rome and clem

part nine

"clem. clem. clem. clem. cle-"

those dark chocolate sprinkled eyes fall onto his, crinkling up in a gentle fashion.

"what?" she whispers, glancing at the teacher for a second.

"I met your boyfriend." rome says, leaning forward. the smell of her lilac shampoo flooding his nostrils. he almost needs to close his eyes and just take it all in. it's so unreal. she's unreal.

clem snorted, "that a good thing?" her lips twitch, so do rome's.

lips curling into a smirk, "sure."

"sure?"

rome shrugs, "I don't know. you don't seem like the kind of girl to date a football player." he retorted, bubbling in a random letter on his paper.

"shhh!" the teacher, rome forget her name, shushed, glaring at rome and clem.

"sorry." clem whispered, turning around in her desk.

rome rolled his eyes. he spent the rest of the class filling out the rest of the test paper and inhaling the beautiful lilac scent clem carried around with her.

∼∼

as rome walked down the hall towards his locker, he felt a shoulder press against his and then a presence walking beside him in step.

his eyes leaped in the direction to see clem with a geeky grin spreading her rose cheeks. he wondered if she used makeup to make her cheekbones so pronounced or if that was just natural. it seemed odd to rome, that a girl like clem would even use makeup. why use makeup anyways? why not just be who you are and all the other bullshit people say?

either way, it astonished rome that clem could possibly taint her natural gentle facade.

"our parents were best friends." she spoke, her voice soft and still in a whisper tone amongst all the useless chatter filling the hallways.

"hmm?" rome hummed, eyes watching hers as they darted all over the hallway, watching everything and everyone. they had that in common.

observation.

a key concept in rome's life.

observing, and always being observed.

"me and carter." she sighed, leaning against the locker beside rome's once they arrived to it.

rome unlocked it and began shuffling out his books. "oh. continue."

"basically, every summer his family and my family went on a vacation, and with us being the only kids there..we hung out and literally became like best friends, and I guess sometime in high school it just kind of evolved into more. it was just easy, us." she explained, tracing the dents of the lockers with her finger.

rome furrowed his brows. "easy, eh? easys for amateurs, don't ya think?"

"I suppose. but that's what I do. easy. settle." she laughed dryly.

he sighed, rolling his eyes, "honestly, clementine, that's stupid." he muttered bluntly, shutting his locker and walking off. not to bothering to say goodbye or anything else for that matter.