Everlastingly Loving You - Chapter 61

Clarisse kept on smirking, it was as though she had a huge secret she was keeping from Sophia that she was all the more than happy to keep.

She didn’t say a single word. She knew something.

“Come on, speak,” Sophia urged once more.

“Naaaaaah, I shouldn’t tell you,” Clarisse refused.

Sophia pouted, “Oh come on, Claire, please.”

She wondered why she desperately wanted to know.

It took a bit of convincing before Clarisse came out with it.

“You’re in love.”

The words echoed in Sophia’s head.

‘You’re in love.’

‘You’re in love.’

‘You’re in love.’

She laughed madly at the possibility, barely sparing a thought that it was plausible in the first place.

Her? In love?

‘When pigs fly,’ she thought.

She dismissed the idea, ‘Clarisse was just drunk, she didn’t know what she was talking about.’

“Haha, very funny.”

“I don’t believe in love, Claire,” she said.

“I never have, never will,” she said next.

“You’re terrible at lying,” Clarisse said, wrinkling her forehead.

“I’m not lying,” Sophia denied.

Clarisse then said, “And you’re terrible at denying things too.”

“Let’s get you home,” Sophia decided.

She corrected herself, “Let’s return to the palace.”

Clarisse laughed. Apparently, there was something to laugh about.

“Just to make things clear, you’re not driving me back, riiiiiiiiiiight?” Clarisse asked, seeking validation from Sophia.

“You’re a horrible driver,” she said from experience.

“What was that about not judging at all?” Sophia asked, cocking her head to the side.

Clarisse shrugged.

“I’m not judging anything,” she reasoned.

“I’m telling the truth,” she added.

Sophia furrowed her brows, “Do you want to be taken home or not?”

Clarisse pouted.

“I do,” she admitted.

“As long as you’re not driving,” she said.

Sophia sighed exasperatedly.

“Just… come with me,” Sophia ordered.

“And a couple of ground rules,” she added.

“No puking, no retching, no drooling, no anything that involves fluids,” Sophia said, placing down some rules. She wasn’t compromising anything, even if Clarisse was drunk.

“Okaaaay,” she agreed, nodding slowly.

Sophia still hadn’t figured out why Clarisse had gotten herself drunk. She hadn’t thought of it either. She was occupied, trying to convince herself it was some medical disease when what she should’ve concerned herself about was why on Earth Clarisse would purposely get herself drunk.

Sophia had successfully gotten Clarisse into the car.

Clarisse seemed fine. Fine meaning she likely wouldn’t throw up or retch for the time being.

A quick drive back to the palace and Sophia was helping Clarisse out of the car. She knew Clarisse wouldn’t have rathered anyone else to assist her but Sophia herself.

She wouldn’t want anyone else to see her whilst she was drunk. It’d ruin the image of her kingdom, and with how quickly scuttlebutt spread around the Beldovian palace, it simply wasn’t wise.

“Come on,” Sophia said, encouraging Clarisse on.

She knew Clarisse was to face a horrible hangover after her drunken night out, and she knew she was one of the only people that’d be by her side.

But, her current focus was getting Clarisse to her room safe and sound, and also, in one piece.

She didn’t do well when it came to helping, much less assisting others.

If it was wooing them, or jesting, on the other hand, she could safely say she was experienced.

But dealing with a drunk best friend was far off that spectrum.

“Why’d you have to get yourself drunk in the first place, Claire?” Sophia asked as Claire and her made their way to Claire’s quarters.

Claire didn’t answer, half-conscious.

Sophia looked at Clarisse worriedly.

She conjectured that Clarisse had gotten herself drunk because of her, but she wasn’t looking at the bigger picture.

There were some things about Clarisse she didn’t know about. Information Clarisse buried deep inside her wishing they’d never again resurface. Things she’d been keeping from Sophia for a valid reason.

Sophia made a note to ask Clarisse why she did what she did to satisfy her own curiosity.

Clarisse then asked questioningly, as though Sophia was kidnapping her and taking her to some abandoned place where she was to harvest her organs and sell them on some black market, “Where are you taking me?”

“To your quarters, now stay quiet.”

“You haven’t said the magic word,” Clarisse pointed out.

Sophia looked at Clarisse.

She realized Clarisse was being serious.

“Please.”

“We’re trying to do this discreetly, don’t make it any more strenuous,” Sophia pleaded.

She and Clarisse passed by the palace’s main living room, where Sophia had an idea. She couldn’t just leave Clarisse alone anyway.

Nearly half an hour later; the two girls had gotten out of their jeans and silk camisoles, and were now laying by the fireplace with its doors closed just in case, dressed cosily in matching cotton pyjamas, thanks to Sophia.

“Comfortable now?” Sophia asked, relieved she could finally rest.

Assisting Clarisse into cotton pyjamas was an entire ordeal. It took her four times before Clarisse agreed to wear her pyjamas without either ripping them apart, throwing them away or threatening to call Nicholas, for some unforeseen reason.

“Yes.”

“You’re sooo soft and cuddly,” she told Sophia, nuzzling against Sophia’s pajamas.

Sophia carefully wrapped her arm around Clarisse’s shoulder.

Clarisse shivered, freezing cold.

Even with a crackling fireplace nearby, the living room was chilly.

Sophia wrapped a nearby blanket around Clarisse and herself to keep both themselves toasty.

It was a homely atmosphere, just Sophia and Clarisse by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket in their soft cotton pyjamas in one of the palace’s many living rooms.

“We should do this more often, except for the part of things where you get drunk,” Sophia said contentedly.

“Clarisse?” Sophia asked gently.

She’d gotten nothing for a reply.

She looked left to see Clarisse fully asleep, she hadn’t even realized Clarisse had kicked the blanket away.

She smiled at her friend, covering Clarisse with a blanket before she wished her goodnight and fell asleep.

If only she knew what type of night Nicholas was having, and how it compared to hers.