Bar Red's Redemption ✔

c h a p t e r. 5

"I scream for everything that has gone wrong. I scream for everything that has broken in our lives."
—Marie Lu

chapter 5

Bar and Clementine were sitting in the gym's bleachers.

The gymnasium was an attached building that was right around the corner of the cafeteria and since there wasn't a class in session, the pair decided to take advantage of the extra space where they could speak without whispers like they had to do in the library.

The building seemed abandoned with its dim lights, silent rooms, and large open space but despite that fact, Bar found it rather relaxing.

He always enjoyed silence.

Anything that was loud or crowded reminded him of home where his father would scream for hours on it. It reminded him of shattering glass bottles, slammed doors, and the fridge being closed so roughly that it shook the house whenever his dad grabbed another beer.

In the quiet, Bar's mind found peace.

There was nothing dangerous in the quiet beside his mind and Bar had already survived the worst of what his thoughts had to offer so there weren't any outstanding cons.

His little goddess seemed to enjoy the silence too, which he was grateful for.

A lot of people thought that they needed to fill the empty space with words, they thought it was awkward and would always anxiously try to fill it, but not her.

She sat next to him as he read, humming softly as she wrote something— or drew, he wasn't sure— in her small leather-bound journal.

He didn't ask what she was doing, finding that too upfront and personal for an ex-bully.

Usually, Bar would be able to completely disappear into his book and indulge into a reality where he didn't have any worries, a reality where he wasn't stuck with himself.

Books were a way for Bar to live without loathing existence and they were probably the only reason besides Gwen, his little sister, that he was still alive.

But right now, the only thing Bar seemed to focus on was the concentrated look on his little goddess's face and how her soft voice would switch between cutely whisper-singing and melodically humming. How her pink lips were moving and how Bar had the burning urge to wrap his hands into her hair and kiss her with everything he had in him.

But he couldn't do that.

Bar thought that she absolutely wouldn't want that. Who would want their ex-bully, someone who had hurt them for years, to kiss them after only a couple hours of hanging out?

Definitely not Clementine.

Some part of her must hate Bar, he knew that.

Bar hates himself and from all the shit he put the little goddess through— even if he had his horrible, incredibly selfish reasons for doing do— even just a little sliver of Clementine must absolutely loathe Bar.

"Stupid." Clementine pouted down at the paper in her lap, her pen stilled. Bar glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow. She thinks something's stupid? Was that something Bar? "What's another word for stupid?"

"Idiotic." Bar mumbled. How could he not know synonyms for the word stupid when his father raised Bar calling him such things? "Moronic. Ignorant fuck. Foolish ass. Though you might want to censor out the vulgarity. Dumb. Dull. Dense as shit. Unintelligent. Imbecile."

"Oly?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"How do, how did you remember all those so quickly?" His little goddess asked. She closed her notebook and set down her pen, her minty eyes staring at Bar in concern. "D-did someone call you those things?"