I am Clara

The Investigation Begins

I woke up feeling like shit. I was getting quite used to the feeling, which was a miserable thought. Considering feeling like death was becoming my new norm, I didn't complain much. If I complained every time, I wouldn't get much, apart from groaning, done.

      Today I didn't press snooze. My alarm went off, and immediately I forced myself out of bed. I had certain things to accomplish, and they required getting up early. To be specific I had things to discuss with Andrews, and I'd get what I had to say said before he could burst through my bedroom door to drag me out of bed.

     Giving Andrews a taste of his own medicine, I burst into his room unannounced. Unlike myself when the roles were reversed, he was already dressed.

     "What the—"

     "Not so fun when you're on the other side of the door, isn't it?"

     "What happened to—" he began again, in a more outraged tone, completely ignoring my remark to study my eye instead.

     Though my face looked awful, I hadn't made an effort to hide it today. He was bound to notice anyways. There was no use trying to hide it from him. And quite frankly, there was no amount of foundation that could hide the dark colour on my face. My right eye was still heavily swollen, and the entire half of my face surrounding it was a mixture of blue, black, and yellow.

     "No." I stopped him, raising my hand to his chest, to push him away.

     He was approaching quickly hoping to get a better look at my eye. I didn't want to hear his concerns. It seemed every time he vocalized his worries, we argued.

     "I know I look like shit; I feel like it too," I informed him. "And I have noticed my discoloured face, it's kind of hard not to. I'm also aware that you probably have a lot of questions, but I don't want to hear them... Ok?"

      Cleary it wasn't ok. Eyebrows raised, Andrews scoffed and shook his head in disbelief.

     "No." I stopped him again. "I am a strong, independent woman. And I know that I can't hide the fact that I obviously have something going on, but your help isn't going to do any good. You can't help me... so don't push me to talk."

      "But—"

      "No!" I repeated, more firmly. "You're annoyingly observant, so you'll most likely also notice that I have a limp. So, yes, I'm injured, but is it your concern? No, it is not. So, there's no need to bother me about it."

     Andrews wasn't impressed, still he didn't argue about it. I took it as he had accepted my demand.

     "Now go write this in your stupid little notebook, and I'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes." I left his room, proud of myself.

      I was even more impressed that Andrews took my words seriously. He didn't ask any questions during breakfast, though I did notice him eyeing my foot and face suspiciously.

     Once again, the fight was the talk of the town. Everyone heard about it, and like last time, Andrews hadn't taken it well. He was complaining about it being too close to home, ranting energetically about it, until he looked at my face. Though I was wearing my red sunglasses and had placed my hair in a way to cover the right side of my face, it was clear that he was thinking of my hidden purple face. The way his expression changed made me freeze. That was his thinking face. My braided hair the previous night surely added to his collection of puzzle pieces, I had no doubt that he was beginning to assemble the puzzle. Though the final picture wasn't clear, I was certain he had a fairly good idea of what it would resemble. It was only a matter of time before he found out. He did it much quicker than I'd have ever thought, and my little meeting with Toby was only going to speed up the process.