²⁵emeric chagnon

                                    

                                          
clementine
                          
With people I care of, I never want to leave things off on a bad note.
                          
If ever we're in a disagreement, I'll find a way to agree to disagree, or simply stand my ground but respect the other's opinion. If it's in the matter of who was wronged, it's useful to remind yourself that if you both care for each other, you wouldn't hurt the other-let go of your pride, apologise.
                          
I was a stubborn little girl with a furrow in her brow, and still to this day, a heart that held a grudge. In my mind was a list of things anyone had ever done wrong towards me, that way I could carefully choose which ones deserve a cold shoulder and which ones I could forgive.
                          
I was that way until I was ten when I'd cut off my best friend of two years and started to isolate. My mother approached me and told me what I was doing wasn't the best. Though I was ten and could not understand all the technical terms she used, she told me this was my way of coping and that it wasn't sustainable if I wanted to live happily.
                          
She's a straight forward woman who never beat around the bush. If she felt something needed to be said, she said it - she's a woman of logical thinking, the cogs in her mind turning as if they've always been shiny and new.
                          
So, under her eye, I learnt to stop counting all the wrongdoings and started apologising. It took a lot of my pride and ego but when I look back at it now, I'm glad all I had to sacrifice was my pride and ego instead of people.
                          
I could face my fears, man up and confront Luke about what happened between us but I'm still much of a coward to do anything. All I could do was give him a kiss on the cheek and say that he could stay.
                          
Ever since I got into my cab, all that's been in my mind is Luke. Luke and his blue eyes. Luke and his pretty laugh. Luke and the way he looked at me. If Helene hadn't called, would he really have kissed me?
                          
My thoughts take up my time, and I don't notice it pass until the cab pulls up in front of Ackerman's Studios.
                          
I give the driver the needed fare and I get out, quickly hopping up the steps and shoving my keys into the keyhole.
                          
The studios are empty in the weekend and I admit, it's a little strange to see it so barren in the day, but at least I'll have the silence all to myself.
                          
Quickly, I make my way to the rack room, where we keep all the finished paintings that are waiting to be shipped or collected. It's a wide room filled with, you guessed it, racks. Paintings standing in the spaces, arranged by who had painted them.
                          
I make my way to my section and start to search for Mrs Richmar's requested painting.
                          
When I finally find it, I pull it out, revealing the four by five scene of a beach with a lighthouse from afar.
                          
I'd finished the painting over a month ago and it sat in the drying room for that long until about last week when I observed that it was fully dry.
                          
I carry the painting to the wrapping room, laying the painting over the table with brown paper spread all across it.
                          
As I start to gather the tape and scissors, my phone buzzes from my pocket and I take a second to step away and take the call. "Hello?" I say, not having read the caller name.
                          
"Hey, Clem," My youngest brother's familiar voice fills the space and my heart lightens and the sound of it.
                          
Every Saturday, my family and I take turns calling each other at around nine on my time and catch up. Last week, I was the one to call them, so that means that this Saturday, they are to call me.