Description:
The fifth novella in the prequel serial to The Ending Series.
A virus changed everything. This is how it began.
Clara's childhood was less than ideal, but thanks to her beloved fairy tales, she managed to survive. She also managed to hold onto the hope that, with a little hard work and determination, she would one day find her Prince Charming...her happily ever after. And for a little while, she thinks she has. But just as everything seems to be falling into place, a ghost from the past returns to haunt her.
The Ending Beginnings:
I - Carlos
II - Mandy
III - Vanessa
IV - Jake
V - Clara
VI - Jake & Clara (June 2014)
Without
taking her eyes from her book, Clara reached for her chocolate milk, which was
sitting on the laminate cafeteria table beside her tattered backpack. Lips
pursed around the straw and her feet bouncing with happy anticipation, she took
two long pulls of the rich, cold liquid until her straw made a slurping sound,
and she set the empty carton back down on the table. All of the other students
were out in the quad, fussing about their homework or gushing about boys or
complaining about the teachers they didn’t like, but Clara had better things to
do. She ignored the ceaseless giggling and chatter as it trickled in through
the open cafeteria doors and lost herself in her book.
“It
was very late; yet the little mermaid could not take her eyes from the ship, or
from the beautiful prince.” She read each line with more passion and longing
than was probably natural for a thirteen-year-old girl, but she couldn’t help
it. Fairy tales…Prince Charming…happily ever afters…she loved it all. “He is
certainly sailing above,” she read softly. “He on whom my wishes depend, and in
whose hands I should like to place the happiness of my life.”
Clara
thought about Patrick, about his dreamy black hair and his light brown eyes,
which always seemed to be saying more than his words ever did.
She
sighed and kept reading. “I will venture all for him, and to win an immortal
soul…”
Clara
smiled as she devoured line after line, every word resonating in her soul,
giving her hope that there was another life out there, a life different from
the one she had with her mom—a better, easier life.
After
another sigh, she stretched her legs out under the table, wiggling her toes in
her holey converse and crossing her legs at the ankles, and settled in for a
few more pages before the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.
“‘But
if you take away my voice,’ said the little mermaid, ‘what is left for me?’
‘Your beautiful form,’ said the witch. ‘Your graceful walk and your expressive
eyes. Surely with these you can enchain a man’s heart.’”
Clara
paused and wrinkled her nose. Your form? Your graceful walk? That
didn’t seem right. It sounded too much like something her mom would say.
With
a shrug, she pushed her glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose and
continued reading. The little mermaid was so passionate, so sure about the
prince. Clara longed for the day when she felt that way for someone. Or rather,
she longed for the day when someone felt that way about her…
Daydreams
of Patrick flitted into her mind, and she closed her eyes, imagining what it
would feel like to run her hand over his spikey hair. He seemed so mysterious.
He was
popular and seemingly untouchable, so she guessed that had something to do
with it. But there was also the way he looked at her sometimes, his gaze
lingering a little too long and his mouth curving into that tiny smirk he
seemed to reserve for her alone. Clara was pretty sure he thought about her…at
least more than not at all.
And
there was that one time at the bus stop, when they’d been waiting under the
awning to stay out of the rain. She could never forget the feeling of his soft
skin, still tanned from a summer of baseball games played under the afternoon
sun, as his arm had brushed against hers. Although she’d been freezing all day
because she’d forgotten a coat, it had only taken that one moment, that single,
fleeting contact, for her incessant shivers to seem completely worth it.
Clara
giggled. Maybe Patrick was her soul mate, her happily ever after; he just
didn’t know it yet. But as quickly as the thought fluttered into her mind, it
fluttered away.
“Men
are pigs, Clara Bear.” Her mom’s voice was grating in her mind. “They’re
only as good as the size of their wallet.” Like sand in a windstorm, all of
Clara’s whimsical thoughts of her Prince Charming blew away. Her mom
clearly didn’t believe fairy tales, but then again, Clara often thought her mom
was just an uneducated hussy. At least, that’s what she’d heard other people
say about her…when they weren’t saying worse things.
The
older Clara was, the more she heard and the more she understood. Part of her
knew thinking mean things about her own mom was wrong, but she couldn’t help
it. Eye rolling and hateful thoughts had become the norm for Clara when she was
around her mom.
“Love
is for blind fools, Clara Bear, and blind fools deserve whatever comes to
them.”
Clara
wondered if her mom had ever been in love. From the sound of it, Clara thought
probably not. She knew her own dad was nothing more than a handsome face
passing through town; her mom had said as much herself.
Clara
resituated herself on the bench of the lunch table. The sound of squeaky soles
on the polished floor behind her drew her attention away from her book. Pushing
her glasses up on the bridge of her nose, she looked over her shoulder at the
cafeteria entrance. Patrick was heading her way.
“Hey,”
he said, stopping at the end of the cafeteria table.
“Um…hey.”
Clara smiled dumbly, her eyes darting to her beat-up lunch pail, the same Care
Bears one she’d been forced to use since elementary school. She shoved it into
her backpack.
“You
working on Mrs. Larson’s homework already?” He hoisted his backpack up onto his
shoulder and pointed to the open book lying on the table in front of Clara.
“Oh”—she
held up the book of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales—“yeah. Just trying to
get a head start on the book report.” Although it was partially true, she
really loved fairy tales, even if these versions were darker than the ones she
was familiar with.
Patrick
smirked. “We still have, like, three weeks.”
Clara
shrugged. She refused to tell him she had nothing else to do. “I think I might
be going on vacation next week,” she lied. “I don’t want to fall behind.” Clara
couldn’t bear for Patrick, the boy of her dreams, her very own Prince
Charming—even if he didn’t know it yet—to learn how boring and lonely she was.
“Have you started yet?”
He
shook his head, his smirk turning into a smile. His eyes flicked down to her
book. “Any of it any good?”
Clara
couldn’t hold back the grin that engulfed her face. “The one I’m reading now is
pretty good,” she said, not wanting to go so far as to admit she was enthralled
with The Little Mermaid. “But I love fairy tales, so…”
Patrick
eyed her for a moment, then took a step closer. “Cool. Maybe there’ll be a
story in there that I’ll like.”
Clara
wondered why he’d stopped to talk to her, but didn’t have the guts to ask.
“Maybe.”
“So…where
are you going on vacation?”
“Oh,
umm, I’m not sure…somewhere with my mom’s boyfriend, I think.”
Snickering
and cackling broke into the stillness of the cafeteria behind her, and Clara
and Patrick both started. Her heart began to race. No. Please,
she silently begged. Not now…
Patrick
peered over her head, his eyes narrowing. “What’s so funny?”
Clara
squeezed her eyes shut, wishing Joanna Rossi, with her long black hair and
crystal blue eyes, would just disappear already…forever. She was the most
horrid girl at school and seemed to love torturing Clara more than anything
else.
“She’s
not going on vacation,” Joanna spat. “She’s such a liar.” Her voice grew
closer with the sound of each footstep until she finally stepped around the
lunch table and planted herself beside Patrick. She looped her arm through his,
and her friends strutted up to the other end of the table to watch, like
perched vultures waiting to pick away at what was left of Clara once Joanna was
finished.
Why
didn’t Patrick push Joanna away? Why wouldn’t he at least pull his arm out of
hers? They weren’t together,
were they?
Joanna’s
eyes zeroed in on Clara. “You’re so pathetic. We all know your mom
can’t afford to take you anywhere. She can’t even buy you new shoes.” Dropping
Patrick’s arm, Joanna took a step forward and leaned down on the lunch table.
“My mom said your mom sucked all the men in Bristow dry, so unless
you’re moving somewhere else so she can find new rich men to suck dry,
you’re full of crap.”
After
another wave of boisterous laughter from her friends at the opposite end of the
table, Joanna curled her lip and reached for Clara’s backpack. “Have you ever
even gone
on a vacation before?” As if she were holding a slimy worm, Joanna took the
open flap of Clara’s pack between her fingers, pinky raised in disgust as she
inspected the ratty state of the bag. Letting go, she wiped her hand on her
pants.
“Yes,
I have.” Clara snatched her backpack away from the evil witch, her skin flush
as she scrambled to zip it up.
“Liar,”
Joanna muttered.
Before
Clara’s eyes began to blur with unshed tears, she grabbed her book, hugging it
against her chest and left the remnants of her lunch on the table. “You’ll eat
your words when I’m not here next week!” she screeched before running out of
the cafeteria, down the hall, and into the bathroom, slamming the door shut
behind her.
The
bathroom smelled of mold, soggy paper towels, and toilet water, but Clara
didn’t mind. She couldn’t bear seeing Patrick again, not after he’d witnessed
her utter humiliation.
Clara’s
hands began shaking as her anger and embarrassment combined, resulting in the
tears streaking down her cheeks. No one made her cry—not her mom,
not her mom’s horrible boyfriends, not other students’ mean comments—and Clara hated
that Joanna, of all people, had been the one to provoke the sudden onslaught.
Her
horror quickly hardened into seething hatred. “Stupid bitch.”
But
deep down, Clara knew it wasn’t just Joanna she was angry at. This was her
mom’s fault. Bristow was one of the smallest cities in Oklahoma, so of course,
everyone would know how horrible her mom was. No matter what her mom told
herself and others, she wasn’t special or entitled to anything in any way—she
was pathetic, and she was dragging Clara down with her.
If
her mom had been normal, Clara knew she wouldn’t have to worry about stupid
girls like Joanna; they’d have nothing to hold over her. Clara knew that, even
though she was a little scrawny for her age and poor, she was pretty, or at
least, she thought she could be if she tried. All she needed was a different
past and newer clothes. If she had those things, she would be
the one laughing at the others, she would be the one tormenting Joanna.
As
Clara opened her book, she tilted it toward the dim, florescent light and began
reading. With each word of hope, love, and happily ever after, she swore to
herself that she would never ever be the butt of anyone’s jokes
again. Ever.
And
she’d do whatever was necessary to make sure of it.
