Cloudy Cover, Clear Contents

Chapter 16 - The Beginning of a New Beginning

Serena's POV

As the rays of light beamed into my upscale house, I had woken up on a dusty, fresh linen, smelling couch. I was perplexed why I was sitting, or should I say laying, on my concrete feeling couch. It was only when I saw a note attached to the old-fashioned table next to me, that I remembered that I had been to a party the day before.

I had gone to the party to act as Ash's boyfriend, except that I was playing around with the thought of being his girlfriend. I had multiple points during the last few weeks that caused me to think crookedly. Because of my attempts to clear my mind of Calem, my mind had drifted towards Ash. I know, it's the worst thing you can do when your brain is not in the right mindset. Here I was trying to fix a problem in my heart with another problem. The fact that I thought that Ash was a solution baffled me.

I know that I have mentioned how 'hot' Ash was and is, but as I said before 'looks can take you so far'. And I wasn't one to allow it to get to me. Yes, having such a 'hot' boyfriend could be nice, however 'hot' people tend to attract other people. That is one thing that I don't want, more people in my life.

I'm so much against the fact that of having people to talk to, it's more like I have a thing about people trying to fiddle around with my mental life. The fact that Calem was starting to go back to normal, confused my feelings towards the whole matter. I was positive now that I wanted to move on, but as Ash had stated, I wasn't over him. But I didn't want to use Ash as a means to forget about Calem, because then the same thing could happen again.

Anyways, I had decided that today I would ignore any attempts that Ash would make to grab my attention. I was sure that he would pester me about making the 'dating' official. After all, Calem had told me a few things about Ash. Not many, but things around the lines of.. Ash is putting up a fake attitude and his family life is messed up. And with my emotions not set straight, I didn't want to add things to the pile. However, the fact that I was listening to Calem's advice, burned a hole through my head. I didn't want to associate or think about anything that involved Calem, but every aspect of my life seemed to ooze out something about Calem.

I had been fiddling around with my Kellogg's cereal and a memory of Calem had appeared in my head. It was a very simple memory, but it was a thought about him nonetheless. I remembered Calem switching the cereals between the two of us. Which pissed me off passionately, because Kellogg's were my favorite cereal. After I discovered that he had changed the cereal, I had chased him around the house trying to make him explain his actions. It was a fun memory before, but thinking about it now just hurt me. It was memories like those that probably made me even think about having a fake relationship with Ash, so that he could drive the memories away.

After I had taken a shower and put some light makeup on, I headed towards my garage. The car I owned wasn't fancy or anything, it was just a Toyota Corolla. I had a philosophy that if what ever I needed did the job right, it wouldn't matter if it was expensive or if it was dirt cheap. As long as it did the job right. I hadn't personalized the car too much, it was white with a dark interior that reeked of fresh flowers. I worked at a flower shop somewhere across town, which gave the car its nice smell. At one point it had smell completely like Calem's new cologne. He had just come across this smell from a magazine and he begged for me to buy it for him. I didn't understand why he wanted me to buy it, but once I gave it to him, he constantly thanked me and sprayed loads of it on. Like he wanted to not only thank me through words, but thank me by overloading my nasal passage with the strong smell of his musk. I remember the day that I brought flower home from my new job. It was such a blessing, because the next day I noticed that the flowers had masked the smell of the potent musk. So as I drove a short distance to school I kept sniffing the smell, like the smell was not only going to erase the long lost musk smell, but that it was as going to erase my memory of Calem.