Bar Red's Redemption ✔

c h a p t e r. 21

"He was obscurely terrified lest she should cease to be something he could feel himself unworthy of."
—Aldous Huxley

chapter 21

Are you mine?

The question seemed so simple.

But Clementine was staring at Bar like he spoke complete and utter gibberish.

He understood the hesitation a second after he realized what he had said.

Bar asked her if she was his.

He asked the girl whom he cared about, whom he was sure he wanted, whom he would always protect, if she was his.

But Clementine wasn't just his little goddess, no, she was also the girl he had bullied.

Bad made her life hell and here he was, asking if he could be apart of her life all over again— but this time to make it feel like heaven.

Why did he think she'd say yes? That she would be sure about him just like Bar was sure about her?

Why? What lead him to that ideal belief?

Bar had no answer.

Their bodies were pressed together, faces right before the other. Bar could read her expression completely.

And she looked shocked.

Why? Bar wanted to ask but he knew, he knew that she probably had way too many thoughts making a circus in her mind.

Her ex-bully was asking her something that will change the dynamic of both of their lives and he was doing so after one hell of a fucked up weekend.

Bar almost groaned at that thought, realizing he probably put too much on her shoulders in two, long days.

First, they go to a boring ass party, then Clementine got upset over that rainbow chick and Lils— Bar didn't like it when his goddess felt bad. Next, Bar got roofied by that fucking prick.

And now?

Now, Clementine just learned that he not only hurt himself but that he tried to commit suicide multiple times— and Bar had the gulls to ask her to be his.

What is wrong with me? Bar thought, then continued on sardonically. Literally fucking everything.

"I..." Bar swallowed thickly, moving so his forehead was pressed against the base of Clementine's neck, hiding there as his nose nudged against her collarbone. "I shouldn't have told you all that like this, I'm sorry, babygirl."

"Shut u-up," Clementine breathed out and, without warning, she switched their positions. Straddling a shocked Bar's hips, she sat on his lap, grabbed his face in her slightly cold hands, and kissed him.

Bar barely had time to realize what happened before Clementine moved her lips off of his— instantly making the brute miss the contact and started to trail them over the rest of his face as she spoke.

"I'm yours," She giggled out, kissing his nose before going across his cheek and down to his jaw. "Of c-course, I'll be yours, Oly. Please don't, please don't apologize. I-I want to know you, even t-the painful parts. I want you to, to be happy and safe and, and n-not to have another bad month."

Bar, for what felt like the first time in years, smiled.

A real, breathtaking smile that he could feel in his tightening jaw, that he could feel in the way his dimples dug into his cheeks deeper, and the way that his eyes crinkled in the corners— his eyelashes encasing his vision for a second before Clementine beamed back at him.