DISCLAIMER: I do not own THE 100 or any of the characters herein. That luxury belongs to The WB and The CW. I'm just a fan that likes to play in the world.
CHAPTER FOUR
The world is hazy. Sunshine pierces through my blinds and I groan from the intrusion, about to throw my arm across my eyes to block the light.
Only I can't move my arm.
Brow furrowed, I turn to find out what is obstructing my left arm and let out a small shriek.
Bellamy is still sound asleep, both his arms shoved under his pillow (my pillow). The white sheet (my sheet) is low on his body, showing off his smooth tan back that has a smattering of freckles.
Jesus, you cannot focus on that right now, Clarke.
I locate the source of my arm's obstruction; it is trapped underneath Bellamy's chest, and if I just twist my hand a little bit I can –
Damn it, focus!
Panicking, I jerk my hand from under his warm body (holy smokes, so warm) and the motion causes him to almost fall off the bed. He manages to stabilize himself before he does so, grabbing the headboard and turning sharply towards me. His eyes widen like mine.
"Shit!" he whispers, sitting up sharply and looking around the room. "What time is it?"
Clutching my comforter to my chest, suddenly feeling very modest even though he saw everything last night, I grab my alarm clock off the nightstand. "Six-fifteen," I choke out.
I hear a soft ringtone coming from my living room, and my heart stops. My phone.
"Where's my phone?" Bellamy's still looking around the floor of my room, most likely trying to find his pants.
"Um…" I point to my bedroom door.
He throws the sheet off his body – his toned body that I now know the feel of – and grabs his boxer-briefs off the floor, heading toward the sound of the ringing phone. A few moments later he re-enters, both our phones in hand as well as his pants.
"Twelve missed calls," he says under his breath, looking down at his cell as he hands mine over. I'm too scared to look at the screen, knowing what I'll see. "Shit, shit shit…" He drags a hand over his face.
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God." I grab the comforter harder. Bellamy pulls his pants on quickly, tripping slightly before giving up and sitting on my bed to finish the job. "What have we done?" I ask to nobody in particular, feeling a wave of dread overcome my senses. I bring my head down to my comforter and try to stop the flux of tears I can feel coming.
"Hey, Clarke," he zips up his fly and comes over to my side of the bed. He reaches towards my face, but just like last night, decides against it. At least, until he decided to not decide against it, and sleep with his fiancée's best friend.
"Clarke," he tries again. "It's going to be okay."
"How? How is it going to be okay? We just –"
"I know."
"Don't you realize how not okay that is?" My voice has reached a decibel that I believe only dogs can hear.
My phone starts to ring, and we both jump. I take a deep breath and look down.
Raven.
I can't help it; I let out a sob.
"Hey, hey," Bellamy does touch me this time – my hand – but I pull away after a few seconds. I just can't handle his touch when I'm swimming in this emotional turmoil. Even though he's right there with me. "It's going to be fine. We'll do it like this."
"What?"
"I'm going to leave, and when I do, I'm going to call Raven and tell her I went out with Finn to Monty's new bar. He'll back me up. It'll be fine. I'll call him, too."
I nod numbly. "What do I say?"
"Just say that you're not sure where I went, that maybe you saw me with Finn, but you're not sure. Okay? You're not sure." Bellamy's body language is calm, in control. I picture him with his patients; all the scared parents he has to talk to about their sick children. He was always such a strong, caring man that could talk anyone off a ledge. Just like he's doing with me. However, as cool and collected as he looks on the outside, I can read his eyes – they're tight, distressed.
I shake my head slightly when it finally hits me what he wants me to do. Lying has never been my strong suit; my voice tends to get higher than normal and it shakes slightly and there's no way we're going to get away with this –
"Yes, we will. It will be fine."
I bite my lip. I said that out loud, didn't I?
"What if she already called Finn?" I ask, finally making eye contact with Bellamy. He doesn't answer. "Oh, God…"
"I should go," he says, clutching his phone in his hand, a sorrowful look on his face.
My phone rings a third time.
"I should –" I can't finish, just gesture to my phone. He nods, heading back out of my bedroom.
"Hey," he says softly. I look up.
"I'm sorry," he says.
I nod. "Me too."
I have no idea who we're apologizing to: each other or Raven.
He leaves my room and I hear him gather the rest of his clothes (God, we couldn't even make it to the bedroom…) and the click of my front door closing behind him. Then silence.
I take a deep breath and tap the green button on my phone screen.
"Clarke! Where the hell have you been? Bellamy didn't come home!" Raven is screeching into the phone, and I have to pull it away for a few moments, my hangover kicking in.
"You don't think he's cheating on me, do you?" she asks, hysteria in her voice.
My breath hitches, but I hold my ground. "Of course not. He loves you."
She scoffs in the phone. "Of course he loves me. I wasn't asking that, Clarke. I asked if he was cheating on me."
"Right…" I trail off, not sure how to respond.
"He better not be cheating on me, I swear to God. He better be bleeding to death in a hospital bed or in a ditch somewhere."
"Raven! Come on, don't say stuff like that." Leave it to Raven to see the bigger picture.
"When did you see him last? Who was he with? Where did he go?"
I take a deep breath, remembering what Bellamy told me. "I'm not sure," I pause, pretending to be thinking hard. "I think I overheard his friend Finn talking to him about going to a new bar downtown." I leave Monty's name out of it. "Have you tried Finn?" My stomach flutters at his name, praying that she didn't call him first.
"Finn?" she asks. "That slacker? Like he even has a working cell phone number."
I bristle at this for some reason; her tone and how she spoke suddenly making me tired.
"Hold up." Pause. "That's Bellamy on the other line. Ohhh man, I'm going to rip him a new one."
"Take it easy on him, he's probably had a long night." A long night with me.
"Yeah, whatever." Without so much as a goodbye, I hear nothing but silence on the other line. I have been dismissed.
Thumbing my phone off, I drop it on my bed and hold my hands up, noticing them trembling. I shake them out and lace my fingers together, as if I'm in prayer. Maybe I am.
I look down at my bed; the blankets and sheets strewn all over the place. The sheet that was just covering Bellamy's toned form on the ground. I lean across the bed to pick it up. God, it still smells like him.
In a split second decision, I rip the blankets and the fitted mattress sheet off my bed and, along with the sheet that was just on the ground, throw them in my closet. Grabbing the pillows, I chuck them in as well, watching them plop silently on the pile of blankets before I slam the door shut.
I head into my bathroom and when I catch my reflection in the mirror I wince.
My hair is a bird's nest; full of knots and tangled curls that I know I won't get out with a simple hairbrush. The mascara on my left eye is smeared to the point where I could never get away with saying it's a "dramatic cat-eye". I can't even start on my eye shadow…
Sighing deeply, I turn my sink on to the hottest setting and scrub my face clean of any remnants of last night. Knowing that I'll need a bigger washcloth to do something like that (and a time machine), I toss the towel on the counter and turn to my shower, turning it to the hottest setting as well before stepping in.
After my shower, I'm beginning to feel a bit better – physically at least. I head to my kitchen to grab a large glass of water and some Tylenol, but I freeze in the middle of the living room.
Flashes of last night appear before my eyes: Bellamy and I tearing away at each other's clothes. Bellamy's hair, so soft. Bellamy grabbing my body like he was afraid I was going to disappear…
My phone rings from my bedroom, jolting me from my thoughts. Forgetting the water and Tylenol, I race back to my room, complete with the stripped bed, and reach for my cell on my nightstand.
"Raven?" I answer.
"Hey." It's not Raven, but Bellamy.
"Oh," I say dumbly, not knowing what else to say. I collapse on the mattress, clutching the phone so tightly.
"I borrowed Raven's phone," he says unnecessarily. Silence.
"Okay."
"I just wasn't sure if you'd pick up –"
"No, it's okay." I pull the phone away for a second to cough.
"Are you okay?" he asks softly, and suddenly I'm back in my bed with him. I cough again.
"I'm fine," I say shortly. "You?"
"Yeah. Listen, I just wanted to –"
"Who is that?" I hear Raven say in the background, and my heart rate picks up.
"Um, Clarke –"
"Oh!" I hear Raven grab the phone. "Hey, I'm sorry I didn't call back!"
"It's okay," I mutter, wanting to grab my comforter but remembering it's in the closet.
"Yeah, shit got real up in here for a little while. But we talked."
"And?" I ask a bit more aggressively than I want. I bite my lip.
"And everything's fine. Bellamy now knows that this kind of stuff isn't gonna fly in the future."
In the future…
"I mean, seriously? He's thirty-one for crying out loud! What thirty-one-year-old stays out all night with his buddies? Seriously." Raven says the word 'seriously' so much that it doesn't even sound like she's using it in that way. Seriously, I mean.
I leave my room and continue my original mission: Tylenol. "I'm glad he's okay and not… What did you say? Lying in a ditch somewhere?"
"At least that's a more suitable excuse than just getting piss drunk all night with his frat buddies."
"Bellamy wasn't in a frat." I frown.
"Whatever." Another overused word. I sigh. After a few seconds of silence I hear Bellamy's deep voice in the background mention something to Raven. She gasps dramatically in the phone.
"Oh, my gosh, I almost forgot! Happy birthday, Clarke! Shit, sometimes I'm just a scatterbrain!"
"It's okay. Thank you, Raven." I swallow thickly. I hear Bellamy's voice again. I hold my breath.
"Bellamy says happy birthday, too," Raven adds. Before I have a chance to respond, she's moving on. Okay then, I guess that's done.
"Anyway, Bellamy and I are heading out in a few. Lunch and all that jazz. Oh! Guess what I just found out?" I can hear her moving around her apartment. Scratch that, their apartment. My heart clenches.
"What did you find out?" I ask. She sounds far too happy; it can't be anything bad. Nothing about Bellamy and me. Relax, Clarke.
"Finn totally has the hots for you!"
"Finn?" I scrunch up my face in confusion.
"Yeah, turns out, dude does have a cell phone, so don't worry about that." I wasn't. "Anyway, he and Bellamy were talking and I happened to overhear that Finn thought you were, and I quote, 'a gorgeous princess', and wants to take you out! I mean, seriously, Clarke, the man called you a damn princess."
"That's from something that happened in college. A Halloween costume. It doesn't mean anything."
"Ugh, whatever, it doesn't matter. Point is, he has a major crush on you, and he wants to take you out! You in?"
My stomach flips at the last question. In or out, Clarke?
I turn on my kitchen sink and wait for the water to turn cold as I grab the bottle of Tylenol. "I don't know…"
"Oh, come on! He's cute, right?"
I think about Finn and his floppy hair and his infectious smile and his warm hand that doesn't have a ring on it. "Yeah, I guess he is."
"So…?" Raven urges, and I can just picture what face she has on right now. As she's sitting on her king size four poster bed that I helped her pick out at Crate and Barrel. A bed that is surrounded by furniture that is filled with hers and Bellamy's things. I look at my Ikea bookshelf in the living room that I know will never house any of Bellamy's books. The tiny dresser in my bedroom will never hold any of Bellamy's shirts and pants. Including the pants that I unbuckled last night.
I make a snap decision.
"Sure, I'm in."
Raven squeals on the other side of the phone and I quickly chug my glass of water.
"She says she's in, Bellamy!" I hear her scream. "Call Finn right now and give him her number!" I hear her laugh for a few moments before she calms down. "I knew it," she says.
"Knew what?"
"That you'd be all for Finn. Bellamy was fighting me on it, saying shit like he's not your type, you don't like him like that… Blah, blah, blah."
"Really?" I say breathlessly, hoping she doesn't notice. Of course she doesn't.
"Ha, ha!" She starts laughing again. "Bell!" I jerk the phone away when she screams again. "You owe me twenty bucks!"
A/N: Hope you like! Reviews are always awesome.