"Oh my god, no way."
Clarke is rudely interrupted from checking the groceries in her cart against the list in her hand by a loud, vaguely familiar voice. Looking up, it isn't hard to find the source of the disturbance, dressed in jean shorts, a ratty t-shirt, and boots that looked like they belong in a club rather than on the floor of a Target.
"Clarke Griffin!" The long-haired girl exclaims, tossing said hair over her shoulder before giving her a grin. Clarke smiles back uneasily, the gears in her mind going at top speed as she tries to remember the name of the girl in front of her.
"—Octavia Blake, right?" she asks finally, arriving at the name just before the silence would've grown awkward. Octavia Blake had been somewhat infamous at the college they'd both gone to, with the raging parties she threw and the boys' hearts she broke. She'd definitely not been a part of Clarke's crowd – but then again, Clarke never really had a crowd. Following in her mother's footsteps and studying pre-med had put a significant damper on her social life – and anyway, no one in college ever wanted to hang out with the nerd. At least, not the kind of nerd she was. She didn't game or program or win medals in quiz bowl. She just… crammed.
Though now is not the time to feel mopey and insignificant. Especially now that her mother has rejoined her, a hand at her shoulder as she starts pushing her cart into one of the lines. Octavia pushes her own in the line next to her and continues talking excitedly.
"You were that pre-med whiz, right? What are you doing now that we've graduated?" she asks excitedly.
"Just… studying in preparation for med school," Clarke admits with a shrug. It's true, they had just graduated a couple weeks ago, but that didn't give Clarke a reason to waste all her time. (Not that she really knew what she would do if she didn't have her books to distract her.)
"What are you studying, Octavia?" her mom asks politely, and Clarke very nearly groans. As great as Abby Griffin can be, she has very distinct opinions on what was worthwhile to study. And Octavia Blake can be counted on to not fit within that box of acceptable educational pursuits.
"Oh, I'm not studying anymore. Got my degree in Creative Writing and got the hell out of there, am I right?" Luckily, the Blake girl seems immune to the judgment radiating from Mrs. Griffin at the moment. "I'm actually heading out to hike up this trail in the Appalachians tomorrow. I'm going with a couple friends of mine – actually, you should know them, Clarke. Monty Green and Jasper Jordan? They were in our class. So was Raven Reyes, and she's coming."
"Right." Clarke gives her a tight smile and shrugs a shoulder. The names are familiar to her, but she's definitely never talked to any of them before. "Sounds like fun."
"Yeah, definitely. Anyway, see you around! Have fun studying!" And though her voice is cheery and genuine, as is her wave as she moves to pay for her groceries and leave, Clarke can't help but feel a little miffed as she waits in line. As if anyone can have fun studying when faced with a blatant reminder of how much of the whole world is out there that they haven't seen.
"Excuse me, miss?"
Clarke is snapped out of her reverie by the cashier in the other line. "Um, are you talking to me?"
"Yeah, your friend left something here. Could you get it to her?" the teenager asks, waving a brochure in the air before passing it over to her. She hesitates, biting back the knee-jerk reaction to say the two of them weren't really friends, then takes the pamphlet from him as her mom pays for their groceries.
Appalachian Trail Adventures!, the front of the brochure exclaims, and in a momentary bout of overwhelming curiosity, she stuffs the brochure into her purse, with the full intention of looking it over more closely that night.
Maybe it's time for her to go out and see the world for herself.
"Oh, and we met a friend of Clarke's today at the supermarket."
Abby Griffin is detailing the entire minutiae of their day to Marcus Kane, a family friend who's come over for dinner yet again. Ever since her father had died a couple years ago, Kane has been over at her house more and more for dinner. Clarke doesn't particularly like him, though he seems to be a fan of her. How much of that is him simply pretending, so that he could get on her mom's good side? Clarke guesses quite a lot. Her mom is a pretty influential member on City Council, after all, besides being one of the best doctors in town.
"Not a friend, Mom," Clarke reminds her dully as she pushes her food around on her plate. She can't wait for this dinner to be over so that she can get to her room and look at that brochure. It's been the only thing on her mind all evening, after returning from the supermarket and helping her mom make the meal.
"Honestly, I'm kind of glad to hear that," Abby says seriously, and Clarke has to focus hard to prevent herself from rolling her eyes. "There's nothing wrong with studying Creative Writing, but how is that girl going to get a job?"
"Absolutely. The job market is tough enough these days, even with qualifications," Kane says, and Clarke spears a carrot on her fork with slightly more force than necessary.
"And she's not even aware of her situation. This girl is going off on some trip to the mountains when she should be looking for work." Abby shrugs and takes a drink of water. "All I can say is that I'm glad Clarke isn't anything like that."
"What do you mean?" Clarke asks, knowing her tone is snappier than it should be. But at the moment, she's physically unable to restrain herself. "You're glad that I don't have any friends who I could actually go on a trip with? You're glad I've never done anything with my life except study? Wow, Mom, thanks."
"Clarke!" Her mom doesn't raise a hand against her, but the shocked tone of her voice is the closest thing to a slap that Clarke's ever experienced. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm saying that I'm 22 and I've been living the life that you've planned out for me since I was born, and I'm tired of it." There's silence at the table for a minute before Clarke sets her silverware down and gets to her feet. "I'm not hungry anymore," she announces before turning on her heel and heading to her room, ignoring her mother's calls after her. Kane demands that she come back to the table, and she escapes her to her room even faster, slamming the door behind her.
Running her hands through her hair, she collapses on her bed with a grunt, staring up at her ceiling. Usually she can keep her temper under check when her mom and Kane start talking like this, but today has proved to be a notable exception.
At least now she can take a look at the brochure. She pulls herself up into a sitting position and reaches for her purse, fishing out the informational pamphlet before actually reading it. It details the flora and fauna one can expect to find during a hike, different gear, hiking trails . . .
And then at the back of the pamphlet, scrawled in messy, loopy handwriting, are a series of notes, the first item jotted down being a URL. Clarke immediately pulls out her laptop, going to the website that it leads to. A picture of a beautiful view from the peak of one of the mountains heads a page, and though there's plenty of other information on the page, all she can see is the large orange button that proclaims "Book Your Trip Today!"
She's about to think it over when she decides she doesn't want to. She has money from her summer job as a research aide last year. She doesn't have anything she has to do in the next couple weeks, and she really, really wants to piss off her mom right now.
So she hits the button, signing up for the group trip that leaves the train station at 10 AM – the same one that Octavia and her friends are on. Clarke doesn't realize she's holding her breath until the confirmation page appears and she lets out a long sigh.
She's really doing this. Now, after she's spent her money, isn't the time to get faint-hearted about this. Downstairs, there are faint sounds of her mother and Kane putting the dishes away, and she ignores them.
After all, it's time for her to pack.
The commotion at the train station that morning is ridiculous, as different guides try to assemble their tour groups before they board the train. Clarke pulls her large, heavy suitcase through the crowds, looking for her train number and shifting the backpack slung over her shoulders every so often. It isn't a hiking bag, but then again, she hadn't had time last night to run out and get all the necessary supplies for this trip.
Just another sign that this is a bad idea, her mind tells her, and she shakes her head to try to banish the thought. Even if this is a bad idea, she's 22 and she's never left home on her own before, other than to go to university. She has a lifetime of mistakes to make, and if this was going to be one of them, so be it.
Arriving at the correct platform is easy enough, and soon she's checked in with her tour and is all ready to board the train. It's at that moment that she realizes how heavy her huge suitcase is, and how hard it's going to be to get it onto the train. Biting her lip, she looks around for someone she can ask for help, but her tour guide is busy checking someone else in.
In the end, she does find someone – though it's more like he finds her, the way he tries to exit the train where she's trying to enter. "Do you need something?"
"Yeah, um, could you help me get my suitcase on the train?" she asks, looking him over. Something about him looks like she should know him, but whether it's the dark hair, the distinct muscles in his arms, or the way he carries himself, she has no idea.
"You're here for the ten day Appalachian hike?" he asks, and when she nods her head, he snorts. "Then why did you pack like you're going to spend a month in the Bahamas? Girls. My sister's literally the same."
"… you're Bellamy Blake," she blurts out, instead of, say, responding to him like a normal person would. His name just strikes her so abruptly that she can't help but blurt it out. At his totally lost look, she explains further. "We went to the same college. I was in your sister's class."
"Oh, you must be Harper, right?" Clarke frowns instinctively, and he backtracks. "Wait – I meant Mel."
"Clarke Griffin," she says shortly, holding out her hand to shake.
"Right, of course, Clarke Griffin," he says with an air of newfound knowledge, shaking her hand. "You're Monroe's cousin or something."
"No, I'm not," she says exasperatedly. Blake had thought himself way too cool in college to get to know people like her, and the age difference definitely didn't help. "Trust me, you don't know me. Can you just help me get my suitcase on the train?"
"Well, what's in it for me?" he asks lightly, and she can't help rolling her eyes. "I'm not a porter."
"Good, cause I'm not going to pay you," she retorts. "Look, it's not that hard. You just help me right now, and we don't have to talk to each other again. That's what's in it for you."
He doesn't respond to that. Instead, he just raises his hands in surrender before leaning to pick up her suitcase and drag it into the train behind him. He lifts it into the luggage compartment with relative ease, and Clarke should be relieved, but there's something about the look on her face that worries her.
"Thanks. I'll just be going now," she says hesitantly, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb at the seating compartment their group has been assigned to.
"Go ahead," he says magnanimously, and she knows something is wrong. She just can't figure out what.
Entering her seating compartment, she sees that most of the seats are full. In fact, there are only two seats left, across from Octavia and a long-haired girl that Clarke thinks she knows.
It hits her as she approaches the seat, Bellamy following behind her with an easy slouch in his posture, hands in his jacket pockets. "Wow, look at that. It looks like we're going to be seatmates for the next ten hours, princess."
"Clarke Griffin? You're here?" Octavia demands, turning to make eye contact with Clarke. "Oh my gosh, this is going to be so fun."
Clarke is starting to regret ever going with her mom to the supermarket in the first place.