Chapter 159 - Promise To Myself

"Clara?"

All of a sudden, hearing the sudden tender voice behind her, she flinched hard. Quickly, glancing back by turning her neck around, she saw Eva was standing right behind the bench she was sitting in. 

She couldn't respond a single word and continued gawking at her, surging her pupils wider. She stayed numb, frowning her brows and looking a bit perplexed.

"Your name is...Clara, right?" Crossing her arms in the back, she walked a step closer to her holding a wide smile on her small lit-up face.

She didn't answer a single word and gulped her saliva, glowering her grimace at her. Many emotions were running down inside her heart. She was bewildered and confused since it's the very first time in the school, someone actually intended to call her by her name.

"Why aren't you saying something Clara?" 

"H...Huh?" She sounded startled.

"Well, we haven't properly introduced ourselves yet. I am Eva and...I really...want to be your friend, Clara." Scraping her neck making a modest face, she blurted out her remark in a bold voice staring deep down in her eyes.

"F-Friend?" She repeated being awe-struck at her sudden proclamation which was evident from her expression. Her remark was something extremely unexpected for her to process because, in that spiteful place, no one ever bothered to say those kind words to her before. 

"Yes, I want to be your friend, Clara. Can I?" Her eyes were shimmering in gleam while glancing at her holding that blissful smirk crafted on her puffy lips.

"Wh-What is a friend?" Frowning her eyebrows, she tossed out an ice-cold response gazing deeply at her. Such kind of question was kind of unexpected for Eva but she chose to answer her tenderly, walking closer to her beside the bench.

"Well, friends are someone whom we should never abandon. They stay with us through our good and bad times and they become our family. Clara, didn't you have a friend before?" She leaned her head while standing right next to her, asking curiously.

Lowering her head down holding that fazed look on her face, she shook her head horizontally stating her answer.

Her cold response somehow ached her soul, as she continued gawking at her in wonder. Not having someone by her side, facing all the cruelties alone but not giving up yet... this gallant act of hers' increased the respect several folds more that had bloomed in her heart for her.

"Then...can I be your first friend?" Fondly, she stretched out her arm towards her intending for a formal handshake. Clara raised her chin above from the ground and continued glancing deep down in her eyes, fidgeting anxiously.

.

THUUD!

All of a sudden, a soccer ball hit Clara straight on the temple part of her head making a loud noise. The attack was so sudden that for a moment, her vision blurred out and she started to feel dizzy. 

"Clara? Oh no!!" Eva quickly grasped her forearm tightly, as she looked like if she was about to fall down from the bench. 

.

"Hey, mutt! Pass the ball here!" 

Suddenly, a loud growl came straight from the field especially in the direction from which the ball flew towards her. Shifting her blazing eyes, Eva noticed that it was no one other than Travis who had intentionally attacked her with the ball. Travis and his fellow classmates were snorting among themselves making amused faces while Clara was caressing her forehead due to the sharp hit. Her face seemed to be in pain as she scrunched her eyebrows.

"Mutt, have you gone deaf? Pass the ball right now!" He called her out again, but his tone was sounding much tantalizing than earlier.

"Hey! Why did you attack her with the ball? She hit her head so hard with it!" Eva snapped fiercely standing at a distance, gritting her small jowls.

"We didn't attack her. We were just playing our game, newbie. And by the way... what are you even doing in the corner with that mutt? Come here and cheer for us." His brazen face had a cunning smirk while he mumbled those words to her. 

"This shitty brat..." Cursing him inside, she quickly turned her glance towards her looking terribly concerned about the hit. "Clara, are you alright? Should we go to the nurse's office?" She was asking deliberately.

"Mutt, are you trying to disobey me again? Are you provoking me?" This time, his angry vicious tone reverberated like an echo on the field as everyone was already glaring at Clara, intending to attack her at any moment. 

"This mutt, how dare she disobey our Class president? This mutt has forgotten its place. She needs a good beating actually! Yes... she needs a lesson to be taught! This newbie is also being too rude to Travis, what does she even think of herself? An angel? Humph!" Several mumbling and whispering started circulating among the other children after the loud growl from Travis which was vividly audible to Eva.

Slowly, Clara stood up from the bench, holding a painful expression in her cold eyes. They looked dark, stuffed in agony while she picked up the soccer ball from the ground flinching Eva, who was already staring at her.

"Clara... you don't have to do all this--"

"You humans... are...all same... Worst than animals..." Tossing a small sad smile she walked towards the field holding the ball in her tiny arms.

All those kids chortled with loud victorious grins as they succeeded in their motive to let her obey their command. 

Eva continued looking at her from behind as she kept walking ahead. That smile she had on her pale face was the saddest smile she ever saw in her life.

Clenching her fist in anger, she murmured to her own self, "not all people are bad, Clara. I will prove it to you. I will...definitely win your trust, no matter what. That's my promise to myself." 

.

Little did she knew at that time, she would end up as the major turning point in Clara's life.