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Most of their friends had gone home from the party by now, the night chill creeping in as the sun set behind the city skyline. The park lights switched on about twenty minutes ago, alerting them to just how late it was. Octavia, Raven, and Lincoln were huddled by the food table, picking at what was left from the lunchtime picnic, and Bellamy, Jasper, Monty were finishing up a pick up game of ultimate frisbee with some people they met that afternoon.
Two more of the group had wandered off hours ago, hoping to burn off some of the food and seeking a quieter place to talk. They hadn’t gone far, just to the opposite end of the field, in the baseball dugout for visiting teams. Their conversation started off light, but the longer they talked, the more intimate the questions got. It wasn’t unusual for this to happen; they’d been friends for years before this, since sophomore year of high school where they first met. Now, seven years later, freshly graduated from the same university with respective degrees, they savored their added free time to hang out with their friends like this on the weekends. Both were happily employed already, and had been renting a sizable two bedroom apartment for the last two years after living in the dorms was no longer required. Life was going smoothly.
“Would you rather skydive or cliff dive?” Lexa asked.
“Neither, but if I had to pick one, it would be skydiving,” said Clarke. “You?”
“Same,” said Lexa. “Would you rather design a pornographic exhibition or a slime art gallery?”
Clarke thought for a moment. “Slime art. Would you rather star in a survivor show or just get stranded on an island?”
“Is it a civilized island, or a rum island with Keira Knightley?”
“Rum island without Keira Knightley, but with Orlando Bloom as Legolas.”
“Will I have you there?”
Clarke laughed, saying, “I’m probably the one who dropped you off.” She took hold of Lexa’s hand in her lap and tangled their fingers together.
“The rum island, then,” Lexa smiled back.
The conversation naturally fell off here, with Lexa coming to rest her head on Clarke’s shoulder as they watched the last of the sun disappear. Clarke shivered a little in her thin tank top after a few minutes, and Lexa, ever so chivalrous, transferred her light flannel button down to Clarke’s shoulders, leaving her in just a plain white t-shirt. They resumed their positions.
“Lexa?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we’ll still be friends in ten years?”
“I think so, yeah. Something pretty big would have to happen for us not to be.”
“What if we get married to other people, and move away from each other, and we don’t have time for our friendship anymore?”
Lexa lifted her head and looked at Clarke, curious as to what brought this up. “It’s a bit early to be thinking about marriage, Clarke.”
“Not in ten years it isn’t.” Clarke sighed. “Anything can happen by that time. We’re going to be in our thirties by then, plenty of time to find someone and settle down, maybe even move somewhere else. My dad planned to have us move down to L.A. when I finished high school, a dream I’d had since I was eight, so I could become an animator at Disney. And he died before I even met you.”
Lexa didn’t know what to say. Part of her wanted to reassure Clarke that they would remain friends forever, even if they were separated by distance, but she knew it was foolish. Their friendship was strong, brought together by the hands of a higher power that could just as easily rip them apart. So maybe they were meant to meet, but Lexa was definitely never meant to fall in love with Clarke, who did not appear to reciprocate her feelings.
“I find it hard to imagine myself married to anyone else, even in the future,” she said quietly, her heart pounding. “I’m very content where I am right now.”
“Me too.” Clarke wrapped her arms around Lexa and buried her face in her neck.
She could feel Clarke’s breath on her skin, and it tickled slightly, but it was warm and comforting to have her there. Lexa sat as still as possible, hoping Clarke couldn’t feel how fast her heart was beating or notice how hard it was for her to swallow. She made a decision. It was now or never, in this baseball dugout, just after sunset. At least she wouldn’t be able to see Clarke’s expression after she ruined their friendship forever.
She prompted Clarke to sit up properly and raised hesitant fingers to her cheek, lightly tracing down the curve of her jaw. She tipped Clarke’s chin upwards as she leaned in, pausing just before their lips connected. Was this it? Was this the moment Clarke rejected her for good? That maybe their ten year guarantee would fall through right here?
Clarke’s eyes searched Lexa’s, their cerulean blue drawing Lexa into their depths and trapping her there for a moment. But Lexa’s eyes fluttered shut, drawing her back up and up and up to the surface, and she closed the distance between them. She kissed Clarke the way she wanted to since the day on the beach at Clarke’s family vacation home and she realized she was in love with her five years ago. Clarke’s lips were just as soft as they looked, fitting perfectly into Lexa’s, and Lexa melted under their warmth.
Lexa pulled away a minute later, certain Clarke was going to do the same. But Clarke placed her hands on either side of Lexa’s face to keep her in place and dove in again. It was everything she hoped it would be, and she wanted the weightless feeling and sudden calm in her mind to last forever.
“Wait, Clarke — “ Lexa quickly put space between them. “Are you sure about this?”
Now Clarke’s thumb caressed her cheek. “Yeah,” she responded shyly. “Are you?”
Lexa wanted desperately to say yes, but Clarke had a point earlier. “No,” she admitted reluctantly. “What if we’re better off as friends?”
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
Clarke didn’t reply, and Lexa allowed her to continue stroking her cheek for another minute. Then Clarke kissed her one last time and stood up, offering her hands to Lexa. Lexa gingerly placed her hands in Clarke’s and Clarke tugged her off of the stripped wooden bench, guiding her out of the dugout and back across the field.
Neither of them spoke to each other again that night. Not as they helped the others clean up, not in the car on the drive home, not even to yell “Goodnight!” through the wall that separated their two bedrooms like they did every night no matter the time or if the other was asleep. Raven and Octavia noticed the shift in Clarke’s behavior and thought it was best to leave it be, roommates and best friends fought sometimes, maybe one of them said something while they were off talking that caused a disagreement. If something was really wrong, one of them would mention it, right? One would be staying at someone else’s apartment, Clarke would be texting Octavia or Raven nonstop about what the other was doing to piss them off.
Bellamy saw them kiss. The frisbee had flown close to the dugout and he had sprinted to retrieve it before it flew out into the street, taking a moment when he got there to catch his breath. He saw them, and then heard their short exchange afterwards. It wasn’t his business, he repeated over and over to himself as he jogged back to the playing field they had outlined with small, plastic, bright orange cones. Lexa, his best friend in the whole world, would tell him if something was going on.
Everyone found out just what had happened four months later at Monty and Miller’s joint birthday party at none other than Clarke’s family vacation home. It took about a week for Clarke and Lexa to return to normal without mention of the night in the dugout. They kept it to themselves, silently agreeing to move on so they could hold their monthly movie night without incident.
“We won’t force you two to be in the same room if you don’t want to, but you’re both seriously acting so childish right now,” Raven wrote in the movie night group chat. Her unusual use of perfect punctuation in a text kicked Clarke and Lexa into gear and they both responded that they would be civil towards each other.
For four months Lexa kept up the charade that she was okay with the fact that Clarke didn’t mention her feelings for Lexa past that night, that she was okay with the fact that Clarke was dating somebody else now. They gradually stopped cuddling on the couch during movies because he was over more and more (understandable), stopped leaving their door open when the other was home (out of courtesy if Finn stayed the night), and started to hesitate before hugging each other in greeting (it used to be automatic). Clarke was out of the apartment half the time and Lexa found herself unable to think about anything except for what Clarke might be doing while she was away. When they spent time in apartment, all she could do was dream up 101 ways Clarke would realize she made a mistake and declare her love for Lexa instead. Or that many ways to make Clarke’s new boyfriend’s death look like an accident. Or both. Especially when that person was Raven’s cheating ex-boyfriend.
Lexa put up a wall around her heart and refused to let it crumble when she saw them together.
She knew she was in love with Clarke and she knew her feelings would only cause trouble from the very moment she realized what they were. Even when Clarke came out as bisexual in college and Lexa saw an opportunity to ask if they had a shot at being together, she kept her mouth shut. There was nothing more heart wrenching than pining after a girl who you thought was straight comes out because she’s dating someone else. Nothing worse than that same girl kissing you only for her to start dating someone else just days after.
So maybe it was a long time coming that Clarke and Lexa had a big fight, one that would harness the attention of the entire private beach and end with Lexa storming off to get changed out of her wet swimsuit so she could drive home two nights early without Clarke.
“Just serve the ball,” said Lexa, starting to get irritated with Clarke’s overly generous sportsmanship.
“But it landed on our side of the net, it’s your serve,” Clarke protested.
“You’re already holding it.”
“I’m trying to give it to you!”
“The only way that ball is coming over here is if you serve it.”
“Lexa, just take the damn ball,” said Echo. She came over from her position in the back of the rotation to take the ball herself, but Lexa swatted her hand away.
“No, Clarke will serve the ball and score the winning point so we can all finally go inside and eat the barbeque Abby has been working so hard on. She won’t keep stringing us along like she’s pretending we still have a chance at winning when we’re seven points down.”
“What?” said Clarke from her side of the net. “I’m not stringing you guys along, I’m trying to play an honest game of volleyball.”
“Well you should have thought about that when you went on that date with Finn.” Lexa crossed her arms and looked Clarke straight in the eye. “Are you being honest with him?”
“Leave Finn out of this—“
“How can I when he’s the one you want?” Lexa cried. “Why would you kiss me and tell me you want to be with me, but then go off and date someone else?”
“Is that what this is about?” Clarke threw the volleyball to the ground. It barely bounced on the sand before rolling onto Lexa’s side of the court. ”You kissed me first, and then said we were better off as friends!”
“I meant what if we try being together and we find out that we’re better off as friends! I didn’t mean that we shouldn’t try at all!”
“Well it’s too late now, isn’t it? I like Finn and I’m not going to let you come in and cause trouble for us just you can live out some fantasy you’ve been having for the last four months!”
“It’s not just the last four months, Clarke, it’s been the last five years!” Lexa bit back a sob, but she felt a single tear escape and made up her mind. “For five years I’ve been watching you go on date after date with people who don’t make you smile up to your eyes, who broke your heart so quick after you give your all to them! People you said yourself weren’t worth your time to make it work! And who was there, every time, to pick you back up? Me! Because I was in love with you! And I thought you were worth putting in the time and effort! I guess I was wrong and I shouldn’t have wasted my time.”
“I didn’t ask you to wait for me,” Clarke scoffed.
A knife lodged itself in Lexa’s heart and twisted painfully. “Like I had a choice?” she said so quietly she didn’t know if even Clarke heard it six inches away.
Lexa kicked the volleyball back to Clarke’s side of the court, then turned and sprinted across the hot sand back to the house. Her bare feet screamed as they passed over twigs and rocks in the side yard, but it was the quickest way to her room, which had sliding glass doors that opened to it. Luckily, she had left it unlocked and the door slid open and closed easily in her haste to get inside. She grabbed her towel and wiped herself down the best she could, then changed into cutoffs and a black tank top. She rushed around the room, trying to repack everything she brought for the two week trip in a matter of minutes. Clarke couldn’t see her like this; she had to get out of there.
She gave up after shoving her wet swimsuit in a plastic bag. Whatever she missed she hoped one of the others would be nice enough to bring back for her.
Lexa jammed her feet into her Converse, cursing herself for bringing only high tops and flip flops on this trip, two of the least practical shoes for a quick getaway. Her keys jangled in her hand as she jerked her suitcase through the house and out the front door to the driveway, the wheels slamming clumsily down the three steps. The key refused to find the car’s lock, scratching the surface around the hole until Lexa took a shaky breath to calm herself and was able to put it in correctly. Then she threw her bag in the backseat and got in the driver’s seat.
She sat there with the key poised over the ignition for a minute. She wasn’t crazy for being angry, was she? She wasn’t even mad at Clarke, Lexa was mad at herself for letting herself get this deep. It had nothing to do with Finn, no matter his past actions, it had nothing to do with Clarke, who was free to do what she wanted with whoever. It was just one kiss. Lexa, over the last four months and in her love-drunk brain, had blown everything way out of proportion and she had no one to be angry at but herself.
The drive home was three hours if she took the direct route, but Lexa figured if she made a couple of detours she could extend the trip for another two hours. When her friends found her room empty and her car gone they would assume she went home, she hoped, and she didn’t want to be there if one of them decided to go after her.
Lexa turned on the car and gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles.
She didn’t notice Clarke running out the front door, still in her swimsuit and without shoes, hoping to catch her before she disappeared forever. She didn’t notice when Clarke tripped down the stairs and stubbed her toe on a cobblestone as she made her way to the car. Only when she pried her hands off the wheel to bang on the leather, frustrated, did she notice Clarke desperately pressing her palms against the glass of the driver’s side window.
“Lexa, where are you going?” Clarke panted.
“Away from all of this, away from you,” Lexa replied. “I’ve spent way too long living in this ‘fantasy’ and I needed a wake up call. Thank you for this, Clarke.” She sniffed and put her hands back on the wheel, preparing to back out of the driveway.
But Clarke banged on the window and ran with the car. “Lexa! Wait!”
Lexa stopped.
“Can you open the window so I don’t have to yell?” Clarke sighed. “And put on the parking brake so you don’t accidentally take your foot off the pedal and roll down the hill.”
Lexa pressed the button on the inside of the door, but didn’t put on the brake. She stared straight ahead and waited for Clarke to talk.
“Okay, look, um...I’m sorry,” she started. She tentatively placed her hands on the window sill. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Things are obviously not how they’re supposed to be, and...Finn...he’s great, he really is. Not everything works out the way they’re supposed to. We’ve been friends for almost eight years, Lexa. Friends don’t let this sort of stuff come between them, right? We can come back from this?”
No, no they couldn’t. Lexa didn’t spend four months shoving down all of her emotions just for it to end like this, but if this was how it was going to end, she wasn’t going to let Clarke have any more pieces of her heart. So she stayed quiet, and Clarke sighed again, realizing she wouldn’t respond.
“Lex...it’s been, uh, three years. For me.”
Why was Clarke doing this, why was she guilting her into staying? Clarke already had everything she needed in Finn and their other friends. Someone to hold her, someone to take care of her. More best friends in Raven and Octavia. Clarke didn’t need her. Their seven year cycle was up and she was fading into the background.
And Lexa couldn’t do anything about that. She saw, in her peripheral vision because she still refused to turn her head, Clarke looking at her expectantly.
“Alright.” Clarke removed her hands and took a step back. “See you back at the apartment in two days. If you’re ready to talk, we’ll talk then.” She went back into the house.
Lexa finally took a breath in and she realized she had been holding it the entire time Clarke was standing there. She gasped and stretched her arms out on the steering wheel trying to catch her breath, and suddenly the car jolted backwards. Lexa slammed her foot back on the brake, pulled the handbrake, then turned off the car completely.
She rested her head on top of the wheel and closed her eyes, willing the tears back once again.
Bellamy watched them through the front window of the house, pulling a dejected Clarke into his arms when she came back inside alone. Raven and Octavia joined in from behind and together they silently comforted her. Finn stood off to the side and waited until they broke apart to give Clarke an awkward side hug. He had been in the kitchen helping Abby when they heard yelling, and they ran out just in time to see the Lexa hurrying back from the beach with Clarke taking a full minute to realize she should go after her.
“If there’s anything I can do...?”
Clarke pulled away and wiped her face, sniffling as she said to him, “You can go look for cheese Bugles, and don’t come back until you find them.”
He looked at her curiously. He had never seen her eat those before, yet she seemed adamant that those were what she wanted. “O-okay?” Finn pulled his keys from his pocket and slipped out.
“That should keep him busy for at least half an hour,” Clarke sighed. She flopped on the couch, suddenly exhausted.
“What are you going to do?” Raven asked.
“Me? Nothing.”
“What if she leaves?”
“That’s her decision.”
As much as Clarke wouldn’t like it if Lexa did leave, Lexa chose to stay silent all these years. Through good dates and bad dates Clarke went on, she never once said anything about her feelings to Clarke. She knew what was at stake and wanted to respect that. Clarke appreciated it. And Clarke was just as guilty of it.
Abby came to sit next to her. “Things will work themselves out.” She rubbed Clarke’s shoulder. “Your father and I danced around each other for two years before we were able to sync up, I have no doubt you and Lexa will do the same. Love can be a powerful thing, you know.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
The group silently waited with her in the living room for a few minutes, then Clarke assured them all that they didn't have to sit with her. Abby patted her shoulder and led the rest of the group back out to the beach for lunch. Clarke leaned further into the couch pillows and covered her face with her hands. Seven years for nothing. Seven years of smiles and laughs, inside jokes and shared secrets — all of it down the drain. She was going to have to move out, to stay with Raven and Bellamy or Octavia and Lincoln, and Lexa was going to have to find another roommate, because Clarke had laid out all of her cards for Lexa and she didn’t want to live in the fallout of what they had together for so long.
Lexa had meant they were better off as friends, right? She wasn’t often one to question the what if’s, so it had caught Clarke completely off guard. When Lexa doubted something, she was usually right to.
God, Clarke had read the situation all wrong. That’s not what Lexa meant at all. She was just scared, same as Clarke. In the nights after their kiss, it was all Clarke could think about and in every scenario she imagined as a possible outcome she refused to think about this. She acknowledged it might be a possibility, but she would not think about how she would deal with it. And then Finn asked her to be exclusive and she didn’t know what else to do but to say yes because Lexa sure wasn’t giving her a sign that she should say no. Did she even like Finn enough to stick it through with him? She knew what he was capable of, she had seen plenty when he was with Raven, enough to know that it was probably a bad idea. Despite what she said outside to Lexa, things with Finn were not great. He was already up to his old ways and Clarke was content to turn a blind eye if it meant she had someone holding her at least some nights who she could pretend was Lexa.
Three years of waiting for Lexa to make a move. All that time Clarke wondered why Lexa barely went on any dates and why they never worked out. And now a slight miscommunication was all it took for things to fall apart.
Wow, Clarke realized, she must think I’m so dense.
“Clarke?”
Lexa’s voice startled her, she hadn’t heard her come in. She uncovered her face and looked up to see Lexa standing teary eyed in the middle of the living room. “Yeah?”
“I’m...I’m sorry things turned out like this.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
Neither said anything for a full minute.
“Clarke?”
“Yeah?”
“You and Finn can have the apartment all to yourselves or find a roommate, I don’t really care. But I don’t think I can continue living in this weird dance with you anymore. I’m moving out.”
“Can we at least...sit down together, and talk about this a little more?”
“There’s not really anything to talk about, is there? I’m in love with you and you’re in love with me, but you’re going to stay with Finn.”
“But that’s just it! I’m in love with you, Lexa, why are you doing this?” Clarke jumped up from the couch and grasped Lexa’s hands in hers. She was starting to tear up now as well. “Please, don’t move out.”
The front door swung open and Finn walked in, holding the exact chips Clarke asked for. Curse the local shops for stocking up on those damn things.
“These were the ones, right?” he asked, holding them up.
Clarke snatched them from him and offered them to Lexa. “Please, Lexa.”
But now Lexa was angry. “I don’t want the pathetic excuse of a peace offering you asked your boyfriend to go get for you.”
She was crying, though she didn’t realize it until Clarke brushed her thumb across her cheek. She swatted the hand away and took one last look at Clarke’s pleading expression. This was her roommate, the girl she was in love with, and her best friend. It pained her to do it, but her next words were the last words she would ever say to Clarke while all of those things were true.
“You can reimburse me for my half of whatever furniture you want to keep. I’ll be staying with Anya until I find a new place to live.” Lexa started towards the door. “I love you, Clarke, and you broke my heart. Nothing is going to fix that but time and space. Maybe someday we can be friends again.”
“May we meet again, Lexa,” Clarke whispered.
And just like that, Lexa walked out the door. They heard the sound of the car rolling down the driveway and accelerating on the road.
Clarke turn towards Finn and collapsed into his embrace, his hand running soothingly over her hair. He kissed the top of her head and reassured her that everything was going to be okay, that Lexa was just being silly and she would come to her senses soon enough. She cried even harder at that, because how soon? How long would it take for them to earn back their trust in each other? What would it take?