The Ending Beginnings: Clara (An Ending Series Novella) (The Ending Series) Read online

  “Why do you hate her so much, anyway?” Taylor asked, flattening a napkin in her lap. “It’s like you become someone else when you see her. It’s—it’s sorta creepy.”

  Clara’s eyes shifted from Joanna to Taylor. “Gee, thanks.”

  Her friend was a round-faced little thing with blonde, wavy hair, brown eyes, and nothing particularly notable about her; in fact, Taylor was even a little boring. But she was loyal and predictable, two traits Clara found immensely valuable.

  “Well, it’s true. Why can’t we, just for once, take the higher road and leave instead of causing trouble? It’s like you like arguing with her or something. What did she do to you?”

  “Are you serious, Tay? How can you not see what a conniving skank she is? She’s always watching, always plotting and planning…” Clara’s eyes shot to Joanna, and it gave her immense satisfaction to see Joanna fidget under the weight of her stare. “She’s made my life a living hell since I was in elementary school. I’m finally on top; why would I back down now? I won’t let her win.”

  “But it’s not a game,” Taylor nearly shrieked. “Look, I know you guys have a past, and I know you have plenty of reasons to hate her, you tell me as much all the time, even if you don’t tell me exactly what they are…but don’t you think you go a little over the top sometimes? I mean, look at how excited you get when she’s around. I don’t—”

  “You don’t what?” Clara narrowed her eyes at her best friend.

  Taylor frowned. “I’m worried about you, that’s all.”

  Clara’s glare softened, and a smile curved her lips. “Sorry, Tay. I just…remember how Joanna treated you when you first got here? The way she made fun of you in front of the entire school during your choir performance? I took you in as my friend because no one should be treated the way Joanna treats people.” Clara looked at Joanna, who was tossing her hair over her shoulder and batting her eyes at the boy sitting across the table from her. Clara grinned inwardly, excited by the prospect of another challenge.

  Taylor cleared her throat, recapturing Clara’s attention. “See what I mean?” Taylor said, clasping her hands together and resting them on the Formica tabletop. “You’re not even paying attention to me, not really.”

  Clara tilted her head to the side and let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m doing all of this for you as much as I’m doing it for me.” She shook her head and lifted her shoulder. “Joanna needs to be put in her place, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure she feels uneasy around me, just like I felt around her for so many years.”

  Taylor’s brow furrowed. “You—”

  “Besides, aside from stealing a few of her boyfriends, I haven’t actually done anything to her since freshman year.” She patted Taylor’s clasped hands. “I know you don’t like confrontation or whatever, but don’t you think there are times when standing your ground is more important than running away? She’s a bully and deserves to be knocked down a peg or two.”

  Taylor bit her lower lip, a sure sign that she was coming around. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s just…you get sort of…scary.”

  Clara laughed. “It’s just my war face, dummy. Come on, let’s order something with way too many calories, and then we can grab Slurpees and watch the guys at the skate park fall on their asses.”

  A tentative smile spread across Taylor’s face, exposing the gap between her front teeth. Apparently content with the idea of fatty food and boys, she scanned the menu. When the waiter approached, Taylor ordered a strawberry milkshake and a cheeseburger with extra cheese, and Clara couldn’t help it as her eyes skimmed over Taylor’s frumpy clothes and curvy-on-the-cusp-of-chubby body.

  “I’ll just have a Greek salad and a cup of minestrone soup,” Clara said, handing the waiter her menu.

  Taylor straightened. “I thought we were ordering food with far too many calories?”

  Clara shrugged. “I lost my appetite,” she said absently, watching as Joanna and the boy got up from their table and headed toward the exit—toward Clara and Taylor’s booth.

  Although Joanna was clearly avoiding making eye contact, Clara couldn’t help herself. “Hey, Joanna.” She nodded toward the tall, blond guy walking next to her. “Who’s your friend? Are you going to introduce us?”

  The boy’s phone rang, and he pulled his cell from his pocket and continued outside while Joanna stopped at the end of Clara’s table.

  Clara grinned shamelessly. “You know, you might as well…”

  Joanna’s crystal blue eyes fixed on Clara, and her lips pulled into a satisfied grin. “The fact that you have to steal my boyfriends instead of finding your own is a joke, Clara.” She watched Clara, waiting for her reaction, but Clara had spent years perfecting her Joanna game face, so she simply sat there, looking bored. “Of course, you wouldn’t care.” Joanna smirked. “Like mother, like daughter, only…you’re crazy and she’s just a stupid whore.”

  Clara jumped up from her seat, shoving her index finger at Joanna’s chest. “Shut your mouth! We are nothing alike!” Realizing she’d made a bigger scene than she’d intended, Clara swallowed and glanced around at the handful of other deli patrons before narrowing her eyes back on Joanna. “You’re such a bitch. You think being mean to people makes you cool? Makes you popular? Well, how does it feel to be the one the rumors spread about now? You’re nobody. You’re old news. Just remember who did that to you.”

  To Clara’s relief, Joanna seemed more than affected by her words; her nemesis’s eyes even blurred a little. “I was a kid.” Joanna said, her voice incredulous. “When was the last time I did anything to you?”

  Clara laughed. “Oh, poor Joanna’s so innocent. Yeah. Right. Watch your back, Joanna, because payback’s a bitch.” Clara crossed her arms over her chest, staring Joanna down and loving the thrill of watching her squirm.

  Finally, Joanna let out a deep breath and turned on her heel, heading out the door. Clara smiled triumphantly and turned back toward the booth only to find that, at some point during the altercation, Taylor had left, as well.

  Beatrice, a woman Clara didn’t really know and didn’t care to, coughed beside her at the table. The pallid, red-haired woman was halfway finished with her meal when she stood and headed for the juice counter. Glancing around the more-empty-than-usual cafeteria, Clara leaned over and scraped most of her breakfast onto Beatrice’s plate, hearing Beth start giggling as she watched.

  “Beth,” Roberta said.

  Clara straightened, and her attention snapped forward again.

  Roberta walked over to Beth’s table. “You seem to be enjoying your breakfast this morning.” She studied the giggling woman. “What’s so funny?”

  Beth looked at Clara and then back down at her tray of food, sending Clara’s heart into a steady thud. Roberta in a bad mood wasn’t something she felt up to dealing with today.

  “Um, Clara told Alicia off in group yesterday,” Beth said with another giggle. “You should’ve seen Alicia’s face…I—I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so shocked before.”

  “Really?” Roberta glanced over at Clara and smirked. “Sorry I missed it.” She patted Beth on the shoulder and continued her rounds around the room.

  As Roberta stepped further and further away from her table, Clara’s heartbeat slowed, and she smiled at Beth. After giving her a grateful wink, Clara pushed around the last bit of food on her plate, making it look like she’d at least made as sizeable dent.

  4

  “What’s wrong, munchkin?” Clara asked as she plopped down beside Beth on the red sofa. The instant she did, she regretted it. Her head was pounding, and she was short of breath. The afternoon light filtering in through the windows throughout the rec room was too bright, and the smell of cleaning supplies was too pungent. “I feel like shit,” she grumbled, leaning her head back against the overstuffed couch with a groan.

  “I don’t feel good, either,” Beth breathed as she wrapped herself up in a brown, fleece blanket.

  Cl
ara’s head lulled to the left so she could see the other woman better.

  Beth’s face was flushed, her bangs were matted to her temples, and her skin looked slick with sweat.

  “Did you go see Nurse Hadly?” Clara asked. She would generally brush Beth’s health concerns away, but she could tell Beth really was sick, and Clara was feeling especially ill herself.

  Beth’s rumpled hair swished against the back of the sofa as she nodded. “The door was locked, and the light was out. I think she’s off today.”

  “Do you want me to get you some water or something?”

  With a slow shake of her head, Beth said, “No, thank you. I just want to sit here and stay warm.”

  Clara shrugged and reached for the TV remote, propping her feet up on the battered oak coffee table.

  Beth pulled a book out from under her blanket. Its bright blue cover caught Clara’s eye, and she raised her eyebrows as a spurt of excitement overshadowed her headache…a little. “You like fairy tales, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Beth said. “Well, actually I’ve never read any of them, not the real ones, but my grandma sent me this book last week.” Her fingers traced the gilt-embossed canvas cover. “She said she saw it and thought of me since I loved Disney movies so much when I was a little girl.”

  Opening the book to the first story, Beth cleared her throat and began whispering as she read the opening lines of The Ugly Duckling. She barely made it through two sentences before she started coughing.

  Clara snatched the book out of her hands. “I’ll read it to you.”

  “Oh, um…thanks,” Beth whispered. She rested her head against the sofa cushion, letting out a deep sigh as her eyes flitted closed.

  Tugging at Beth’s blanket, Clara pulled a portion of it over her own shivering body and settled in to read. She hadn’t thought about fairy tales since that night—the night she’d lost her prince. The memory was still too painful and infuriating, but secretly, Clara still yearned to prove her theory right. She wanted to prove that there was still truth to the stories everyone thought were mere fairytales.

  After a few minutes of reading, Clara quickly fell back into an eager, fluid rhythm. Her voice became lighter, her thoughts less dismal.

  “‘Ah, you ugly creature, I wish the cat would get you,” and his mother said she wished he had never been born. The ducks pecked him, the chickens beat him, and the girl who fed the poultry kicked him with her feet. So at last he ran away…’” Clara twirled her long ponytail around her finger, the anthology propped up on her lap as she flipped through, enthralled. She could feel Beth’s toes wiggling beneath the blanket as she listened, coughing every so often.

  “That’s really annoying,” Clara said, looking at Beth and trying to school her growing aggravation.

  Beth wore an injured look. “Sorry,” she said quietly.

  Clara felt bad for the little thing. “Are you sure you don’t want to go lie down? You should probably get some sleep or something.”

  Beth shook her head. “Not yet. I like the way you read…the way you do the voices.” A small smile tugged at her mouth. “I’ll wait until you’re finished.”

  Clara was happy to hear that. She didn’t want to stop reading now, not when they were about to get to the good part; the part where the duckling became the envy of everyone who’d ever mistreated him.

  “Have you read this story before?” Beth asked. “You seem to like it a lot.”

  Clara nodded. “Fairy tales are like my bible,” she admitted.

  “What do you mean?” Beth started biting her pinky nail, coughing on her hand as she chewed instead of covering her mouth.

  Clara shivered. “Stop it,” she said and swatted Beth’s hand out of her mouth. “Biting your nails isn’t an attractive quality. Do you think any of these princesses”—she held up the book of stories—“ever bit their fingernails?”

  Beth looked at the book in Clara’s lap, then up at Clara. “Well…probably not.”

  “And they always get the prince, right?”

  “Well, I suppose…”

  “Right, and do you know why?” Clara strummed her fingers on the book impatiently.

  Beth shook her head.

  “Because there are rules if you want to be a princess like them, Beth, or at least a modern day version of one, and biting your fingernails is against the rules.”

  “What do you mean, rules?”

  Clara sighed. “They’re more like steps, actually,” she said, exasperated. “There are rules to everything, but no one ever thinks to pay much attention to them.”

  “What are the rules?” Beth seemed enthralled, and Clara felt another spurt of enthusiasm.

  “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret of mine, and I don’t want people like Alicia finding out about my secrets. Do you understand?”

  Beth nodded emphatically, looking even more like a little girl than she usually did.

  “Well…you know how there are rules whenever you’re playing a game? Like, you have to take certain steps to achieve your goal and win the game?”

  Beth nodded again.

  “It’s the same thing in life. Not everyone is born with everything they want, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight for it.” Clara pointed to the book. “If you’re the ugly duckling, you can overcome that, but you have to work hard for it.” Clara thought about how hard work and determination had changed her life completely. She’d earned great grades in high school and taken the first scholarship she’d been offered to the University of Colorado in Boulder, finally leaving that hellhole in Oklahoma. Taking that step for herself had helped her get away from her mom and Joanna. She’d given herself a fresh start. She’d done it for herself.

  “It breaks down like this: step one, the underdog can always come out on top.” Clara had proven that theory every time she’d stolen Joanna’s boyfriend. In the end, Clara’d had it all, and Joanna hadn’t been able to hold a candle to Clara’s popularity.

  “Rule two, there just has to be a transformation.”

  Beth’s eyes widened.

  “Like the ugly duckling,” Clara said.

  Beth sniffled. “But not everyone is a swan.”

  “Not naturally, no, but there are tons of ways to change that.”

  Beth cleared her throat. “Is that what you did?”

  Clara tried not to be offended by Beth’s ignorance. “I had issues in elementary and middle school, and embracing the underlying messages of these stories made everything easier for me.”

  “Really?”

  Clara nodded. “Think about it. Who do you think wrote these?” She waved Beth’s impending answer away as the woman glanced down at Hans Christian Andersen’s name, written in gold script on the cover. “Yeah, Hans did, but he didn’t just make these up. The ideas had to stem from somewhere. I’m sure he had a little sister who was picked on or saw a little orphan girl on the streets back in the day and wrote about her in a way everyone could relate to. These stories were originally social commentaries, his observations of the world around him. He just wrote them in a way people would want to read them. It’s like subliminal messaging, and most people are too stupid to get it.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “For instance,” Clara continued. “What’s to stop someone from getting a makeover or moving somewhere new to start over, to be someone else? What’s to stop them from recreating themselves to become the swan? To become the princess?”

  “But”—Beth shook her head—“shouldn’t people just be content with who they are?”

  Clara glared at her. “Not unless you want to be pathetic your whole life, and you want people like Alicia to pick on you all the time.”

  “Did someone pick on you when you were in elementary school?”

  “Of course! Kids are horrible. Especially the rich, pretty ones. But there are things you can do to make things right, to turn them around. Nothing’s set in stone, Beth. Everything changes, the hierarchy in high school, your sheets,
the government, a giant piece of glass can be broken into tiny shards…can you think of anything that never changes at all?”

  Beth frowned and shook her head.

  “Exactly. So popularity and social status…all of that can change, too. Buy a nicer car, and people will automatically see you differently. It’s easy to make things better for yourself.”

  “What did you do to make things better for you?”

  Clara let out a harsh laugh. “Everything I could. I stole my mom’s clothes so I didn’t have to wear my old, ratty ones…and I watched countless videos of how to put on makeup and what to say to boys. I read books, studied movies, and memorized lines from my favorite romances…” Clara let out a deep breath.

  “Sounds like a lot of work.” Beth started coughing again.

  “Yeah, well if you don’t put in the work, you stay at the bottom and continue to get pushed around. People are lazy, and they simply accept their lot in life, something I refuse to do.”

  “Well, I think I’d like to try that when I get a little better.”

  “Yeah?” Clara nudged Beth with her elbow. “I’ll help you, and then we’ll show them all that you’re not the pushover they all think you are.”

  Beth smiled. “Maybe Alicia will start being nice to me.”

  Clara smirked. “Oh, she will.” Clara leaned over to set the book on the coffee table. Strangely, her time with Beth had helped her shake the growing sickness, and she felt invigorated.

  “What’s number three?” Beth asked, nestling down further under the blanket.

  “What?”

  “You said there were three rules.”

  Clara’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, there’s a third one…but it’s not as easily attained as the rest.”

  “Why? What is it?”

  Clara glared at Beth. “Something about the princess always getting the prince.” Her voice was cold.

  “Why doesn’t it work?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Clara spat. “It’s not like you have a prince you’re trying to catch.” Pushing the blanket off her legs, Clara stood up and walked over to the window beside the wall-mounted TV. She gazed down at the snow-covered grounds, enjoying how pristine and icy everything appeared. The tops of the hedges lining the drive were barely visible, and the birds were restricted to leafless branches as they played in the sunny afternoon.