Ellie spent a long time glaring at Clarissa’s arm.
As she was about to say something, Clarissa cut her off. “I’m okay. I even informed you as soon as I got back here. You don’t need to worry so much. The only thing that’s troublesome for me is not being able to move my arm as much. But luckily, I can still use my other arm. See? I’m not crippled.”
“You-”
“I’m fine!” Clarissa interrupted Ellie again before smiling naturally at her.
Ellie let out a long sigh and took a seat.
“You sure your arm is fine? To be honest, I’m still a bit perturbed. How about this? I’ll arrange a meeting with an orthopedist at the hospital later,” suggested Ellie.
“That’s enough. There’s no need to get so worked up about this. Trust me, it’s only a bone fracture. It’s my arm so I would know,” assured Clarissa.
“No, you must listen to me,” Ellie insisted.
With no other choice, Clarissa was dragged by Ellie to the hospital. Damon also tagged along with them as they met up at the hospital. After seeing the head doctor of orthopedics, the vise that had been gripping their chests finally loosened a little as the doctor confirmed that Clarissa’s injury wasn’t severe.
“Are you two satisfied now? You guys are just overreacting.”
Peeved, Clarissa even blurted out profanities as she was being escorted by Damon and Ellie out of the hospital.
“We are not overreacting. The well-being of your arms and hands is of utmost importance for a writer as famous as you. So of course we would be more cautious,” Damon responded solemnly.
Ellie gave him a big thumbs up, agreeing with his statement.
Clarissa on the other hand, shook her head sullenly.
After that, the two of them sent Clarissa back to her apartment.
Damon drove off after arriving at the apartment while Ellie followed Clarissa up to her room to help her unpack her luggage.
Sitting on the bed, Clarissa watched as Ellie opened her wardrobe. There were a few men’s clothing hanging inside of it. Despite seeing that, the two of them were reticent about it.
“Clare, you can finally get some rest now and let your arm heal. You don’t need to bother with the crew anymore right? Just take it easy and forget about the crew for now. By the way, I’m moving in to live with you for the next few days so that it will be easier for me to take care of you. Oh, I almost forgot. I also had someone prepare bone soup for you to help with the recovery of your arm. And also…”
“Ellie, I can’t seem to contact Uncle Matthew.”
Before Ellie was done nagging, Clarissa interrupted her. Ellie was stunned in place after hearing what Clarissa said.
“Yesterday when I came back here, I gave him a call and even sent him a message, but he didn’t respond to either one. Do you have any idea where he is? Are you able to contact him?” Clarissa added on.
Livid, Ellie turned around and retorted, “Why are you trying to contact him? In moments like this you’re still thinking about him? Are you mad or something?”
Clarissa was awfully calm after being confronted by her.
“I’m trying to contact him so that I can officially break up with him,” Clarissa replied apathetically.
Ellie’s anger quickly deflated like a punctured balloon.
“If I really can’t get in touch with him, I’ll just break up with him through text. I’ve already sent a message telling him we should break up back when I was in the hospital,” said Clarissa.
Crouching on the ground, Ellie continued rummaging through Clarissa’s luggage only to find a few clothes in it.
After a while, she uttered, “He accompanied Shermaine to Moranta to get treatment. They took off yesterday and might still be very busy. That’s maybe why he didn’t reply to you.”
But there’s also a good chance that he simply didn’t want to reply to me, right?
Clarissa was talking to herself in her head.
“Was Shermaine’s injury serious? I was in a daze when it all happened, so I don’t exactly remember how badly hurt she was.”
Since she went to Moranta to get herself treated, her injury must’ve been quite serious.
“I don’t know much and I don’t intend to care. Anyway, she went straight to Moranta yesterday. That shameless woman also insisted Uncle Matt to accompany her. Even my Grandma, she-”
Ellie suddenly stopped halfway through her sentence.
“Nevermind, you don’t need to know about this. Since you’ve broken up with him now, there’s no need for you to care about it anymore.”
Yeah, you’re right. We’ve already broken up.
Clarissa pondered for a while and decided to leave her relationship with Matthew behind once and for all.
Although she didn’t break up with Matthew in person, she was glad it went like this instead.
Ellie helped Clarissa up from her bed and carefully assisted her to the bathroom. Upon closing the bathroom door, Clarissa’s phone, which was on top of her bed, suddenly rang.
Ellie took a look at it and saw that it was Matthew who was calling her.
She instinctively took Clarissa’s phone outside and answered it there.
After Clarissa got out of the bathroom, she saw that Ellie was packing her clothes back into her luggage.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Now that you’ve broken up with him, you shouldn’t live here anymore. I know you’ll be too shy to live with me so I’ve found you another apartment to live in through Damon’s help. The apartment is already ready for you to move in. Since you don’t have many belongings here, we should take all of them there now.”
Clarissa paused for two seconds before smiling at Ellie. Surprisingly, she didn’t deplore Ellie’s proposal.
“Okay.”
The two of them quickly left. In the meantime, Damon was waiting for them at the new apartment he found.
Damon didn’t pry into the reason why Clarissa suddenly wanted to move to another place. As her stalwart friend, he only did what he was asked and found her a nice place to live in. Damon also ordered takeaways for the three of them at the new apartment.
Since Clarissa couldn’t drink alcohol yet, she could only watch as Damon and Ellie drank their alcohol. She also listened in on their conversation about the daft things they did when they were young.
Time flew by quickly and it was already late at night. After Clarissa fell asleep, Damon and Ellie exited the apartment and went downstairs.
“Don’t bother asking. She just broke up and is still a bit shaken by it. We should find attractions that are fun and bring her there, okay?” suggested Ellie.
“Okay.” Damon nodded in agreement.
“Right, then I’ll leave the arrangements to you. And by the way, don’t mention Shermaine in front of us, got it?” reminded Ellie.
Damon let out a short sigh. “I’m fully aware that you dislike her, so of course I won’t mention her. Aren’t you the one who is bringing her up right now? Not to mention, Shermaine is part of my uncle’s family.”
“Humph, as long as you get my point. And also, don’t tell anyone about Clare’s whereabouts. If anyone asks you about it, pretend that you don’t know, understand?” instructed Ellie.
“Who would possibly ask me about it?”
Ellie didn’t bother explaining to Damon.
After a few days had passed, Clarissa was taken outside by Ellie and Damon to have fun even though her arm was still an inconvenience. That being said, her two friends compensated for that by helping her with basically everything. Clarissa was actually quite pleased being spoiled by them.
The only weird thing was that her phone hadn’t rung at all.
Clarissa inspected her phone to find out whether it was working properly or not. After seeing that it was in fact functioning properly, she came to the conclusion that there just weren’t many people who cared about her.
A month later, Ellie and Damon, together with Clarissa, came back from overseas and went straight to the hospital.
Clarissa’s arm was finally free from the splint that was binding it for so long.
As she was shaking her hand, the doctor smiled and advised her, “Although your hand is fine now, you shouldn’t be too reckless with it.”
“Yeah, you better be careful with your arm. You’ll have to drink more bone soup if you fracture it again.”
Clarissa responded while pouting, “Bone soup again? I’ve already suffered for a whole month drinking bone soup after every meal I ate. Didn’t you notice that I got fatter? I’ll vomit if I drink anymore.”
As the three of them were walking toward the exit, Damon joked around and said, “Actually, maybe we should change it to stewed trotter next.”
Clarissa gave him a minatory look, “Damon, you’re tired of living, huh?”
She seemed like she was about to clobber him up. Damon hurriedly ran away from her while Ellie was holding Clarissa back and laughing at the same time.
The three of them looked very happy and carefree.
This was what young people should act like.
Sitting in his car, Matthew was observing them from a distance with a cigarette in hand. He narrowed his black eyes to look closely at Clare’s bright smile which he hadn’t seen for quite a while now.
His hand flinched as the cigarette’s stub burned his skin.
After he stubbed out the cigarette, Clare had already left in a car.
“Mr. Tyson?”
Having not yet received any indications from Matthew, the driver reminded him.
“Let’s go,” Matthew answered.
Matthew bumped into Clarissa back at the airport and had been tailing her up until now.
As to why was Clarissa’s arm injured, he had no idea. Since he couldn’t contact her for a whole month, he also didn’t know how long she was injured.
The one thing that he knew was that Ellie was the one hindering him from contacting Clarissa. That being said, he wasn’t sure if Clarissa was in cahoots with Ellie or not.
Night eventually came and Clarissa had personally prepared a feast for her buddies.
It was the first time that Damon ate something this delicious in his life.
“Clare, can you take care of me from now on? I’ll promise you anything that you want as long as you cook for me every day.”
In the past month, Damon realized that he was still in love with her. That was why he would sometimes tease her and it had actually turned into a habit of his. Even if his love was unrequited, they could still remain best friends. But ideally speaking, he would prefer dating her.
“You want Clare to be your personal chef? No, not on my watch.”
Ellie condemned his request.
Clarissa smiled and said, “Stop fooling around. If you want me to cook for you, you’ll have to wait till when I’m free. Now that my arm has recovered, I’ll be occupied with work again. I’ve had enough fun these past few weeks, so it’s time for me to focus and get back to work.”
“If you want to work so much, then go ahead.”
“But I’ll need to stop by the set of Princess first,” Clarissa stated.
“That place again?”
“Yeah.” Clarissa nodded.
“I managed to find the time to contact Director Yates. He told me that I could go there anytime I want after my recovery.”
As Clarissa mentioned Justin, Ellie was fraught with a sense of guilt, but she bravely took the initiative to admit her mistake.
“You already knew that I messed with your phone, right? However, I don’t have any bad intentions. I told your friends that your arm got hurt and that you needed some rest. They didn’t have anything particularly urgent to inform you about. I’ve also sorted out everything with Mr. Justin. He didn’t seem to have anything important to tell you either.”
Although Ellie didn’t bring up the part about Matthew’s phone call, Clarissa was probably aware of it.
