She paints her feelings. She doesn't discuss or disclose any of her emotions. Instead, she communicates them through her brush strokes, conveys every tear with each drop and sprays the rainbow with her smiles.
It's a quiet practice. The buzz of the fridge, the wind chime outside her window, the slight stomp of the upstairs neighbours. These are the only remaining disruptions to the stillness of the moment.
She paints the stars; the flurry of constellations that seem so inconsequential from earth. How could something so significant appear so small, so utterly ordinary? In a sky full of stars, millions of them, how could any one be exceptional?
Clarke thinks she's like the stars - bright, bare, but entirely average.
She paints the people she's lost. Their faces, the grooves of their bones and the waves of their hair.
She sketches the memories of a simpler time, a time filled with more joy and less grief. Clarke's not certain remembering is exactly a wise idea, maybe it's just pouring salt on the never-healed wounds and surrendering herself to the darkness. Maybe she's just asking for more pain, even inviting the devil to her door, but she doesn't care.
She greets him, arms wide and ready for another hit.
She doesn't realize what the little brown dots are until they all come together to circle his eyes. She hadn't actually been consciously aware she'd been thinking of him. She always is, though.
Her greatest fear is forgetting. His lips on hers, his hands entwined with hers. His, with hers. They're all joint memories. She doesn't remember him without her, her without him.
She isn't anything without him.
She's nothing now.
She doesn't want to leave behind the life she used to have, the life she lost. The life that was taken away from her.
Clarke draws the night they meandered their way to the beach; the sand in their toes, the coolness of the water, the simplicity of it all.
There really was nothing special about her, about either of them really. They had been two ordinary people, who'd met, fallen in love (and hadn't lived happily ever after).
Two ordinary people squandering the earth, with scattered thoughts, aimless steps. They had been directionless and somehow, had found each other.
Two ordinary people, making something extraordinary.
Then she paints the sun, because it eclipses everything else (just like they did).
The grief is getting to her, she knows this.
It's slowly taking pieces away; small ones, but the days add up.
And now, after all this time, part of her is missing. He's gone, of course, but some measure of her has left as well.
She searches the colours for answers, for clues to what (else) she's lacking. She wants to go find something, anything, to fill the gap. To quiet the pain, to recollect details of the past, silence the foreboding of the future.
But there isn't anything, she'd simply be seeking out smoke.
They're gone, those pieces of her, they're lost forever.
She has too many paintings of him, but he's the only thing she knows. It's second nature to design the contour of his face. The movements are muscle memory; she paints him while she dreams, as she walks down the street, while she cleans the sole plate in the sink.
She paints the ring he would've given her, if he had turned right instead of left. Clarke quietly laughs at how big it had been - the police officer handing her the narrow sphere of silver, which she had put on immediately. It had been exceedingly large for her finger and had fallen off right away, which had just made her smile because it was just so him.
Now she wears the ring on her neck, safe from the paint and closer to her heart.
She knows he would've hated to see her like this - a fragment of herself, a sliver of what she used to be. He would've shaken her by the shoulders, told her to wake up and face the music. He would've told her to be strong and assured her she would be alright.
But that was the thing - he was the only one that could light a fire inside her. With him gone, it was like someone had blown out the match.
In her dreams he holds her like he used to, strokes her hair and whispers words of comforts. He's always there, but his face is slowly blurring every night, each feature going more out of focus.
And she cries because he's gone, and can't she have him for just a few moments, while she's sleeping? Is that too much ask?
But dreams don't offer her any escape, and she's already living her nightmare.
One day, she doesn't paint him.
This fact frightens her more than it probably should, and she gets up before dawn so she can do it before the sun comes up. She paints him leaning over their balcony, consumed with a smirk and looking to the sky.
What if everyone forgets him? What if the world continues to turn, the people keep on living and life goes on?
She wants the whole world, every single person out there, to know who he was, to know what he did and how he loved, to know that he mattered, that he still matters and that death doesn't change that.
It's her debt to pay. To the world. To him.
Thus, she immortalizes him in her art; she stains his soul on her canvas and engraves his heart in every piece of her work.
She won't let the world forget the man she loved. She won't let them forget Bellamy Blake, the man who was fierce and stubborn, the man who fought for everything that he had and didn't take anything for granted. She won't let them forget the boy who had raised his sister, forced to grow up faster than anyone should. She refuses to let anyone leave behind the memories of the man who had told her he loved her when they were out grocery shopping because he felt like it, the man who was determined and confident, but stumbled over his words when he was scared.
The man who had loved, who had truly loved.
She won't let them forget. And even if they do -
She remembers, she always will.
So I know this is really all over the place and there's not really any plot and it's another sad one... but please leave comments because I love feedback and I have such writers block for my other multi-chapter fic that anything you give me will make me smile :)