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Bellamy’s room is not what she was expecting, and in fact a bit of a disappointment. It’s too neat and too sparse, too lacking in personal touch. The exception, to which Clarke is immediately drawn, is a large 3D model of the solar system, suspended from the ceiling in the corner. It’s homemade in the school-project style, constructed out of painted Styrofoam balls and wire, but the more she looks at it, the more beautiful she realizes it is.
“Did you make this?” she asks. The thought of a twelve-year-old Bellamy carefully painting Earth green and blue is just a little too endearing, but now that the image is in her head it won’t go away.
“No,” he answers, and a glance over her shoulder shows her that he’s watching her, not pretending he’s not watching, but with a hand over his mouth like he could hide the curious, fond expression that reaches up to his eyes. “Octavia did. She went through a space phase in middle school…. She liked how each planet keeps to its orbit when it revolves around the sun. How they just know what to do.”
Clarke turns back to the model, not daring to look at him too long, to be caught staring like he’s staring. Now she’s picturing a young Octavia and a teenage Bellamy, working on the model together, paint and Styrofoam and wires spread out on the floor around them.
“Tell me the truth,” she says, “did she like space because her big brother liked it first?”
She hears a long, drawn out mmmm, like a sigh, and turns to see Bellamy running his hand over his face. But he’s smiling. “Got me,” he admits.
And she can’t help thinking, suddenly: Yeah. Yeah, I hope I do.