"Niall! They're so deep," Clarity gasped. Niall hung his head again, nodding.

"I know."

"And your arm looks so... White."

"I know," he repeated again miserably.

"Did you know about this," she raised an eyebrow at Jessie. He shook his head, dumbfounded.

"Niall, you should come over after school," Clarity said as the bus pulled into the school's lot. "Meet me in the meadow." Niall nodded, and they went their separate ways off the bus.

---

"Okay, I'm here," Niall said as Clarity crossed the meadow to get to him. "What do you need?"

Niall was like a dog. Always alert, curious, and... Ahem.... Hungry.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry." Clarity sat down, crisscrossed legs, in front of Niall. Niall shook his head.

"No, I should be sorry. I didn't mean to say to go back to America, and I didn't know about all the stuff you went through there. You've gone through hell and back, and I'm still going INTO hell. You've got it much worse than I do, CeCe." Ah, so he was using her nickname again. They were cool again.

"Well, I don't have a skin disease, so consider yourself worthy of competition," she said and held out her hand. Niall shook it.

"May the odds be EVER in your favor," Clarity said. Niall looked at her confused. "Sorry, I forgot you Irish people don't... get the same movies as us Americans do." Niall nodded.

"Clarity... One day, I was going up the tree to your room to try to apologize, but you were asleep. When I got there, you were clutching this," Niall said and took the papers ( now a packet) with all the things people had said to her in the past out of his pocket. He unfolded it.

"What is this?"

Notes

Dun dun duuuun!!!