Post by mac on Sept 20, 2016 16:02:51 GMT
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Basics
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Name || Heathcliff Reginald Arkwright. Though his mother remarried after the passing of his father, Cliff refused to take Johnathan’s surname.
Nicknames/Aliases || He goes by Cliff, and hates his full name. Other nicknames include Clifford, Heath, Doof, HeathDoof, #CliffTheDoof, Doofford, ect. Typically, it’s Logan Valdez who gives him those nicknames. While being a ‘bad seed’ and doing illegal things, Cliff takes on the alias Rhett Hall, a combination of his father’s first name and his step-father’s surname so it’s quick to remember. It’s also the name on his fake ID.
Age/Year/School || 16, a junior in Metric High. His birthday is March 20th.
Zodiac || Pisces
Reason for Enrolling || Wood carving/sculpting. It’s a talent he’s always had since he was a kid, but he honestly has no passion for it anymore.
GPA || 3.0 – it’s starting to decelerate the more time goes by and the less effort he puts into his work.
Gender || Male
Sexuality || ??
Health Issues? || Cliff is physically fit and keeps in good health that way. However due to his acting out, he’s starting to pick up dangerous habits: smoking, drinking, parties, drugs, and sexual relations. While he’s only just starting out with all of these things, Cliff is not smart enough to always think his actions through – especially when under the influence of anything.
School/Social Life
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Job || Cliff works part time at a little ice cream store in the food court. He hates his job, but especially since he’s grounded, he needs it to pay his own phone bill (also so that his mom and Johnathan can’t read his texts) and buy his own things. On top of that, he often uses work as an excuse to get out of the house while being punished.
Reputation || In High School, Cliff is what most people label a ‘nobody’. He’s a loner and has an attitude problem, leaving most people to avoid him because they don’t want to deal with someone who hates the idea of making friends. While his best friend, Noah, idolizes Shyanne and the popular crowd, Cliff could care less about them. He’s not stranger to being bullied, especially since Logan started the hashtag #CliffTheDoof and his first real crush turned out to be his cousin. Ever since, Cliff’s reputation plummeted down and he became a laughing stock.
Over the summer, Cliff’s bad attitude got worse with his grounding and banishment from seeing Cleo. As a result, in school Cliff has been acting out even more. His grades have been falling and his interest in his classes wanes. He’d rather skip school to hang out with Sylvan and his older friends. At the moment, he’s not skipping or failing enough to face expulsion, but he’s getting there. He’s also gotten a lot meaner in school to people, and as a result some of the teasing has waned in fear of him. He’s grown taller and more muscled than he used to be – while not quite a football player in physique, Cliff has made a daunting form of himself. Cliff likes being an outsider and has even been spending less time with his best two friends, Noah and Pippa, because of his spiraling path downwards.
Relationship Status || Cliff is single, friends-with-benefits with Cleo. He also has a crush on her.
Clubs and Organizations || None
Relationships Bank ||
Cleo Leon – Cleo is Cliff’s first love and first serious crush. He was scared to be attracted to someone when he first met her in the woods, but kept feeling something that drew him towards her. She’s the person he ran off to Maine with over the summer, and he’s technically supposed to be banned from seeing her. He and she are actually ‘practicing’ intimate relations with one another. He knows when she does it, she has Fletch in mind, and that hurts. However Cliff will do anything to fool around with Cleo, even help her prepare for the time she may have someday with Fletch. While he wants to date Cleo she only sees him as a friend-with-benefits and he’s scared of admitting his real feelings towards her in fear of her cutting him loose entirely. Part of the reason he wants to be a ‘bad boy’ now (though not the entire reason) is because he thinks that’s what she wants.
Daemon Jeong – Logan’s new best friend or something, and Cliff’s suitemate. Cliff hates him.
Declan Mackenzie - Cliff doesn't like the way hes so close to Pippa, or the way he looks at Pippa. He feels like Declan is bad for Pippa and that she can do way better than some player guy.
Fletcher Willoughby – Cliff looks up to Fletch. He’s the one who got Cliff his fake ID. However, Cliff also is jealous of Fletch, because Cleo wants him.
Hallie Grey – Syl’s... girlfriend? Cliff isn’t entirely sure what she is to him, but half of the time when he’s hanging out with Syl they’re at Hallie’s apartment. She’s totally gorgeous, but Cliff would never dare stare too long because he knows she and Syl have a thing... basically fuck all the time when Cliff can hear... but still. She only knows Cliff as his alias, Rhett.
Johnathan Hall – Cliff’s stepfather, and his biggest enemy, though the feeling certainly isn’t mutual. He feels like Johnathan is trying to replace Rhett, and that is unacceptable. He thinks his mother is trying to erase Rhett from their lives by introducing Johnathan to them. Unfortunately, Johnathan has had a small glimpse into the chaos of Cliff’s bad boy life.
Logan Valdez – One of Cliff’s biggest rivals. She’s the reason #CliffTheDoof started and is impossibly annoying. He used to live with her in a house but when the arrangements were changed, he was unfortunate enough to discover his new roommate was Daemon, her apparent partner-in-crime and friend. So now, Cliff is stuck with the two of them. He likes to blame Logan for everything wrong in his life even if she had no part in it.
Natalie Hall – Cliff’s mother. He’s at odds with her and, though he loves her deep down, claims to hate her at the moment. He feels as though she is abandoning Rhett’s memory. He keeps lots of secrets from her now and doesn’t care if his being bad hurts her – he just wants to act out. Natalie doesn’t know the half of what he gets up to and, for her sake, hopefully she never does.
Noah Wilson – Cliff’s best friend, ever since he moved to Salem. Noah is the reason Cliff tried out for dancing. Up until last year, they were extremely close, hanging out all the time and pretending to be cool. However since Cliff’s begun his spiral downwards he hasn’t been spending as much time with Noah as he used to. He tells Noah basic things but hasn’t mentioned Syl at all to him – either not willing to pull Noah down with him or not willing to share Sylvan and his connections.
Peter Parker - Some guy who's apparently friends with Noah and Pippa now that Cliff hasn't been able to hang out with them as much. He doesn't like Peter at all and gets awful vibes from him. He seems like a loser to Cliff. He also doesn't like that this weird kid seems to have some clinginess to Pippa. Cliff gets the vibe that Peter is trying to replace him and Cliff does not take replacement very well. Moreover, the fact that both Noah and Pippa seem to like him just pisses Cliff off more.
Pippa Scott – Pippa is Cliff’s cousin, though the two actually met when they were unaware of this and found each other attractive. His minor fling with Pippa is what led severe rumors about them to happen. Cliff found the rumors annoying but considers Pippa a very close friend. Since finding out they were cousins the bond between them has become platonic. Cliff is protective of Pippa, and doesn’t like creepy guys hitting on her. He can relate to her not liking her father, by way of him not liking his step-father. He considers Pippa like a sister.
Shyanne Volle – Colossal bitch, Cliff doesn’t like her at all. He doesn’t get what Noah sees in her, and constantly tries to send him in the direction of other girls to no avail.
Sylvan Peters – Cliff sees Syl as his trainer, per say, and almost like the brother he never got. Syl is cool, older, and a complete bad influence. Syl knows Cliff as ‘Rhett’, his alias when he is being a bad seed so that he doesn’t get in as much trouble at school. Syl has helped Cliff push his boundaries many times, by providing him with drugs and involved him in crime heists of sort. Cliff likes spending time with Syl but feels as though if he appears whimpy, Syl will lose interest in him, so he tries to keep as hardcore as he can to keep his friendship and usually goes along with anything Syl says.
Appearance
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Height/Weight/Body Type || 5’10”. He grew over the summer, both in height and in mass. He’s physically fit from jogging/hiking/rock climbing, and he’s not weak by any means. While he’s never gotten into a first fight yet, he likes the amount of intimidation he can provide by just being tall and fit.
Hair color/style || Brown, thick, and wavy. If he's doing hard labor or at work, sometimes he'll pull his hair back into a 'man-bun'. Doing so seems to age him, especially with his height having jumped up 4 inches over the summer.
Eye color/makeup preferences || Brown, none.
Clothing Style ||
Notable Traits || His hair is thick, curled, and probably the best feature of his. It’s now long enough that he typically pulls it back into a bun/ponytail at work. He likes to wear his hair up in a bun at parties because he feels like the look ages him.
Ethnicity || Caucasian
Playby || Dylan Schmid
Personality
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Likes || Taking selfies; Instagram; Driving; Smoking; Being tall; His father; Sylvan; Hiking; Nature; Anime; Spending time with Cleo; Hunting; Running away; Living away from home in the dorms; Key Lime flavor; Lemonade; Cooking; Bad jokes; Puns; Newberry comics; Freedom; Animals; Florida Georgia Line; Archery; Country music; Camping; Nature
Dislikes || Johnathan Hall; His family in general; God/Religion; Singing; Phone calls from his mom/Johnathan; Being grounded; His job; Strong perfume; Death; Ghosts’ Guns’ Gospel music; Rainy/overcast weather; Poison Ivy; Bees; Children; Feeling distant from his father; Cleo’s feelings for Fletch;
Nervous Habits || Overeating/drinking when nervous or intimidated; Giving into peer pressure at parties
Hobbies || Hiking, watching anime, and more recently, partying.
Positive Traits || Loyal; Smart; Passionate; Sarcastic; Animal Lover; Artistic; Patient (only with certain people, though); Frugal; Wanderer; Aesthete; Calm under pressure; Quiet; Protective; Athletic; Outgoing
Negative Traits || Judgmental; Shallow; Short-tempered; Cynical; Biased; Bitter; Guarded; Reclusive; Difficult to impress; Passive-aggressive; Smart-ass; Disrespectful; Rebellious
History
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Family ||
Rhett Arkwright – Father – Deceased || Cliff idolized his father when he was a child. Cliff grew up to be almost exactly like his father in terms of personality. The both of them loved to go out on excursions all throughout the summer when Rhett had some time off of work. Cliff inherited the same wanderlust and intuit with nature that Rhett had, and when he lost his father, being in touch with nature and hunting was how Cliff kept connected to him. The older he gets the more like his father Cliff gets, and the person who Cliff tries to model himself after is his father. Especially now that his father has died, Cliff looks at his memories of him through a rose colored lens, and glorifies his father. He’s convinced that God made a mistake when taking his father from him, and Cliff hates God because of it. Cliff is very protective of his memories with his father and is paranoid that he’ll forget his father someday, which is why he clings so tightly to memorabilia that seems pointless to others.
Pippa Scott – Cousin – 15 – Student || When Cliff first met Pippa in the forest while hunting, he was smitten. She was beautiful, funny, and has a captivating accent. He mustered up the courage to ask her to the upcoming dance. But unfortunately that crashed and burned when Eldin came over and claimed her as his daughter… making her his cousin. The fact that he tried to make moves on his cousin traumatized Cliff and he became a recluse for a few weeks, especially when he realized that Pippa was his housemate. After a while, the awkwardness started to fade when he realized that Pippa was still funny and got along with him. And even with the idea of dating her long gone, he realized that being friends with her make him feel a little less lonely. Now he sees her, sort of, like a sister, though he’d consider it awkward to say that out loud given the circumstances of how they met. The both of them have extreme issues with their current ‘father figures’ (Johnathan for Cliff and Eldin for Pippa) and can relate to each other even without bringing up why they’re upset.
Natalie Hall – Mother – 35 – English teacher at Metric High School || Cliff does still love his mother, deep down, but he resents her because he sees her re-marriage and efforts to move on after the death of Rhett as a betrayal to not only his father but to himself and the family they used to have. Cliff doesn’t think that Natalie suffered as much as he did when he lost his father simply because he never saw Natalie mourn after the funeral; though she hid her depression to try to help Cliff he took it as her never caring about his father. Cliff has a hard time seeing the things that Natalie is doing as being better for the both of them and thinks that she is throwing Rhett’s memory and the family that they used to have when he was a kid into the trash can. He’s convinced in his mind that she’s trying to replace Rhett with John, and so Cliff pushes her away in favor of clinging onto the memories he has of the Arkwright family, not daring to ‘betray’ his father like his mother did and make another.
Johnathan Hall – Step-father – 34 – Art History Professor at Metric College || When Cliff first met John, it was when he was just friends with Natalie. Cliff was neutral on John’s existence until the two of them told him that they were dating. When he found that out Cliff started to dislike John, and was convinced they didn’t need John around, even though John was nothing but nice to Cliff. Cliff generally avoided John whenever he could and barely spoke to him during this period. However it was when Cliff was told not only that Natalie was getting married but that she was also pregnant, Cliff’s dislike turned to hatred as he began to believe that John was trying to replace Rhett. Cliff is not ashamed to admit that he hates John and anything he tries to do and reach out, and avoids him whenever he can. Cliff believes that if he gives John a chance to be like a father to him it’ll be a betrayal to his real father, and so he shoves John and his attempts at including Cliff in the family away.
Annabelle Hall – Half-sister – 3 || When she was born, Cliff was already not happy about it. He is not a good brother to his half-sister and doesn’t see her as his sister—rather, he sees Annabelle as John’s daughter, and usually refers to her as such. Cliff doesn’t even spare a glance to Annabelle when he’s at his mother’s house and refuses to offer to babysit or look after her. As far as he’s concerned he never asked for a sister, or for a new family. When she was first born Annabelle was a very fussy baby and required a lot of attention from Natalie and John, allowing for Cliff to distance himself even more from the budding family. When no one could really afford to reach out to him due to taking care of Annabelle, it helped solidify the belief that Cliff has that this “new family” of his mother’s means more to her than the “old one” with himself and his father did.
Elvis Arkwright – Pet Dog || Elvis was Rhett's dog when he was alive and was extremely close to Rhett and Cliff. After the loss of his father Cliff allowed his dog to comfort him, finding some kind of comfort wrapping his arms around the dog in a gentle hug, and when they moved Elvis was the only real connection that Cliff felt was coming with them to Salem. Cliff loves Elvis and Elvis loves him back, and it's probably Cliff's fault that Elvis never took to Johnathan or Annabelle. Elvis is usually the main reason Cliff even goes to his mother's house at all during the school year.
Hometown || Springfield, Maine.
Vehicle/Transportation || While he doesn’t have a car, he has driven Cleo’s mother’s car on their long vacation to Maine last summer. Of course as a result Cliff is grounded indefinitely, but that doesn’t mean he hates driving. In fact, he’s now better at it, and sometimes Sylvan will allow him to drive a car if he’s in a pinch. Cliff is slowly starting to like it, though he’s perhaps not the best driver in the world.
Backstory || Cliff was born in the forest-covered state of Maine, in a small town named Springfield near the Canadian border. That place is and always will be his home; that was where all of Cliff’s memories are held. His father, Rhett Arkwright, was a police officer for the town and loved his job. His mother, Natalie Arkwright, loved the state for the scenery. Cliff grew up in a modest but well-off home and loved his family more than anything. When he started going to school, his father would usually pick him up in his police car, and Cliff thought it was really cool to ride in the passenger seat even though he technically wasn’t supposed to. Cliff looked forward to going to church every Sunday with his parents, and Rhett, always the family man, would take his wife and son to town events all the time. His uncle, Eldin, lived overseas but made it a point to bring his young nephew gifts whenever he came to visit. When Cliff started going to school so did his mother. Cliff wound up being looked after by his father a lot, and most of the time when it was just them, Rhett would call Cliff ‘Clifford’ rather than Cliff or Heathcliff, and the nickname stuck, but Rhett never called him that around Natalie and Cliff never questioned it.
By the time Cliff was 6, Rhett was taking his son out on nature walks and hikes. It was a lot of work for the young child to keep up with his father but he did it happily, and every night they’d come home to have dinner with Natalie. Rhett was always a very active person who loved to explore, and he passed that desire on to his son, often taking his long vacations off to hike with Cliff through the forests of Maine, sometimes even trekking all the way up to Canada before they turned back around and went back home. Oftentimes Rhett would take both Cliff and Natalie out on camping trips in the woods, usually resulting in Rhett and Cliff getting a real kick out of how scared of bugs Natalie got, but overall ending in a good family experience. Camping wasn’t always a family bonding experience though, but oftentimes for the more treacherous and dirty trips Rhett took Cliff on his own. From what Cliff remembers, he swears he must have seen the entirety of Maine’s coast with his father by his side as they climbed mountains and hiked out in the woods on cliffs, overlooking the ocean below.
While out camping, Rhett taught Cliff many things. One of which was how to carve. Rhett always had a natural talent for carving and in his spare time when he wasn’t on the force, he sold his wooden designs to the townsfolk. While out in nature, Rhett gave Cliff his pocketknife and allowed for Cliff to start carving. It was hard at first and Cliff cut his hand up pretty bad, but by the time they went back home to Natalie Cliff was so proud of the little designs that he made he practically shoved them into his mother’s arms, always going on about how great the trip was. When Cliff was 7 his father decided to teach him something that Cliff had always admired about Rhett—shooting arrows.
Cliff was very bad at it at first. He couldn’t hit the trees, and he could barely muster up the strength to pull the drawstring back. His father taught him but Cliff wasn’t ever very good. Still, Cliff enjoyed his father’s voice as he told him how to do it and what to aim for. Cliff was only given a child’s bow, his father never trusted him to fire the actual set that was his own from when he was younger. Cliff was also rather bad at hunting—his father could take down a bird from the air with one arrow, sometimes two birds if he lined the shot right and every time it did Cliff was always extremely impressed. Cliff wanted to do that someday but his father never let him practice on the animals. Rhett always told him that if he was going to hunt the animals, he couldn’t let them suffer—because of that, Cliff would only be allowed to hunt when he was good enough to keep a steady arm and hit the targets that Rhett carved on the woods with his pocketknife.
When Rhett was busy working, or had particularly long assignments, it was just him and his mother. And while Cliff was always extremely close to his father, his relationship with his mother didn’t suffer. His mother was the one who taught him to cook, and the two of them would work together to make dinner. At first Cliff really was more in the way than he was a help, but as he got more experienced in the kitchen he actually helped Natalie out more than he slowed her down. By the time Rhett got home, he was usually greeted by the sight of his wife and son in the kitchen, working together to put food on the table. Cliff really grew to love cooking as well. When his father was gone for days at a time, Cliff and Natalie would take long road trips down the coast, trips that Cliff grew to love. The view was always gorgeous outside of the backseat window, and he’d listen to the radio and the voice of his mother while they drove along. Cliff loved his hometown more than anything. The town was small enough that everyone knew everyone. He had friends his age, was doing very well in school, and had a good relationship with his parents.
When he was about nine years old, nearly ten. It was a typical day in Springfield and Cliff was bored in class when his teacher received a phone call from the office, calling Cliff downstairs to the principal’s office. At first he thought he was in trouble and took his time getting downstairs, until he saw his mother looking worried. She ushered him to the car and they zoomed down to Springfield General. Cliff was confused and got no answers about what was going on while they waited in the ER, but he knew something was wrong. Soon a grim faced doctor came out and told Natalie that there was nothing they could do. Rhett was dead. He died of a bullet wound that had struck him while on duty, defending the local bank against some robbers who had gotten away. That entire period up until the funeral was completely numb for Cliff. He didn’t believe it and when Rhett didn’t come home from work he got angry, he didn’t understand, where was his father?! Why wasn’t he home yet, and why was his mother so devastated? It was wrong, Rhett couldn’t die from being a police officer, that wasn’t how it worked. Police officers killed bad people. Not the other way around!
It didn’t sink in until the funeral. Not until he saw the grim faced faces of everyone in the town that he knew coming in to say their final goodbyes to Rhett, their mouths falling silent at the emotional faces of his wife and ten-year-old boy. Cliff didn’t celebrate his birthday that year, and even years after, he never felt the desire to. Rhett died on March 12th, and the funeral was a few weeks later. There was nothing for Cliff to celebrate, except for the broken promise that Rhett had made that he’d take Cliff out on a week-long camping trip for his birthday, school be damned. Listening to the preacher give a service to Rhett’s memory was even worse. Their pastor spoke about God and about how Rhett had been taken too soon and Cliff just wondered why. Why, why.
After the funeral, Cliff was still not happy. Nothing would make him happy after losing his father, not even his mother who after the funeral… changed. She was happier, trying to keep life going. But for Cliff he just let his life stop. He was completely numb to everything and everyone who tried to reach out to him. He was told to go to therapy but that didn’t help, and he refused to open up, just caving inside himself. It seemed as though being here, surrounded by all of the memories of Rhett, was bringing Cliff down and making it so that he couldn’t move on.
It wasn’t until his mother told him that they were moving all the way to California that Cliff showed any emotion at all. When she told him to start saying his goodbyes he didn’t express any physical changes, but when she wasn’t looking Cliff let go. He didn’t want to move! He wanted to stay here, where his father was, where his memories were. Cliff stormed into his father’s den and stole (though technically they would have been inherited by him anyway) the pocketknife that Rhett loved and Rhett’s grown up bow-and-arrow, running out of the house and slamming the door behind him. He ran off into the woods, seeing the carvings of targets on the trees. Cliff took one of the arrows and did what his father taught him, resting the arrow on his hand as he drew the string back, and released. The first few shots were messy but he eventually got one hours later, but before he could be happy about it, he realized his father wasn’t there to congratulate him and he got angrier, grabbing another arrow, shooting another target that his father had carved into the tree. This shot didn’t hit the bulls-eye, and Cliff wasn’t even paying attention to his hands as the aggressive nature with which he kept firing injured them. When he managed to get two bulls-eyes in a row, he decided that he was good enough to hunt. Or if he wasn’t, his father would come out of the woods and stop him. His father would never let him hurt an animal if he wasn’t good enough. Cliff took aim at a squirrel minding its own business at the base of a tree. He was counting on his father to stop him. He drew back the string. There was nothing but the wind. He fired.
He struck the squirrel in the back, right above its butt, and the animal let out a yelp of pain but didn’t die. The second he fired the arrow Cliff realized his mistake and ran to the animal, not sure what to do, because it was dying and it was his fault and the thing was suffering and his father didn’t come to stop him and he was crying and the tears wouldn’t stop. The poor squirrel died in agony while Cliff cried knelt over its body, mumbling apologizes. Cliff left another few hours later, leaving the squirrel’s corpse with the arrow still inside of it, unable to physically bring himself to remove the arrow and return it to the quiver. When his mother asked where he’d been, Cliff said that he had been doing what she said he had to do: saying goodbye. He slammed the door to his room and didn’t come out until the next day.
In the period until they moved, Cliff took to the forest every day. He lost interest in school, barely paying attention, and just ran home after to grab the bow and arrow. He felt like when he was shooting the arrows at the targets that his father had carved, he was still with him. Cliff took advantage of the time he had left in Springfield, improving his aim and skill. He didn’t go for animals yet, the memory of the squirrel still fresh. But when he started getting bulls-eye after bulls-eye, Cliff started to pretend that his father was with him, rooting him on. Cliff started to get a little happier, pretending that his father was there as he relieved old memories. Cliff didn’t talk to his mother except to say good night and thank you for dinner. He became very quiet, restricting his comments to his mother to, “I’m fine”, “good”, “sorry”, “gotta go”, “love you”. Cliff took into a shell of who he used to be, one of his own creation, building walls around his heart he refused to let his mother penetrate.
The move was inconvenient. Cliff hated to go. And his mother moved happily from Springfield, the town that Rhett loved enough to literally die for. Cliff was bitter as he rode all the way to California with his mother, saying nothing, just sitting there with his headphones shoved in his ears as he watched the beautiful scenery he loved so much change to gross, barren land and by the time they got to Cali, Cliff realized how dry, hot, and gross it was. His mother got a teaching job at a prestigious academy and they moved into Salem. Cliff didn’t like the new area at all, though Natalie just seemed to love the change of pace. In his own head, Cliff made snarky remarks as his mother talked up the place.
When his mother got help from her coworker, Johnathan Hall, Cliff didn’t think anything of it. Whatever, some nice guy was helping them. He didn’t feel the need to talk to him much. Cliff instead enrolled at the school in Salem. He didn’t like it, it was too different from his hometown. The kids were mean, the teachers didn’t care. By the time he entered middle school Cliff was a total loner, both at home and at school. In his free time, Cliff took his father’s old bow and arrow and walked to the woods, which weren’t nearly as nice as the ones back in Maine. Still, they worked well enough, and Cliff carved targets into the trees. He improved his shooting, he improved so much so that by the time he was 13, he was as good as his father had been when he demonstrated. Cliff could hunt just like his father. He kept the birds and squirrels suffering-free. He wished his father could see.
When Natalie sat Cliff down and told him that she was seeing Johnathan—like, dating seeing—Cliff went numb again. What did she mean, she was dating him? In Cliff’s head, the only man who could be with his mother was his father, anything else was infidelity. Cliff did not approve of the relationship but didn’t say anything about it to either of them, though his interactions with John grew even worse than before. Cliff kept everything inside himself, and vented his anger by shooting arrows in the woods.
But that was nothing compared to when Natalie and John both, together, told Cliff not only that they were engaged but expecting a baby. The dislike that Cliff had before for John reached an all-time low. He saw his happy-to-be-engaged-and-pregnant mother and saw her as trying to build a new family, while Cliff was clinging to the one they left behind in Maine. And then, suddenly, it all made sense. His mother was replacing Rhett. She wanted John to be Cliff’s new dad, and this baby… this baby would be the new golden child. The one that would replace him. The baby would be the happy-go-lucky child that Cliff once was, John would become the new Rhett. And though she and John wanted for Cliff to be a part of this new family, what place did Rhett have? If Rhett wasn’t going to be a part of this family, neither was Cliff.
He distanced himself even more. The fact that he was entering puberty didn’t help his angst at all. His mother was too focused on her pregnancy to pay much attention to Cliff, who went out to the woods every day on hikes of varying length, sometimes coming back late. By the time a curfew was enforced Cliff entered high school, insisted on getting a dorm, and moved into it. Cliff appreciated the space, and though he was entered into Metric based on his wood carving abilities, his interest in the art had faded around the time they moved. Cliff couldn’t stand John and rejected every offer the man extended his way. When the family went to church, Cliff refused to participate. He rejected God now—he didn’t want to worship a ruthless, power-hungry, brutal murderer. Sometimes when Cliff was particularly annoyed at the fact that John was trying to replace Rhett, he’d pretend the targets on the trees were his stupid face. Despite that, though, Cliff would never seriously harm the man. He hated him, yes, but he still loved his mother, and as much as he couldn’t stand the thought of her replacing Rhett, he wouldn’t deliberately hurt her like she was doing to his father with every second she spent with that man. She was the one making the mistake here, not Cliff.
One saving grace Cliff did have, though, was his best friend Noah. He met the boy in middle school, when Noah was the new kid and was given the locker next to his. Cliff took pity on the kid who had like, no friends, and showed him around the school. He eventually got closer to Noah and actually managed to make a friend. Having one person in his life who he felt like he could actually be himself around helped Cliff become the person he wanted to be, rather than the stoic shell he forced around himself when he was around his family. Sure, he had his uncle Eldin, but he was an uncle, not a friend. Cliff’s best friend was his father and in his friendship with Noah, he tried to be what his father was to him. Encouraging, cool, and impressive.
High school hasn’t been very much for Cliff—he’s not impressed by it. He continues to create wooden carvings simply because that’s how he got into the school. His treks out to the woods have become more and more lengthy. He picked up a part time job when he turned 15 at a little ice cream shop in the food court. The job’s not that great and he’s pretty sure his boss hates him, but Cliff gets free ice cream and an excuse to get out of family gatherings and church when he can avoid it. Cliff goes to the woods almost every day, armed with his bow and arrows, to practice shooting. He goes on long walks, too, and when he does so he feels like his father is with him.
Sometimes Eldin will join him on hikes and long walks, and Cliff likes it because they usually talk about Rhett, about how Rhett was when he was Cliff’s age—Cliff loves to hear stories that Eldin tells him about his father. Cliff feels like he can’t talk about Rhett around his mother or his step-family, he just feels like they wouldn’t care to hear or would think he needs to forget and ‘move on’. Cliff refuses to let go of Rhett’s memory and instead will do anything to feel like he’s still there.
Miscellaneous
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OOC Notes:
| Character's Top 10 Favorite Songs
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Character's Playlist |
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