Clementine had become a wild child. Born in America but raised abroad, she now had little regard for the expectations of high society. But her reckless ways eventually catch up with her when she is kicked out of college in New York City and forced t...
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17
They drove in silence.
Clementine managed to somehow feel both guilt and shame but also gratefulness for his arrival.
She didn't want to leave, but she knew she had to get back.
At the house, Ernesto took the back entrance that he and Laticia always take, so her parents would never even notice her coming or goings.
When they pulled up in the back driveway, and as Clementine put her hand on the door but before she had a chance to open it, Ernesto began speaking.
"I know, that perhaps it is not my place, but I feel required to warn you, Clementine." He said her name, and she knew she was in some kind of trouble. "There are going to be men around here, and especially those parts, that are going to bet interested in you, but it might not be you they're interested in. And they might not have the best of intentions. I don't know the story, but I wasn't born yesterday and I come from these parts. I know how things work around here, and you don't. Things that money has sheltered you from."
Ernesto was speaking very evenly, but she could hear the edge in his voice. She kept looking forward through the window, not really looking at anything. Just waiting for the moment to be over.
"And you're not making it any easier for yourself by not telling anyone. By having nobody who knows about this. You may have gotten lucky, but I might not always be around like that."
Clementine tried opening the door, but just before Ernesto unlocked it, he added: "Just promise me you'll be careful."
She looked at his kind eyes finally, and he read an apologetic expression in hers, before she said "I'm sorry," and ran out of the car.
She quietly tip toed her way back to her room, and exhaled as she dropped her clothes to the floor stared at her face and Boyd in the full length mirror. Searching for some clue that she is different from the night before, seeing if perhaps there is a physical result from how she feels changed inside.
But all she noticed were the circles under her eyes.
She went into the adjoining bathroom, and let the water run with her in the bath. Not thinking of anything, but Enresto's words kept ringing in her head.
It was unfortunate that her memories of that night were now tainted with these newfound doubts.
She tried replying the night in her head, as she lit a cigarette. Realizing she was doing exactly what Zico was. Smoking in the morning.
Maybe Ernesto was right. What kind of future could she expect to have with somebody like Zico. She was't thinking of marriage or anything wild as that, but even in terms of doing things together.
As soon as he found out that she lives in a mansion, he wouldn't see her the same. And as soon as her parents saw where he lived, they would be less than pleased. Of course, she didn't care about any of that stuff, but she knew it'd be foolish to ignore it.
They are so different. And yet, that's exactly why she's drawn to him. It is because of his different background and the way he was raised, where he was raised, that makes him so carefree. So free. So unafraid and so completely himself.
It was like he had that fundamental something that Clementine felt she always lacked, and always searched for in other people. Sometimes she'd see glimpses of it in others, but he had all of it, inside him.
Then again, she also realized that there were moments in the night when people approached him, and she knew that it seemed different. She didn't want to believe it, but she had a feeling that he may have been involved in something or other. That there were many more layers underneath him and his friends that was obvious to the naked eye.
Oh, how she'd love to get naked with him again.
Of course she hear Ernesto, but she didn't want to listen. He didn't know what it felt like inside her soul when they danced together. He didn't know what it was like to feel alive again after feeling like a failure in so many ways. Especially when on the outside there is no way for others to gauge how you're really feeling.
In a moment of overwhelming feeling, Clementine held her breath and went under the water.
Everything was still for a moment, and nothing mattered.
Catching her breath on her way back up out of the water, she was paralyzed with the memory of people in New York, doing crazy things for moments like these. Artificial moments. Chemical moments.
She thought to Zico and his friends, and back to her own lines of boundaries which she knew she'd never cross.
But the problem here, was that the Iines were getting blurrier and blurrier.
