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you wake up from a nightmare, some terrible thing about being taken from your mother. it’s not really a nightmare because it had happened: your father left when you were small, the littlest hurt, because you don’t remember him; you were six when they took you away from your mother who hadn’t been home in three days and came through the door of your studio apartment high or drunk more often than not, but she made you the best tallarines , who sang you songs before you curled up next to her in bed.
you were starving, though, and you hadn’t been to school in three days. the water was off; the heat was off; you were filthy and freezing and when they took you away from her you were distraught, angry, the dragon in your chest flaring when you went into a different home without enough heat, without enough food.
you wake up from a nightmare, a remembering, and you suck in a breath. clarke stirs next to you and when you try to get up she grumbles, snakes an arm out and mumbles something entirely incoherent. her hair covers her face and it is almost silver in the moonlight, and you are terrified and warm and in love.
you sigh and lie back down, curl up so that you can rest your fingers on the inside of her wrist; you count her pulse to help you breathe, to help you calm down, until you fall asleep.
//
brunch before her graduation is possibly the most nerve-wracking thing you’ve ever been forced to do; clarke’s parents are warm and funny and smart, just like your girlfriend, but they are also wealthy and ridiculously accomplished and apparently clarke is the fourth generation to become a surgeon, which she failed to mention.
your tie had been new, a pale blue so that you matched clarke’s graduation gown in photos—she’d insisted—your shirt was ironed, your pants tailored just right, a present from anya last ramadan. you forego a bloody mary for some coffee, but clarke orders you one anyway with a wink.
‘why’d you go into teaching?’ jake asks, and you think if abby asked you might be terrified but jake’s eyes are blue, kind, amused—just like clarke’s.
you can’t begin to tell your girlfriend’s parents all the real reasons: you were an angry teenager: you had been abused for years in and out of different foster homes; you were the only kid who was out in your entire high school; you had two pairs of pants and one pair of sneakers and your most treasured possessions were the skateboard anya stole for you and your mother’s copy of the book of imaginary beings ; you slept on the streets, whenever it was warm enough, because it was safer than your foster house. you ran track because you liked to feel your lungs burning, you liked to run in safe circles; you started long jump because indra, your coach, had insisted you try because you were talented but lacked discipline. you kept going because you liked what it felt like to fly. gustus, your grade ten honors english teacher, shared your love for borges so he would give you books and books, let you write your essays in spanish, let you eat lunch in his room when you were too tired of being teased or bullied for one reason or another. you ended up being a high school all american, going to college on a full ride scholarship; you were convinced you were going to be another body bag in the morgue before you turned eighteen for a long time—but you got out, and you take a sip of your bloody mary and clarke smiles softly, takes your hand under the table.
‘i had a few teachers that really helped me in high school,’ you say, ‘and it just seemed like what i’d want to get to do as well.’
abby seems pleased and jake nods. he glances at clarke for a moment, gentle, and you wonder how much she’s told him; drunk clarke loves to overshare. you don’t mind, though, not as much as you thought you would have, because jake sits between you and abby at clarke’s graduation and makes jokes about everyone’s name, lets out an ear-splitting whistle when clarke receives her diploma, wipes tears from his eyes when she tosses her cap, feeds abby a piece of cake at the reception, buys you all shots afterward, hugs you goodnight.
//
you scrape your elbow skateboarding; she cleans it gently, puts neosporin on it, wraps it quietly with gauze; kisses it better.
//
‘this is too much,’ you say, but clarke only shakes her head.
‘my inheritance is shameful.’
you roll your eyes and look at yourself in the mirror again, adjust your lapels.
‘i don’t even want to know how much this cost,’ you groan.
‘they’ll need to take the pants in a bit in the waist,’ clarke observes, coming up behind you and feeling your ribs. ‘are you eating enough?’
‘i’ve been skating a lot,’ you say, shivers down your spine because she’s kissing up your neck. you let out a shaky breath. ‘warmer weather.’
‘you know,’ clarke says, ‘i bought you this suit for my benefit as well.’
you laugh, turn around, and she smiles. ‘is that so?’
‘you are,’ she says, sucking what you’re sure will be a hickey below your jaw, ‘very, very sexy when you have properly tailored clothes.’
‘only then?’
‘then,’ she says, steps back and quirks her head, her clever, surgeon hands going to your collar, undoing a button with enviable ease, ‘and when you’re wearing nothing at all.’
//
you meet costia at a jamaican place in soho, and it’s loud and vibrant and she’s happy, all wild curls and bright teeth. she hugs you and shakes clarke’s hand and then clarke shrugs and offers a hug and you breathe a sigh of relief because costia grins.
she and clarke hit it off, apparently, because you spend the majority of the time listening to costia tell clarke a number of embarrassing stories from undergrad while you pick at your jerk salmon and sip what turns out to be a lot of dutty wine because you are suddenly slurring your words and a little unsteady and absolutely mortified about it.
they both laugh and make sure you aren’t swaying too much, and it’s kind of nice, getting to bury your nose in the soft skin of costia’s collarbone again—cocoa butter and lavender, somehow always, just a little, like the sea—at a certain point because you insist you haven’t gotten to really hug her in a long time.
costia goes home with you because she and clarke want another drink but you clearly cannot be out in public—you throw up in a bush on the way back from the train—and they situate you on the couch because you refuse to go to bed.
you drift in and out while costia shows clarke how to make some fancy cocktail with lavender they get from your fire escape garden and at some point clarke props your head in her lap and scratches at your scalp, runs absent patterns along your cheeks while she and costia talk about postmodern deconstructionism and the color wheel, the current westworld plotlines, whether or not jax and brittany have broken up after the latest vanderpump reunion.
they make you eat pizza they order and drink a lot of water and eventually clarke drags you up while costia takes your spot on the couch and you climb into bed with her—your shared bed in the apartment you have together, with your books and her paints and the big windows that you think you pay too much rent for but she loves them and you are absolutely, incredibly in love with her.
you must grumble and fidget while you put a hand under her tshirt because she turns to the side to face you, cup your cheek.
‘why’d you drink so much, love?’
she’s not judgemental, not even really concerned. you shrug. ‘i was nervous.’
clarke kisses your forehead; the moonlight drifts in.
‘you’re not jealous?’ you hate how small your voice sounds.
‘no, lex,’ she says, thumbs your ribs from over your shirt. ‘i’m glad you had someone to love you. i owe her, i think.’
you nod into clarke’s chest.
‘plus, she’s totally beautiful, but i am also totally beautiful.’
you snort and she laughs and rubs your back and the next day you get brunch and kiss costia’s cheek at grand central before she gets on her train.
‘thank you,’ you say.
she smiles, squeezes your hand. ‘always, lex.’
//
the airbag dust is hot and burns your eyes but clarke’s breath is whistling and you’re not a doctor so you don’t know if she’s injured or panicked or both; she reaches toward you and you’re talking to her, telling her that you’re fine and you love her and that it’s okay, your neck sore and your head aching but generally unharmed. her eyes are unfocused and filled with tears and you twine your fingers together and keep talking to her until the paramedics cut you out of your car.
octavia drives you both home from the hospital later that night, clarke with bruised ribs and hands that won’t stop shaking from a serious panic attack; you with stitches in your hairline and a sprained wrist.
it’s summer, muggy and unbearably hot outside, stifling in your apartment even with the central air, but you get under your duvet with her and she kisses you.
‘i’m okay,’ you say.
she nods and sniffles. ‘you’re okay,’ she says, and traces your stitches with a gentle finger, steadier than before.
//
‘what are you reading?’ clarke kisses your shoulder.
‘ it is love ,’ you read, squint up at her and kiss her cheek hello. ‘ the name of a woman gives me away. a woman hurts me in all of my body .’
clarke frowns, burrows into the couch further. ‘you okay?’
you set aside your book, tattered and worn, clearly adored. ‘it’s one of my favorites.’
clarke kisses the between your brows. ‘i’ve missed you.’
you pull her to your chest, allow your heart to give the little ache it always does when she’s so close, so tender, so real, and push aside the hem of her shirt, tuck your fingers against the warmth of her hip, just to feel her skin. ‘me too,’ you say.
//
‘i’m sorry,’ clarke says, softly into your skin.
you hum, shake your head and keep running your fingers along her scalp.
you hadn’t known, really, that it could get this bad, her quiet desperation, the way she shrunk in on herself and couldn’t move. it doesn’t scare you, not really, because she had warned you before, that she always has a few days of severe depression after big exams, stretches of intense pressure. she’d finished her boards, yesterday, and you think you’re in the worst of it now. but she’s clean; you’d eaten grilled cheese and fruit for lunch; she’s outside with you now; she’s talking.
‘for a long time,’ she says, ‘we didn’t know what was wrong with me.’
you rub a thumb along her cheekbone, her eyelashes, almost white-blonde without makeup and in the sun.
‘i got diagnosed when i was fifteen, after AP exams.’ she pauses. ‘i fought with my mom about it a lot.’
‘you still fight with your mom a lot.’
she laughs, just once, and you feel especially helpful. ‘that’s just for posterity.’
she tells you that she loves you, all the time, in simple ways—texts and notes she’s stuck inside your books, your lesson plans, the pockets of your coats. you told her once, last week, while you were hungover and getting groceries for the week, and she’d gotten your favorite cereal and when you drifted back to her it felt like coming home.
but it’s hard, for you. you’re always scared, always lonely, except you’re not so much anymore.
the storm cracks around you.
‘your eyes are grey, right now,’ clarke says when she looks up at you. it’s a little dreamy, a little achy, like shadows and dusk and the first strike of lightning over the waves.
‘i love you,’ you say, and it surprises you, the way your voice doesn’t waver. ‘i’m in love with you.’
clarke smiles, bright and like everything you know of her, the way your heart is peaceful in a way you’ve never known before.
she sits up and kisses you and it starts to rain, and she laughs into your mouth, tugs you up and kisses you harder.
you run inside and dry off together, rinse off the sand and she quiets, takes your hand and tugs you down to the couch and puts a blanket over the both of you. the storm rolls outside but you are very warm, sleepy with the wine you open, the tv playing some movie you don’t care about in the background.
‘i’ll be okay,’ clarke says, whispers, a promise and a benediction.
you kiss her shoulder and when you wake up an hour later, the storm has passed; the sun is setting, more colors than you would’ve believed, over the waves.
//
when you were eight and a half, one day after school, when you had come home spent and dirty and relatively happy, because it was finally getting warm outside and you’d had extra recess, your new foster mother cut your hair to just below your chin, tired of its endless tangles. you hadn’t cried but you had been upset; you remember thinking there was a dragon in your chest, this unspeakable anger, which was, of course, easier than sadness. you had gone outside to sit on the curb, not with any real purpose, just so that the dragon might calm down; so that you could unclench your fists and your jaw, so you could stop feeling the tickle of tiny hairs on your skin or the way your curls fell over your eyes now. you sat there until anya came outside after it was dark and coaxed you in with the promise of half a stolen snickers bar.
your hair is long now and always, still, tangled after a shower. when you’re not in a hurry, clarke will patiently work a comb through it, so gentle, chattering on about this and that. eventually, she proclaims you done, your hair tangle free, and you turn and kiss her chin, her cheeks, her nose, while she laughs. you don’t know how to tell her that this is a balm to your fire heart, this is what it means to slay dragons, this is love to you, and it is bigger than you know how to say, than you probably ever will. you kiss her on the mouth, fully and with too much abandon for a quiet saturday morning but she sucks in a breath and then kisses you back.