Chapter 7

Poor Clarke. The vomiting seemed to have started right away that morning. Bellamy wasn't sure whether she was using that trash can he'd put next to the bed or if she'd made it into the bathroom to lurch over the toilet. But wherever she was, it was loud. Even downstairs, he could hear it. And it just kept going and going.

"Oh, I love the sound of nausea in the morning," Miller remarked sarcastically as he finished his breakfast.

"Yeah, it's not pretty," Bellamy agreed, struggling through his plate of scrambled eggs. There was just nothing appetizing about eating when someone was puking up above you.

"She was wasted, man," Miller said, chuckling.

"Ah, everyone has that inaugural night at TonDC," Bellamy pointed out. "Clarke's no different."

Miller finished his coffee and put his plate and cup down in the sink. "You know," he said as he rinsed them off. "Clarke's kinda . . . she's alright, man."

"Okay." Whatever that meant.

"I like her," Miller elaborated, drying off his hands. "Even though she's in college and lives in the Palace and . . . didn't you say her dad's a senator?"

"Stepdad, yeah."

"She's still kinda down-to-earth, you know?"

Bellamy grunted. "Well, yeah, she shops at Walmart."

"True. You really can't be too high and mighty if you shop there."

"No, I get what you mean, though," Bellamy said. He knew girls in this town, sorority girls, mostly, who thought they were so much better than everyone else, including him. Sometimes he did jobs for people who lived in nice neighborhoods and probably wouldn't have hired him if they knew where he lived. The world was full of pretentious people who judged guys like him, but Clarke wasn't like that. She was restoring his faith in the upper-middle class.

"So did you like her costume?" Miller asked, wriggling his eyebrows. "I liked it, and I don't even swing that way."

"Yeah, it was pretty good." Bellamy really hoped she'd hold onto that, because . . . well, that and the cheerleading skirt, if they ever got a hold of it. Could be interesting.

"She wore that just for you," Miller noted. "You know that, right?"

"Well, she's a good girl."

"That's what you keep saying." They both heard a toilet flush upstairs, and Miller said, "Alright, I'm gettin' outta here. Tell Clarke I said hi."

"See you later."

Miller slipped out the door right as Clarke started trudging down the stairs like a zombie. Bellamy almost didn't even want to look at her, because there was a very real possibility she'd look like actual death. He risked it, though, taking a peek out of the corner of his eye, and it wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be. Sure, her hair was all over the place, her makeup was smeared around her eyes, her skin was flushed and kind of sweaty, and she looked like she could throw up again at any minute. But she was also still wearing his grey Redskins t-shirt, so that was the one saving grace.

"Morning, Clarke," he said, quickly finishing his breakfast.

The only response he got was an anguished groan.

"Hey, you know what's the best part about being sober?" he asked.

"What?"

"Nothing." He couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh, I'm struggling, Bell," she complained, dragging her body to the center island so she could sit down on one of the stools. "I feel like I'm gonna regurgitate my whole self."

"Yeah, you were pretty plastered last night." He returned to the frying pan on the stove, using the spatula to lift out the rest of the scrambled eggs and set them on a plate for her.

"I don't know what got into me," she said. "I've never been that drunk before."

"How much do you remember?" he asked.

"Parts. But parts are fuzzy. Like I remember seeing Murphy dance."

"Good." That was a memory everyone deserved to have.

"And I remember you complaining about Lincoln and Octavia."

"Yeah, that doesn't count. That was before you had a drink."

"No, it counts," she insisted. "I'd already been drinking at Mount Weather. Maybe that was the problem. I started too early."

"Ah, you did alright." He set the plate down in front of her, urging, "Eat up."

She looked at the eggs, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "No, I can't right now," she said. "Food sounds so gross."

"Eggs are good for hangovers," he reasoned. "I made 'em just for you."

She smiled at him lazily and slowly picked up her fork. "I do remember that you took care of me," she recalled.

"Of course." He'd been the one to encourage her to loosen up and go wild like that in the first place. She was his responsibility.

"I am really sorry, though," she apologized. "It was Halloween, and you ended up having to babysit me."

"No, don't feel bad," he told her. "It was fun watching you have fun. I had a good time, too."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Are you just saying that?"

"No."

Sighing, she moved her eggs around her plate, eating just a small bite off the tip of her fork. "Well, did I do or say anything embarrassing?" she asked.

Oh, the inevitable question. He'd already thought a lot about how much he was going to tell her, and the conclusion he kept coming to was that, if he didn't tell her everything, someone else would. So if she wanted to know, he was going to be completely honest. "Well, you almost took the top of your costume off," he told her. "But I think Niylah was only the only one who saw, so you're good there."

"Oh, okay."

"Yeah. And you kept wantin' to have sex with me. But I can't blame you for that."

She smiled and blushed a little.

"And then . . . well, you flashed Jasper."

"What?" she shrieked shrilly, eyes suddenly wide with horror. "Like my boobs?"

"No, your crotch."

"What?!"

"Yeah, twice."

"Oh my god," she groaned dramatically.

"Don't worry, he enjoyed it."

"Please tell me that's the worst of it."

He opened his mouth to tell her it wasn't, but then he just ended up nodding slowly.

"Oh, no, what?" she said.

"Well . . ." It was hard to even keep a straight face when he thought about her incredible lack of limb coordination. "Then there was the dancing."

"What?!" she shrieked, looking truly mortified, even more so than she'd been when they'd strolled out that dressing room together. "Bellamy!" She slammed her fork down on the counter, all worked up. "You said—you promised you wouldn't let me dance! I remember that part!"

He shrugged flippantly. "I lied."

"Ugh!" She picked up an apple off the counter and hurled it at him angrily. He had to spin to the side so it hit his leg instead of his crotch.

"Watch the junk, babe," he cautioned. "We need that."

"You are such an ass," she seethed. "I'm never sleeping with you again."

"Oh, never?"

"Never."

"Hmm." He already knew that wasn't true. "We'll see about that."

"Ugh, I can't believe you let me do that," she muttered, shaking her head infuriatedly. It was actually kind of hilarious how she was more upset about the dancing than she was about flashing Jasper or flashing Niylah or just getting that drunk in the first place. "I don't dance, Bellamy. I'm horrible at it."

"Oh, trust me, I noticed." He glanced at the clock on the microwave, wishing he had a little more time to tease her this morning. "I had you tryin' to the do Wop and everything."

"The Wop?" she echoed. "I don't know how to do that."

"You really don't."

"Oh, and I suppose you're great at it?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty good," he openly boasted. "I can dance, Clarke."

"Of course you can."

"Don't worry, I'll teach you sometime," he promised, giving her shoulder a squeeze as he headed toward the door. "Not right now, though. I gotta go work."

"Well, I've got the day off," she said, "so . . . do you mind if I just hang out here?"

"Sure, go ahead." That just made everything easier. When he got home, he wouldn't even need to call her up. "Don't burn down my kitchen, though," he warned. "I gotta teach you how to cook sometime, too."

"Ass!" she growled again, but he could hear amusement in her voice on his way out the door.

"Wait, Bellamy!" she called suddenly just as he was about to shut the door. He stopped and backtracked, figuring he was already gonna be late to Diana Sydney's house. Why not be five minutes later? As long as he fixed that sink of hers without a shirt on, she wouldn't care.

"I do remember another thing," she said, spinning on the stool so she was facing him. "I asked Octavia something about you."

"Oh, great." This was gonna be good.

"No, something serious," she said.

He frowned, not exactly sure where she was going with this.

"I asked her why you never went to college," she revealed. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. Not that it's an expectation. But you were salutatorian, so . . . I'm just curious."

He frowned, sort of . . . caught off guard by the question. "Well, what'd she say?"

"Nothing much. Just that . . . things changed?" She gave him a confused look.

Bellamy knew she wanted him to elaborate more, to tell him what had changed, but he really did have to get going. Besides . . . that was a potentially long conversation, one he didn't have time for.

"My mom lost her job that year," he explained, deciding to give her the abridged version, "so I had to work and help her out. That's it."

"Oh." She thought about it a moment and nodded. "Well, that makes sense."

Yeah, he thought. It does. "I gotta go," he said, quickly slipping out the door, shutting it firmly this time before she could ask him anything else about it.

...

It took Clarke a while to finish the scrambled eggs Bellamy had made for her. She ended up throwing a few bites away, just because her stomach was still somersaulting and she didn't want to overload it. But she trusted Bellamy's hangover remedies. If he said eggs were good for her right now, then they were good for her.

She sat down on the couch, flipped on the TV, and tried to find something mind-numbing to watch for the next hour or so. Murphy came lumbering out of his room before she'd settled on anything, though, and flopped down beside her, seizing the remote. "You look like hell," he remarked, switching to the channel The View was on.

"And you smell like shit," she shot back jokingly. Although it wasn't much of a joke. He really did smell bad.

Murphy lifted his t-shirt up to his nose and took a whiff, but that wasn't enough to make him go shower or even change. He tossed the remote aside and sprawled out, his feet on the coffee table, hands behind his head. He watched those women on The View intently, with interest, and Clarke wondered if this was a daily routine for him. It certainly seemed like it. If she caught him watching General Hospital later, it wouldn't be a surprise.

Towards the end of The View, she started to feel restless and headed back up to Bellamy's room to use his bathroom and take a shower. The eggs had definitely helped. The tidal wave of nausea seemed to have passed, and besides a dull headache, her only complaint was that she was slow-moving and tired. But with no class and thankfully no work today, either, she had plenty of time to relax, maybe even take a nap.

She wished Bellamy were in that shower with her while she washed her hair. They really hadn't done anything in his shower yet, or in his bathroom at all. Given the thrill of that dressing room sex they'd had the other day, though, she couldn't help but want him to bend her over the bathroom counter and do her there, too. He had a nice big mirror, after all.

Since her only outfit was a shiny blue princess costume she had no desire to squeeze back into, she put on another one of Bellamy's t-shirts and slipped into a pair of his boxers, rolling them up several times around her waist so they wouldn't fall down. Then she grabbed a couple of his Playboys out of the bathroom and brought them to his bed, lounging around for a good hour and a half, trying to read the articles even though she was distracted by all the naked women. Miss July had this amazing patriotic centerfold that had to be one of Bellamy's favorites. It certainly caught Clarke's eye.

By the time she got to the August issue, though, she was a little bit bored. She set the magazines aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed, wondering what she could do for four or five more hours until Bellamy got home. Maybe Murphy was still around.

The best way to pass the time, though, and the thing Clarke always found herself doing when she was bored, was drawing. So she dug around Bellamy's night stand drawer and managed to find a dull, eraser-less pencil and a few crumpled pieces of paper. She smoothed them out, figuring she could make them work, and then just let her pencil roam, drawing whatever came to mind. Before she knew it, she had cartoon sketches of all her friends in their Halloween costumes: Raven as Wonder Woman, Niylah as a sexy pirate, Wells as Will Smith, and Bellamy as Apollo. His tan skin tone was impossible to replicate with just a pencil, though, especially a crappy pencil like this.

Next, she started drawing a house. Not just any house, she quickly realized, but Bellamy's house. Sure, it wasn't in the nicest neighborhood, but it had charm; it had character. And she liked it there.

Halfway through that drawing, her pencil snapped in half. She'd been pressing too hard. "Crap," she muttered, checking the drawer again. She fumbled and reached around inside, willing to use anything if she couldn't find a sharpener, even a pen or a freaking crayon if she had to. She just hated leaving a sketch unfinished.

Her hand settled on top of a small metal box, and for some reason, that struck her as odd. Everything else in that drawer had just been dumped in there, like a junk drawer. Maybe this was a box full of condoms or something.

She took it out and jiggled it a little bit. There were definitely a few things in there, things that made noises condoms wouldn't have made. For such a small box, it felt kind of . . . full.

Curiosity got the best of her.

When she opened the lid, she nearly melted. Because it was so adorable. He had tons of old photos of himself with Octavia stashed in there, many of which had probably been taken in the pre-iPhone day and age. There were pictures of the two of them at amusement parks, water parks, hiking, canoeing. The best photo was definitely one of them at a mud-volleyball court, though. Bellamy couldn't have been older than junior high, and little Octavia looked so precocious. She was covered in mud and dirty, but he was miraculously still pretty clean. She had a clump of mud in her hand, though, and a mischievous look in her eyes, so Clarke was willing to wager that, the second after that photo was snapped, she'd probably lobbed that mud at her brother or smeared it all over his face.

Seeing all these pictures of the Blake siblings actually made her a bit envious. Never had she resented the fact that she was an only child—it'd forced her to be very imaginative when it came to playtime, and imagination was a good thing for an artist to have. Besides, siblings could be annoying. But Bellamy and Octavia were just so close, and in every picture, it was obvious how much he adored her. He had to be one of the best big brothers in the entire world, so she really did hope Octavia appreciated that. As overprotective as he could be, it was clear that it all stemmed from a loving place.

As it turned out, the pictures of Bellamy and his sister were just a small part of the treasure trove of memories in that box. He had plenty of photos of him and his mom, too, and goodness, it was obvious where those kids of hers had gotten their genetics, because she was beautiful. She looked young, too, younger than Clarke's mom, so maybe she'd had Bellamy really early on in life, perhaps even as a teenager.

As she got closer to the bottom of the box, Clarke found other evidence of Bellamy's love for his family: newspaper clippings about Octavia's high school volleyball team, who apparently had been state runner-ups; a DVD that said Mom's 40th Birthday on the front; an address hastily scribbled on a wrinkled Post-It note, one unsure word scrawled below it: Dad? There were so many things packed into that box, Clarke wasn't even sure how he'd made it all fit. (But then again, Bellamy was good at fitting things into small places.)

She had to move down to the floor after a while, because she'd littered his bed with his artifacts. It faintly occurred to her that maybe he'd kept this box stashed away for a reason, because he didn't want anyone else to know about it. But it was too late to stop now.

Towards the bottom of the box, things got . . . interesting. Confusing. Really confusing, actually.

There were multiple pictures of a girl Clarke didn't recognize. Tall, in shape, long dark hair. The first one looked like a senior picture with her leaning back against a brick wall, gazing at the camera intently. The others looked mostly like selfies, but Bellamy was in a few of them. He had on glasses in one of them, and in another, he was kissing her cheek.

That looks familiar, Clarke thought, recalling the pictures on her own phone.

This girl, whoever she was, had been Bellamy's high school girlfriend. There was even a photo of the two of them at prom. Bellamy was in a tux. She'd never even seen him wear a suit before.

The bottom of the box had more than just photos, though. There were two ticket stubs from a concert, a silver bracelet, a dollar bill that had European Vacation Funds written over George Washington's face. And then there was a ring. A simple silver ring with a small, round diamond on top of it. Clarke held it up and stared in astonishment. Was that . . . was that what she thought it was? On the inside, the word Forever was lightly engraved.

Oh my god, she thought, suddenly feeling very blown away by all of this. Bellamy . . . had been in love. Clearly. Whoever this girl was, he'd thought the world of her, enough to hold onto their memories, enough to buy her a ring.

Maybe I shouldn't be doing this, she thought, but even as the words ran through her head, she couldn't stop herself from picking up one of the last things in that box. Another newspaper clipping, but this one was . . . different. Not happy.

It was an obituary.

That long, dark-haired girl's smiling picture was at the top of a two-column article titled Miss Roma Bragg.

Oh, god, Clarke thought as a sinking feeling filled her stomach. Oh, god.

"Miss Roma Bragg, 19, of Arkadia, Maryland, died Friday, June 1, at Howard County General Hospital and Trauma Center," it read, "due to injuries received during an automobile accident that same day."

Clarke clasped one hand over her mouth as she read on. It talked about when Roma was born and who her parents were. It said she had attended East Arkadia High School and had been a member of the softball team. Then it listed all the family members she was survived by—parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins. There was a line all its own that said, "She will also be remembered by her boyfriend, Bellamy Blake."

Clarke blinked back tears and the article fluttered in her hand. The rest of it talked about when and where the funeral would be held, and indeed, the very last thing in that box was a funeral program. Bellamy's name was listed as a pallbearer.

Bellamy . . . she thought sadly, her heart going out to him. She wished he would have told her. But maybe he never would have. Maybe . . . maybe he didn't want her to know. But she'd found out on her own. She'd found out plenty.

What was she even supposed to do now?

She was still sitting on the floor, Roma's obituary in one hand, funeral program in the other, when she heard footsteps outside the bedroom door. Then Bellamy's voice. "Hey, Clarke, you wanna go get lunch?" he asked as he came into the room.

She quickly set those items back down in the metal box, tensing up immediately. She felt like a little kid who'd just gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar or been discovered snooping through the Christmas presents. She couldn't even say anything.

"Hey," he said, smiling at her curiously. "I had a break, so . . ." He trailed off as his eyes started to roam the bed, where all of his family photos and such lay scattered. And that smile just fell right off his face. He got really quiet, really still, until he asked, "Where did you get all that?"

"Bellamy . . ." She gazed at him wordlessly, guiltily, because she knew this was wrong. She was snooping, plain and simple, and she'd probably seen way more than he wanted her to see.

Oh, god. She felt horrible as she tried to put all the other Roma artifacts away again. She clamored to her feet, barely able to stammer, "I . . . I can explain."

"Explain what?" he roared accusatorily. "That you were you looking through my stuff?"

"No, I . . ." She stopped short. Because yes, that was exactly what she'd been doing. "I mean, yes, but . . ." Her words felt strangled. She couldn't get anything out. Maybe because there was nothing to say. There was no explanation that would make this okay, make it right. She'd made a mistake, a big one, and she hadn't even thought twice about it. "I just saw these pictures of you and Octavia," she said shakily, "and I thought-"

"Thought you'd invade my privacy?" he yelled, glaring at her. He looked . . . angry. Really and truly infuriated for the first time that she could remember. But when his eyes flittered down to that ring on the floor, he just looked sad. Heartbroken. Like he was reliving it all again.. "That stuff's personal, Clarke," he growled.

"I know." She wanted to just break down and cry, because it was so personal, and she'd had no right . . . she knew she'd had no right to look at any of it.

"Then why the hell would you-"

"I'm sorry!" she cut in, her voice high-pitched and wavering with emotion. "I'm sorry, Bellamy. I . . ." She felt a few tears spill over, and that made her feel even more guilty. Because what gave her the right to stand here and cry when he was the one whose girlfriend had died, whose dead girlfriend's pictures were now staring up at him from his bedroom floor?

She wanted to ask him to forgive her, but in that moment, she didn't even feel like she deserved it.

"Get the hell outta here, Clarke," he grumbled suddenly. "Don't come back."

"What?" She'd hoped that maybe they could talk about it, maybe cool down and talk about later if that's what it took, but . . . not this. "Bellamy-"

"I said leave!" he bellowed, his face a mask of fury as he stormed into his bathroom and slammed the door.

She inhaled sharply, shakily, looking down at everything that lay scattered around her feet and on the bed. So many things. She'd taken so many things out of that box, and she could have stopped at any point. Then again, she could have been a decent person and never opened it in the first place. But she'd opted to do otherwise, and now . . .

Now Bellamy hated her. And he had every reason to.

She felt so ashamed.

Even though she respected his desire for space right now, she didn't want to leave. She wanted to put all those things away where they belonged so he wouldn't have to do it himself when he opened that bathroom door. She wanted to sit there and wait for him to come out so she could apologize some more. But he probably didn't want to hear it, and she probably didn't deserve to say it. If he wanted her gone, then what choice did she have right now? She had to leave.

She cried as she left the bedroom, as she trundled down the stairs and flew out the front door. Murphy was still sitting on the couch watching TV, and he must have noticed her. But he didn't say anything.

Her eyes were heavily clouded over with tears when she finally got to her car. Before getting inside, she heard some kind of loud thud come from the upstairs of that house. It sounded like Bellamy had thrown a chair at the wall. Because of her. Or because of Roma.

Maybe because of both of them.