Clarity ~ m.c.

•Chapter 21•

Playlist:

Heartbreak Girl- 5 Seconds of Summer

Figure 8- Ellie Goulding

Replay- Zendaya

The Monster- Eminem

***

***Michael's POV***

"Aren't you going to say anything?" I asked as Lauren starts to walk away from me. She's already half way down her drive way. Looking at her from this distance I can see the confusion in her eyes.

"I don't know what to say." She admits and turns around and continues to walk out of the col de sac.

Watching Lauren walk away from me, broke my heart. Why would she do that? I know she likes me, but isn't this what she wanted? We can finally be together. This is not what I expected to happen. I pictured it going so much more differently.

Way to go Clifford, you break up with your girlfriend to be with someone else and the girl you want to be with runs away. Great job, I thought to myself.

"Ugh shit" I agitatedly yelled out in frustration.

"Mate what happened?" Ashton asked.

"Did you tell her?" Luke asked.

"Of course I told her. I told her everything and she walks away. I ask her out and she walks away." I explained to them.

"Wait she walked away?" Dominique asked.

"Yes you saw what happened, I just said that."

"What did you tell her?" She asked me and I quickly explained everything that happened with Geordie.

"How would you say she was reacting?" Dominique asked.

"What?" I questioned her.

"Just answer the question."

"Confused, why?"

"Oh no, she's doing it again." Dominique eyes grew wider like everything made since and she knew exactly what was going on.

"She's doing what again?" I asked.

"Running away." She responded. "She's thinks that by walking away, everything's going to go away on its own. It happened when her mom died. She ran away and disappeared for hours. Search parties went out to find her. Days later she started trying drugs, she became a mess she didn't know what to do with herself. She did it when her dad started beating her too." Dominique explained. "She's going to find something, or at least try to find something to cope with the pain and frustration. We have to go after her."

"How? Where do we start? This neighborhood is huge." Luke commented.

"And a bad one." Calum chimed in.

"What if she gets lost?" Dominique asked.

"No we run every morning together, she knows exactly where everything is and how to negotiate the streets." Ashton said.

"It doesn't matter we have to find her before she does something to hurt herself." Dominique pointed out. The four of them started arguing.

"Stop!" I yelled, and they became quiet. "I'm going to find her and I have to do it myself. This is my mess, I have to fix it."

"Well what are we supposed to do? Sit around and wait?" Dominique protested.

"I don't know go back to one of their houses. All I know is I have to do this myself." I said. Walking out of the garage.

Dark clouds started to roll in. Great just what we need to make the situation better, rain and thunder clouds. Getting into the car, parked on the side of the street, I pulled out of the col de sac to start looking for Lauren.

***Lauren's POV***

Walking along the sidewalks in the neighborhood I tried to clear my head and think of what was happening. No one has ever cared for me before other than my mom. I don't know what to think, it's a bit overwhelming to be honest.

I didn't even make it that far down the street leading out of the col de sac when I got the feeling someone was following me. I started walking faster and I could hear the footsteps grow louder. I felt a grab at my ass and with one swift motion I turned around, throwing my leg in the air and kicked my stacker right in the side of their body and immediately Nick feel to the ground. Thanks to my dad, I took some self-defense classes, and had learned a few things.

"I should have known." I spit at him, not in the mood to deal with his shit and started to walk away. Quickly Nick grabbed my wrist and I twisted his arm till he was in pain and then drop kicked him.

"Since when did you learn how to fight? You weren't like this last time." He said short of breath.

"Yeah well last time you took me by surprised and pinned me against a wall and tried to rap me. Consider us even now." I said and started to walk away when he swept kicked me causing me to trip.

I quickly got to my feet before he could do anything. Now tired of his silly game he's trying to play, I hit him in every place you're supposed to hit someone: first the nose, then throat, followed by the gut, then balls, then foot, but since he was doubled over in pain from being kicked in the balls I didn't stomp on his foot. Instead I jumped on top of him and started punching him.

I started hitting him, letting out all my frustration and anger that I had bottled up over the years of neglect and abuse. I didn't even realize how much or how long I was beating him until I was yanked off of him.

"Let go of me!" I screamed as I was set down and found that Michael had pulled me off of him.

"Why would you do that?" I yelled; now completely feed up with everything right now.

"I hate this dick as much as the next person Lauren but look at him!" he shouted gesturing toward Nick whose nose was bleeding and now had a swelling black eye.

I looked down at my hands and my knuckles were covered in his blood. I stood there in shock. I had completely snapped. I let my anger, frustration, hatred towards life and my problems get the better of me and I hated myself for allowing that to happen. I had become the person I swore I would never become . . . my dad.