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Clarke never expected she’d be starting a new school halfway through her senior year, much less a public school whose graduates mostly go on to either attend the local community college or enter the workforce right away.
She was supposed to be valedictorian at her girls only private school. She was supposed to be prom queen, she was supposed to get a scholarship she didn’t need, then go to Harvard to study medicine. That was the plan.
Instead, she’s here. A school where they’ve probably never even heard of Harvard.
After a shitty winter break, where her mom’s demeanour was icier than the streets outside, until she’d had about six or seven glasses of wine and started crying into Clarke’s arms about how she thinks her husband is cheating on her, and how Clarke is all she has left, and she can’t afford to have a failure for a daughter. A daily occurrence that had Clarke itching to get back to school, even her new shitty public school.
Now that she’s actually here though, standing at the front of the school, mentally making her way through the crowds of rowdy teenagers on the grounds, which rival a garbage dump, she’s having a change of heart. Maybe she could be home schooled.
She takes a deep breath, and steps through the gates. Someone shoves past her, and she turns to glare at them, but they don’t even spare her a second glance.
She picks her way through puddles of melting snow, trying not to get her three-hundred-dollar suede boots wet or muddy. She keeps her head down as she passes a group of footballers in letterman jackets. She would never admit it out loud, but large groups of athletic boys intimidate her. Even though she’d been on the cheerleading squad at her old school, she’s much more comfortable around nerds than around jocks.
She’s almost in the clear, sure she’s past them, without them paying any attention to her. But then she hears a loud wolf whistle, catching her off guard. Her boot slides against a particularly slippery patch of concrete, and with the large number of textbooks she’s carrying in her backpack, she’s unable to catch her balance, causing her to land ungracefully on her ass, right into one of those puddles she had been desperately trying to avoid. Her boots seem to have come away unscathed, but her designer skirt is going to be ruined.
“Fuck,” she mutters to herself, face turning beet red as laughter erupts from the group of boys, and Clarke is instantly reminded of why she hates jocks. If she were smart, she’d ignore them, pick herself up and continue on inside, and they’d probably forget about it in ten minutes. But if that were Clarke’s style, she wouldn’t even be at this school in the first place.
She turns to them, as she gets up, shooting daggers. “You know, a gentleman would help a woman in need, not laugh at her,” she snaps, somehow managing to be haughty even with the wet patch on the back of her skirt. “I could have been seriously hurt.”
In that instant, it’s obvious who their leader is, and Clarke can most definitely assume he’s the whistling culprit—the reason she can feel water soaking into her underwear right now. All eyes turn to a boy with messy dark curls, and soulful dark eyes to match. He’s not the tallest, but he definitely has the most presence, his broad shoulders filling out his jacket in such a way that leaves Clarke’s eyes lingering, wondering what his arms look like under it. The other four watch him, waiting to see how he’ll respond to this fiery blonde’s accusation.
He raises an eyebrow, a cocky smirk gracing his freckled face, drawing Clarke’s eyes to the small scar on his lip. If she were thinking about it (which she’s not), she’d notice how attractive he is, and how that swaggering confidence only makes him hotter.
“I’m sure your ass will survive the fall, princess,” he says mockingly. Clarke seethes at his tone, and the use of the degrading nickname. “And I don’t think any of us would consider ourselves gentlemen.”
Clarke lifts her chin haughtily, trying to pretend like her heart isn’t beating a million miles a minute. “You’ll never make your way in life with that attitude,” she says. “Maybe you should think about that before you make an enemy of the mayor’s step-daughter.”
His expression darkens, and he barks out a laugh. “Thanks for the tip, princess,” he sneers. “I know exactly who you are, and why you’re here. And I’m not too concerned about being your enemy.”
She flushes, and his smirk returns, triumphant this time, like he knows he’s won.
“Whatever, asshole,” she says. “Have fun working at KFC the rest of your life.”
He scowls. “Have fun kissing ass and sleeping with your boss for a raise,” he spits back.
Clarke swears she doesn’t mean to, but her arms seem to move of their own accord, and with one shove, taking him by surprise, she sends him sprawling onto the concrete. His buddies start laughing again at his misfortune, and Clarke gives him a smirk of her own before turning on her heel and flouncing off up the steps to the school before he can form a response.
-
Clarke’s student guide is a girl called Gaia, who seems supremely uninterested in becoming Clarke’s friend. Which is fine by Clarke, because she has her suspicions that Gaia may be involved in some kind of religious cult, and besides, Clarke has had friends before, and if those girls are anything to go by, she’s better off without.
Gaia shows Clarke her locker, then drops her off at her first class, English with Mr Pike. She’s had no time to go to the bathroom to check on the state of her skirt, but the water that had seeped through her tights to her underwear hasn’t quite yet dried, and some lanky kid wearing science goggles on his head asks her if she wet herself as he follows her into the classroom, so her anger at the wolf-whistler hasn’t dissipated one bit.
She takes an empty seat at the back of the class, in the corner, hoping not to draw any more attention to herself on her first day. She recognises none of the other students, despite living in the same town as them her whole life. No one takes the seat next to her. She wonders if they all know who she is, heard what she did to get kicked out of her last school, and want nothing to do with her. Or perhaps they just don’t want to sit near the new kid.
Mr Pike starts the class, and to her relief, he doesn’t point out the new member of the class, just starts talking about an assignment he obviously gave the students before winter break, and Clarke listens, trying to find context for his words, hoping she can figure out what the assignment is before he’s done talking.
He stops mid-sentence when the door swings open, and Clarke stiffens when she recognises the late comer as the boy she’d had an altercation with this morning. He meets her eye, but instead of the glower she expected from him, he looks almost—amused?
“Bellamy,” Mr Pike sighs. “Late on the first day back, really?”
“Sorry, Mr Pike,” he says with a shrug. “New girl couldn’t keep her hands off me.” He’s still looking at her, expression smug, and with his words, the rest of the class turns to look at her as well. She forces herself not to shrink into her seat, instead, locking eyes with Bellamy.
“And yet, I managed to make it to class on time,” she says. Bellamy rolls his eyes, and there’s a titter amongst the rest of the class. Clarke counts it as a small win.
“Okay, enough,” Pike sighs. “Take a seat, Bellamy.”
Bellamy swaggers towards the back of the class, plonking his books on the empty desk next to Clarke. She keeps watching him, and she’s sure he knows, though he doesn’t make eye contact as he sits down. She can’t seem to stop. She’s sure she hates him, maybe even more than the so-called friends she left behind at her old school, but there’s something annoyingly mesmerising about him. Maybe it’s because he’s indisputably gorgeous, or maybe it’s just the confidence he exudes. She’s still watching him, lip caught between her teeth, when he finally looks up at her.
“Yes, princess?” he says. She flushes, quickly looking away. She swears she’s about to come up with a witty response, but then Mr Pike addresses her by name, and she’s saved from the embarrassment of being caught tongue-tied.
She looks up to see Mr Pike standing in front of her, in the aisle that separates her desk from Bellamy’s.
“Since you’re new to us, and Bellamy missed my class on the day I gave out the assignments, you’ll be working together for the presentation. Don’t worry about being behind, I sincerely doubt anyone else in the class did any work on it over the break,” he says, and Clarke gives a polite laugh, since Pike seems to think he’s just told an amusing joke.
“Suck up,” Bellamy mutters. Pike ignores him. He slides some sheets of paper in front of Clarke, obviously the assignment criteria.
“You will have a small amount of class time to work on it, but the majority will have to be done out of class time,” he says.
“Mr Pike, I’d rather do the assignment alone, if that’s okay,” Clarke says. She glances at Bellamy, expecting a snide remark. He’s not even looking at her, all his attention is on Pike.
“Me too,” he agrees. Clarke bristles, affronted, for what reason she isn’t sure, except that he’d be lucky to have her as a partner.
Pike is unimpressed with their plight. “You’re working together,” he says, final, walking back to the front of the room before either Clarke or Bellamy can argue further.
It seems this isn’t one of the assigned classes they get to work on the assignment, as Pike instructs them to get out their copies of Much Ado About Nothing, and they spend the rest of the class listening to him explain sections of dialogue.
After class, Clarke intends to try to talk to Bellamy, to set up a time to work on their group assignment, which, from a quick glance at the criteria, seems to be a persuasive oral presentation on an issue of their choosing. She still doesn’t want to work with Bellamy, but she’s also not about to fail the assignment just because she doesn’t like her partner.
But the second the bell rings, Bellamy is out of his seat, strutting out of the classroom, flanked by three girls, one of them gushing about how much she missed him over winter break. He leaves the class without so much as a glance back at Clarke.
-
Clarke keeps to herself for the rest of the day. It’s easy, seeing as no one wants to talk to her anyway. She’s sure they’re talking about her though, if the amount of times a whispered conversation ends when she comes into earshot is anything to go by. Half of her wonders what they’re saying—the other half doesn’t give a shit. Let them say whatever they want to say.
She eats lunch by herself outside, even though it’s freezing. But she’s not about to force her presence on a bunch of strangers who’ll be forgotten in a few months time. Even Gaia seems to have forgotten she’s supposed to be Clarke’s student guide.
She’s certainly not going to try and approach Bellamy again—even if she’d considered it for half a second. But he’s always surrounded by his jock friends, or by pretty cheerleaders, or both. The assignment will have to wait until their next English class.
She’s in the bathroom after school, and for some reason, the mention of his name by a girl who has just wandered into the bathroom with her friend, stops Clarke from coming out of the stall.
“I’m certain he likes you,” the girl’s friend says.
“Then why is he still sleeping with other girls?” the first girl huffs.
“Have you told him you want to be exclusive?”
“I hinted it. But remember when Gina tried to tell him she wanted a relationship? She cried for like two weeks after he told her he wasn’t interested.”
“I can’t believe he already fucked that stuck up bitch from the private school,” the friend says scathingly. “It’s literally been one day.”
“I heard she got kicked out for fucking the principal for a better grade.”
Clarke takes that as her cue to slam the stall door open. “I did not fuck either of them,” she asserts. The girls, both dressed in cheerleading uniforms, stare at her, wide-eyed, as Clarke pushes her way past them to the sink to wash her hands. Both of them are taller than her, yet they shrink away, almost as if they’re scared of her.
“I wouldn’t fuck Bellamy if he were the last person on earth,” she continues. “And the principal? Gross.”
“So why did you get kicked out then?” one of the girls asks—the one who wants Bellamy to be her boyfriend. Echo, if Clarke remembers correctly. And she only remembers because it’s such a stupid name. Echo seems surprised by her own words, as if she didn’t mean to ask the question out loud.
Clarke decides to take advantage of her newfound status of scary new girl. She narrows her eyes at Echo, and purses her lips. “Never ask me that again,” she spits. And then she stalks out of the bathroom, her heart pounding.
-
Clarke drives to school the next day. Marcus had dropped her off for her first day, but there was no such offer today. Clarke is glad of it. Things at home have been strained between her mom and step-dad, and Clarke hates to get in the middle of it.
She’s also forgone the designer clothes and carefully put together outfit in favour of a pair of jeans and a leather jacket. And okay, they're still not exactly cheap clothes, but they aren’t Prada, either.
She pulls into the parking lot, into an empty space, and she sees Bellamy getting out of the driver’s seat of a four-wheel drive that’s seen better days. Clarke feels like her year-old Mercedes has no place being in this parking lot.
A girl dressed in all black, with long dark hair, slams the door of the passenger side of Bellamy’s car, and stalks towards the school. Clarke rolls her window down, and she hears him call across the parking lot.
“Octavia!” he yells. “This isn’t the fucking end of this.” He slams his own door closed, cursing to himself as he runs a hand through his curls. He looks up, and Clarke knows she’s been spotted. She expects him to ignore her, maybe give her a look of disdain before going off to find his friends. Instead he makes his way towards her. Her stomach churns.
“Eavesdropping, princess?” he says, leaning through the open window. An unexpectedly sexy move. The scent of his aftershave fills her nostrils.
“Can you not call me that?” Clarks huffs. His face is entirely too close to hers, so close Clarke thinks she could count every freckle on it.
“But it suits you so well, princess,” he smirks.
Clarke rolls her eyes, fisting her hand so she doesn’t give in to her urge to trace her finger over the scar on his lip. “We need to organise a time to work on our assignment,” she says, seizing her opportunity.
He sighs. “Fine.”
Clarke covers her surprise that he agreed so easily. She’d half been expecting to have to do all the work on this alone. “Tonight?”
“I have football practice.”
“After that.”
“I have a thing. With a girl.”
“A date?” Clarke supplies.
Bellamy snorts. “I don’t do dating.”
“No, of course you don’t,” she sneers. “You don’t actually see women as anything but their bodies, do you?”
He shrugs. “That’s how they see me.”
“You don’t think there are girls who want to date you?”
“Of course they do,” Bellamy snorts. “But only because I’m hot.”
Clarke gives him an unimpressed look. “You’re not that hot,” she says, even though he is.
“Yeah, well, neither are you, princess,” he says, and he half looks like he’s trying to hide a smile.
“You’re the one who wolf-whistled me, remember?”
His mouth drops open, and for a moment he’s speechless. “That was a dare,” he says.
“Real mature.”
Bellamy shrugs. “Murphy said he’d give me twenty bucks if I did it. Twenty bucks is a lot for someone who’ll be working at KFC their whole life,” he says. Clarke is sure she must be imagining the teasing glint in his eye.
She swallows. “I guess not everyone is hot enough to sleep with their boss for a raise,” Clarke shrugs, glancing down. She bites her lip, and sneaks a glance at him to see if he’s smiling, if he thinks she’s funny. There’s a definite curl to his lip, and Clarke keeps her head down to hide her own smile.
“Thursday night?” Bellamy says. “For the assignment?”
“Okay,” Clarke agrees.
“Six o’clock, your place,” he says. He straightens, already starting to walk away.
“Wait, no!” Clarke calls after him. “Can’t we meet at your place?”
Bellamy shakes his head as he walks backwards. “Your place or nothing, princess!” he calls back, and then he’s turning around, leaving Clarke to stress about the horror of bringing him into her home.
-
He actually shows up. On time and everything. Clarke had tried to get her mom to go out, but instead Abby is in the kitchen, on the phone to her friend, on her fourth glass of wine for the hour. Clarke just hopes she leaves her and Bellamy alone for the night. She couldn’t bear it if Abby embarrassed her in front of him. Why she cares, she’s not a hundred per cent sure.
“I can’t believe you actually live here,” Bellamy mutters when Clarke opens the door. “Or actually, I can. Where else would a princess live, I guess?”
Clarke ignores him. She doesn’t care what he thinks of her too big, multimillion-dollar mansion. She just doesn’t want him to know what a mess her mother is. She grabs his arm and drags him inside.
“Let’s go to my room,” she says, pulling him along with her, towards the staircase.
“You’re very eager to get me into your room, princess,” he teases. She looks back at him to show him she’s not in the mood for his suggestive jokes. He ignores her lethal expression and returns it with a wolfish grin. Her stomach flips over. God, he’s the worst.
Once safely inside her room, Clarke shuts the door tightly, breathing a sigh of relief that Abby hadn’t caught them. She turns to see Bellamy studying her room, looking altogether too pleased with himself.
“I’m not sleeping with you, if that’s what you think,” Clarke says.
He gives her a look of distaste. “That’s the last thing I was thinking of, princess,” he huffs.
“Then what’s with the shit-eating smirk?”
He shrugs. “Your room looks exactly like I would have expected,” he says. “The pink and gold colour scheme, the four posted bed, the vanity covered in jewellery.”
“Whatever,” she says. “I’m a cliché, so what?”
He shrugs again. “So am I,” he says. He claps his hands together, signalling a change in topic. “Should we get started or what? Let’s get it over with.”
Clarke nods. She perches herself on the edge of her bed, next to where she’s spread out her laptop, notebook, and assessment criteria. “We have to pick a topic and write a persuasive essay to present to the class. Any ideas?”
Bellamy looks around her room. “How about… taxing the rich?”
“Fine,” Clarke agrees, writing it down.
“Seriously?” Bellamy says, sceptical. “You know my stance is that they should be taxed more, right?”
She glares at him. “I’m aware.”
“Are you just trying to keep me happy?”
“No, I agree with you,” she says. “Your happiness means nothing to me.”
He snorts out a laugh. “Fair enough.” He walks over and sits on the other side of the bed, turning her laptop to face him. “I read a great article about it last week,” he says.
Somehow, working with Bellamy is surprisingly easy. They work steadily for an hour, and Clarke actually thinks they might do really well on the assignment. Bellamy is actually smart—not something she expected from some sleazeball jock. But, she supposes, people can have layers.
It’s a little after seven when she hears Marcus come home, his heavy footfalls on the stairs alerting her to his presence. She stops listening to Bellamy, instead keeping an ear out for any kind of interaction between her mother and her step-father.
“You’re home late,” she hears Abby call.
“I’m a busy man, Abby,” Marcus says. It’s a poor excuse, even to Clarke’s ears.
“Were you with her?” Abby spits. Clarke cringes. Their voices are right outside her door now.
“You’ve been drinking again,” Marcus growls. “How are you ever going to go back to work if you can’t get yourself on the wagon again? It’s not that hard. You just don’t drink.”
Clarke knows she should get up, put some music on, or let them know she’s here so they stop. Anything to keep Bellamy from overhearing. But she’s frozen in place.
“It was only a couple of glasses,” Abby says, but the slur in her words gives her away. “I was on the phone to Callie. She agrees with me that we should have a baby. What do you think? Would that make you happy, Marcus?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Please, Marcus,” Abby begs. “We need this, for our marriage. And now that we’ve failed with Clarke, we need to start over, try again. We’ll do it different this time.”
“Clarke is your daughter, not mine,” Marcus reminds her. “Whatever her issues are, they’re nothing to do with me.”
“Are you coming to bed tonight?” Abby asks, and her voice is quieter now, Clarke barely hears it.
“We have four guest rooms, Abby,” Marcus sighs. “Why would I come to bed with you?”
They continue on down the hall, past Clarke’s bedroom, with Abby crying, begging. Clarke’s body feels hot all over. It’s humiliating. Why can’t her mom have some self-respect? Why can’t her step-father have a shred of empathy?
“You should probably go,” Clarke whispers to Bellamy, not looking at him.
“Hey, I’m sorry—” he starts.
“Don’t,” Clarke cuts him off, hastily getting off the bed. “We’ve done enough work for one night. Maybe we can work on it at your place next time.”
Bellamy gives her a dry look. “Trust me, princess. My home life is no rosier than yours.”
Clarke swallows, her arms crossed over her stomach. She can barely look at him, and the fact that he’s trying to be all sympathetic and understanding only makes it worse.
“I’ll see you at school, then,” he says, when Clarke doesn’t respond. “I can show myself out.”
-
She expects everyone at school to be talking about it the next day. How the mayor and his wife aren’t sleeping in the same bed. How former celebrated surgeon Abby Griffin is a drunk, and that’s why she’s taking time off work. But it seems Bellamy has told no one. He must pity her more than she even knew.
She sees him in the parking lot again, and he gives her a nod. He’s without the dark-haired girl, Octavia, this time. She avoids him as best she can, and thankfully she only has the one class with him, English, which she thankfully doesn’t have on Fridays.
She avoids the cafeteria still, since she still doesn’t have any friends. It’s too cold out for most people, so she can be alone with her thoughts. Which she’s starting to think is a bad thing, because all she does is wallow in her anxiety and misfortune, replaying her worst moments over in her head.
She almost has a heart attack when someone drops onto the seat across the table from her. She whips her head up to see Bellamy grinning at her.
“Hey, princess,” he says. She stares at him. She could not be more confused if the queen of England had sat down in front of her.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“You look kind of pathetic sitting here by yourself.”
“So, you’re what? Doing me a favour?”
He shrugs. “I want to talk about the assignment.”
Oh. That makes more sense. “What about it?”
He takes a bite of his sandwich, and takes his time chewing. He swallows. “That was my sister, the other day,” he says. “The one you heard me yelling at. She told me she doesn’t want to go to college.”
“How is that your problem?”
He looks at his sandwich. “Mom isn’t around much. She does what she can but—what she makes is only enough for us to get by. No college funds. But I’ve been saving everything I earned since I started working at fifteen so O could go to college. And now she doesn’t want to go. Wants to drop out of school and live like some kind of hippy with her eighteen-year-old boyfriend.”
“Maybe she’ll change her mind.”
Bellamy shrugs. “Maybe, but—I doubt it. She’s the most stubborn person I know.”
Clarke studies him. “Are you telling me this because you feel sorry for me?”
A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Maybe a little.”
“You could go to college, you know,” Clarke says. “With the money you saved. You’re smart.”
“Was that a compliment?”
Clarke rolls her eyes. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Too late for that, princess.”
She considers him for a moment. “You are smart though,” she says. “But you act like you don’t care. Like everything’s a joke.”
“Like I said, I’m a cliché,” he shrugs. “Can’t fail if you don’t try.”
“But you do try.”
He eyes her with amusement. “Don’t tell anyone, princess.”
Her heart misses a beat. “Seriously, don’t call me that.”
He smirks. “Whatever you say, princess.”
-
It’s the strangest thing, but after that, Clarke and Bellamy are—maybe not exactly friends, because he’s still a jock, and he’s still a cocky manwhore, and he still thinks she’s a stuck-up princess, but they are friendly.
He talks to her in English class, and he walks her to and from her car before and after school, and sometimes he sits with her at lunch. They talk about—well, pretty much anything. One day he’s listing every girl in the school he’s slept with, and the next he’s telling her about his plans to travel to Rome if he ever has the money, because he’s really interested in Roman history.
He still calls her princess, but every time he says it, it feels a little less mocking, and a little more affectionate. She still tells him to cut it out every chance she gets, but she stops meaning it. It feels like their thing, like his cute nickname for her. She’s never had a nickname before. Perhaps the reason she gets butterflies in her stomach every time she sees him.
It doesn’t really change the way the other students treat her though. If anything, they avoid her even more than usual, and she’s pretty sure she’s getting dirty looks from girls like Echo, and Clarke wonders if they think there’s something more than friendship going on between her and Bellamy.
If that is the general consensus around school, it doesn’t bother John Murphy, who approaches Clarke at her locker after school one day. She’s been at the school three weeks, and Murphy hasn’t spoken to her once in that time, so she’s a little surprised when he leans against the locker next to her and looks her up and down.
“Griffin,” he says. “How about you and I go for a drive tonight?”
“A drive?” Clarke frowns. “To where?”
He laughs. “Come on, you know what I mean. A date, or whatever.”
“Oh. No, thanks,” she says, polite as she can.
Murphy frowns. “Why not?”
Clarke slams her locker shut. “If you must know, I’m with somebody else,” she lies. It’s usually the quickest way to get a guy to back down.
“Blake?” Murphy guesses. “He’s not all that. I could show you a good time. Better than Blake can. Besides, he’s only going to break your heart. Once he’s done with fucking you, he’ll forget you existed. That’s what he does.”
She flushes. “Bellamy and I aren’t sleeping together,” she says. She’s not sure why Murphy would try to proposition her if he thinks she and Bellamy are a thing. They’re on the football team together, Clarke thought they were friends. Murphy certainly seemed to be one of Bellamy’s main cronies on that first day Clarke met him.
“He must be losing his touch,” Murphy says. “If even you won’t fuck him.”
“Even me?” Clarke spits, feeling her temperature rise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Murphy shrugs. “I heard you’re kind of a slut. Isn’t that why you got kicked out of your last school?”
“Fuck you, Murphy,” Clarke says. Her hands curl into fists, ready to sock him in the eye. A large hand comes to grip her bicep, stopping her from starting a fist fight. Murphy’s eyes flick up to where Clarke is sure Bellamy is standing behind her.
“What’s going on?” Bellamy rumbles. She doesn’t know how much of the conversation he heard.
“I was just trying to ask princess here on a date, but apparently she’s too precious to lower herself,” Murphy sneers.
“Fuck off, Murphy,” Bellamy says. “No one else wants to date you, why would she?” Clarke turns to look at him. “Come on, Clarke,” he says. His fingers rub her arm soothingly through her sweater. “He’s not worth it.”
“Whatever,” Murphy mutters. “Looks like the dumb slut is in love with you anyway.”
Apparently, that comment is enough to make Murphy worth it, because Bellamy’s hand leaves Clarke’s arm, and a moment later it’s cracking across Murphy’s face. Bellamy throws Murphy to the ground, and then he’s on top of him, and Clarke tries to stop him, really, but it must look like she’s helping, because when Mr Pike drags both her and Bellamy away from Murphy, telling the other students that had gathered to watch the fight to scram, he gives them both detention, while Murphy gets away scot free.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Clarke says, once she and Bellamy are standing alone in the hallway, Pike having issued the detention for the following afternoon. “I can stand up for myself. I don’t need you to fight for me because you feel sorry for me or whatever.”
“Jesus, Clarke,” Bellamy laughs. That’s the second time he’s called her that. Clarke wonders what happened to princess. “I don’t feel sorry for you, okay? It’s what I’d do for anyone I care about.”
She stares at him, her stomach doing somersaults. “You care about me?”
He groans. “Don’t make a big deal out of it. God, haven’t you ever had a friend before?”
Clarke swallows, unable to meet his eye. Because, no, she’s starting to think she hasn’t ever had a friend before. She didn’t know she had one now. She finds herself welling up.
“Sorry,” he says. “That came out meaner than expected.”
“It’s not that,” she says, trying to keep her voice even, her tears at bay. “Nobody ever stuck up for me before.”
He screws his nose up. “Come here,” he whispers, and he grabs her by the hand and pulls her into a hug. Tears roll down her cheeks as soon as her head hits his shoulder. He holds her so tightly, and he feels so warm, so soft and comforting, and he smells so good, Clarke doesn’t want to ever let him go. She’s beginning to think she’s formed a fully-fledged crush on him. And even though she’s made a lot of terrible mistakes lately, that might be the stupidest one of all.
-
Their detention with Mr Pike consists of them sitting in their English classroom, Pike telling them to work on their assignment, and then leaving them to it. Neither of them bothers to tell him they’ve finished the assignment.
“Does he really think we would have left it so last minute?” Clarke scoffs, after Pike has left the room. “It’s due Monday.”
“I guarantee you that eighty per cent of the class haven’t even started it yet.”
“Public school is so weird.”
Bellamy snorts, rolling his eyes. “Sorry you have to slum it with the likes of me.”
Clarke flushes, feeling guilty. He’s her only friend, and she’s making him feel like she thinks she’s better than him.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Clarke says. “Or maybe I did, I don’t know,” she huffs. “It’s not that I think I’m slumming it. It’s just—I had all these plans, you know? But then I got expelled, and it was like the worst thing that ever happened to me. And everything I planned for got taken away.”
Bellamy eyes her, and she can tell what he’s thinking. She knows everyone has their own story about why she got expelled, though she’s really the only one who knows the full story.
“You can ask me,” she whispers. “I know you want to know. Everyone does.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Bellamy shrugs. “It’s your business.”
“Do you want to know?”
He hesitates, then gives a short nod. “Yeah.”
“Well, the short version is, I got caught cheating, and then I hit a girl,” Clarke says. “Long version is a lot more complicated.”
“We’re stuck here for an hour,” Bellamy points out.
Clarke sighs. “I guess it started at this party—it was my friend Josie’s party. We were friends since we were kids, and we were always competing against each other in everything—grades, sport, fashion, boys. It was ridiculous.”
“Sounds it.”
“Anyway, we were at this party, and her boyfriend kissed me. And he claimed he thought I was Josie, and I don’t know if he did or not, but regardless, she blamed me. She said I could make it up to her by writing an essay for her for English, since my grades were higher than hers. Which she hated, by the way.”
“And you wrote the essay.”
“I wrote the essay,” Clarke confirms. “And when the teacher called us in to say our essays were suspiciously similar, Josie said I forced her to write mine for me. That I’d been blackmailing her into writing my essays all year.”
“And they actually believed her?” Bellamy scoffs.
Clarke shrugs. “Her dad was the principal. My parents donated a huge amount of money to the school, and they let me off with a warning. But then I heard Josie gloating about what she’d done, and I kind of—lost it. And I hit her. A bunch of times.” She laughs, remembering it now, how she’d pummelled Josie into the ground. It’s the first time she’s laughed about any aspect of the situation.
Bellamy eyes her with amusement. “Was it worth it?”
“Probably not. There’s no way I’m getting into Harvard now. Mom and Marcus think I’m a disappointment and a failure. I have no clue what I’m going to do with my life.”
“What do you want to do?” Bellamy asks.
Clarke stops for a moment, stunned. She’s not sure anyone’s ever asked her that before. Not even herself. “Um,” she says. “I don’t know. I want to help people, I guess. And have some free time to draw. And I want to be far, far away from here.”
Bellamy smiles wistfully. “Me too.”
-
Their presentation on Monday goes perfectly. Clarke volunteers them to go first, which Bellamy grumbles about, but once it’s over, they sit smugly in the back row, watching everyone who follows them fail to measure up to their standard.
He sits with her at lunch that day. And the day after that, and the day after that. It’s like he’s forgotten about his other friends entirely. And even after a week of eating lunch together, walking to and from their cars together, and him very clearly stating that they’re friends, it’s like Clarke doesn’t quite believe it, until he texts her before school one morning telling her his car won’t start, and could she please give him a lift to school just this once.
She shows up at his house, the car idling in the street. She has a feeling he won’t want to linger. She tries not to judge his home, or the neighbourhood, but she can’t help noticing how rundown everything looks. She feels embarrassed to be driving her expensive car. It seems so unnecessary and over-the-top.
Bellamy walks out of the house, slamming the door behind him, and gets into the passenger seat without a word. Clarke follows his lead, saying nothing as she pulls away from the curb and heads towards school.
“Thanks,” Bellamy mutters, eventually breaking the silence. “If I’d known earlier, I would have walked.”
“I really don’t mind,” Clarke says. “I can keep driving you until your car is fixed.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bellamy says. “It’s too far gone to fix. Wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.”
She doesn’t make the mistake of offering him money to fix it. Somehow, she knows instinctively he’s too proud to take it. But she can drive him to school.
“Let me drive you,” Clarke says. “I finally have a way to pay you back for beating up Murphy for me.”
“You don’t need to pay me back for that,” Bellamy says. “I enjoyed beating up Murphy. Besides, I did that because we’re friends,” he reminds her.
“So if we’re friends I should be able to drive you to school without you being all self-loathing about it,” Clarke points out.
A hint of a smile makes an appearance on Bellamy’s face. “Fine,” he agrees. “But I’m giving you money for gas.”
“Duh,” Clarke smiles. “Can’t have you freeloading.”
-
After that, they’re almost inseparable. If they aren’t in class, or Bellamy’s at football practice, they’re together. Clarke drives them around for hours after school, so they don’t have to go home. Sometimes she thinks he’s going to kiss her, or take her hand, or confess some deep feelings for her. But it’s always in her imagination. And it’s probably for the best, because he doesn’t date, and the last thing she wants is to be another one of his flings who ends up with a broken heart.
He confides in her that the real reason he doesn’t want her at his house has nothing to do with him being ashamed of being poor, and everything to do with his mom’s horrible boyfriend.
“I’m secretly kind of glad Octavia spends most of her time at her boyfriend’s house, even if he is three years older than her,” he sighs, sitting in the passenger seat of Clarke’s car, parked in the McDonald’s parking lot. They’d been trying to work on math homework together, but it had quickly fallen by the wayside.
Clarke chews on the straw of her coke. “Do you like the boyfriend?”
Bellamy shrugs. “He actually seems like kind of a nice guy. But it does weird me out that he’s dating a fifteen-year-old. I think she told him she was older when they met.”
“Josie used to do that all the time to hook up with college guys,” Clarke snorts.
“The guy who kissed you, her boyfriend—he was in college?”
Clarke shakes her head. “He went to school with us. Josie was convinced I had a crush on him, since I wouldn’t tell her who I actually had a crush on. Because the person I actually had a crush on was our other friend.” She swallows, heart speeding up. “Her name was Lexa.”
Bellamy doesn’t blink. “Josie wouldn’t have understood?”
“I have no idea how she would have reacted,” Clarke says. “That was the scary thing.”
“So you and Lexa—” he starts, then trails off, unsure how to finish the sentence.
“Nothing happened,” Clarke says. “She helped Josie with the whole cheating scheme, so I pretty much hate them both now.”
“You’re better off without them,” Bellamy assures her. “You’ve already got a friend to replace Josie, and I’m sure it won’t be long until you find a girl who’ll love you like you deserve.”
Clarke finds herself blushing. “Or guy,” she adds. “I’m—I’m bi.” She hopes it isn’t obvious how desperately she needs him to know that. She giggles nervously. “That’s the first time I’ve said it oud loud.”
Bellamy grins. “Yeah? Congratulations. I’m happy to be your first.” His eyes widen when he realises the accidental implication of his words. “First person you told,” he amends.
Clarke laughs, though what she really wants to do is kiss him. God, she wants him to be her first. Her first everything. But she laughs instead, because what else can she do? And he joins in, and soon Clarke can’t remember what they’re laughing about, but she knows in that moment she’s never felt happier.
-
Of course, their classmates notice their sudden closeness. Rumours range from them sleeping together, to Clarke blackmailing Bellamy into being her slave. Strangely, Bellamy’s popularity doesn’t diminish, yet neither does Clarke’s heighten. Though, eventually, Bellamy’s old friends get sick of him avoiding them at lunches, and then Clarke finds herself surrounded by footballers and cheerleaders one lunch, when they ditch their old cafeteria table to join her and Bellamy at her outdoor one.
The weather is starting to warm up now, so perhaps they’d been waiting until it was actually bearable to sit outside.
“Clarke,” Echo says, sitting down beside her. Raven takes the other side, and Emori next to her. “Why don’t you join the cheer squad? I heard you were on the one back at your old school.”
Clarke glances at Bellamy, whose attention has been stolen by his football buddies, minus Murphy. “I figured it was too late to join,” Clarke says. “Besides, I only really did it because my friend made me do it.”
“That’s a shame,” Echo says, though there’s no genuineness to her voice. “We could have been friends so much sooner if you’d joined.”
Clarke resists the urge to tell her that they’re still not friends now. Like randomly sitting next to her one time automatically makes them friends? And Clarke knows Echo is only here because Bellamy is. As if to prove that point, Echo turns her attention to Bellamy.
“Bellamy,” she says. “Come to my place after school?”
Bellamy glances at Clarke. If he says yes, it will be the first time Clarke drives home alone in weeks. She desperately wants him to say no. And maybe it has something to do with the fact that she’s half in love with him, and some silly part of her had been hoping he liked her too, that maybe he’d just been waiting for the right person, and maybe that person was her.
But Echo obviously isn’t proposing a friendly hang. If he says yes, it proves he doesn’t feel the same way about Clarke as she feels about him.
His eyes flick back to Echo. “Sure,” he says. Clarke’s stomach drops.
-
He texts her the following morning, telling her he got a lift to school with Echo. Clarke’s stomach churns with unmistakable jealousy. It’s stupid, she knows it’s stupid. She doesn’t own him. He’s allowed to have other friends, he’s allowed to sleep with whoever he wants.
He still talks to her in English class, and he still sits with her at lunch, like nothing’s changed. And maybe nothing has changed, for him. But it’s not just them anymore. His friends continue to crash their table at lunch, and he keeps getting rides from Echo. He hasn’t called her princess in ages, and it’s stupid to be upset about it when she hated the nickname from the start, but it had grown on her, and she liked the way it rolled off his tongue, and made her stomach all fluttery.
She hates being jealous. She tries to pretend she isn’t. Tries to pretend she’s happy that his other friends are being nice to her now. But it’s useless. Even if she’s convincing everyone else, she can’t convince herself. She doesn’t want to share him. Not with people who don’t get him, who don’t give a fuck about him aside from his football prowess and his looks.
She wants him to be hers. And she wants to be his. His princess, his lover, his girlfriend. Just like what every other girl in school wants. She pines for him in pitiful silence, her chest tight with yearning from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep. It’s pathetic, and it’s probably a good thing her hopes were dashed sooner rather than later.
She feels like she barely sees him for two weeks, even though she sees him almost every day, and she just knows that come graduation, she’ll never see him again. The only true friend she’s ever had, and somehow, she’s already lost him, without ever knowing how she even got him in the first place.
He’s all she thinks about when she’s trying to sleep, tonight, and every other night since she can’t remember when. The first day she met him? She lets herself play out a little fantasy in her head, where he shows up at her door and tells her he’s in love with her, and that he’s been so stupid.
A tapping on her window wrenches her from her thoughts, and her eyes fly open. She switches the light on, and there he is, standing on the balcony, dark curls blowing in the breeze, looking like he’s been ripped from a romance novel. He steps back as Clarke pushes the doors open, and the curtains catch in the breeze, and her hair flies around her face wildly.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“Were you asleep?”
Clarke shakes her head. “What’s wrong?”
He shrugs. “I just missed you,” he says. Clarke pulls him inside, and shuts the doors behind him. She walks back over to her bed and sits down. She watches him glance around her room, like he’s not quite sure he should be there. He slips his shoes off and pads over to the bed, still looking unsure, like she might tell him to leave at any moment.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Clarke whispers.
He shrugs. “Mom’s boyfriend left. She’s blaming me, and she won’t stop yelling.”
“I’m sorry,” Clarke says.
“Can I stay here tonight?”
“Of course.”
She’s not sure why it feels so awkward between them. Maybe because there’s something she’s not telling him, so much she’s holding back. But it feels like maybe he’s holding something back too.
They lie on the bed, silent, for a few torturous minutes. Clarke wracks her brain for something to say, something that isn’t a spiteful jab about why he’s not with Echo, or a tearful love confession.
“I really did miss you, though,” he says finally. He turns onto his side so he’s facing her. “In case you thought I was lying about that. We’ve barely seen each other lately.”
“We saw each other today,” she reminds him.
“It’s not the same,” he says. “We never talk anymore. I miss driving around with you. You’re the only one I can really talk to.”
“I never said you had to stop,” Clarke says. “Just because you’re sleeping with Echo doesn’t mean I can’t drive you home.”
He snorts out a laugh. “I’m not even sleeping with her anymore,” he says. “I told her I’m done with that, and she said it was a good thing, because she wasn’t going to put out anymore for someone who didn’t want a relationship.”
“And yet she’s still driving you around?”
“I think she’s trying this tactic where if she just hangs around enough, eventually I’ll realise I’m in love with her,” he grins.
Clarke can’t even force a laugh. As if she hasn’t been having the same thoughts for months now.
“So why do you let her drive you?” Clarke presses. “When I’m right here?”
Bellamy’s smile drops. “It’s stupid,” he sighs. “I just—she convinced me I was taking advantage of you. That I’m not good enough for you. To be your friend.”
“Bellamy, that’s so stupid, you’re so—”
“I know,” he cuts her off. He reaches out to brush her hair from her face, and her heart skips a beat. “I know. I’ve been stupid. I shouldn’t have listened to her. I—” he gives a frustrated groan. “I just wish people were genuine, you know? I’m sick of these high school games, people trying to mess with my head.”
“I know what you mean,” Clarke says, thinking of her old friends.
“Maybe it’s not even high school, maybe it’s just this town,” he sighs. “There’s nothing better to do than gossip and spread rumours. You know someone asked me if you were blackmailing me into sleeping with you?”
Clarke snorts. “I heard that one too. Not to mention all the rumours about how I got expelled. And I know it wasn’t just kids from school talking about it. Teachers, too. Strangers on the street.”
“We should get out of here,” Bellamy says.
“Right now?”
“We could go right now,” he says, enthusiastic. “I’ll take all the money I saved for college for Octavia. It’s not like she’ll be needing it.”
“I’ll sell my car,” Clarke says. “Buy a cheaper one. Or we could take the train.”
“Where are we going to go?”
“New York first,” Clarke says excitedly. Her heart is thrumming. She can just imagine the two of them stealing off in the night, never looking back. “I think you’d like it there. And then we could fly to Rome, like you’ve always wanted.”
“It wouldn’t matter where we go,” Bellamy decides. “As long as we’re together.”
They look at each other for a moment, both imagining a life where they have no responsibilities, no commitments save for each other. It’s an impossible dream.
“We should probably finish school first,” Clarke says light-heartedly.
“Yeah,” Bellamy laughs softly.
They fall silent, and Clarke has no idea what he’s thinking, but she’s suddenly all too aware of him lying in her bed, close enough to touch. She thinks about telling him she’s cold, finding some sort of excuse to get him to hold her.
“Bellamy?” Clarke says. She chews her lip, staring at the ceiling. “How come you stopped calling me princess?”
“Oh,” he says. She glances at him. He looks a little embarrassed. “I realised what a dick I sounded like. When I heard Murphy call you princess. I was only calling you that to rile you up at first. And then I thought it was—I don’t know—charming, or something,” he snorts.
“Oh,” Clarke says.
“Clarke,” Bellamy says, glint in his eye. He pushes himself up onto his elbows so he’s leaning over her. “Do you want me to call you princess?”
“No,” Clarke lies.
“Really? Because I’ll do it, if you want. You just have to admit it,” he grins. “Say you want me to call you princess.”
“I don’t,” Clarke huffs. “God, you’re so annoying.”
“Is that right, princess?” he teases. Her stomach flips over. Fuck him, honestly.
“Call me whatever you want, I don’t care,” she says, pouting. His lips are so close to hers, and she can’t resist taking a peek at them. She reaches up to trace her finger across the scar on his lip—an injury from falling off his bike when he was ten.
She’s not sure which is louder, her thoughts or her heartbeat, but both are screaming the same thing; kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.
And he does. She’s surprised, but not surprised enough to not kiss him back. His hand rests on her waist, gentle, like he’s afraid he might break her. His kiss is soft too, tentative and teasing. She kisses him deeper, hungering for him, her hands coming to cup his face. She feels him smile against her lips, and she can’t help but smile in return, and then he laughs, and he has to break the kiss.
He looks down at her, and Clarke wonders if her own eyes twinkle back at him as brightly as his do.
“What was that?” she asks breathlessly.
He shrugs. “I wanted to do that for a long time.”
“Yeah?” Clarke says. She ducks her head, smiling. “Me too.”
His fingers stroke her stomach through her pyjamas, and he leans down to kiss her again, but Clarke stops him with a hand on his chest.
“Wait,” she says. He pulls back. Her stomach churns. She doesn’t want to ruin the moment, but she has to say this. “I don’t want to be another one of your flings,” she says. “I’m not judging you for it, but if this isn’t something more for you, please don’t kiss me again.”
He nods, understanding. Clarke’s heart pounds, waiting for him to tell her he’s sorry, then roll over and go to sleep. Instead, he leans down again, pressing his lips against hers, then pulling back again.
“You are so much more to me,” he says. “I promise. I want to be yours, if you’ll have me.”
Clarke nods, heart so full it spills over in the form of tears from her eyes. He kisses her, harder this time, wiping away her tears with his thumbs at the same time.
They kiss and whisper until the early hours of the morning, then fall asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms.
-
They walk into school together hand in hand the next day. It doesn’t take long for the entire school to find out they’re together. They don’t make any move to hide it—they don’t have any reason to.
The rumours say Clarke is a homewrecker and a boyfriend stealer—no doubt started by Echo, as if she ever had any claim over Bellamy in the first place. Regardless, the dirty looks Clarke receives as she walks down the hallway with her hand in Bellamy’s indicate that the rest of the school believes Echo’s sob story.
But she doesn’t let go. She holds her head high, because she’s never given a fuck what they think of her, and she’s not about to start now, not when she’s got Bellamy. As long as he doesn’t care what they think either, that’s all that matters.
Their lunches go back to being just the two of them—the way Clarke likes it. He takes every opportunity to kiss her, or touch her, or hold her hand, like he’s rubbing their happiness in the faces of those who would talk shit behind their backs.
They take up their long drives again, and Clarke actually goes to Bellamy’s football practice to watch him after school, instead of studying in the library like she used to do before they were together.
He meets her in the stands after, shirtless and sweaty, while the rest of his team heads back to the locker rooms.
“Gross, you’re all sweaty,” Clarke says, pretending to be disgusted as he leans in to kiss her. As if she isn’t absolutely sickeningly proud to kiss him when he looks like that.
He pauses. “You don’t want a kiss?”
“Shut up,” she says, closing the gap between them, if only to wipe the smirk off his face. She pulls back. “Go and shower,” she says, pushing him away. “You’re not getting in my car like that.”
He’s still laughing as he descends the stands to follow the other boys to the locker room.
He meets her at her car after, hair still wet from his shower, throwing his bag into the back seat then sliding into the passenger seat. Clarke drives, no destination in mind. Her mom stopped expecting her home months ago. She told her she has after school extracurriculars, but she doubts Abby would even notice if Clarke didn’t come home at all. She’s too busy scheming how to get Marcus to have a baby with her, or drowning her sorrows in wine.
Bellamy’s home is echoingly similar. His sister is never there—his one reason for sticking around so long in the first place—and his mom already has a new boyfriend, whom Bellamy says is even worse than the last one.
She doesn’t drive for as long as she used to—now that Bellamy can’t keep his hands off her, tracing the backs of his fingers up and down her thigh, and she has to pull up as soon as she’s found a secluded spot by the river, because she’s aching to kiss him, to touch him back.
She ends up in his lap in the passenger seat, and his hands are very well behaved, but she knows he’s itching to go further. She’s not quite ready yet. She breaks away from him, panting, her lips swollen, and his just as bad.
His thumb strokes her stomach through her top. His pupils are blown, and that’s not the only sign she can detect that he’s desperate for her.
“I’m not losing my virginity to you in a car,” she tells him, smirking a little as she gives him another peck on the lips.
“I didn’t say anything,” he says. “What’s wrong with a car though?”
“It’s crass, and it’s cliché,” she says, matter-of-factly. “You have to seduce me properly, Bellamy,” she says. “I am a princess after all.”
She kisses him again, eliciting a soft moan from his lips, then climbs off his lap and clambers back to the driver’s seat. He takes her hand, watching where their fingers entwine.
“This is totally going to sound like a pick up line now, and like I’m only asking so I can get into your pants, but I swear I was going to ask you anyway,” Bellamy says.
“What? What colour underwear I’m wearing?”
Bellamy raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “No,” he says. He considers. “But you can tell me if you want.”
“Pink.”
“I should’ve guessed,” he grins. He seems to have forgotten what he was really going to ask her, probably picturing her wearing nothing but her pink panties.
“Bellamy,” she prompts.
“Right,” he says. He clears his throat. “This is not as romantic as I hoped it would be. I never thought I’d be asking this, so I don’t have some elaborate plan to ask you—”
“Are you proposing?”
“No! Just be quiet for a minute, will you?” He takes a deep breath. Clarke eyes him warily. “Will you go to prom with me?”
“Prom?” Clarke repeats, a huge grin spreading across her face. “You want to go to prom?”
He eyes her nervously. “Don’t you want to go?”
“Of course I want to go, if it’s with you,” Clarke laughs. Bellamy laughs, sheer relief taking over his face. “Were you nervous to ask me?” Clarke teases. “Are you going to buy me a corsage too?”
“I wish I never asked you,” he groans.
“Don’t be like that,” Clarke laughs, leaning over to kiss him all over his stupidly adorable, embarrassed face. “I’m excited. We’re going to be the best looking couple there. Everyone will wish they made me prom queen.”
“Weren’t you already homecoming queen?”
“And? What about it?”
“You’re so spoilt,” he says, rolling his eyes, but he’s unable to hide the smile at the corners of his lips.
Clarke puts her seatbelt on, smiling to herself, heart full. “Come on,” she says. “I’m hungry and I want McDonalds.”
He pulls her hand to his lips to kiss her. “The princess always gets what she wants,” he says.
Clarke glances at him. “Yeah,” she agrees. “I do.”
-
There’s a football match that Friday night, apparently a big one, against the school’s fiercest rival. Bellamy elects to stay after school with his teammates, rather than have Clarke bring him back later and make her wait around while they warm up.
“Try not to miss me too much,” he teases her, hand in hers at her locker.
“I think you’ll miss me more,” Clarke says, poking her tongue out. They’re joking, but the truth is she probably will miss him, in the short time she’s not with him.
He gives her a kiss, and they head their separate ways, Bellamy towards the football field and Clarke towards the parking lot. She’ll come back later for the game, to cheer him on from the stands.
She dawdles to her car, head in the clouds, lips still tingling from his kiss. She’s jolted harshly back to reality when she sees her car, and her stomach plummets. Across the side of her shiny black Mercedes, someone has spray-painted the word slut in giant red letters.
She hesitantly makes her way around to the driver’s side, finding the same thing on that side too. She feels sick, and tears prick at her eyes. She hastily unlocks her car and gets inside, before they can fall down her cheeks.
Behind the wheel, she takes a deep breath. She’s okay, she’s okay. She doesn’t care what they do to her, what they say. Yet her chest feels tight, and stomach heavy. She wants Bellamy. Wants him to hold her and tell her it’s okay. At the same time, she doesn’t want him to know. He’ll overreact, cause a scene, try to fight somebody. No, it’s better if he doesn’t find out about this.
She starts the car, and makes her way home. She’s not driving around with her car looking like this.
Her mom is waiting for her when she gets home. Clarke tries to push past her, not in the mood to be Abby’s personal therapist tonight. She just wants to lock herself in her room and cry in peace.
But Abby grabs her arm, forcing her to stay.
“What, Mom?” Clarke snaps.
“What happened to your car?” Abby accuses, as if Clarke might have written the slurs herself.
Clarke shrugs. “Someone doesn’t like me.”
“Well, perhaps if you weren’t spending all your time with that boy people wouldn’t think you were a slut,” Abby says. Clarke can smell the wine on her. She wonders how much she’s had already.
“Thanks for the support, Mom,” Clarke laughs humourlessly. “Can I go now?”
“No,” Abby says. “Your math teacher called. She says your grades have dropped dramatically,” she says. “I want you to stop seeing that boy,” she continues. Clarke hates the way she says it, like Bellamy is somehow beneath her. “He’s obviously a bad influence.”
“My grades have nothing to do with him,” Clarke huffs. “And everything to do with my apathy towards school since my old school showed me exactly how much my hard work is worth.”
“Clarke, you only have yourself to blame for this,” Abby says. “I always tried to be encouraging, but I never dreamed you’d cheat—”
“I told you, that’s not what happened,” Clarke says. Tears spring up again. She hates it. Hates crying. She’s stronger than that. “I thought you believed me.” Her voice quivers.
Abby shakes her head. “I wish you wouldn’t lie to me, Clarke.”
Clarke wrenches her arm from her mother’s grip. “And I wish you weren’t a pathetic drunk,” she spits. She immediately feels guilty for the words, but she’s too angry to apologise, to try to take them back.
Abby’s expression darkens. “You’re grounded,” she says. “You’ll come home straight after school from now on. Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“You’re never going to make anything of yourself,” Abby says, almost taunting. “You’ve wasted all the opportunities your father and I gave you. I’m so ashamed. Your dad would be ashamed too.”
Clarke can’t hold back the tears any longer. Her mom finally hit her where it hurts. “That’s not true,” she sobs, but deep down, she thinks it might be.
“He was so happy when you told him you wanted to go to Harvard, the same school he attended,” Abby continues. “And now look at you.”
Clarke knows it’s the alcohol talking. Her real mom wouldn’t say those things. Her old mom, the one before Marcus, before the drinking, before she got put on indefinite leave from work for showing up drunk. But this Abby talks with the same voice as that version of Abby, and they look the same, and Clarke’s heart can’t separate them.
“Stop taking all your issues out on me,” Clarke hisses, trying to force her tears to stop falling, wanting to hurt her mom as much as she’s hurt her. “It’s not my fault you’re married to a man who doesn’t love you.”
There’s a sudden, sharp pain in Clarke’s cheek, and it takes her a moment to realise what happened—her mother slapped her. Clarke presses her hand to her cheek, shock hollowing out her chest. She looks at Abby in utter disbelief. But she can’t see a trace of her mom there. All she can see in Abby’s eyes is anger and pain—Clarke wonders how long that’s all this woman has been.
The slap had dried up all Clarke’s tears, made her hard inside, but now it’s Abby who’s crying. “He’d love me if it weren’t for you,” she sobs. “If we didn’t have you, he’d have a baby with me, everything would be okay.”
Clarke shakes her head, and swallows thickly. She’s got nothing left to say. She runs upstairs, with Abby calling after her. She slams her bedroom door behind her, and goes straight for the closet, pulling out a small suitcase. Her decision had been made as soon as her mom hit her. She has to get out of here.
She throws clothes into the suitcase, underwear, toiletries—the essentials. She rifles through her jewellery box, trying to find something worth more than a couple of thousand. It’s not like she can sell her car the way it is, and on such short notice.
She gives up on her jewellery box, slamming the lid shut in annoyance. Her next idea makes her stomach churn. But she has to do it. She peeks out of her room, and when she sees no sign of her mother, she races down the hall to Abby’s room, beelining for her mom’s jewellery box. It’s easy to find—sitting right on top, like maybe her mom takes it out to look at sometimes. The massive diamond ring Jake had given her when he proposed.
“Sorry, Dad,” she whispers, giving the ring a quick kiss. She slips it into her pocket, grabs her suitcase from her room, and flies down the stairs towards the front door.
“Where are you going?” Abby yells. “You’re grounded.”
Clarke ignores her. She drives to the main street and parks right in front of the pawn shop. She tries to look confident and mature as she walks inside, though her stomach is swimming with anxiety. The guy behind the counter doesn’t look up until Clarke is standing right in front of him.
“Yeah?” he says.
“I have something I’d like to uh—pawn?” Clarke says. She definitely sounds like she doesn’t know what she’s doing.
“Show,” the guy says. Clarke slips the ring out of her pocket and places it on the counter. She doesn’t miss the way the guys eyes widen.
“I’ll give you five grand for it,” he says.
Clarke scoffs. “It’s worth much more than that.” She’s not sure how much exactly, but at least five times that much.
The guy snorts. “Six,” he says. Clarke shakes her head. “Listen, my diamond guy isn’t here,” he says scornfully. “So if you want to come back tomorrow and have him value it properly, be my guest. But something tells me you need the money fast.” Well, duh. She’s at a fucking pawn shop.
“Fifteen,” Clarke says, not breaking eye contact.
The guy considers her. “Ten.”
“Deal,” Clarke says.
She gets the money in cash, and heads straight to school. There’s still half an hour until the game starts, but there are already people milling around.
“Nice paint job!” someone yells at her. Clarke flips them the bird and doesn’t even glance in their direction.
She barges into the boys’ locker room, and she gets a few strange looks, and one guy yells at her to get out, but she barely hears him. She reaches Bellamy’s side, and he does a double take. He grins, and slips his arm around her waist, pulling her in for a kiss. She forgets for a moment why she’s there.
“What are you doing here?” he asks happily as he pulls away.
“Bell—” she says. She feels her throat grow scratchy and tight. She swallows. She’s not going to cry. His smile drops, and lines concern crease his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I—” she shakes her head. “I love you,” she says. He stares at her for a moment, his expression not changing. She wonders if he heard her. But a moment later, he has her pressed against the lockers, lips on hers. Clarke clings to him, welcoming his tongue, letting herself lose herself in him for just a minute.
He breaks away. “I love you too,” he tells her.
“I want to leave,” Clarke says. He frowns. “After the game. There’s a train to New York at nine. I’ll drive you to your place and you can get what you need, and we can get out of here and—”
“Clarke,” he says, cutting off her hysterical rambling. He puts his hands on her shoulders. “What’s going on? What happened?”
She feels those tears she was desperately trying to hold back form in her eyes. “My mom—she hit me. She doesn’t think I’m good enough, she doesn’t want me,” Clarke sobs, tears falling. “They wrote slut on my car. I hate it here, I can’t—”
Bellamy pulls her into his arms, wrapping them around her tightly, covering her whole body with his. He kisses the top of her head.
“I can’t,” she repeats.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says. “You can stay at my place for a few nights.”
Clarke shakes her head, and she rips herself from his arms. “No,” she says. “I’m leaving. I want you to come with me.”
“Clarke—” he says softly, pleading, regretful. “I can’t—I can’t just leave. My mom—Octavia, they need me. I have a job, school—” he swallows, looking guilty.
Clarke nods. Of course. Of course, he can’t just leave with her. She feels like an idiot for suggesting it. He actually has plans and goals, a family to take care of, even if they don’t appreciate him enough. Not like Clarke, who has nothing worth keeping, except him.
“I understand,” she says, her voice wavering. She wipes away her tears with her fingers. “I’ll buy you a ticket anyway,” she says. “Just in case you change your mind.”
She doesn’t kiss him again, even though she wants to, even though she can’t stand to leave things like this. But she has to go, and he has to stay, and she thinks he could probably convince her to stay with his kiss. She gives him a sad smile, and then turns to leave.
“Clarke!” he calls after her, voice strangled. She doesn’t turn back.
-
She sits in her car at the train station parking lot, tickets in her jacket pocket. There’s still some sick hope in her that Bellamy will change his mind, even though she knows he’s made his decision.
She cries on and off. Almost changes her mind a couple of times. But she’s heard no word from her mom, and she can only deduce it’s because of what she’s suspected for a while now—her mom doesn’t care about her.
Clarke has no idea what she’s going to do when she gets to New York. She supposes she’ll try to check into the shittiest, cheapest hotel she can find. Then job hunting as soon as possible. It’s going to be okay. She can do this alone.
The train pulls up at the station, and Clarke gets her bag out of the trunk. She leaves the car keys in the ignition—let someone steal it, she doesn’t give a fuck anymore.
She stands on the platform, watching as other people board the train. She’s not ready to get on just yet—what if he shows up? She keeps glancing up and down the platform, stomach full of butterflies. She checks the time over and over. 8:51, 8:52, 8:53.
At 8:58, the conductor approaches her. “Are you boarding the train, ma’am?” he asks her.
Clarke swallows, on the verge of tears again. “Yeah,” she says shakily. “Just—”
She glances up at the glowing orange numbers above her head again, telling her it’s time to go. Her heart sinks as she finally accepts it. He’s not coming.
“Yeah,” she says again. She lets the conductor usher her towards the door, trying to hide her tears from him.
“Wait, Clarke!” a voice calls. Clarke whips her head up, her heart pounding. Her face cracks into a smile when she sees Bellamy running towards her, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He reaches her and picks her up in his arms, kissing her.
She laughs, still half crying. “You came.”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he whispers, lowering her back to the ground, pressing his forehead against hers. “I love you.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “You’re here now.”
They board the train hand in hand, and somehow, Clarke knows everything is going to be okay.