CHAPTER 35: 35-CAUSING JEALOUSY

Clementine:

"I’m pretty sure the idea of taking Troy as your lover doesn’t sound so great now."

I had been sitting alone under the apple tree, when I saw Yorick arrive. The cheating couple had already left, so I sat there comfortably, eating apples. I didn’t know how many I had finished so far.

I watched Yorick’s face. It looked like they’d had a bad fight. He had a split lip, blood running from his nose, and his cheek was all bruised.

"Oh, don’t look at me like that. He looks worse than me," Yorick said, trying to be funny.

"What do you want now, Yorick?" I asked, my tone dead. Just because he found out that the reason behind punishing me, and breaking up with me was based on a lie, didn’t mean it was okay with me too. He should’ve come to speak with me back when Troy had accused me of having sex with him.

That’s what I hated about everyone around me. Nobody ever came to talk to me. They just assumed things. They would listen to everyone else and believe it. Then they’d punish me. And once they found out it was a lie, they’d act like everything was normal, as if my emotions, my feelings, didn’t matter.

Just because I wouldn’t cry or explain how much I was hurting didn’t mean I wasn’t. But of course, everybody wanted me to act like a lady to cry because that’s the only way people claim they understand a woman’s emotions.

"I want to apologize," he said, making me scoff at him.

"Apologize for what, Yorick? For putting me through the worst year of my life?" I asked, sniffling back tears. I wouldn’t shed a tear for this fucking loser of an alpha.

I’d been through worse shit than these little boys torturing me. But yeah, I must admit, it still hurt a lot.

"I understand, and I don’t even know how to apologize," he said, one leg propped on a rock, bent slightly forward, resting his elbow on his thigh, his other hand hanging loose in his pants pocket.

"Will you please help me know how I can make things right?" he asked, using a very gentle and sweet tone.

I didn’t even remember the last time he had spoken to me like that.

"Yorick, just because everything’s now cleared up doesn’t mean everything is all right. Back then, you hated me because you thought I cheated on you. And then you punished me. Put me through the worst shit. So I started hating you. And now that I find out your anger wasn’t even justified? I despise you."

The way I said it, no shaking voice, no tears, I saw the hurt on his face. It probably told him I wasn’t moved at all. That I wasn’t mourning our relationship. He wanted me to cry, so he could comfort himself with the idea that if only he had talked to me, our relationship might’ve survived.

I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. I would never give anyone that satisfaction. Clementine is not a name born to satisfy others. If someone does me wrong? Screw them. I don’t give a fuck about them.

"Did you ever love me?" he asked. I rolled my eyes, smiling sarcastically.

"No," I replied. His eyes dropped even lower.

"You’re right. I never loved you. You don’t have any quality to be loved. You got your answer. Now leave. I don’t want to see your face."

I got up and tried to walk away when he held my hand to stop me.

"Don’t fucking touch me."

I yanked my hand free, and he raised both his hands in surrender.

"At least let me make it up to you," he said.

But I walked ahead of him, not even turning around to look at him this time.

"We should sleep. We have a lot to do in the morning," I said, reaching our main ground where the traps were placed.

Troy was still sitting there, and like Yorick had said, he was also pretty bruised.

The moment he saw me, he lifted his head but didn’t say anything. He had already started the fire. He was sitting with his back against a tree, one knee raised, an elbow resting on it. One hand held a blade of grass, and with the other, he slowly split it down the middle.

I lay down, gave him my back, and closed my eyes. I heard Yorick come back. But I didn’t hear them speak. And just like that, the night passed.

We woke up to the rain wetting our faces. We rushed under the tree, rubbing our eyes to shed off the sleep. It was the fifth day, so we needed to make sure we got everything done if we wanted to get out of here in time.

"We should continue to make the net," I said sleepily.

"Yeah, we’ve already made two. We’ll need two more," Troy suggested, but I ignored him entirely.

"Should we do it here?" Yorick asked as he pointed at the big tree.

"Yeah, that’ll be a good place," I said, finally responding to one of them, and I guess Troy noticed, because he scoffed. I ignored him. I hated the alphas and their scoffing nature, always scoffing to get attention.

We grabbed the ropes that we had made and pulled them all under the table. We sat down and got to work, but this time we all sat together and started working on one net at a time. Since we weren’t talking and there was no conversation going on, we were able to finish one by the afternoon, and then around three, we finished all four of them.

"So now what?" Troy asked, but none of us responded.

"Guys, you do know that if we’re going to do it, we must do it the right way. And instead of beefing over past grudges, we should focus on the matter at hand, on the mission in hand." He had the nerve to be the one to lecture us, but while Yorick noted it, I still didn’t respond.

I knew we had already planned to play the whole lover’s part. I had to interact with him.

"If you want, you can just switch him," Yorick said almost in a whisper when Troy walked away with one of the traps to set it around us.

"Switch what?" I asked Yorick, holding the other net with him.

"Him. You can switch him to me. I can play the lover, we’ve already been in a relationship once, so it won’t be that awkward," he uttered, looking me straight in the eye and saying those words with a confident face.

"No, thank you," I replied. And the way he looked so upset was so satisfying.

We started placing the traps around.

It was the kind of trap where a net lies hidden in the grass, tied to a rope pulled tight by a bent tree. Once triggered, the branch would snap back and toss the net over whoever stepped on it, wrapping them up before they could even react. And then it was time for us to go and play the whole lover’s part. We didn’t start it here, in the trap area. Yorick was supposed to stay back and keep an eye on it, while Troy and I had to walk around and be seen together by the Faun at a few places.

"Good luck, guys," Yorick voiced, and his tone wasn’t very confident. I guess he didn’t like the idea that I was going with Troy, or maybe he was just confused why I was still going with Troy.

So we started walking together.

"We should hold hands," Troy suggested.

I just stayed silent, dragging my lifeless body. That’s when he steadily held my hand, and I noticed how warm his hands were.

"You know, we have to act right," he stated.

I groaned, tightening my hand around his because we had to do it. We walked around quite a few times but didn’t come across the Faun. At this point, my hands were getting sweaty, and I wanted to let go. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go of my hand. I didn’t understand what the fuck was wrong with him. He had just admitted last night that he sabotaged my relationship and pretty much scarred my reputation as a cheater among everyone, yet he still wanted to hold hands with me.

We finally found the Faun. He was walking with his flute, not playing it yet, quite far ahead of us, opposite to where we were. So we knew we had to somehow get his attention. I guess Troy already had a plan, because before I knew it, he hugged me from behind and started kissing me all over my cheek. It came out of nowhere, so my body froze, my eyes widened, and then he took such a big smooch on my cheek that I watched the Faun stop and steadily turn to look at us. And the gaze he gave us sent goosebumps across my skin.