Claire

Claire’s known these people all her life, yet she’s never felt so uncomfortable being around them. She knows everyone’s watching her, judging her, whispering gossip behind her back. She wishes the ground would just open up beneath her and swallow her whole. “I should have never come, what was I thinking?!” Claire says to herself as her anxiety makes it harder and harder for her to breathe under everyone’s judgmental gaze. Her eyes tear up and she knows she’s on the verge of breaking down. “I need to leave,” she thinks to herself in a panic. “I need to get out of here, I need to get away, I need to…”

But then a sudden warmth engulfs her. She feels another hand brushing against her and locking fingers with hers. She gasps and looks up to see a welcoming smile and forgiving eyes. William kept his promise to always be there when she’d need someone to lean on.

“Forever, Claire.”

Suddenly, there’s only one pair of eyes in the room that matters, and it’s the one that’s always been a safe haven for her.

Teodora thinks she’s bad at writing descriptions for her drawings, so we thought I might be able to help with that.

She didn’t agree with my first choice of name for the guy because it happened to be the name of a guy she had a crush on when she was in high school, and that’s how we ended up with William.

For more wonderful drawings and potential insights into Teodora’s teenage love life, follow her on Instagram @teoctobart.

For more stories, Teodora’s got her own tag here.