Handle With Clare

Chapter 31: She Is Perfect

Look out for the <>!

Peter's POV

I rolled onto my back and looked up at the angel face that was staring down at me. She flashed a beautiful smile that was full of confidence, but yet caution. She had such a beautiful smile, making me wish I saw it more often.

I smiled back at her. I love her, I really do. I never had said those words to her before, but she needed to know. I never loved someone as much as I did her. In the few months that we dated, she became my sun, and when she disappeared, it was like a light vanished in my life. I couldn't think, sleep, eat without thinking of her, wondering what she was doing or how she was. Even though she broke up with me to protect me, it did the opposite; it crushed me. What she didn't know was that I was already too far committed to her. She was my everything, and I wasn't sure if she understood that.

I brushed some hair from her face as I waited for her next move. I would never let her go. I would not accept that she was giving up. There was a treatment in California and I was going to convince her to go if that was the last thing I ever did. I didn't want to say goodbye to her, and I was going to do all I could to keep her here with me. Clare was perfect, and she was perfect for me.

My hands traced the small of Clare's back under her shirt. The feeling of her bare skin on my hands made my heart race even more. I wanted this moment to last forever. I wanted her to stay like this and stare down as she kissed me. The power and control she was giving off as she kissed my ear reminded me that she was capable of really anything. I just wish she realized that in herself.

I wanted to suck in every second of this moment before it was gone, not when I would get a moment like this again. I wanted her to kiss me harder than she had ever kissed me and I didn't want her to stop. She was everything that I had ever wanted.

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I felt her arms quivered beneath her weight and suddenly her face contorted into pain as she choked out my name. She then fell face-first onto the hard ground beside me as she flailed her small body around her.

Fear gripped around me as she stopped moving. I rolled onto my knees and shook her lightly, but there was no movement. I carefully rolled her onto her back to see Blood caked onto her lower face and her eyes closed, showing that she passed out. I had seen her pass out before, but this time it was different. There was something in her unmoving body that said she was finished.

"Clare? Clare? Please, can you hear me?" I beg as I waited for her to make a sound. There was nothing. I tried to feel her pulse on her wrist, only feeling a dull heart beat under my fingers. I moved my hand to her mouth feeling that she wasn't breathing.

I swore loudly, questioning why I failed that summer health class.

I brought my hand to her nose to feel her breath. There was nothing. I did CPR, grateful that at least the summer health course taught me one thing of value. I pushed on her chest to the beat of the song Staying Alive, feeling her ribs snap under the pressure of my weight, but I couldn't focus on that. I opened her mouth and breathed hot air into it, hoping that this would work. "Clare, I refuse for you to leave me like this," I said as I pushed against her chest again.

Adrenaline coursed through me, not allowing me to curl up in fear. I took a break to see if the CPR had done its job. Seconds ticked by until I saw her take a breath on her own. She coughed, then moaned my name with eyes closed.

I had to get her to the hospital, or she was going to die here. Without wasting a second, I picked up her light body and ran to the car. I held onto her tightly as I talked to her, hoping that she heard me and that it would give her power to hang on for just a little longer. "Clare, you can't do this to me. Not like this. Stay with me." I waited for a response, hoping that she would come to and say, "I'm here," but there was silence.