled on. “Okay, maybe I do have an attitude. But, that’s because I don’t like getting to close to people. You know that.” I sighed and started to walk around behind her. “Yes, I do. I think that’s probably the next lesson of this ‘friendship’ thing that you’re dealing with right now.”

“How so?” Sighing again, I didn’t really know how to explain it to her considering she hasn’t really trusted a lot of people in her life. So I decided to push her on the swings. My touch must have had an effect on her as she gasped while I was pushing her; her reaction caused me to chuckle. “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you.” I insisted. I saw her head turned around, peeking over her shoulder to see what I was properly doing. Claire was still remaining silent. “Claire, you can talk to me, I don’t bite.” She shrugged. “I don’t feel like talking.” Whenever I get a response like that from her, I just can’t help but smile. “Yes you do. It’s good to talk to people instead of sitting at an old, boring library at yourself at lunch. Opening up to people about your day isn’t too hard. Trust is the key.”