Archive of Our Own ^beta

Clarke’s seventeen when her dad dies. Car crash. A story people have heard a thousand times. It isn’t unusual. It isn’t heroic. It’s just death.

But death is never just. And “My dad died,” doesn’t even begin to speak of her grief.

“My dad died” doesn’t mention the bruises on her chest where her seatbelt snapped her back against the cushion—bruises that mean she lived but don’t mean that she was saved. It doesn’t mention the guilt in the eyes of the drunk driver in the courtroom or the pleading ‘sorry’s that made vomit rise in her throat.

Her dad is dead and all Clarke feels is numb. Even as her mother struggles to keep them afloat. Clarke doesn’t have the heart to tell her it’s no use. Instead, she watches as her mom juggles paying the bill to the electrician, finding work, and taking care of a daughter on top of that. The weight of the world seems to rest on shoulders that just barely stopped shaking with the strength of sobs.

The last couple months of Clarke’s junior year are hell. She barely passes. It’s a struggle to care about anything. She only keeps going for her mom, because even through the numbness Clarke knows she doesn’t want to be another bullet on the list of Things That Let Her Mother Down. Right up there next to insurance companies and drivers who strapped in drunk and ruined the road.

So Clarke goes to school and scrapes together homework, but that’s it. The activities that used to interest her now hold no draw. She no longer cares about the conversations around the lunch table. She no longer cares about dating or parties, the bio final, getting straight A’s. She no longer cares. Period.

And, after a while, her friends—the girls she’s been going to school with since elementary school—stop trying to include her in the conversation. They stop inviting her to go out. After a while, they stop caring too.

It’s a relief when Clarke’s mom tells her they’re moving. Their house has long ceased to be a home. Clarke doesn’t care where they go just as long as it means she doesn’t have to walk by the doorway lined with blue and black notches where her dad would measure her height year after year.

My little girl is growing up.

Clarke looks up from the swirls she’s tracing into the kitchen table and tells her mom she’s glad to go.

They move into a low-rent apartment mid-July in a town where no one knows who they are. Two hours away from pity and half-hearted goodbyes.

Clarke spends what’s left of her summer trying to find ways to stay out of the apartment and the empty rooms filled with boxes instead of memories. Another reminder of a life turned to ash.

In August, she enrolls in the local public school and it’s easy. She slides in, just another face in the crowd.

Clarke’s old school was pleated skirts and ties that were required at all times unless you wanted detention. Arkadia High, on the other hand, is cigarettes passed around behind the cafeteria. It’s paper airplanes in the library and girls who pour vodka into water bottles just to make their day a little less dull.

Arkadia may not require a uniform, but Clarke picks one for herself anyway. She lives in the comfort of her Chuck Taylors, black words carved into the soles. Plath is with her every step. Every day, Clarke slides on one of her dad’s old ratty t-shirts from when he listened to punk bands in the 80’s. The shirts are ratty and full of holes. They hang too long over her black skinny jeans. But they’re a tangible piece of her dad. One of the last she had left. And she can’t bring herself to mind the wear and tear.

Clarke has exactly one friend at Arkadia and even then it’s only because it’s Wells Jaha and she’s known him pretty much all her life. He’s impossible to get rid of and Clarke is grudgingly grateful for it.

Wells doesn’t balk when there’s venom in her words. He didn’t hold it against her when she lashed out at her dad’s funeral. It’s already forgiven.

Wells also doesn’t let her get away with avoiding him—he doesn’t let her withdraw. Every morning he shows up at her house and hands her a black coffee before driving to school. He fills the car with idle chatter or switches on the radio when he runs out of things to say.

Clarke doesn’t know why Wells insists on being friends with her. They’ve known each other since they were five, but they only really saw each other during the holidays or at gatherings. Not counting the funeral, Clarke’s first day at Arkadia is the first time she and Wells speak to each other outside of a family function. Still, for some reason, Wells is determined to be her friend. And, for some reason, Clarke can’t really bring herself to mind.

She’s almost disappointed when she finds out that Wells has a different lunch period than her. But she shrugs it off, telling herself it would have been annoying to listen to him prattle all way through lunch too.

She sits alone, back against a tree that’s separated from the other students. She pulls out a book to read while she eats. Paper has always been more friendly than teenagers anyway.

Clarke doesn’t realize anyone knows who she is until Octavia Blake plops down into the seat beside her in art class one day.

Octavia is one of those effortlessly cool people who somehow manages to get along with everyone. She’s the kind of girl you can’t help but have a bit of a crush on: nice without seeming false, cool without being condescending.

In other words, Clarke has no idea why Octavia’s talking to her.

Octavia sets her elbows on the large table she’s now sharing with Clarke and leans forward, meeting Clarke’s questioning gaze with a smirk. Her eyes are turquoise, beautiful in a way that seems almost unfair.

“So, Miss Nelson said that we could work in partners on the final project.”

Clarke frowns.

“And?”

Octavia sighs, “And I was wondering if you wanted to work together.”

Clarke’s fingers find the hem of her t-shirt and she rubs at the soft fabric with her thumb.

“Why?”

“Because you’re the best artist in this class,” Octavia states like it’s an obvious truth.

Clarke looks down at her paper, she uses her ring finger to smudge the charcoal on the page. As nice as Octavia might seem, Clarke doesn’t want to do all the work just to give someone else half the credit.

“I work better alone.”

“Listen, I know you have no reason to care, but I really need to get an A in this class,” Octavia barely pauses between words, “My financial situation isn’t the best so I need a four-point-oh if I want a shot at any scholarships when I apply to schools next year.”

Octavia contemplates Clarke for a moment and then adds: “I promise I’ll do my fair share of the work. Please, Clarke, you’re my best shot.”

Clarke swallows before nodding. A smile—big and bright—breaks across Octavia’s face in response. She looks like a commercial for whitening toothpaste. Clarke almost expects her teeth to twinkle.

“Great! Do you want to meet after school in the library to brainstorm some ideas?”

The project is due in eight weeks, they’re meant to be working on it throughout the semester, but Clarke doubts most students will. Either Octavia’s a lot more intense than Clarke first thought or she really is worried about getting that A. (Probably both.) Working alone, the project would probably take Clarke four hours—tops. She hadn’t been planning to start it until a few weeks before it was due. But. She’s been going to Arkadia for a month and Octavia the closest she’s come to a friend besides Wells.

Clarke shrugs and tries a smile. It almost works.

“Sure.”

Clarke and Octavia spend half an hour brainstorming ideas and the other half bitching about classes.

Clarke cuts herself off after complaining about her English class for five minutes straight when she notices Octavia’s grin.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just that this the most I’ve ever heard you say at once.”

Clarke snorts, “Yeah, well,” she shrugs and twists one of the bracelets on her left wrist beneath the table.

At 4 ‘o clock, the librarian announces that the library is closing so Octavia and Clarke gather their things.

Clarke’s heart sinks when she realizes that she’s going to have to walk home since Wells already left and she’s now missed the bus. She swallows a sigh and follows Octavia out the front of the school.

Outside, Clarke turns on the sidewalk, ready to toss a goodbye over her shoulder when Octavia’s voice stops her.

“You need a ride?”

Clarke gestures with her thumb behind her.

“I can walk from here.”

Octavia smiles, easy. (Clarke wishes her smiles came that easy.)

“You don’t need to do that. My brother can give you a ride.”

Octavia points across the road and Clarke notices the beaten car parked on the street. There’s a boy sitting on the hood, a year or two older than Octavia, with a book open on his lap.

Octavia calls out, “Hey Bell! You mind giving my friend a ride home?”

The boy glances up at the sound of his sister’s voice. Clarke’s hand finds the hem of her shirt when his eyes dance over her. He smiles like a spark of light. Like a match igniting.

Her feet follow Octavia to her brother without her permission.

Octavia’s brother folds the corner of a page to mark his place and slides off the hood of his car. Ink black curls, tan skin, and broad shoulders.

“Sure, I can drive her home.”

He has on a dark blue shirt and Clarke’s eyes linger on the edge of a tattoo on the inside of his arm peeking out beneath the sleeve. She tears her eyes away and shoves her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

“It’s really not necessary. I don’t live too far from here.”

Octavia rolls her eyes, “Clarke, it’s not a big deal, just get in.”

Argument settled, Octavia slides into the passenger seat and starts tapping at her phone. Clarke sighs, knowing that disagreeing at this point would cause more trouble than she wants.

She glances at Octavia’s brother. There’s a look in his eyes she can’t place.

She clears her throat, “I’m Clarke, by the way.”

A half smile bends his lips.

“Clarke Griffin,” he says, “I know.”

She frowns and his smirk widens.

“We’re in the same English class. You know, the class you try to sleep through every day.”

The teasing in his tone makes the beginning of a smile pull at her lips. The feeling is foreign; it’s been forever since someone made her feel like smiling.

Octavia’s brother watches her, light dancing in his dark eyes.

“I’m Bellamy.”

“Nice to meet you, Bellamy.”

And, the weird thing is, she means it.

The next day, Clarke’s eyes are already blurring in third period when a coffee lands on her desk. She looks over to find Bellamy sliding into the seat beside hers.

“Thought you might need something to help you to stay awake.”

She takes a tentative sip of the coffee, it has more cream than she usually likes, but the drink leaves a trail of warmth in her chest.

“So she can smile.”

Bellamy’s eyes are as warm as the coffee in her hand. She hadn’t even noticed the smile on her lips. It’s not much, but it’s more than she’s had in a long time.

“Thanks,” she says, lifting her coffee cup.

He shrugs, “No big deal.”

The bell rings before either one of them can say anything else and they both turn to face forward as Mr. Kane starts class.

After class, Bellamy falls in step beside Clarke. His woodsy, warm smell tickles her nose and she tries to ignore the way his elbow bumps hers as they walk.

“Have you started Kane’s paper yet?”

Clarke thinks back to her old life, back when she used to start work weeks in advance—back when she used to care about school.

“Nope.”

Bellamy looks at her curiously, “Have you started the book?”

His tone doesn’t hold any judgment, just curiosity.

She nods, “I finished it last week.”

The reading isn’t the hard part, reading is easy. Stories are easy. It’s reality that’s hard.

“Well, if you need help with the paper, I could always give yours a look,” he says like it’s nothing. And maybe to him it is. Maybe Bellamy gives out care like it doesn’t cost him anything.

Bellamy taps her books before disappearing into the AP Chem classroom. Clarke walks to her next class on autopilot, her mind stuck on soft eyes and crooked smiles.

Friday afternoon, Clarke can’t stand the loud silence of her empty apartment so she grabs a book and heads to the diner near her house. The place is run-down, but in a way that feels homey instead of cheap with chocolate milkshakes that are enough to keep Clarke coming back for more.

She’s become fond of the cracked red vinyl of the booths and the graffiti on the tables. Each time she comes, she tries to sit somewhere different. She reads the lost lyrics, the calls to arms, she learns who loved who in 1992.

The diner stays open late so Clarke likes coming here on the nights her mom mom takes the night-shift at the hospital. She’s overqualified for a nurse, but it pays and for now that’s enough.

Clarke’s reading with her back against the side of the booth, book resting on her bent knees, and her tongue cold from her milkshake, when the bell on the front door tinkles and a loud group of guys pile into the diner.

Clarke ignores them, staring hard at her page. It’s only when she hears a familiar voice, scratchy like smoke that she glances over.

She recognizes Bellamy’s profile a few tables away. A sharp jawline and freckles. Handsome without having to try.

Clarke turns back to her book before he or one of his friends catch her looking. The words on the page no longer register.

She looks up when the waitress sets the coffee Clarke ordered in front of her.

“Here you go, sweetheart.” Southern twang and a smile.

“Thank you.”

The waitress leans a hand on her hip and gestures at the thick book Clarke’s holding.

“Must be a good book if it’s got you burying your nose in it.”

Clarke nods, content to leave it there. She elaborates when the waitress cocks an eyebrow expectantly.

“It’s a mythology book—a compilation of Greek stories.”

One of the Bellamy’s friends walks by just in time to catch Clarke’s answer. He turns and calls over his shoulder.

“Hey Blake! I think I found your dream girl!”

Bellamy looks over and Clarke’s cheeks heat when they lock eyes.

He grins and gets up. The waitress smiles and winks at Clarke before heading back towards the kitchen.

Bellamy claps a hand on his friend’s shoulder and smiles at her.

“Hey Clarke.”

“Hi Bellamy.”

There’s a pause and the smirk on Bellamy’s friend’s face widens.

Bellamy clears his throat, “Clarke, this is Miller. Miller, this is Clarke, she’s in my English class.”

Miller nods at her before exchanging a look with Bellamy. Then he snorts and heads off to the bathroom, leaving Bellamy to slide into the booth opposite Clarke.

He points at the book in her hands, “Big fan of the Greeks?”

The question is only five words, but it sounds big in his mouth. Like it might be important.

“Some of them.”

His smile softens and her heart misses a beat.

“Cool, me too.”

Three words. Eight letters. She and Bellamy become friends in the span of one sentence.

Clarke’s shoving her books into her locker between classes when Miller surprises her, leaning against the locker beside her. He’s wearing a beanie low on his head, his outfit the skater-boy look down to a T. He drops a paper on top of her European History textbook. It’s bright pink with a date and address stamped on the front in big block letters.

Clarke knows a party flier when she sees one. She looks at Miller curiously. This is only the second time they’ve interacted. They haven’t even had a real conversation yet.

“You’re inviting me to a party?”

Miller nods, “It’s at my house on Friday,” he pauses, “Bellamy will be there,” he says slowly, “It should be fun. Lowkey.”

Clarke nods and Miller taps the paper lightly.

“Think you might come?”

Clarke finishes getting her books and shuts her locker. It’s been forever since she’s been to a party. Even longer since she actually wanted to go to one.

She folds the flier and slides it into her notebook.

“Maybe.”

The maybe becomes a yes when Octavia catches sight of the neon pink paper crumpled in Clarke’s backpack at the library that afternoon.

“Come on, it’ll be fun! We’re teenagers, we’re supposed to get drunk on Miller’s dad’s whiskey and make questionable decisions.”

Clarke looks at Octavia, tempted by the promise of alcohol. She sighs and Octavia grins.

“Fine, I’ll go.”

The smell of sweat mixes with beer and the air is already hot and sticky when Clarke and Wells get to Miller’s house. They pause by the door, the heavy bass so loud Clarke can feel the vibrations across her skin.

Wells slips off his coat and holds his hand out for her sweater.

“Miller usually lets people leave their things in the guest room,” he gestures down the hall, “There should be some drinks in the kitchen down that way if you want to get us something.”

Clarke nods, grateful for how easy things Wells makes things. He has an uncanny ability to bend himself to fit any situation.

Clarke hadn’t felt brave enough to come to the party alone even though she knew Bellamy and Octavia would be here, so she’d mentioned the party to Wells and he’d offered to come with her without a second thought.

Clarke finds the kitchen easily, sliding past kids who are already glassy-eyed and stumbling. (Lowkey, Miller, right.)

In the kitchen, there’s a table stocked with every flavor of soda and a myriad of cheap, flavored vodkas. The alcohol all looks unappetizing, but when you’re young and desperate pretty much anything will do.

Clarke takes a shot of watermelon vodka and grimaces. It’s not the worst she’s had. She pours herself two more shots and fills the rest of her cup up with coke.

She and Wells have gotten drunk together a few times during family gatherings. They used to make a game out of seeing how much alcohol they could sneak. As a result, Clarke knows for a fact that Wells is a light-weight and does best with wine in small doses.

She opens the door of the fridge and lucks upon an open bottle of red. She fills a red solo cup up halfway. She shuts the fridge door with her foot, balancing the two cups in her hands then she turns and walks straight into another person.

She nearly spills her drink but manages to save it at the last second. Only a few drops of soda hit the floor.

She looks up and her heart does a little jump when she sees the pretty, crooked grin.

“Double-fisting it tonight?” Bellamy asks, amused.

“Not tonight,” she holds up the cup with wine, “This one’s for Wells.”

“Wells Jaha? I didn’t know you guys were friends.”

Wells swings through the doorway at that moment. He smiles when he catches sight of Clarke and she notices his teeth are green.

“Clarke! They have Jell-O shots! You have to try one!” He says in a rush.

The fact that the alcohol is already hitting him is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Wells is six feet tall, but Clarke could drink him under the table any day of the week. Tolerance is a weird thing.

Clarke rolls her eyes, “How many did you have?”

Wells leans against the fridge with a hazy smile. He’s such a lush it’s unreal.

“Three? No, wait—four?”

Clarke sighs and hands Bellamy the solo cup with wine. Then she takes a big sip of her own drink, letting the soda sparkle on her tongue.

“I guess you’re done for the night.” The boy’s tongue is neon. “Bellamy, you mind helping me get Wells to a couch before his legs give out? He tends to go limp when he’s drunk.”

At the sound of the other boy’s name, Wells looks up.

“Bellamy! Hi! It’s a been a while, man! How are you?”

Bellamy purses his lips to keep from laughing, “Pretty good. Though not as good as you right now.”

Wells smiles, reaching out a hand to pets Bellamy’s hair.

“You’re pretty,” he slurs.

Clarke lets out a snort. Wells might be drunk, but he’s not wrong. Bellamy turns to her with a full grin. Clarke doesn’t know if the smile is in reaction Wells or her, but she’s a little dazed either way.

“Don’t laugh. I am pretty.”

She wraps one of Wells’ arms around her shoulders, “Trust me, I know.”

Wells has been out cold in the loveseat in Miller’s living room for about an hour but Clarke feels warm. The buzz from the alcohol quiets her thoughts and dulls her emotions.

She leans her head against Bellamy’s shoulder. They’re pressed against each other on the couch even though they’re the only ones in the room. Bellamy curls an arm around her shoulders, tugging her in.

It’s been months since Clarke let herself get close to someone like this. She can’t even remember the last time she and her mom hugged. Maybe the funeral.

He shivers when she traces her finger across the tattoo on his left arm.

“What does it say?”

Bellamy turns his arm so Clarke can read the words inked on his skin.

It’s a quote from the Iliad. “The book that made me fall in love with words,” he tells her.

“Read it for me?” she whispers.

Bellamy smiles at her, soft, and humors her. He doesn’t glance down at the words, Bellamy keeps his eyes steady on Clarke.

“Let me not die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”

His voice is low and rough and her eyes catch on his lips. There’s a faint scar on the left side of his mouth. It disappears when he finishes and breaks into a grin.

Clarke tucks her face into Bellamy’s shoulder to keep herself from kissing him. His shirt smells like pine, cotton, and cigarettes. The scent reminds her of Christmas in Savannah when her grandmother used to look out across the marsh, fingers tapping ash into a tray.

She wonders if Bellamy smokes and she must say the words out loud because Bellamy answers the question in her head.

“Sometimes. I smoke when I’m stressed or need an excuse to leave a situation. It helps me think.”

She frowns, “But it’s bad for you.”

She feels his chuckle against her side.

“So is drinking. Lots of things are bad for you.”

Clarke twists the mess of bracelets on her wrist. She thinks about alcohol and the scars it can leave behind, both visible and invisible.

“You’re too young to be killing yourself.”

She smiles, the gesture brittle and wrong, “I should know.”

She shouldn’t say the words. It’s a secret, one unlocked by alcohol. But she tells Bellamy anyway. Maybe she tells him because she wants someone to know. Or maybe she just wants Bellamy to understand that she’s broken. To give him a red flag so he knows to keep his distance.

Bellamy reaches out and catches on one of her bracelets with his fingers. His hands are careful—too careful—when he brushes his thumb down the length of her palm and then slowly down to her wrist. He doesn’t pull away when he feels the scars, three parallel lines travelling up her left wrist. He just keeps watching her with the same soft eyes.

Bellamy’s quiet for the span of five heartbeats and two breaths. Then he says, “I’ve been meaning to quit smoking anyway.”

Clarke lets out a relieved laugh and Bellamy pulls into his arms. Her breath comes out shaky and she fists her hand in his shirt.

Bellamy doesn’t mention it again and neither one of them forgets what happened, but the fog lifts. The air clears. Bellamy prattles on about mythology. Clarke traces stars into his freckles.

Seconds spin into minutes. Minutes spin into hours.

And as the night spins on, Clarke finds herself more and more tangled with Bellamy. Literally and figuratively. Her legs become twined with his, chucks crossed on his calf.

Clarke gets caught up in Bellamy’s laughs. Knotted in his smiles.

And, just for that night, the hurt eases.

For a night, Clarke’s free from the shackle of her grief.

For a night, she’s just a girl smiling at a beautiful boy.

Yellow sunshine spills through the window of the diner and outside, orange leaves and red cheeks tell the story of crisp late autumn.

Clarke gets up to refill her coffee when she notices a lavender advertisement tacked to the diner’s bulletin board.

Spoken Word Poetry @ Prologue and Prose

Thursdays - 7 pm.

Come and speak your voice.

She tugs the paper from the wall. Prologue and Prose is the bookstore just down the street. Clarke goes there sometimes to browse the shelves and check out what recommendations they have for the week.

Clarke stares at the flier. Spoken word poetry. She’s read poetry before, she’s been drawn to it more and more in the months since her father died. She has lines from Sylvia Plath’s journals written on her chucks. Something about the raw feeling in poetry seems more fitting now that all Clarke’s feelings are raw.

She folds up the paper and tucks it in her back pocket, deciding that on Thursday she’ll go.

When Clarke pushes through the front door of the bookstore on Thursday night, the place is dim. She about to leave the way she came in when a voice stops her. She follows the sound to a door at the back of the bookstore. It opens into a dusky room half smoke and half shadow. She belatedly catches sight of a door across the way, realizing she must have missed the second entrance to the store.

The room is crowded with tables and people. Yellow lights illuminate a small stage set up in a corner. People clump around small tables and mill about in corners.

There’s a woman in her thirties at the mike when Clarke enters. Her voice is angry and her words puncture the beat. She speaks of battle and sacrifice. Hearts beating blood onto forest floors.

Her words are as sharp as her cheekbones and Clarke falls a little bit in love with the beautiful ugliness in her words.

Clarke finds a seat at an empty table hidden in the back and lets the words swallow her.

When the woman finishes, the room is coated in silence. Then, snaps fill the air. Clarke joins in.

A younger woman takes the stage once the sharp woman steps down. She looks like she’s probably in her mid-twenties. A tight, intricate braid adorns her head.

“Thank you, Anya. Next up, we have one of our regulars. Let’s give a warm welcome to Bellamy Blake.”

Clarke’s hears the name, but she still can’t believe it when it’s her Bellamy who steps on the stage and finds his way behind the mike.

His heavy boots thump against the hollow wood. He takes a seat on the wooden stool. Whispers and finger clicks quiet into silent anticipation.

Then Bellamy opens his mouth and Clarke loses herself.

He sweeps her away. Currents of words meet oceans of emotions. Waves of sound carry the wreckage of her heart toward a hope-sprung shore.

The beat of her heart slows to match the beat. Beat. Beat. Of his words.

His poem is about rebellion—about redemption. Fists raised in protest. Salvation born from insubordination. A refusal to bow to the will of the world. A refusal to break beneath its weight.

Clarke listens, hypnotized by his words. By him.

She’s been drowning for months but. But Bellamy’s words give her a life vest.

She sits through the poets that follow, but she barely hears them. And all she hears is the beat beat beat Bellamy’s words and her heart.

Clarke doesn’t mention it at school the next day. She doesn’t let Bellamy know that she heard him speak last night. She doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t know how to tell Bellamy that in one night he gave her more hope than she scrounged and scraped together in the past ten months.

She doesn’t tell him, but she goes back to the poetry night the next week (and the week after that, and the week after that.)

It feels like a secret—like a transgression. She hides in a corner to listens to Bellamy spread his heart wide.

Bellamy makes life feel like more than just a collection of moments and routines looped without end. With him, loss, loneliness, and longing become masterpiece mosaics. He turns fractures and breaks into something beautiful.

(He makes her feel. He makes her mend.)

The Friday after her fourth poetry night, Clarke rides the bus home with Octavia to finish up their art project.

The assignment was to do a human portrait with a twist and they ended up getting Octavia’s friend, Raven, to model.

In the painting, Raven’s facing away from the viewer, looking over her shoulder with a coy smile. Two black and blue wings sprout from between her shoulder blades, spread wide and poised for flight.

It’s one of the pieces Clarke is proudest of. It was Octavia’s idea to use real feathers along with painted ones and the overall effect makes the painting feel like the real world is coalescing with fantasy.

Clarke’s sitting on the carpet with her back against the couch and her legs folded beneath her as she watches Octavia finish gluing the last of the feathers when the Blake’s front door slams. The sound is immediately followed by heavy footfalls and Bellamy’s voice as he calls out.

“O! Can you find a place to stay tonight? Steve is staying over and—shit,” he cuts himself off with a curse when he enters the living room and catches sight of Clarke.

Clarke glances between Bellamy and Octavia, sensing Bellamy’s discomfort. An ugly feeling starts to form in the pit of her stomach.

“I’ll go,” she says quickly, grabbing her chucks and pulling them on, “Um, Octavia, let me know if you have any trouble with the last part. We can always finish it at school on Monday if we need to.”

Bellamy runs a hand through his hair.

“Clarke, you don’t need to leave, that wasn’t what—”

Octavia cuts him off, “Clarke, Bell wasn’t reacting to you. My mom’s creepy boyfriend is spending the night and Bell and I don’t like being around when he does. I love my mom, but she has terrible taste in men.”

Bellamy’s jaw clenches and Clarke has a feeling that’s not the whole story, but she doesn’t ask. Instead, she toys with an idea.

Her mom is working late tonight and as a general rule she’s always told Clarke that if one of her friends needed a place to stay, they were welcome at their house. That was back when they had two guest rooms and more space than they knew what to do with, but Clarke is hoping that the sentiment will still stand.

“If you guys need a place to crash you could come stay at mine. There isn’t a whole lot of room, but my mom won’t mind if you guys spend the night.”

She’ll let her mom know later. In this case, it might be better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Her mom won’t say no if Clarke’s already told the Blakes they could stay.

Octavia looks at Bellamy and Clarke watches them have a silent conversation. It’s bizarre to see two people understand each other so well that they can communicate without words.

After a moment, Bellamy sighs and Octavia turns to Clarke with a bright grin.

“We need ten minutes to grab our things, but we’re in.”

She disappears with the swish of her hair, feet thumping on the stairs.

Bellamy clears his throat nervously when it’s just the him and Clarke.

“If you only want O to sleep over, it’s okay. I know a lot of parents aren’t cool with guys staying over. I can call Miller and see—”

“Bellamy, don’t worry about it. My parents have been equal opportunist watchdogs ever since I came out as bi when I was fourteen. It’s actually better if more than one person sleeps over. My dad—”

Clarke’s mouth snaps shut and bile rises in her throat. Her grief hits her like a truck going full speed down the highway. She careens, palm smacking the floor as her breath stutters.

(She almost forgot.)

A warm hand finds her shoulder. Bellamy drops to the floor beside her. She sways and he pulls her into his arms. He wraps his arms around her and Clarke tucks her face into his neck. Her hands are shaking. Tears collect in her eyes. She swallows and squeezes her eyes shut, begging the tears not to fall.

She doesn’t even realize Bellamy’s speaking at first, too preoccupied with keeping herself from falling apart. But when she tunes in, his words warm her, they tether her to the ground. He speaks softly into her hair, his big, warm hands tracing circles on her back.

It feels like forever, but can’t be longer than a few minutes before she pulls away. Her fingers are still trembling and her neck is splotchy with shame.

“Sorry, I just…” What can she even say?

“You don’t have to explain, Clarke. Really,” he says, all softness. That’s the only way to describe him: soft. Soft eyes, soft voice, soft fingers tucking a curl behind her ear.

Clarke doesn’t think twice before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Bellamy’s cheek. She lingers a beat too long and when she sits back, Bellamy’s expression is slack with surprise. But Clarke doesn’t let herself linger, instead, she stands and trails Octavia up to her room.

It’s the first time either Blake has been to her apartment, but neither sibling comments on the empty echoing space or the piles of boxes still stacked and unpacked around the living room even months after moving to town.

Clarke texts her mom so that she won’t be surprised to find the siblings asleep in their living room when she gets home. In return, her mom responds with a simple “Ok.”

They make spaghetti for dinner and watch Daredevil on Netflix, but Clarke can’t concentrate on the show. She’s too distracted by Bellamy. His eyes seem impossibly dark in the blue light of the TV. His eyelashes drape shadows across his cheeks.

He’s only a few feet away, seated on the floor by her knee—close enough to touch. And, for the first time since she’s met him, Clarke lets herself wonder what it would be like to kiss Bellamy and be kissed by him. She wonders what he would taste like—what his hair would feel like caught between her fingers.

She twists the bracelet on her wrist and turns her eyes back to the TV. She can’t do this. She won’t. She’s too broken—too fractured—and Bellamy would only get cut on her edges.

After Octavia falls asleep curled up on the couch, Clarke helps Bellamy make a pallet out of cushions to sleep on the floor. Then she goes to bed and tries not to imagine what Bellamy’s words would taste like whispered against her lips.

Clarke goes to Bellamy’s poetry nights secretly for months before she finally decides to come clean.

She makes the decision to come clean the night Bellamy’s poem is about a girl who carries sunlight on her shoulders and shadows in her eyes.

Clarke’s hands shake as she listens to Bellamy speak about the girl who suffocates her own joy. Who drowns her laughs and kills her happy. The anchor in her chest tethers her to the past. Her ribcage rattles with the weight of all that sorrow.

Bellamy’s words are threaded with longing. It’s a poem about almost love. It’s a poem about Clarke. And the realization carves a hollow in her chest.

Because Bellamy has seen the darkness playing beneath her skin and still found light in her eyes. He knows her lips are black with ash and he wants to kiss her anyway.

He’s seen her all and he’s still choosing her. In whatever form he can have her. Friend. Lover. Almost. Maybe.

Clarke’s never had someone like this. She’s never felt a love like this. It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating.

She spends the night lying awake in bed, letting Bellamy words stain her thoughts with color. The world feels bright with kaleidoscopic hope.

But in the morning she finds her mom at the kitchen table staring blankly at a cup of coffee. There are dark circles beneath her eyes and when she greets Clarke her throat is raw from a night spent in tears.

The bubble of hope in Clarke’s chest breaks with a pop and she feels herself deflate. Greif, stifling and slow, seeps back in.

They’re miles from her dad’s grave. It’s been a year since he died. But her dad’s absence is still palpable. They’re still living with a ghost.

In English, she can’t face Bellamy. Not now when it feels so wrong to let herself feel anything other than loss. She takes a seat at the opposite end of class from where they usually sit.

Somehow, over the past few months, Clarke fell for Bellamy. And now she knows that the whole time they were plummeting together.

Bellamy glances around when he gets to the room. Clarke doesn’t look at him, but she still manages to feel it when he frowns once his eyes find her across the way.

During class, Clarke presses her pen so hard against her paper that it bleeds through several sheets in her notebook. Her emotions are at war inside her. Panic starts to choke her and her heart beats in her ears.

She dashes out of class before Bellamy can catch her. She keeps her head down and ignores guilt as it joins the battle with hope and fear.

Why can’t she just let herself be happy?

Clarke eats her lunch in the bathroom where no one will look for her.

Wells shoots her a worried look when he drives her home that afternoon, but he doesn’t comment on her silence or her sour mood.

Clarke ignores Bellamy that weekend when he calls. She ignores his (and later Octavia’s) texts.

But, masochistically, she still reads every text he sends. She lets her heart beat hurt in her chest.

She doesn’t respond, panic has made her immobile.

His poem plays like a record in her head. She can’t shake his words. They follow her everywhere. Every inflection and every syllable. She tries everything, but she can’t erase his feeling, her feeling, his words, her heart.

Instead, she writes the words on her arms. She covers her hands, fingers and forearms in black ink. She reads Bellamy’s words until her mind is full of nothing but his poetry. She fills up with words and reaches for courage.

On Monday, he’s waiting at his desk in English. She arrives late, dreading the confrontation. All the other desks are full, but Bellamy’s backpack is on the seat beside him and he moves it when he sees her.

“I was worried you might not show,” he says even as he slides the coffee he brought onto her desk.

She wraps her hands around the cup, letting it warm her fingers.

“Unfortunately, school is kind of mandatory.”

She can’t look at him, but she senses his eyes. In her periphery, she sees him open his mouth to say something, but Mr. Kane starts class before he can. Clarke doesn’t know if she’s relieved or disappointed.

She glances over, unable to help herself, and sees Bellamy bent over a sheet of paper.

Clarke’s facing the front of the room again when a folded scrap of notebook paper gets wedged beneath her elbow. She unfolds it to Bellamy’s familiar scrawl. Bellamy can paint miracles with his words, but his handwriting is barely legible.

(How he turns scribbles into starlight, she’ll never know.)

Are you mad at me? Did I do something?

She sighs before responding. She ignores the flickering gaze beside her and grabs her pencil.

She tosses the paper back to him when Mr. Kane has his back turned.

Do you want to talk about it?

He starts to write and then pauses before adding another sentence.

It was weird not talking to you.

I missed you.

And there it is.

She closes her eyes and curls her hand around the paper. It crinkles in her palm.

She doesn’t write the words, she isn’t brave enough, but they pulse behind her eyes. Fervent.

I missed you too.

Clarke waits for Bellamy so they can walk together after class. Her heart skips and trips in her chest, missing beats and finding them a few seconds too late.

But he seems to accept her explanation and doesn’t bring up the past few days. He chatters easily as they make their way down the hallway. Same as always. The difference is that now Clarke knows how he feels. And she can’t ignore it. She doesn’t want to.

She needs to find a way to tell him she feels the same way.

Bellamy is good with words in a way that Clarke never has been. Art is Clarke’s poetry.

She spends every afternoon for the next week in front of her easel.

She gets covered in paint. Black and gold. It sticks to her hands and doesn’t wash out of her hair. But when she finishes the portrait, it’s worth it.

She borrows Octavia’s spare key to Bellamy’s truck and leaves the painting, wrapped in brown construction paper, in the driver’s seat. She tapes a note to the front that includes a line from Bellamy’s poem about her.

“She makes darkness less daunting,

She makes feeling feel more full.

The demons at night, they don't faze me,

Not when her smile is so bright.”

Here's hoping we can slay some of our demons together.

— Clarke

The next few hours are hell. Clarke’s a mess of nerves. A tangle of worry. She gets to Prologue and Prose half an hour early and waits for Bellamy to arrive. She leans against the brick wall beside the door that leads to the poetry room.

She tries to keep her breath steady and her feet still. But. She’s nervous. Incredibly so. And it’s only when Bellamy finally shows, looking like he’s half-sure he’s dreaming, that her foot stops tapping the pavement.

Clarke pushes off the wall and Bellamy meets her halfway. He kisses her before she can say anything and she sinks into his touch.

The kiss is deep and slow, like he wants to make sure she knows he’s serious—that she knows he means it. Clarke curls her fingers into Bellamy’s shirt and kisses him until all her breath disappears.

When they part she doesn’t let him go far. Bellamy leans his forehead against hers and she wants to press up onto her toes and kiss him again. She doesn’t think she’ll ever want to stop kissing him. Not now that she knows he’s tastes like coffee beans and mint gum. Like waking up and still dreaming.

“How long have you been coming to poetry nights?” Bellamy asks. His voice is hoarse. From kissing her. The thought sends shivers down her spine.

“Almost two months. I didn’t know how to tell you, and then last week…” She trails off, not sure what to say.

She’s worried he might be angry. That he might feel like she violated his privacy, but Bellamy just brushes his thumb down her jaw pausing at the corner of her lips.

“I was planning on telling you how I felt soon. I wasn’t going to do it with a poem because I didn’t want to be that guy, but—”

Clarke laughs and Bellamy cuts himself off to taste her smile. She smiling so big it gets in the way of kissing him. She’s so happy she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

Bellamy presses his grin into her cheek and says, “You painted a portrait of me and left it in my car.”

“Yeah,” she says, turning to nip his mouth, not ready to be done kissing him.

This time it’s Bellamy’s smile that gets in the way of their kiss. Clarke makes a frustrated noise and he tilts her head back to deepen the kiss. His slides his tongue into her mouth before pulling away.

“You want to get out of here?” he asks, just as breathless as she is.

His words remind Clarke they’re in public and that her thoughts right now are wholly inappropriate.

She slides her hand down Bellamy’s arm and twists their fingers together.

“Um, I was actually looking forward to hearing your poem this week,” she tells their hands.

There’s a smile in his voice, “Really?”

She meets his eyes, “Yeah, I come every week to hear you.”

“I love you.”

(After his poem last week, it’s not a surprise, but hearing Bellamy say the words? It knocks the breath out of her.)

“I love you too,” Clarke breathes, still half-afraid that if Bellamy doesn’t break her heart, her love will. It’s so much. She loves him in leaps and bounds. In miles and universes. She’s never felt this way about anyone. She doesn’t know what to do with this much love.

“If I promise to read you the poem later, can we go make out at my house?”

“No,” Clarke laughs at the way Bellamy smile drops. She feels giddy. Messy with hope, “But we can go make out at mine.”

Later, Bellamy’s mouth presses poetry into her mouth, her neck, her chest. Later, Clarke draws art down Bellamy’s body with her fingers and her tongue.

Clarke’s broken, but Bellamy’s broken too and, together, they make masterpieces.