Every Burden • •

[clark magdalene sheffield]

Clark didn’t know why she had bothered coming to the campus today. She often wondered why she bothered most days. Today, however, she had overslept and missed her morning lecture, and the class that afternoon was cancelled, swapped out for a recommended ‘study time’ as her professor had put it. Clark would not be one of the students hitting the books, or finding a quiet corner of the library to camp out in. She barely put the time in as it was. Communications was not for her, but she had pretty much picked a course from a hat and decided to do the bare minimum to get through each semester. Classes were skipped when she was hungover or woke up on the other side of the city, and she occasionally missed deadlines on purpose when the work just seemed like too much effort. Her mind just wasn’t on the course, it never had been, and she doubted it ever would be. Clark didn’t care though.

She found herself in the Atrium picking at a breakfast pastry she had picked up on her way in that day. It was dry, not at all tasty, but Clark still plucked at it and flicked the small chunks between her red painted lips. Her legs moved aimlessly. Clark didn’t have a destination in mind and there was nowhere she had to be. She took slow, meaningless steps, sighing every few as she wondered why she had even bothered coming out this morning. It was probably so she didn’t spend another day staring at the lonely piano in her apartment. She hadn’t lifted the lid on the keys in a few weeks, despite the itch in her own fingers. It was just too painful to open herself up to that again as much as she wanted to pour her feelings out over her one talent again. It was too tempting to stay at home, knowing that if she pressed down on just one ivory key she would unleash a whole well of pain that she was trying desperately to ignore. She was burying it all behind an ’I don’t care’ attitude and a Communications course she hated.

Clark finally took a seat on one of the large couches intended for group socialising. She didn’t plan on talking to anyone, or even acknowledging anyone else. She finished off the remainder of the pastry and pulled a bottle of water from her bag, sipping at it before capping it again and laying back on the couch. It was going to be a waste of a day, but there were few places Clark could go without getting angry or upset these days. It was complicated and she didn’t want to tell people why she was the way she was. She wasn’t going to give them a reason to go to Google and see all the bias there. No, she’d rather be a bitter, bitchy blonde who people chose to avoid rather than have anyone try to sympathise with her or offer some kind of support. She didn’t need that. She just needed to be left alone.

• • •

TAGGED! Liam Benjamin Argent
WORDS! 518!
OUTFIT!  Heartbroken Honey!
LYRICS! Awake My Love - - - I Am They
NOTES! I had no idea how this would end up! xD <3

[Liam Benjamin Argent]

Liam knew his parents would have wished he'd stuck closer to home, got a college education online with tutors and one of them helping him out with everything but he would never really learn that way. It was hard enough in school being the only one who needed a little extra help, who basically needed to do his homework for him. But Liam was not about to let his parents believe he was helpless. He wasn't and the only way to prove that was to leave. His parents didn't have anything to worry about anyway. He had Charlie, Poppy and the rest from the island to help him out get from point A to point B when he didn't know the route quite so well yet. Liam knew he would never live on his own, it just wouldn't be possible but he could do the basic day-to-day things. He could shop, though he had to go into the shops and ask for assistance so he didn't accidentally pick up a lemon when he was there for an orange; even though the textures, sizes and shapes were completely different. Liam had developed his friends in places and they helped him when they saw him walk through the door. It was nice and Liam appreciated it a lot.

He could go through his life fairly easily without anyone actually realising anything was different or off about Liam. His eyes appeared normal, though the one did have an odd scratch across it that was only obvious if you really looked; and no one did. He wore his sunglasses pretty much everywhere but not always indoors and he tried not to wear them in the buildings at the school; though it apparently didn't draw as much attention as Liam had been concerned about. The teachers in his classes and his fellow classmates just thought he'd gone on an all-night tear through the city and showed up to class hungover. His teachers knew because they had to know, they needed to have his voice recorder right up there with them, or if he wasn't there because he had another appointment or because well, there were plenty of reasons and Liam didn't want to think about any of them.

The whole point of going to school was to become more independent and so far, he'd been doing a decent job of it, but he still had such a long road ahead of him. Poppy helped him get to the school because she had a class, too but his wasn't until later so she left him to do his own thing in the atrium until she messaged him. They had a good system in place, even if it had taken a while to figure it out! Liam walked in the direction he knew there was a couch and ran his hand across part of the back and down the arm to feel if anyone was around. When it all felt cold, he took a seat and sat back like he needed to rest his eyes. One ear bud was in so he could hear any text messages that came in, prepared for his sister's message. He didn't think there was much time left before he had to head up to the class but until he got her message, he would continue to sit there, looking like just another kid.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || clark magdalene sheffield
Words || 562
Clothes || Badass Babe
Music || Hometown --Kane Brown
Notes || <3

[clark magdalene sheffield]

Clark wasn’t stupid. Her mother often treated her like she was, reminding her that it was about time she screwed her head on and stopped being such a dreamer. Sure, and by doing that she could guarantee misery for the rest of her life. Really, there was no reason Clark should be at NYU. It wasn’t for her. She wasn’t an academic kid. She was an artist. Currently, she was just scared of all that and thought that hiding in a course she didn’t give a damn about, and burying herself in the anger that burnt away inside of her would be better than facing up to it. She was young and everything about the world was so big and scary that when it turned against her she didn’t know how to fight back against an army when she was just one girl with a guitar. Nothing could have prepared her for that.

Could anyone really be prepared for it? Clark doubted it. The people who had been holding her hand were the very folk who had turned against her. After that the followers did what they did best and followed, and then it was only a matter of time before the media and the armies of groupies tore her apart. She had no one in her corner, and no way to fight back. Even her music hadn’t been able to save her, and Clark had felt stripped bare and left out for the wolves to rip to shreds. She was broken, cold, and empty inside. Nothing felt like it could bring her happiness again, and in all honesty she just wanted to give up on the dreams that had caused her so much pain. Clark thought that spending the rest of her life doing something that bored her to tears had to be better than risking another devastating heartbreak again. She didn’t think she could survive another blow like that.

Others might be more optimistic, tell her it might never happen again. Those people weren’t there the first time, and it was for that reason that Clark chose not to share her tale with the world. There was enough out there in the shadowy recesses of the internet, and in the folded pages of old magazines that were choke full of gossip and lies. Keeping to herself was easy when she had inherited her mother’s cold expressions and simple glare. She stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell she was going to do with the rest of her wasted day when she felt the cushion behind her head sink low. Accompanying it was a pull at some of her long locks of blonde. She wriggled, but realised that whoever had sat down had taken a seat on her hair! Clark twisted as much as she could without pulling and hurting herself, and hit the legs of the stranger as she shouted. “Oi! Hey! Hi! My hair isn’t part of the couch, mate!” She couldn’t see enough to notice any of the tell-tale signs that the guy was in any way visually impaired, and right then all Clark wanted was for her scalp to be released from captivity.

• • •

TAGGED! Liam Benjamin Argent
WORDS! 532!
OUTFIT!  Heartbroken Honey!
LYRICS! Awake My Love - - - I Am They
NOTES! <3

[Liam Benjamin Argent]

It had been a long road to recovery for the younger Liam. But it had also been a journey he'd been determined to take. He wanted to be more than his new affliction. There were days of course, like anyone else who was recovering, where he hated everything from the darkness to the noises he couldn't identify immediately; which was all of them. He hadn't recognised anything, barely even his own mother's voice! It got better, obviously and now the rest of his senses were just a bit sharper than they'd been. He thought all of that was just something out of the movies, though his senses were not nearly as heightened as Daredevil but it was still pretty cool; once he could see the brighter side of it all, anyway. Then he got the dog and he was allowed to wear the sunglasses in the classroom. Everyone thought he was so cool when he finally returned to class. He had help and no one complained when someone else wrote his homework for him because he couldn't see the paper. It was a bit of a pain in the ass and really embarrassing but since he went to school with the same kids pretty much his entire life, he was routine.

Moving to New York with his friends changed things of course. People asked more questions than his hometown, where literally everyone who'd known him back then, knew what had happened to him and the rest of his family. They'd walked away with only lasting nightmares of the trauma, Liam walked away with a fancy stick, a dog and the inability to see but the great ability to be able to tell how far away a person was to him just by the sounds of their footsteps. Hell, he'd even gotten so good before the move that he could even tell who it was and say hello before the other person opened their mouth. It was a bitch getting a job though, so he'd never gotten to have that experience and he might never see the woman he falls in love with, their children or even their grandchildren, he'll never drive a car nor will he ride a bike ever again but it was okay. He was okay at the end of it all and thankfully, he stayed out of trouble. Well, for the most part. Being on campus alone could become a little hairy but he was usually good and slipped away before anyone noticed the odd kid.

Liam's head snapped towards the pained voiced and a grimace spread over his lips. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realise." He said, moving further away from the voice though there really wasn't anywhere for him to go. He was embarrassed he'd done something so foolish but it was bound to happen. He was blind. He couldn't see where he was going, what he was doing or who could possibly be in his way. Liam wasn't going to say any of this either. It was usually better to let people vent about his mistakes and admit to it when they'd guessed correctly. Telling people always led to the same concern and pity. He couldn't see, it wasn't the end of the god damn world. The questions bothered him the most about it all though. He got the curiousness of children but grown adults shouldn't be busting out with intrusive questions. Had he been blind all his life, had he been born blind? It was the same question in different forms and the answer to both was no. That's when the surprise came into their shocked little "oh's" and their "I'm so sorry's"; as if they had any part in the accident that had caused his condition. The chances of any of them actually having been in that area of Michigan was exceptionally slim though he also wasn't willing to do the math; he hated math.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || clark magdalene sheffield
Words || 653
Clothes || Badass Babe
Music || Hometown --Kane Brown
Notes || <3

[clark magdalene sheffield]

Clark refused to be the whiny child her mother perceived her to be. Alana Munro thought her daughter had been wasting her time playing foolish games, squandering chances and wishing on shooting stars. Rather than celebrate those moments of glorious achievements Alana simply reminded Clark that stars burn out eventually, returning to the dust of the cosmos. She had never been one for encouraging her daughter’s talents. She only saw strength in hard work and a business pay out. She was a bulldog in a designer dress, and Clark knew the people who worked with and for her hated her for it. Clark might have looked like her mother, but never in a million years did she want to turn out like her. It was just far too easy to take her advice when the castle in the sky had crumbled. Clark had been left with no archers on her battlements, no cavalry to defend her gate. She was a queen without a crown and her banners were burning as she surrendered to all her mother had ever wanted for her. Coincidentally, it was the opposite that Clark had wanted for herself, and so the once loved princess turned into something closer to a wicked queen. Then again, the wicked queen was exactly how she had been painted, so why not embrace what the world already thought she was?

Giving in hurt. It hurt a hell of a lot. Waking up every day to live a life she loathed hurt more than Clark could put into words. She might have been able to put it into a song, but that was another life. She didn’t dare go back to that now. She did just enough to keep her place in college, not really giving a damn what came at the end of the semester. Her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t even know where the fragments of her shattered heart were. They could have turned back into cosmic dust for all she knew. Certainly there were plenty of days where she felt that hollow for it. People in her class ate up the topics, buzzed at group presentations and seemed to thrive, but for Clark the rest of the world existed in this dull haze, like a static cloud obscuring everything else around her. It was there, but it was never clear enough for her to enjoy. Every possible good moment was disturbed by that ‘bzzz’ or electrical snow.

Clark rubbed her scalp and sat back up once she was free from her peculiar cage. “Right, well, I don’t think you’ve left me with a bald patch.” She mumbled dryly. It was about as close as she got to making a joke these days. A dry wit inherited from her father when he was frustrated with the chaos of his whirlwind world. “Never wondered why girls rip out hair in a cat fight? Hurts like holy hell, that’s why.” She said, like it was some truth of life that everyone ought to know. Clark preferred to bring her knee up in any situation where she felt cornered. Everyone doubled over if they took a knee to the stomach. It winded them long enough for her to run off, or make the next move, depending on how she thought the odds were looking. Not that fate had been particularly kind in dealing the cards in her favour.

• • •

TAGGED! Liam Benjamin Argent
WORDS! 570!
OUTFIT!  Heartbroken Honey!
LYRICS! Awake My Love - - - I Am They
NOTES! <3