DAD

Part 15

I reach the hostel back again, but Alexa wasn't there; she was off for her classes and I was off for that day. In between all of these clashes, my world was crashing down. Everything was already so stranded, and it now when I founded a job, I drew this thing, I hardly had a theme for this.

I needed some suggestions, and when I ever thought of getting a suggest; Derek's name flashed in my mind. We didn't talk since a few weeks but still it didn't feel that of a good idea to call him. I sat on the bed, grabbed a pillow and surfed the internet a bit.

-theme for a painting with a family-
I typed in the google search engine. But then, thought of changing it.

-theme for a painting with a family but no dad-
When I typed that in, the results were bipolar like "unmarried girl with children", "Divorced couple" and blah blah.

But that didn't suite my painting. I don't draw divorce for my first selling artwork. So I thought for brainstorming on myself. I was wearing a small sleeve shirt, which showed my arms and was long up to my knee...almost and a pair of baggy jeans and my hair in a French pigtail which is my signature hairstyle, I mean used to be. After a while I hear a slight knock on the door, so i yell out from my position, "Who's there?" "It's Derek Clem!" A playful happy voice arises from the other side. "Come in Derek. The door's not locked." He comes in with a smile and sits on the tool beside the bed where I was. He gestures me the bandage on my forehead and I say him that it was just a normal wound, and I got that while I was walking in the park and someone threw a boomerang at me. It was totally fake, it sounded too; but as I was joking, he thought it was no big matter.

"Hey." He greets in his common language and the default thing he's got.
"Hey...why don't you grab a pillow and sit up here?"
"Nah, I just had a long nap and so if I sit there I'll be asleep out of nowhere." He laughs.
"So how did you get here? Do they really allow random people to come and meet up students?"
"Well, to be honest...they don't. But I'm an ex-student and I was there with the dean when you first got admitted." He chuckles.
"V.I.P, hun?" I joke.
"More like a C.I.P", he plays it along, but I don't get the joke.
"What's that?"
"Clementine's important person!" He laughs and runs towards the washroom door to hide as I throw a pillow at him, but I don't lose mine from my lap; maybe he notices that. The clear thing is when my brother had held me by the arms last night, as an act of anger he got; it was too tight and hurting and had left sort of a black spots on my arms, and I was not wearing a dress to hide that.

"Hey, what's with the hand?" He comes and now sits next to me on the bed.
"Nothing...erm, just I feel shy showing my arms to people." I replied.
He smirks to that and says, "Oh really? You are the one girl who is so proud of her long toned arms and loves showing 'em off. You think I don't know that? Ms. Sleeveless?" He says and tries to snatch away the pillow, he didn't know what I was hiding; he thought I was just playing on a joke. A gentle reminder: According to Mr. and Mrs. Peterson, Derek didn't know any of the whole last night scene.
He's a guy, older than me; and it was obvious that he would snatch away the pillow from me, seeing my freaking black stained blood clotted arms.

"Clem?"
I was looking at him like a scolded puppy.
"You don't say that a boomerang did this too, right?"
I was still with my puppy looks on my face.
"Come on girl, say something!" He shouted and when I was still with no answers at the tip of my tongue he came to me seeing that I was almost going to cry and said in a calm tone, "This ain't anything normal, someone just held you by your arms hurting you that it has left such marks. Don't you have pain?"
"I've Derek, it pains." I nod sobbing at the top of my mouth.
"Who did this to you?"

Though Mrs. Peterson had said Derek didn't know this, I thought he would've known. But he really didn't know, and maybe that's why he asked me...but I couldn't fake it from him 'cause if he knows it all and just acts like he doesn't know anything, that will mess things up.

"Who did this Clem?" He repeated himself.
"Br-bro-br-brothe—'' I stammered, but tried to speak.
"Chris?" He enquired, with his face full of confusion and shock.
I sighed and nodded to that.

Then I repeated the whole the story that got me kicked out of my own house by my family, by the brother who loved me more than his life, the mother who cried on phone telling me she misses me one day ago.