Their Paradox #Wattys2017

15. "Little Muffin?"

cu·ri·os·i·ty

noun

1. a strong desire to know or learn something.

"She was afraid if she was going to be a victim falling to her curiousity as she got on the motorbike behind her boyfriend. If only she knew-"

synonym: Interest

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Walking into her class was nerve racking. Period after period seemed to by flying by and in a way it sickened her because it means she had learned nothing the whole day, which was something she was trying to avoid in her near future. Yet the though of talking to Jace seemed to buzz every fiber in her being. She was nervous and in a way she felt herself uncapable to think straight, her jumped thoughts bouncing from the walls in her head.

Then she see's him. The bell rings for another class period and there he is leaning against the rusty blue lockers, talking to another boy who seems frantic and scared. Jace sets a hand on his shoulder and the boy calms down before nodding and walking away. Clementine looks at him in admiration, her own senses fighting against her before she takes another deep breath.

"You want nothing to do with him." She whispers to herself.

She looks straight forward as she continues to drone past him but of course, he calls out to her.

"Baby Orange!"

She can hear the smile in his voice.

Keep walking, clementine. It's whats best.

His footsteps echo behind her until he reaches her.

"Clem?" he asks, tilting his head to the side as they walk, his eyes staring through her. He knew something was wrong.

"Clementine?" he calls out again. She continues to walk forward, rolling her eyes as she passes him.

"Baby orange, are you mad at me?" he questions as they continue walking.

they enter class and sit down, the stools digging into the ground as it supports their weights. "Clementine." he whispers in a voice that tickles her ear. "I'm not going to stop unless you talk to me." He grins proudly.

"What happened to leaving me along if I gave you a reasonable answer to why I hate you?" Clementine says letting out a harsh breath. "Well if you really wanted me to leave you alone, you wouldn't have taken my hand." He scoffs mentioning yesterday. She watches Ms. Yowler uncap a white board marker and begins writing in the chicken scratches she calls penmanship. The letters uneven, bugging clementine ever so slightly inside. She turns away from Jace abruptly as he continues to pester her.

"Clementine."

"Clem."

"Baby Orange."

"Little Muffin?"

Clementine grabs a pencil out of her bag, frustrated. She takes out her notebook and tries to decipher what Ms. Yowler continued to write on the board in blue. Jace's voice begins to be drowned out by other colliding voices as students begin to enter the classroom. 

The bell rings and Jace lets out an exhausted sigh. "I'm not just going to stop talking to you." he says, laying his head in cupped hands softly. 

"Baby Orange." His words are dragged out and hollow as he bellows that dumb nickname. Clementine's stare forward and students pile into a classroom that both seems cramped yet distant at the same time. Social bubbles keep us away from one another as we're all focused on our own little tiny stories. Clementine's tiny story seemed to consist of a teenage stranger with a charasmatic atittude and dragged out nicknames. 

"Clementine? Are you okay?" Jace asks. There is something sad and choppy in his voice for a moment but he quickly covers it up with a cough. "Are you okay, Muffin?" He asks laying his head on the table with a yawn. 

That stupid nickname. It rolls off his tongue with ease and something ticks inside of Clementine. She wants to shout at him to stop. She wants to scream at him to shut up. flashbacks of bwing curled on the floor with blankets wrapped around her legs flash through Clem's head. She begins to sweat and the tapping begins. She bites her lip anxiously and the tapping of her fingers drum to her head. 

"Clementine?" He mumbles as the teacher begins the listen. He goes out to call for her again in a whisper but before he can the screeching of a metal chair being scraped back interupts him. Clementine stands abruptly and as soon as she does she feels eyes instantly peel towards her. Too much attention. Too much attention. She hated it but she threw her pack against her shoulder and made heavy steps to the back of the classroom. She looked for an empty seat out of sight of the other students where she would eventually be able to fade away as class continued. 

With a clear of someones throat class continues, deciding to ignore Clementine's sudden interuption. Jace looks back at her and there isn't as much sadness as their is curiousity in his eyes. He tilts his head to the side as he observes her. He bites his lip and squints as if Clementine was some puzzle he was slightly getting frustrated at, yet still determined to solve. Then he smirks. He turns back towards the front of the room and doesn't look back for the rest of the class period. 

Clementine sighs as she quickly shifts into a studious mindset but she found it almost impossible to stop thinking about him. Like Jace, she too was curious but her fear seemed to out weight the curiousity bounded and tugging at her insides. 

She was afraid of. She was not afraid of Jace, but what just his mere precense could do to her. He had an influence over her she would love to shrug off but it clung to her with a delicate touch. She knew it wasn't going to be easy to say goodbye. 

♡ Chapter End♡

CRUCIAL A/N:

There is so far a GLITCH or something with my stories causing half of some chapters to be cut out. I'm at the moment in a process to fix this to enable the continuous viewing for readers without such CONFUCION. 

This is an unedited and choppy chapter that needs revision. Oops. 

☆"People control us. To be in control of ourselves, we must know what control the people. What controls the people is the hate and the love they are given. Control the hate and the love, and the world is wrapped around your fingers. " -Soniyah B.☆