Chapter Text
Clarke first met her new roommate by tripping over her leg. It was unattached at the time, just lying out in the open for anyone to trip over, and it chose Clarke to be its victim that morning.
She spent the next four and a half days apologizing for it, until Raven told her she’d stuff the goddamned prosthetic in her mouth, if it’d shut her up about it.
What a good way to make friends, Clarke thought miserably. And then, even more miserably, she thought, what a good way to start college.
That’s where she was, now; college. Schinetti-Ky University, affectionately called SKY-U by its staff and students, because no one could be bothered to try and pronounce its full name. The marketing team had done wonders with the acronym, with a full line of sweatshirts and gym bags and coffee tumblers covered in clouds and suns and stars. To be honest, those designs were half the reason Clarke had applied to the school at all.
The other half, of course, was the fact that it was a good school. A great school, if you were interested in things like sculpting, or ceramics, or design—which she was. A good school, if you were aiming for anything else.
Its astral-physics department was nonexistent, and so Wells had packed up and headed to a university on the other side of the city, one for people that liked to count and name and number stars, and imagine detailed ways in which their planet might implode.
Just forty-five minutes, with good traffic, he’d smiled reassuringly. We’ll get coffee every Thursday, and quiz each other before exams!
They’d gone five weeks before their schedules fell out of alignment, and Clarke missed Coffee Thursday because of a three-hour lecture. And then Wells’s Volkswagon went to car Heaven, and he had to cancel all study sessions for the foreseeable future. They still called and texted and even emailed, when feeling especially lazy. And to be honest, Clarke didn’t even mind that much because by then, she and Raven had already instituted pizza night, taco night, and every other sort of quick, hot and greasy food night.
Also by then, she’d met O.
O was short for Octavia, which no one was allowed to know, but which everyone knew already because it was college and their names were posted on every class bulletin hung up in the halls—but they all pretended not to. O was the sort of popular that came naturally, and led to whole rooms orbiting around her without meaning to. Sometimes Clarke wondered if she even noticed the attention, but then she’d remember that this was O, and O loved attention more than most things in life, so of course she noticed. She was just so used to it that she seemed to forget because, again, natural.
O was also the kind of girl that made it hard to ignore her. As in, the slam doors open and yell get moving bitches it’s tequila night at The Dropship, kind of girl. She was eighteen and sometimes she looked eighteen and sometimes she looked twenty-four, and it all hinged on whether or not she was wearing one of her studded dresses and black eyeshadow.
Clarke met O in week three at SKY-U, the night before an Art History quiz she was seriously considering setting fire to as her professor slept. She was going over flashcards in the common room, because she’d forgotten her key in her room again, and Raven was pulling an all-nighter in the garage and hadn’t responded to Clarke’s texts.
She could have gone to her RA to get the door unlocked, but she was slightly still embarrassed from the last time, and anyway the common room was just as comfortable, and closer to the coffee.
She was interrupted from rereading about Cosimo de’ Medici, when a voice she didn’t recognize shattered her thoughts.
“Oh, hell no—you are not spending the last night of the weekend on fucking flashcards.”
Clarke, knowing that she was the probably only other person in the room and was definitely the only one with flashcards, glanced up. She was too tired to be annoyed, and so she took in the new girl, disinterestedly.
She was sizeable in presence, but nothing else. She had a figure that spoke of long days spent at the gym, and skin a shade of brown that wasn’t just from tanning. Her hair was long and dark and piled up on top of her head in a loose knot. She wore a pair of black leggings, sheer enough that Clarke could see her practical-yet-cute underwear. Her black tank hung just over the jut of her hip bones, and she carried one of the SKY-U gym bags slung lazily over one shoulder. Her boots were cracked black leather and lined with metal studs. She was the sort of pretty that made other girls want to hate her on principle.
“Uh,” Clarke said, lamely. The new girl did not look impressed.
“Come on, get up—it’s karaoke night at The Dropship, and I know for a fact I can spring us some free daiquiri’s. You look like you could use a little Joan Jett and Weezer.”
Clarke just stared. This was it, she realized. That quintessential college moment. To be honest, she’d thought hitting Raven’s leg had been it for her, that it would all be downhill from there. Then she’d thought their first attempt at home-made pizza; cheeseless with pepperoni, green peppers and olives, while mostly-drunk on some cheap white wine, was the one. But she’d been wrong yet again—this, this impatient and unfairly pretty stranger practically ordering Clarke to belt I love Rock and Roll at some bar she’d never heard of—this was the moment.
And so she said no.
“I have a quiz tomorrow,” she nearly cringed at her own voice. She sounded like a twelve-year-old, still sure that a single bad grade meant she’d die alone and unsuccessful. The new girl looked even more not impressed.
“You look about my size,” she mused with pursed lips, choosing to completely ignore Clarke’s argument. “I probably have something that’ll fit. C’mon.”
Without another word or hesitation, she pivoted and strode down the hallway, not bothering to glance back to make sure Clarke was following.
She almost didn’t.
But then she thought back to Raven, two nights earlier, laying upside down on her mattress across the room, asking in her naturally accusatory voice, why Clarke had even bothered with college if she wasn’t going to bother with college.
And sure, maybe it was a little junior high of her to follow some stranger just to sort-of spite her roommate, but. So what?
So she padded silently after the girl, who as it turns out only lived a few doors down from her and Raven, so, you know; just in case. The girl’s roommate wasn’t there, the room empty and dark until she flipped a switch and a row of electric violet Christmas lights flickered to life. There were lava lamps and other light fixtures of varying shapes and colors, but no standard round globe centered in the ceiling. Clarke wondered if the girl had done away with it herself or had simply lucked out with the room.
Beyond that, the room was everything a girl’s college dorm should be. Two twin-sized beds, one on either side of the floor. Music, movie and miscellaneous posters tacked up as a makeshift wallpaper. There was a single calendar made up of cartoon cats, only halfway through February. Clothes and shoes and empty Doritos bags and bottles of fizzy water and tubes of mascara littered the floor. Books were stacked on every surface. The beds were just as sloppy as everything around them—the entirety of the space was a fire hazard, really. A single window blocked off by about five layers of black-out curtains.
The girl toed off her boots, flinging them into the mess unceremoniously. She tore the bag from her shoulders and dropped it in front of her closet, which resembled an open mouth, spewing clothes like vomit. She’d taken the door off its hinges and replaced it with strings of wooden beads, and Clarke couldn’t help but wonder if she’d decided to do away with the door because it couldn’t close.
Clarke stood awkwardly in the open doorway, watching as the girl dove into the mass of lingerie and dresses and bomber jackets. She flung unwanted articles out into the battlefield her room was quickly becoming, and inspected each slinky black number closely before discarding it. With each skirt getting tighter and shorter than the last, Clarke felt her nerves returning.
Finally, and with a grunt of smug triumph, the girl leapt up and tossed a dress at Clarke. She wasn’t quick enough to catch it, and it fell to the ground in a floral heap. The girl tossed her hair, loose and wild from the bun, and rolled her eyes. She was the kind of graceful that leant itself to athleticism. She could probably do a handstand in her sleep. Clarke frowned as she inspected the chosen garment.
It was, surprisingly, not black. Or slinky. In fact, it was uncannily similar to Clarke’s actual tastes. It fell tastefully, halfway down her thighs, with a bodice only slightly too tight, and a skirt that flared enough to swirl when she stepped. She loved it instantly.
“I had to wear it to a wedding,” the girl explained with a careless hand wave. She was wearing a drastic, leopard print, skin-tight thing that zipped up in the front. Her boots were pointy and intimidating, with skinny sharp heels they wouldn’t allow on a plane. She was pinning her hair in an elaborate faux-hawk, with rope-like braids down her scalp. Her eyes were dark and vicious—she looked like the lovechild of a girl power-rock band, and a bareknuckle boxer. “You can keep it if you want.” She made a face at her in the mirror, as though the dress had personally offended her.
Clarke didn’t bother trying to say no—in the last forty minutes, she’d drifted from the doorway to perch on O’s—O, like the letter and shit. Don’t even ask what it’s short for; my family is weird.—mattress to watch her get ready. Clarke was, in many ways, more a watcher than anything. Wells used to affectionately call her world-gazer—he said she looked at the world like a museum, and was constantly studying the artworks. Lexa called her something French. Reculer pour mieux sauter; to draw back, so as to leap better. You are waiting, she’d explained. Watching, learning, so that when you jump you will land perfectly.
Raven called her boring. Clarke liked Lexa’s version of her better, possibly better than the real one.
She’d let O do her makeup, which was why her eyelids felt heavy with shimmery gold and glitter. She’d put her foot down at the sultry charcoal, but they’d compromised with the lipstick—a pale lavender that matched the flowers on her dress. O had tried to force her into a pair of deadly-looking shoes, but her feet were considerably smaller and so she was left with the safety of her cowgirl boots, a gag gift from her father.
What, isn’t that what they wear in Kentucky? He’d laughed at her graduation party. She’d only rolled her eyes and slipped them on—real leather, with squiggly patterns embroidered on the sides. Secretly, she loved them.
Finally, O declared herself ready for the outside world. She looked immaculate, and had even woven a single braid down the side of Clarke’s face, so they sort-of matched, but not really. She stomped out into the hallway like a war-hungry Goddess, with Clarke as her dainty flower-picking sidekick. Even delegated to the minor role, Clarke felt more powerful than she had in days. Weeks, actually. Since high school graduation, at least. She felt wired and interesting and hot—maybe it was the braid. Or the dress.
It was definitely the dress.
It swirled around her legs as she walked, just like she knew it would. She kept pace with O, even though she technically didn’t know where they were going, and she definitely wasn’t imagining the heads they turned as they went.
Realistically, she knew it was probably the impressive girl beside her collecting all the stares, but Clarke couldn’t help thinking she’d earned a few of her own.
The Dropship turned out to be a bar just a few blocks from their campus. They walked there, O keeping impressively steady in her outrageous heels, and Clarke fighting to keep up with the much taller girl as they went. The bar itself was actually below ground, with a narrow staircase leading down to the bunker-like room. Inside, it was loud and moderately packed with college kids and grown adults all the same. Grown adults, it was strange to still think like that. Clarke was technically an adult herself, having turned eighteen just three months earlier, but it was hard to remember. Hard to look at her scabby knees and awkward limbs and bedhead, and equate all of that with grown up.
The bar had a kind of half-hearted space theme, with some prints of different planets nailed along the spray-painted walls, and a few glow in the dark stars strung up across the rafters in decoration. A metal sign above the wall of pint glasses read Until your final journey to the ground. She wasn’t sure what it meant, though she thought she might have known the words—maybe it was a song lyric, and the bar’s owner had thought it sounded deep. In any case, she didn’t think on it for long, because suddenly O was dragging her by the arm straight to the bar itself, and Clarke instantly remembered that she was very under-aged.
The bartender seemed to be realizing the same thing, looking very unimpressed as the girls slid onto a pair of stools nonchalantly. Well, O slid on nonchalantly. Clarke hopped up, one foot on the bottom rail because she was too short to manage grace. Also she was nervous, but she mostly blamed her height.
“No,” the bartender—a young-ish woman that looked exactly how the bartender of an underground lounge should—declared, without looking up from the glass she was cleaning. O didn’t seem to agree.
“Come on, Anya,” O whined, though her smile turned smirkish near the tips. Clearly, she knew she was about to get her way.
Anya narrowed her eyes and pointed the wine glass at her. “No. I nearly got fired last time—not to mention what your fucking brother would do. You know he’s working tonight, right?”
O gave a dramatic eye roll. “You were not almost fired, don’t be so dramatic.” She pointedly ignored the comment about her brother, which Clarke filed away for later. Observer.
Anya snorted and reached for another glass to wipe clean. “Coming from you?” She and O shared a wry smile. They held a stare for several moments, before the older woman heaved an enormous sigh. “Beer and wine only,” she ordered.
“Two strawberry daiquiri’s,” O demanded. “One for me, and one for my comrade.” She linked arms with Clarke conspiratorially, and Anya flicked her gaze over to the new girl. Clarke felt herself blush under the attention, which was absurd.
Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? Why she’d chosen an out-of-state school, a thousand miles from home—to knock herself out of her comfort zone? To become someone better, the girl she’d always wanted to be? Wasn’t that why she was out tonight, with this girl, wearing this amazing dress that made her feel eighteen and confident? Wasn’t this her night to finally leap?
Anya jutted her chin towards her. “You here to make sure this one doesn’t get in trouble tonight?”
Clarke gave a smile that toed the line between sweet and wicked. “More like her partner in crime,” she drawled. “I’ll take a Jean Harlow.” Having a bartender for a sister did have its perks, like the ability to impress at strange bars with strange women.
And Anya did look suitably impressed, while O practically purred with pride. As the older woman turned to mix up their drinks, O squeezed the arm she still held. “You’ve been holding out on me, Griff,” she accused fondly.
Anya returned with their cocktails, which O snatched up without paying, and abruptly slid down, heading across the room. Clarke followed, drink in hand, chest burning with the familiar warmth of rum and sweet vermouth. It’d been a while since she’d had any alcohol, and her thoughts were already fuzzing at the edges. She felt good, and she couldn’t help the little bounce and shimmy she did, matching the beat of whatever soft-core rock was playing in the background. O had stepped up to a tall table, the kind Clarke could barely lean her elbows on, ringed by a trio of boys around their age. Two of them, both gangly but in that attractive boy way, stood to offer the girls their stools. The third refused to move, only glancing around the room with a general sort of apathy and distaste. Clarke decided simultaneously that she didn’t like him, and wanted to make him laugh.
It was an annoying habit of hers, the need to seek out the unhappiest person and make them smile. It was far from selfless—more of a challenge to herself. If she succeeded, she’d have an inflated ego for days. And if she failed, she’d be left wondering what she’d done wrong. It was unhealthy to say the least. Sometimes she wished she’d just take up smoking.
“Griff, this is Mon,” O announced, waving a hand wildly towards the boy whose stool she’d just stolen. He flashed Clarke a grin wide enough to make her forget her reservations about the impromptu nickname.
“Monty, actually,” he corrected with an exasperated eye roll, reaching an arm across the table to shake Clarke’s hand.
“Well I’m actually Clarke,” she laughed. O shrugged at both of them, pointing at the second boy, the one Clarke’s stool had belonged to.
“That’s Jas.” Jas waved distractedly, already scoping out two new seats to steal from unsuspecting tables. O moved on to the third, gloomy member of their party. “And that’s Murphey,” she grimaced. “He’s a dick.”
“Gee, thanks,” Murphey frowned, as though it were something he said often. O shrugged unapologetically. “You all invited me,” he reminded her wryly.
O glared and pointed at him with her electric blue straw, accusingly. “No one invited you,” she argued.
Murphey rolled his eyes. “Open invitations count, empress.”
O’s narrowed eyes narrowed even further. “Don’t call me that,” she spat. Murphey only grinned meanly, as though he’d won some sort of argument.
Monty ignored the two, finished off his cider, and went to help Jas swipe a couple of stools from a nearby table. The music changed drastically from some early 2000’s alt-rock ballad, to an electric funk number from the nineties. Clarke didn’t recognize the song itself, but the rum and the giddiness of finally doing something had her shoulders and hips rocking, and she tugged a still-seething O out to the main floor with her.
They were laughing within moments, hands clasped as they shook their shoulders in and out towards and away from each other, twisting their knees and the balls of their feet. The playlist stayed electronic for a few more songs, and by the end Monty, Jas, and half a dozen others had joined the girls in their ridiculous shoulder dance. Eventually, someone started up the karaoke machine and, as promised, I Love Rock n Roll was the first song requested, sung pretty well by a nervous freshman.
A sorority got up to chant I Want Candy; O and Clarke joined them in the chorus from their table, and cheered loudest at the end. They wolf-whistled when the rival fraternity gave a rendition of California Gurls. They sang along to a group’s attempt at Bohemian Rhapsody. O brought out her phone to film Jas and Monty absolutely ace Under Pressure. O dragged Clarke up for The Time of My Life, and then three songs later for Defying Gravity, where O was predictably Elphaba.
They started a drinking game, taking a shot each time someone chose a Michael Jackson song and tried one of his dance moves—but when someone stood up for Thriller, O shouted for everyone to wait, and they moved the tables aside so everyone could dance (even Murphey), all doing their best not to spill their drinks or anyone else’s.
They took shots of spiced rum because Anya straight-up refused them tequila, explaining that karaoke night was rum night—to which O argued that for Anya, every night was rum night—but Anya still didn’t budge. Clarke shrugged and took it in stride; she’d never much liked tequila anyway. And when she went to pick up their third round, and found an old receipt with a phone number hastily scrawled, rolled up and tucked in the change Anya handed back, she took that in stride too. And maybe it was the rum, but she thought Anya was pretty, and interesting, and she’d never tried going out with a woman before—but she’d also never done the Macarena on top of a table in a bar before. She’d never unironically ground out the Ken verse in Barbie World, before. It seemed like the night was all about firsts, so why the hell not?
And when The Dropship closed house at four, Clarke remembered stumbling outside, looped between Monty and O—or maybe Jas and O, or Jas and Monty, or Murphey and someone else. She remembered wobbling up to an RV refashioned into a burrito shack. She remembered ordering something greasy and warm with guacamole and ground beef, and stealing some of Jas’s cheese fries when she thought he wasn’t looking.
She didn’t remember getting home, but she woke up the next morning face-down on her bed, boots and dress and makeup still on. Her mouth tasted like morning-after alcohol and fried food, and her hair was both bone-dry and too greasy. She looked like a walking hangover, and Raven only handed her a bottle of Aspirin, some water, and smirked. What happened to you?
Clarke thought back to the night before. She could feel Anya’s phone number, still tucked in her bra. She shimmied out of the dress and hung it carefully in her closet. She carefully unknotted her braid, and washed away the gold shimmer and lipstick. She said, I took a leap. Raven rolled her eyes good-naturedly, stuffing her bag with Chem notes and physics books.
Whatever, nerd. I’ll see you later.
Clarke waved her off and called Lexa. She got her voicemail, which was expected. It was nearing four p.m. in Paris, on a weekday; she’d be at work. She left a message, to the point and sentimental all at the same time. Ended with Je t’adore, ma chatte, as usual. She told her about the leap. She knew she’d get it.
She didn’t see O again for twelve days, though she did call Anya shortly after Lexa. They went out to eat at a small bakery that Saturday. Anya drove her back to campus in her tiny BMW—bought for cheap on Craigslist and then patched together by her mechanic friend—and kissed her on the mouth before winking and speeding off. It was nice, nicer than the other kisses Clarke had stockpiled. She called her again the next day.
Wells had asked if this meant she was a lesbian now, and she’d said I don’t know, because she didn’t, and anyway, it wasn’t like that was a yes or no question. After so many years of her love life consisting of pining for the boy next door, Anya was new and fun and refreshing.
Raven had asked if she’d tell her parents, as if it was some sort of big unveiling—which Clarke knew to some people, it might be. But not to her. Her father, or sometimes her mother depending on their schedules, called her every Thursday for what they called their Clarke Updates, where she would mildly rant about classes and homework and generally pretend to be much more well-adjusted than she was. The Thursday after her second date with Anya, in between complaining about a Bio-Chem quiz she was worried about, and a philosophy 101 lecture that had been decidedly much longer than the one-hour-forty-five-minutes scheduled, she said oh, and I’m seeing someone. Her name is Anya, and she’s a bartender, and she likes Blues and old-style Jimi Hendrix, and she’s nice. There had been a pause, barely anything, and her father had said she has good taste. And that was that.
She’d told Anya the next day, and she’d blinked at Clarke twice before lunging across the gear shift to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe.
Over the two weeks, Clarke thought about knocking on O’s door a few times, but then decided that might seem creepy or needy or dozens of other adjectives she’d rather not come off as. Besides, she had three more essays due and still hadn’t started on her portfolio for studio art.
And if she’d taken to working on her homework in the common room hoping O might happen by, then, well. At least she’d have a believable excuse.
But she didn’t, and it was Raven who found her knees and elbows-deep in collage paste, creating the Greek Underworld out of shredded Cosmo Girl’s and old newspapers. Raven gave her an unimpressed frown, toeing at her pile of scraps.
“I need new underwear,” she announced, hands on her hips. A few of the other heads in the room turned towards them, though most were too absorbed in writing ten-page essays they’d put off until the end of the week. Clarke looked up at her roommate, lips pursed in confusion
“Okay…?”
Raven sighed; patience had never really been her thing. “And so do you—I’ve seen what you call lingerie, and it’s not cutting it.”
Clarke frowned, equally embarrassed and defensive. She glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping on them, but all heads were turned towards computer screens and textbooks. “I like my underwear,” she argued, angrily dipping a picture of Jennifer Lopez’s thigh into her paste.
Raven rolled her eyes and nudged Clarke shoulder with her knee. “I didn’t mean it like that—look, just come with me. I need an opinion, and trying shit on is always easier with someone to help with,” she gestured to her prosthetic, tucked away safely behind jeans. Clarke lips pursed further; Raven didn’t often pull the leg card.
Clarke thought about what she was wearing under her clothes—a pale pink bra she’d had since the ninth grade, with a few paint stains from when she’d forgone wearing an apron. An even older pair of panties, frayed at the edges and with faded green and purple dots all around. So maybe Raven had a point; Clarke’s underclothes did little to inspire the image of adulthood. But they’re comfortable, she reminded herself. And that’s what really matters, anyway. After all, it’s not like anyone else would see them. Well, anyone besides Raven.
She thought of Anya, who she’d gone out with the night before. Whose fingers had dipped up under her shirt in the car, skimming her ribs until Clarke shivered.
She didn’t say yes, but Raven grinned smugly when she started gathering up her unfinished project. She aimed a ruined magazine at her roommate in a vaguely threatening way. “Two hours, tops,” she warned.
Raven smirked. “Three and a half.” Clarke just rolled her eyes and shoved the paste bucket into her arms.
The store that Raven took her to was not a lingerie store. It also wasn’t the Super Walmart just eight miles from campus, like Clarke had been expecting. After all, Raven’s tastes may have run higher than the six-pack cotton low-riders Clarke stocked up on, but she still lived on a salary of student loans and menial waitressing gigs.
Instead, Raven took Clarke to a sex shop. It was called Phoenix, with a sign in big neon pink letters. They sold a few things Clarke recognized—vibrators, anal beads, strap-on dildo’s. They sold a lot of things Clarke had never seen before in her life, and couldn’t begin to guess at. Things made of silicone, rubber, and nylon. All colors, all sizes, and all battery types. Some looked like Easter eggs and some looked like lava lamps and some looked like strange fake plants. Some came with wall chargers, and strange add-on’s that didn’t really make sense to her, like heart rate monitors and GPS. Like some sort of amped up, sexual pedometer.
Raven spared no time in those aisles, though, striding purposefully towards the back of the store. Clarke had assumed this would be where they stored their massive and varied porn collection. Straight-to-DVD rip-off’s like Pride and Prejudice and Pussy, or something. An erotic version of Rush Hour.
Instead, she found herself staring at racks and racks of underwear. Negligees and garter belts with matching socks that ran up the thigh, and corsets and bra-lets and dozens of other types Clarke didn’t know the names of. Some of them bordered on ridiculous, with matching feather boas and cheap lace trim, but most were surprisingly tasteful.
Raven seemed to pick up on Clarke’s train of thought, and her I told you so grin was unbearable. She spent ten minutes snatching matching and mismatching sets and pieces from the racks, dumping a pile into Clarke’s arms and pointing to the changing rooms like a stern mother with no time for funny business. Clarke, with minimal mumbling, shuffled over to the tiny room and pulled the curtain shut tightly behind her.
She wasn’t usually so quick to surrender, but some of the garments in her hands were actually nice and, to be honest, she wanted to know what she would look like dressed like a relatively high class prostitute. Middle class, maybe. Catering to bankers and the regional managers of chain restaurants.
In the end, Raven bullied her way into the room with her, to the passive aggressive distaste of Phoenix employees. She made her try on everything, sometimes the same thing again in a different size or color—Raven liked to be fully convinced before committing to a purchase. Clarke was just as ready to shrug and say oh well if something didn’t fit, or the shade paled her out, but Raven waved no such white flags.
And then, true to her word, Raven had Clarke scrutinize each of her own choices and give her opinions, ignorant as they were. She wasn’t sure why she did—Raven just kept what she liked and tossed what she didn’t, regardless of Clarke’s words.
By the time they poured their spoils onto the front counter, Clarke had discovered she’d somehow grown two cup sizes when she wasn’t looking, and had an affinity for lace decals and the color red. She’d taken a particular shine to bandeaus, and the high-waisted panties that Raven claimed made her look like a pin-up girl. Thongs were decidedly not up her alley, which she’d already known anyway, and boy shorts weren’t nearly as comfortable as they looked. And while she appreciated push-up bras, Clarke found that she preferred simple underwire and thin padding. She even let Raven talk her into a pair of long sheer socks, thicker than most on the shelf, with little red bows where the hems reached her upper thigh.
Raven’s entire alleyway was filled with thongs, which was expected really. Also several varieties of fishnets, each a different shade of black. And garter belts—so, so many garter belts.
They spent two hundred and forty-three dollars, altogether. Clarke nearly passed out at the sight of their total, but Raven only shrugged and handed over her credit card, connected to the emergency account set up with the inheritance from her dead grandmother. Raven was at Sky U on a scholarship, along with several grants connected with how she’d lost her leg, so the card was mostly used for gas, textbooks and tacos at one in the morning.
“You can buy all the groceries for like, the next year,” she smiled wryly at Clarke when she tried to stuff a few twenty dollar bills in her roommate’s bag.
It was dinner time when they started back to campus. They’d taken Raven’s orange Cobalt, which the girls had affectionately nicknamed The Pumpkin. It doubled as their dumpster, with a dozen empty Styrofoam coffee cups and cans of sugary tea and receipts from gas stations littering the floors. The back seat was filled with old gym totes, a half-filled bottle of Malibu rum Raven kept forgetting about, Stilettos they hadn’t felt like wearing home, forgotten class assignments, and plastic shopping bags.
Raven wanted sushi and Clarke wanted pizza, so they compromised; burritos. Raven drove while Clarke directed her to the burrito truck near The Dropship, trying not to wince every time Raven slammed the brake too hard with her prosthetic. If Raven realized they were near the bar where her Clarke’s girlfriend worked, she didn’t say.
The truck looked different in the, admittedly fading, light of day. There wasn’t a line, like the last time she’d been, which made sense—it was Sunday, which meant most people would be on their way home to family dinner around the TV or table. Ah, the joys of dorm living, Raven grimaced.
The last time Clarke had been by the burrito truck, the man inside had been older, at the tail end of forty, with a beard and wire-rimmed glasses. Today, the cashier was a different man, but one she still recognized.
“Hey,” she nodded to him. “Jas, right?” She hoped that was his name—getting someone’s name wrong was always embarrassing for all parties involved.
Jas bobbed his head up and down, in a way that was somehow awkward and graceful at the same time. He took Clarke’s cash with a lopsided smile, and she remembered his shouted jokes on karaoke night, that had everyone—except Murphey—cackling by the end of the night. The way he’d held onto one of O’s elbows as they stumbled down the sidewalk. He’d put an empty beer bottle on his head to see how long it could sit there. And then he’d forgotten about it, and it’d crashed down when he’d jumped up on a chair to dance the Macarena.
“Griff!” he called happily, handing back her change. Raven mouthed Griff to her with raised eyebrows, but Clarke ignored her.
“It’s Clarke, actually,” she said, trying not to frown. Jas chuckled.
“Yeah before I met O, I was Jasper, actually. She’s got a thing for nicknames, and making em stick.”
Raven made a very unsubtle noise in the back of her throat. Clarke rolled her eyes, but gestured to her anyway. “This is my roommate, Raven.”
Jas parroted the name back at her, rolling the r exaggeratedly. Raven glared, but Clarke could tell it was one of her soft ones, so she must not mind him too much. They each ordered a burrito, double-stuffed and the size of their heads, and a bowl of oily chips to split between them. Raven bought the spicy beef—extra spicy, extra beef—while Clarke got the same veggie meal she’s got last time. Raven had shrugged off Clarke’s vegetarianism back when first instituting Pizza Night. Half Hawaiian, half cheese-and-olive quickly became their standard order.
“So do you go to SKY-U?” Clarke asked as they waited for their food. The food truck’s window took up nearly one whole side, so they could easily see through to where Jas was cooking on the mini stove.
Jas gave another nod, keeping his focus on the food as he spoke. “Yeah, I’m majoring in culinary art.” He flipped the stir-fry and caught it back with the pan, flashing them a grin.
“Cute,” Raven dead-panned. Clarke elbowed her in the ribs. Jas didn’t notice.
“What about you guys?” He started pouring meat and vegetables into a pair of flour wraps as he asked. Raven grabbed another handful of their nearly-empty chip bowl.
“I’m doubling; business and art studio,” Clarke had probably said those words a hundred times since starting school. It was the standard get to know you question—she was amazed they hadn’t asked it that night at The Dropship. She waved a lazy hand at Raven, still chewing. “She’s mechanical engineering.”
Jas dressed both burritos tightly in tin foil, before handing them out. “Neat,” he declared happily. “You guys should stop by the bar tonight, we’re doing Drunk Scrabble.”
“Scrabble?” Raven asked incredulously.
“Drunk Scrabble,” Jas amended. “Totally different.”
Clarke glanced at her roommate, whose glare was slowly shifting into dangerous territory. “Maybe,” she answered hastily, grabbing Raven’s wrist. “But we should head home first. Thanks for the food!”
“Thanks for the dinero,” Jas shot back with a wave. Clarke drove back while Raven filled herself with beef and stewed. She parked The Pumpkin in their student lot and sat for a minute, waiting.
Finally, Raven licked the oil from her fingers, tossed her balled up tin foil on the floor, and turned. “So,” she started, “Who’s truck-boy?”
“I met him at The Dropship, the same night I met Anya.” Clarke said with a hand wave, finishing her own supper. “It’s not a big deal.”
Raven gave her a Look that said she knew it was a big deal, but her actual mouth said nothing. Clarke had come to college thinking she’d walk into a half-filled room and everyone would instantly become the sort of friends sitcoms were made of. She’d been incredibly disappointed and, with the exception of the girl she was forced to live with, Clarke hadn’t had an actual conversation with anyone, outside of what’s your major, and when was that thing due?
In fact, for the entire time Raven had known Clarke, there were only three people outside of her own gene pool that she talked to, and only one of them went to her school.
Anya and Raven had met, of course. The night of their second date, when she came up to their door to pick up Clarke. They’d small-talked for the three minutes it took Clarke to grab her bag and cowgirl boots. Raven had said have fun, but didn’t bother looking up from the carburetor shedding powdery grease on her desk.
Raven and Clarke didn’t talk about their love lives. Clarke wasn’t really sure why, but it seemed like an unspoken rule, and she didn’t push it.
“Drunk scrabble?” Raven asks as Clarke adds her tin foil to the collection. Clarke thinks about her half-finished studio project, and the Ancient Greek History essay she has yet to start. She nods.
“I have to shower, first.” It was easy to forget she was still covered in paint and newspaper-glue.
Raven quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t say.”
Clarke made a face and grabbed two handfuls of neon pink bags from the back. Raven snatched the rest and led the way to their room.
Clarke was creating a tiny mountain of price tags on her mattress when Raven started stripping. Raven undressed was a common sight by now; she was the least body-shy woman Clarke had ever met. But when she started slipping on one of her newly purchased lingerie sets, Clarke balked.
“No way, do you know who else might have touched those?” She pictured the shelves at Phoenix, old and rickety and with a few mystery stains she’d had to avoid. Raven shrugged, but Clarke shook her head and held a hand out. “Hand them over, I’m gonna go wash mine anyway.”
Raven grimaced, but stripped again, anyway. Clarke collected up all the de-tagged underwear into her plastic laundry basket—it was old and powder blue, with ancient Disney princess and Loony Tunes stickers all over. On top of the pile she laid a towel and her dressing gown, a short and light dark green material, with planets and constellations stitched along in gold thread. She snatched up her toiletry bag and headed to her floor’s laundry room.
The laundry room was a good size, with five washers and three dryers and enough room to sort and fold with ease. Four of the five washers, and two of the dryers were almost always out of order. The room itself was also almost always empty.
The florescent lighting kicked on with a stutter as Clarke opened the door. She paused, wondering if she should Google how to properly wash fancy underwear. Raven would probably know, but she could just see the patronizing smirk on her roommates face. So instead she upended the basket into a washer, poured in some discount detergent, set the cycle on delicate, and hoped for the best.
Clarke set her basket on one of the busted machines, and shuffled off to the showers. She scrubbed her skin and watched as the water by her feet ran red and blue and silver-gray. She stood under the spray until the water ran clear and her skin was pink from the heat. She was dressed in her robe and a pair of white flip-flops, still toweling her hair when she walked back into the laundry room.
The first thing she noticed was that she was no longer alone. There was a boy there. He looked like he might have been tall, but it was hard to tell since he was bent over. His back was to her, as he fished around in one of the machines, and his shirt had risen up above his hips, so she could see the brown skin of his lower back. He also wasn’t wearing shoes.
The second thing she noticed was the washing machine he was bent over, was hers. A mountain of wet lingerie sat clumped together on the machine beside it, and he was adding another bra to the pile when she finally spoke.
“Excuse me,” she announced, a little louder than absolutely necessary since they were the only ones in the room, but he was touching her underwear.
The boy straightened a little, tossing the bra and glancing over his shoulder at her. A single eyebrow was raised, reminding her of Raven, and she would have found the familiarity endearing if he wasn’t touching her underwear. “Yeah?”
Internally, Clarke scoffed. Externally, she glowered. Or tried to. She thought it got the point across, after all the times she’d seen Raven make grown men cower. The boy just looked bored, and maybe a little bit amused.
“What are you doing?” She wanted to cross the room and poke him in the chest, aggressively. Assertively. Like an animal showing dominance. Or something. Instead, she just stood frozen in the doorway, hair dripping and forming a puddle by her feet. She could feel where her gown had soaked through, sticking to her skin. The towel was damp and heavy in her hands. And she was angry, but she wasn’t really sure what to do with that. Clarke didn’t particularly get angry. She got annoyed, just like anyone, but her most common emotions were tired and nostalgic. Raven called her moody, but she didn’t like the sound of that.
“Sorry princess—didn’t realize this washer belonged to you.” As he spoke, he turned back to continue digging her clothes out, dropping a few to the floor in the process, but not bothering to pick them up.
Before she realized, Clarke was finally marching over, bending to snatch up the fallen pieces and mourning their cleanliness. Up close, she could see that he was tall, taller even than Wells, so she had to crane her neck to glare effectively. He didn’t even glance at her, until she pushed him.
She pushed him—shoved, really. In the arm. Hard. He leaned a few inches, and then stood to stare down at her in shock. She tried to school her face into anger or apathy or anything other than the surprise she felt at herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually shoved someone in anger, but it was probably first grade.
“In what world is it okay to just take some stranger’s underwear out of a machine in the communal laundry room?” she demanded, angrily scooping the still-soaked clothes into her laundry basket. She fought the urge to stomp a foot—honestly, this whole situation was turning her into a child. She hoped she wasn’t pouting.
The boy—man, she amended, catching sight of the stubble on his jaw and upper lip. He was definitely older than her—frowned. He actually looked angry, the audacity.
“In the world where entitled little girls think it’s okay to take up the only working machine with their ridiculous amount of underwear—seriously, how many pairs of panties do you need?” As if to punctuate his argument, the stranger lifted up a particularly delicate article—one of Raven’s, no doubt—and let it dangle from his finger. Clarke snatched it away with a huff.
“I was coming back, and they’re not all mine, and—you know what? I don’t need to explain myself to some creep that goes around, touching random girls’ underwear in the laundry room.”
That seemed to throw him for a moment, and he blinked in shocked silence. Clarke chose to take that moment and turn, counting it a victory. Just as she reached the doorway, he called out.
“You missed a spot, by the way.”
From the corner of her eye—because she had not glanced back to see what he was on about—Clarke saw him reach a hand up to the back of his ear. She ignored him and walked out, only pausing once she was out of sight of the laundry room. Shifting the basket to rest on one hip, she reached up to graze the skin behind her ear, feeling the hard flakes of dried paint she must have missed in the shower.
She glowered the rest of the walk to her dorm, and as she and Raven strung up the clotheslines they used to air dry their more delicate clothing. Her roommate only smirked, wondering who pissed in your cornflakes? But Clarke chose to stew in silence, and go to bed early.
She’d just nearly managed to almost get to sleep, with the white noise of Raven tinkering at her cartberuator, when their door slammed open. O stood in the doorway, illuminated from behind by the yellow-tinted dorm lighting, and looking like a some mythological warrior queen that had sex with her victims before eating their skin.
Clarke told her that, and O grinned viciously. “It’s my new aesthetic,” she declared. Raven just scowled.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Clarke sighed tiredly, waving a hand between the two. “She does this,” she told Raven, who wasn’t listening.
O glanced at Raven, as though surprised to find another person in the room. She glanced at the second bed, the second half of the room, as if seeing it all for the first time, the puzzle clicking in her head. She strode inside, kicking the door shut behind her. “I’m O. Who the fuck are you?” She said it in the intense way she said everything, which made it sound aggressive when really she just wanted to know. It made Clarke wonder how she made so many friends. It probably had to do with the fact that she was gorgeous.
“I’m Raven, I fucking live here.”
O nodded, as though she’d known that all along. “Cool,” she answered, marching over and ripping the blankets off of an unsuspecting Clarke. “Get up, asshole. It’s Drunk Scrabble Night.”
Raven stripped, as she always did, and if O was surprised to see a prosthetic from the right knee down, she didn’t show it. In retrospect, Clarke later realized, that was probably a big deal.
O tried to force Clarke into a faux-snakeskin skirt with, to Clarke’s dismay, Raven’s help. She whined and begged off and grumbled but in the end they wrestled her into the skirt, and a purple vest that zipped all the way up her stomach and exposed a little more hipbone than she felt was absolutely necessary. Raven tamed her hair into some pseudo-sophisticated twist that was really just a lot of hairspray, and O drew a purple X in the corners of her eyes.
At least she got to keep her boots.
“So is this, like, gonna be your guys’s thing now?” she asked hotly—she was a sore loser to begin with, but the scene in the laundry room still smarted in the back of her mind.
Raven nodded gravely. “It seems we’ve bonded over your inability to dress yourself like any sort of adult.”
O just wrapped an arm through each of theirs and led the way to The Dropship. “Don’t worry,” she reassured her, “You can totally get us back through inebriated wordplay. I get the feeling you’re a nerd.”
“A total nerd,” Raven agreed. Clarke glowered.
“This coming from the girl building a rocket in our dorm room.”
They were right though, in the end. She totally kicked their asses, with a twenty-eight point word—cocksuckers.