TW: Mentions of self-harm, suicide and depression
Thanks Soncha_Kapa for proofreading.
Title explanation at the end.
Thank you to all readers :)
The golden ship – part 2
Do you know them? The people you speak to, the people you care about, do you truly know them?
There are different levels of knowing someone. It goes from the most useless superficial information to the very detailed secrets of their lives. How much you know someone, it often depends on how close you are to them. It depends on the frequency of the interactions, on the depth of the words exchanged, on the amount of subjects explored with them. But is complicity really enough to claim to know someone?
You may know everything about their physical appearance. You may know everything about their personality and the way they act around other people. You may know what makes them smile and cry. You may know what makes them laugh and tear up. You may know what subjects to avoid and which ones are guarantees of a two hour conversation. You may know what their favorite color is or what kind of song they listen to.
But do you know their dreams? Everything that makes their lives worth living, every motivation that justifies their actions, do you know them?
Do you know their fears? What makes them hide under their covers at night, what makes the blood rushes through their veins in the middle of the day, do you know what it is?
Do you know what makes them want to wake up in the morning and gives them the strength to go through another day?
Do you know what wakes them up in the middle of night, making them wish they could sleep and never open their eyes again?
It is terrifying to know someone too much. It gives one the knowledge to do right, but also the opportunity to do wrong. It makes one feel responsible for another. It makes one closer to another and being too close is frightening. It threatens one's idea of freedom.
When one lets someone in, it means they accept to share their vulnerability. And no one likes to appear weak. No one likes to give someone else weapons that can exterminate them with one push of the trigger. No one likes to offer victory to their enemy.
The question is not whether or not you know someone. The question is just how much exactly do you think you know them? Because no matter who they are, no matter what they mean to you, secrets are inevitable.
Do you know what words spin in their soul when they look at themselves in the mirror?
Do you know what ideas cross their mind when they fail to reach their goals?
Do you know what poisonous thoughts fly through their heads when they are unable to focus?
Do you know the difference between their dreams at noon and their wishes at three in the morning?
Do you know what they tell the clouds when they get lost on their way to the top of the mountain, or what they share with the stars once they cannot see the light anymore?
Do you know what they wished they knew before it became too late?
Do you know what they seek to know at this very moment?
Do you know about their regrets and their hopes? Do you know about the ups and downs of their self-esteem? Do you know what soothes their mind when everything falls apart? Do you know what heals their soul when their world is on the edge of death?
Do you know their definition of happiness? Of sadness? Of hate? Of love?
What proof do you have that you know everything?
All it takes is a word, a gesture, a change in their behavior for your idea of them to be permanently changed. All it takes is a smile, a tear, a laugh for the cracks in their armor to show, to let the world see a completely opposite version of them.
All it takes is one small detail for everything you thought you knew about them to disappear in a flash.
When everything changes, when the person you thought you knew suddenly becomes a complete stranger, what do you do? When the image that you had of them shatters in millions pieces, how do you put the puzzle back together? When the need to know the real person behind the mask becomes too strong, how do you confront them?
And if you don't like what you learn, how do you react?
It was paradise on earth.
The island of Boracay was made of the purest white sand and the most brilliant turquoise water on this planet. It was serenaded by the fragile voices of the sea during the day and haunted by loud club music at night. It burned under the brightest sun and the heat would be enough to cook people alive if it wasn't for the close proximity of the ocean. It welcomed tourists from everywhere on its beaches and fed them with so many astounding sceneries that the world seemed dull and empty when the reality knocked on the door. It gave them a glimpse of what wonderland looked like.
It was paradise on earth and Clarke could only focus on the pandemonium wrecking her soul.
It had been this way for the past hours and now she couldn't take it anymore. Whenever she saw Lexa, her eyes automatically glanced toward her forearms to look for new scars. Whenever she looked away, she had to fight the urge to turn back and touch Lexa's wrists. Whenever she tried to stop thinking about it, the need to check in Lexa's bags for hints hit her with the force of a bullet.
She had thought she would have been able to see past that fateful night, but she realized now what a fool she was.
She didn't even look at Lexa like she used to and she knew the taller woman must have noticed it.
She looked at Lexa with the eyes of someone who knew too many things they didn't want to know.
She looked at Lexa like she didn't trust her.
She hated how she couldn't look at Lexa the same way. It made her feel like she judged Lexa. It was against everything she had ever thought she would do when faced with this situation.
Clarke tried to keep the voices in her head down, but they kept screaming with the power of a nuclear central. The pressure on her shoulders was as heavy as if she had been trapped in a black hole and nothing she could distract herself with helped. She kept dismissing the thoughts but they always came back like they could never leave even if they wanted to.
It had been two days of nothing but love and affection in Boracay, and she was closer to the explosion than she had thought she was.
She could see the departure date approaching them from the distance and she could not let them separate without knowing the truth. She had to know. She had to know because no matter how pleasurable it was when she made every part of Lexa's body her own, she still couldn't turn her mind completely off.
Clarke had to know because the knife that had left this scar on Lexa's wrist now cut right through her sanity.
Whatever this meant, it couldn't be good. It couldn't be a sign of happiness, of joy. She had been unable to process this information. She had tried really hard, but all she had managed to do was to be visited by more images of Finn walking toward a path of self-destruction. She had tried to deny the importance of her discovery, but all she had managed to do was to be hunted by pictures where depression could lead someone to the edge of life.
She kept wondering who Lexa truly was. She kept wondering if the Lexa she had fallen in love with truly existed or if it had been just a mirage, a terrible lie. She kept repeating in her head that one did not simply "accidently" fall in love with someone, that love could not be dismissed as soon as a shadow appeared around it, but still, who had she fallen in love with?
She wondered if Lexa had any intention of ever telling her about it.
She hated being mad at Lexa when she had her own secrets to protect.
She glanced at Raven working on her tan right on the towel next to her. Her best friend rested on her stomach as she read a book about mechanical designs. Clarke smiled. Raven has almost given up her dream after the accident that had cost her leg. But Raven was invincible, and she had taken no time to prove it to her detractors.
Lexa had gone to get them drinks. Clarke stared and stared and stared until Raven finally spoke with her eyes glued to her book.
"If you stare at me one more second, I might just have to tell Lexa you're secretly eye fucking me when she's not around."
Clarke hesitated.
"I will tell Lexa about Finn. I want your permission."
Raven slammed her book closed, her eyes popping out of their orbits as she returned Clarke's stare with twice the intensity. She tried to discern any hint of prank in Clarke's words, but there was none. Clarke was serious and Raven was speechless.
"You will tell Lexa about Finn?"
"If you're okay with it."
"Why?"
There was no accusation in Raven's voice, only plain curiosity, but Clarke looked at the sand between her toes.
"There's something I have to find out and I think this might be the way."
"What did she do? Do I need to fight her? Do I need to kick her ass? Please tell me I don't."
Raven frowned. She remembered Octavia's warning, the hints that Lexa had been through a lot and might be hard to be around. She remembered Octavia asking her to keep an eye on them. She remembered seeing Clarke's smile and deciding that Octavia must have been out of her mind. She hoped that she hadn't made a mistake.
"No! She's done nothing. It's just something that's been bugging me. I have some things to discuss."
Clarke avoided Raven's eyes. If she was wrong and nothing was going on with Lexa, she didn't want Raven to sound the alarm for nothing. Her best friend could become the most protective person in the world and Clarke would definitely do the same for her. They relied on each other and kicked out whoever treated them badly.
"Are you sure about this?"
Clarke nodded, even though it was the complete opposite.
"I mean it, Clarke. I won't mind if you tell her about him, but are you sure this is the way to get the answers you're looking for? You know we don't share this with just any person."
"I don't know," Clarke admitted, "but it's the only way I can think of. I'm sorry. I can't tell you what this is about, not yet, not until I'm sure. But I know Lexa will be respectful."
"You know her better than I do," Raven said.
Suddenly, it felt as if she sun had travelled closer to Earth. Raven felt the heat licking her skin.
"You will tell me if something's wrong, right? Don't pretend like you're alone. You always do that."
Raven softly punched Clarke's shoulder.
The blonde cared too much to let people share any burden. Clarke would rather fall repeatedly than let anyone give her a hand. Clarke kept her demons to herself, protecting her friends' lives at the cost of hers. It was who she was. She didn't share her pain. She didn't share her problems. She didn't even let other people know she had problems until they directly asked her. She acted as if she was strong enough to hold the world in her arms, and whether or not she believed it was not the problem.
The problem was that she would let herself be crushed to death while pretending she had never been better.
"I will tell you," Clarke promised.
"I will remember that. Do you trust her?"
A few days ago, Clarke's answer would have been an immediate yes. But today, with so many blank spaces waiting to be filled, she found she was unable to answer. She wished she could say yes, but the simple three letters word refused to be pronounced.
"Do you trust her with Finn's story?" Raven specified, noticing the struggle her best friend was going through.
Clarke nodded. Of course she did. She knew Lexa, or at least she thought she did. She knew Lexa enough to know how much of a beautiful person she was inside and out.
"Do you think it will help?"
"I hope so. I have questions. I need answers. It's basic logic. I ask. She answers. It's too important to be ignored."
Raven sighed.
"You know what I'm going to say. Be careful."
"I am being careful."
"Are you really? Are you ready for the answers? Even if they are not the ones you want?"
It took a few seconds for Clarke to think about it. It took her a few minutes to wonder if knowing the truth was better than living in a lie. It took her a moment to wonder if she could handle having answers to questions that were so intimately linked to her own history. It took her a moment to wonder if they would survive the blow.
"I can't say. I just need to know. I cannot just sit here and not know, Rae."
Raven absently fiddled with the pages of her book. It sounded important. It sounded like Clarke was going to war and Raven didn't want her best friend to fall under the hand of the enemy.
"You'll tell me if it goes too far?"
"I always do."
"But this is different."
"This is different," Clarke murmured when Lexa came back, juggling with three glasses of colorful cocktails in her hands.
The view was nothing like they had ever seen before.
The sky transformed to a blazing volcano as the sun slowly disappeared in the horizon. The waves danced and played music, following the rhythm of the moon's gravity commands. The few wild animals that crawled out of their houses looked at them curiously before going back to playing hide and seek. The appearing stars behind the orange ceiling were getting ready to dress this place in an atmosphere that came straight from the greatest fairytale.
Clarke sat on the rock, her familiar pad in hand and a pen in the other. Her eyes moved from the miles ahead back to the piece of paper in front of her. She traced the world the way she saw it, flawless at this moment, but broken in its own unique way. She wrote an invisible message to the planets and to the woman who had taught her how to understand the Morse code.
She wrote a single question that summed up everything. She asked for an answer but received none. She asked for a solution that would spare their relationship, but she doubted it existed. She prayed for a way they could avoid this fallout, but she knew it was inevitable. She begged for the world to stop moving just so she could have more time to deal with the blow to her stomach.
She wouldn't tell Lexa about Costia. Not yet. Not until she was sure if wouldn't badly affect her.
Clarke sighed. Everything had become complicated in the past days and this was not what she wanted. Every line became blurred between what she knew about Lexa, what she thought she knew, what she wished she knew and what she would probably never know. Every emotion was messing with her head and it drove her crazy. Even the perfect sky could not ease her confusion.
She knew what she had seen.
It was a scar.
It was a scar made by knife and the chances that it was a complete accident were too slim.
It was a scar made because Lexa wanted it to exist and the thought made Clarke shiver.
Clarke poured her soul in her art. She erased every line that appeared to not belong in the frame. She added shadows to give the image a different view. She played with the shapes of the objects and transformed the serenity in a peaceful disorder. She was so concentrated on the pressure she applied to her pencil that she didn't notice she had company until a hand reached to remove a lock of her blonde hair from the middle of her face.
She glanced up just in time to see Lexa's eyes move away from her face. The taller woman sat by Clarke's side on another large rock at the shore and smiled the way she always did when she was in Clarke's company. They both kept quiet as the artist finished her drawing. By the time she was done, the sky had turned dark purple and the silver moon had replaced its golden equivalent.
"Thanks for coming here."
The breeze blew the awkwardness away. The salted air gave them goosebumps, but they weren't cold. They still had the memory of the sun's hot kisses on their skin.
Clarke had required a few moments alone after dinner, whispering to Lexa to come join her later. She had thought about what she would say and realized there was no perfect way to start this conversation. She just had to dive in and hope to not swim too deep, to not be caught in violent currents.
She inhaled deeply. She would never be fully ready to talk about Finn with anyone. She would never be spared from the weight of his death on her shoulders. She would never find it easy to open up about his story. It was a subject her and Raven tried to avoid as much as they could. They always got rid of it with vague words and ambiguous hints. Now, there was no way for her to turn around the subject.
"How are you?"
Lexa's question was whispered but the tone of concern was loud and clear. It didn't take her much to realize Clarke's behavior had been off since their first night together. At first, she had thought her lover regretted crossing that line. The thought had made her heart hurt like never before. But Clarke had knocked at her door the following night, and the one after, and every one of them had been forever engraved in her soul.
"I'm fine."
The lie echoed around them.
"You are not."
The truth broke the invisible glass that had materialized between them.
"I'm not."
The soft confession built it back, stronger and indestructible. For the first time in days, their eyes didn't meet and their hands remained out of each other's reach.
Even the gravity that pulled them close seemed to have changed. The love that united them had not changed, but they were unable to see that.
"You've been lost in your thoughts recently, Clarke. Tell me."
Clarke thought it was both a curse and a blessing for Lexa to be able to see right through her so easily. It was a privilege to have Lexa care for her as much as she did, but it was also another kind of torture.
"I want to tell you Finn's story."
Clarke waited for a signal to stop. She waited for Lexa to ask who Finn was. She waited for Lexa to move away, to tell her it wasn't necessary, to tell her she didn't want to know. There was no signal.
The artist kept her eyes on the horizon. She had a sour taste in her mouth. She had the strange feeling that Lexa knew their conversation had to happen tonight if they wanted to avoid the imminent crash.
She almost laughed at herself. What a mess. She knew, of course. Lexa knew it was inevitable.
They were too close to pretend they couldn't read each other's mind. They had been through too much to pretend the flaws in their relationship were nonexistent. From their first meeting, they both had known that this was not just another casual meeting. From the moment their hands had found each other, they both had felt in their souls that they could never go back to who they were before. From the very first sentence, they both had known they had been born just to be heard by each other.
She prayed it wasn't too late to avoid the blow.
"I didn't tell you much about him. Except that night when you saved me from myself."
Lexa wanted to answer that Clarke had it all wrong, that it was Clarke who had saved Lexa from herself, but the words were stuck in her throat. She knew Clarke would not hear her voice. The blonde communicated only with the past at this very moment.
"Finn was Raven's boyfriend. We met him a few years back at school. He was a year younger than us and Raven was charmed. He was sweet and cared a lot about her. He had this crazy idea that peace could exist without war. That was the kind of person he was. He believed in a better version of humanity."
An idealist of his own kind.
"Wells was my best friend. We met when I couldn't even speak yet. He bumped into me in kindergarten and spilled paint on my clothes. He used to pretend this was the whole reason why I loved art so much, that I'd owe him when I'd become rich and famous. We grew up together. Went through all the issues that came with being a teenager together. He was wiser than he appeared to be. He helped me during some rough parts."
Lexa nodded. Clarke was wiser than she appeared to be as well. Lexa could only admire her as she shone through the night. She thought the way Clarke never gave herself enough credit was one of life's greatest shames.
"I used to think it would be like this forever, Raven and Finn, me and Wells. Forever doesn't exist unless you make one. That's why I like your tattoo so much, because it focuses on what matters. Forever doesn't simply exist in this world. You have to work for it. You have to make time obey you. And that one night, time got the best of two of us."
The sound of the waves crashing on the bottom of the giant rocks they were sitting on guided them through the night. The gentle melody usually knew how to heal wounds from the past, but tonight, there was no magical cure to get rid of Clarke's empty tone.
"It was December 29th at night. We had just had a small celebration, nothing much, just a party between friends. Finn had one glass of beer. That's all. He knew he would drive Wells back home so he didn't drink too much. But sometimes it's all it takes. One glass, one drop, one distraction and that's it, you're crossing the finish line without even realizing it."
Lexa listened.
To the words. To the silence.
"He crashed the car and he survived. Somehow, Wells didn't have this chance. He was declared brain dead when he arrived at the hospital and there was nothing we could do. We could wait for a miracle or we could move on. We could choose to let him live a life he didn't even have anymore or kill him."
Clarke shook her head and continued with a cynical laugh.
"Would you like to be plugged to a machine for the rest of your life? Wells wouldn't have wanted that. His father instructed the doctor to just end it. And just like that, he was gone. My best friend of nearly twenty years was gone within seconds. His entire existence was reduced to a car crash. A miserable car crash."
Lexa could hear Clarke's anger behind the bitter tone. She thought maybe the blonde wasn't talking to her anymore. Maybe she was just taking her feeling of injustice to the sea, hoping it would disappear far too deep for her to ever have to deal with it again.
"Finn survived but he didn't make it out alive."
Clarke seemed to be about to continue when she stopped brusquely. She glanced at Lexa as if she was remembering her presence.
"You know, it was my car. The one Finn was driving. The one I was supposed to have checked a few weeks before that event because it made some weird sound when we pressed too hard on the break."
Clarke clenched her jaw.
"Finn didn't make it alive. He was barely himself when he got out of the hospital. In his head, he had killed Wells. He felt responsible. He didn't know I was the stupid one here for making the call to always postpone my appointment to the garage. I kept thinking it wasn't that bad, but when they examined the car after, they said that it was a miracle the car had lasted that long. That's why Finn didn't get charged or anything. So really, it was my mistake here. It wasn't Finn. Finn didn't kill Wells."
Clarke didn't need to say anything more for Lexa to guess what she would have said. Finn didn't kill Wells. Clarke thought she was the murderer here.
Lexa felt her heart ache at the amount of hate Clarke seemed to have for herself. She hurt for how much the blonde loathed her own existence at this time. She wished she could find the proper words to help, but she could only listen until the end.
"But it doesn't matter. The result stays the same. Finn was completely different. He blamed himself. He put so much pressure on himself he got mad at everything and everyone. He kept apologizing to me, every hour of the day. He kept apologizing to Raven for being such a failure. He repeated that everyday, that he was responsible, that he should have died instead of Wells. One night, he even slept at the cemetery because he couldn't bear the thought of Wells being alone."
Lexa saw the way Clarke remained in perfect control of her emotions. There were no traces of tears in her eyes, no traces of her voice losing control anytime soon.
She thought it was the saddest thing about Clarke, the way she detached herself entirely.
"I told him it wasn't his fault. Raven said that too. Everyone said that. But he didn't listen. He drank the guilt away. He hung out with the wrong people just because he thought he belonged with them. He broke the law because he was a criminal in his head. Raven saw him ruin his life. Raven saw things that I can't even describe here because those are not mine to say. But he got depressed. He hurt himself. He hurt others."
Clarke sighed. She wanted this conversation to end already, but it was barely the beginning.
"He just disappeared. He just completely disappeared. He locked himself in his thoughts. He shut us out. He took his guilt, put it in a humid soil, gave it water and minerals, and watched it grow. It became a giant fucking sequoia tree."
Lexa felt her stomach spin in her body. Why was Clarke telling her this story? She didn't feel safe here anymore. She didn't feel like it was a simple story Clarke wanted to share with her anymore. There was more to it. Her sixth sense told her she was heading toward something more.
"You know, Lexa, the moment to sound the alarm when someone is depressed is not necessarily when they shut you out. It's not necessarily when they refuse to talk to you or even get out of bed. It's not when they can barely eat of all day. It's if they suddenly talk. It's if they suddenly smile, if they suddenly are back to their old selves. That's when you have to worry. Isn't it ironic? When they get better, there's a possibility it's because they're at their worst."
Lexa silently agreed. She had read about it. She had read so much about it, but when confronted with Clarke's confessions, with the reality of it all, she could not find a single comforting word to say.
"Raven watched him self-destruct and you know what? It destroyed her too. And when she thought he was finally better, she saw him jump from the city's highest bridge and crash into the water like he was nothing more than a lifeless body already. He jumped. His body floated on water for two hours before rescue finally arrived. He just drifted away and so did the last remaining of his life. He didn't survive. Because he felt he was responsible for Wells''s death and he never recovered, he believed the pain would never end. But he wasn't guilty. I was. I killed Finn too, you know? I did. Both of them, they're gone because of me."
Lexa trembled at the way Clarke spoke with a light tone at the end of the last sentence. Clarke spoke as if she was simply stating the truth, as if there was nothing that would ever change this, as if it was the only explanation.
"It started with a car accident and it ended up with a suicide," Clarke scoffed. "It's fucking pathetic. You know who kill themselves, Lexa? People who believe no one cares about them. People who believe death will stop the pain. But we cared so much about Finn. We showed him how much we cared everyday and it still wasn't enough. He still didn't believe us. He still died. When this happens, you never remain the same as you were. You question if love is enough."
Clarke voluntarily avoided to mention Costia's role in her story. She already had too many grenades in her hands. She couldn't risk setting them all off at the same time.
"Raven went through hell. She watched her boyfriend die every day, repeatedly. She witnessed everything she shouldn't have witnessed. Raven died too. But she came back to life. And I've found a way to heal. I've found a way to cope. I might not have lived the best years of my life, but I'm alive right now. I didn't follow Finn's path. It's a damn miracle if you ask me, but we both didn't."
Clarke turned her eyes to Lexa and trapped her into her blue web.
"There's a reason I'm telling you this story."
There it was.
Lexa swallowed. A storm appeared in Clarke's eyes. A trace of grief appeared only to be gone within seconds.
There was no cloud of hesitation in Clarke's eyes, but there was a forest of uncertainties in Lexa's pupils.
"I'm telling you this story because I want you to know about it. I want you to know what we have been through, what made us the people we are today. You deserve to know why I break down sometimes. You deserve to know why I fall apart when it's a certain time of the year. You deserve to know why I sometimes hate myself so much that I wish I had jumped from that bridge too. You deserve to know how alive you've made me feel since I've met you."
The thought of Clarke wishing to die made Lexa's eyes fill with tears.
"You deserve to know that part about me if you want to care for me."
The thought of Clarke hating herself made Lexa want to trade her soul so Clarke could see herself the way Lexa saw her.
The thought of Clarke jumping from a bridge nearly gave her a heart attack. Lexa would have jumped right after her just to save her, no matter how high it was.
"I deserve to know too."
Clarke's voice reached her from far away.
Lexa had to fight everything to remain in control of her feelings. She had so much she wanted to say, but the quantity of words did not do justice to her ideas. She wished she could find depression and stab it with a thousand knives. She wished she could seek suicide and force it to stop existing.
"Are you dying, Lexa?"
The words were almost inaudible. They lost themselves amongst the waves breaking on the shore. They lost themselves in the quiet night, in a sky full of stars that were too bright for a world that could be so dull at some moments. The question made it to Lexa's ears and the tall woman froze.
"What?" Lexa breathed out.
Lexa felt the beating of her heart increase in pace and the bile rose to her mouth.
"You told me you were alive last time, but now I'm asking, are you dying? Are you dying the way Finn was before he ended his life?" Clarke pleaded to know.
This was ridiculous.
That was the first thought that crossed Lexa's mind because how could she be dying with Clarke by her side? Could she die from happiness? Could she die from loving too much? Could she die from the way her heart never seemed to respect its limit when she saw Clarke? Could she die from the way she never thought she would ever care about someone the way she cared about Clarke? Could she die from the way she wanted Clarke to mark her body over and over again, until the last atom of oxygen had left her lungs and she had no energy left to whisper anymore? Because if she could, then yes, she was dying.
But she knew it wasn't what Clarke meant.
She understood Clarke's question perfectly. She understood its implications and she knew, she inexplicably knew, what it meant. She understood the hidden questions behind that one little sentence. She had noticed the way Clarke looked at her the previous days. She had begged to be wrong, to be hallucinating, but she knew now that she had been right.
Clarke knew.
And Lexa felt incredibly small.
The image of a blade freeing blood from her veins crossed her mind and she could feel the release of a dopamine shot in her brain. It felt good. Incredibly good and incredibly tempting. It felt too good for something she knew was terribly wrong.
Lexa almost banged her head against the rock. She hated being back in this position. She felt like it was never ending, like she was forever meant to be trapped in this labyrinth of contradictory feelings, in this war between good and bad sides. She felt like whatever she did was wrong despite trying to be right. Everything felt painted in black or white and she had to choose one of them.
She hated herself for thinking, simply allowing herself to think, that cutting would make her feel good. She hated herself for having this thought when she was doing great at getting better. She hadn't had those thoughts in her mind for days. She hadn't given in to her urges in weeks, months even.
She wondered if this was how her life would be now. If, simply because she had cut before, she was forever cursed by her demons. She wondered if it meant the haunting ideas would come back every now and then to remind her of what she'd done in a moment of madness. She wondered if ten years, twenty years, fifty years from now, she'd still have those thoughts.
Why now? Why did they have to come back now, when everything had felt so incredibly perfect just a few minutes ago? She couldn't even explain this situation. She was unable to explain how the thought had made its way into her consciousness when she had done so much to bury it.
She felt nauseous. She felt like she was having a bad trip from a terrible drug. She felt like she had to die to truly live and that terrified her. Her body was shaking uncontrollably and she felt her heart sank into the darkness of the night.
Lexa struggled against her own thoughts.
And won.
"Are you dying?" Clarke insisted, her voice loud and competing with the sound of the water.
"No."
It was a single word that had the power to wreck their relationship. Lexa didn't even know if she believed herself.
"Why should I believe you? I've seen the scar, Lexa. Don't you dare lie to me."
"I'm not lying, Clarke," Lexa softly answered as she tried to keep the conversation civilized. "You have to believe me."
Clarke could feel the anger boil in her blood. Just because she appeared calm didn't mean she was. She was on the edge of exploding and Lexa would be the victim. As much as Clarke wished to avoid such situation, she knew it would be hard to keep her behavior controlled. She had expected this conversation to be hard, but she had not expected to feel overwhelmed by contradictory feelings, pulling her from all sides at the same time.
She wanted to believe Lexa so much, but the thoughts of Raven crying at the phone in the middle of the night refused to leave her alone. The thoughts of Raven knocking at her door when everything was dark outside, raging and sobbing and falling apart didn't want to leave her.
She wanted to take a deep breath and calm herself before she lost control, but it seemed impossible to do now that she had disclosed her full story to Lexa.
She wanted Lexa to do the same.
She needed Lexa to do the same.
"I've seen the scar," Clarke repeated.
She didn't know anymore what tone to adopt. She didn't want to be mad at Lexa. She didn't want to blame Lexa for something none could control. She didn't want to judge Lexa for doing something so horrible. But she couldn't just do nothing. Not when she had already lost someone. Not when she knew how bad it hurt to watch someone destroy themselves. Not when she knew she could prevent it.
She would not lose anyone else to this kind of illness.
She would not lose Lexa. She would not let Lexa lose herself.
But she still couldn't help but feel betrayed. She wished Lexa had told her about it.
She wished she was able to say more, to do more, to help more. The moment she had seen that thin line on Lexa's wrist, a flick had been switched in her mind. It had lightened up the dark part of her soul where memories of Finn destroying himself were carefully hiding.
She couldn't help remembering him. She couldn't help remembering the sleepless nights helping him to get back up on his feet after too many drinks, the restless days trying to convince him that violence was not a solution, the never ending speeches about how it was not his fault that Wells had succumbed to his wounds.
She imagined Lexa mourning the death of her girlfriend a few years back. She imagined Lexa falling apart and being unable to fix herself. She imagined Lexa being permanently stuck with a stormy past hovering in her shadow.
She didn't want to go through this again. She understood the differences between Finn and Lexa, but it was stronger than rationality. She simply couldn't go through this again, the constant fear of losing someone, the constant fear that something terrible could happen any second.
She loved Lexa. There was no doubt about it in her mind. Every little part of Lexa, every demon, every angel, every twisted part that made Lexa the wonderful woman she was. Everything.
"It's an old scar."
Clarke freed a single tear from her eyes. There it was. The dreadful confirmation. The one she always knew she would have, but never was ready to hear. The one that changed everything even though she fought for things to remain the same.
"I don't do it anymore."
Clarke wanted to believe her. She wanted to believe those words so much that it caused an earthquake within her body. But last time she had left herself believe things were better, it had ended with a funeral in the middle of a glacial winter.
Lexa looked at her with green eyes filled with shame and guilt. They were haunted by the wrong choices she had made and the regrets she now had to live with. They were occupied by a deep melancholia no cure could ever heal and Clarke wanted to take back all those words inside. She wanted to erase this conversation just so she could take away the pain from Lexa's soul. She could see Lexa struggling, could see the way it tortured her to admit her behavior.
She knew, now more than ever, that Lexa would have done anything to avoid this option, but that it was the only one she could see at the time.
"Clarke, I promise, I don't do it anymore."
Clarke wished she could believe her. But she knew the deal personally. She would only get the right answers if she asked the right questions. And she knew the answers could leave her devastated.
She had to know.
Clarke noticed the way Lexa's eyes blurred slightly and she realized Lexa knew what to expect. She read Lexa's soul and knew that the worst had not passed. It was right ahead of them and it was charging at them with fury.
"Do you still think of doing it?"
The right question and she would get the right answer.
It was a simple equation that she could use to know everything she wanted.
There was hesitation in Lexa's words and Clarke didn't even have to wait for the whole sentence to know the answer.
"I… Clarke… I don't do it anymore. I cannot direct my thoughts, but I can control my actions."
"You still think about doing it."
Lexa sighed. There was no denying it. She nodded and watched Clarke's face crumbled.
"Do you have a blade?"
"Clarke."
Lexa wished she could throw her bag on another planet.
"Answer me," Clarke ordered with a trembling voice. "You can't ignore my questions. Please, don't ignore them. You know I have to know. I won't stop until I know."
Clarke didn't know what kind of answer she expected, but she needed one.
Lexa nodded slowly and Clarke shook her head in disbelief, another tear escaping the ocean in her eyes.
"Why?"
The implicit question was as loud as could be. Why did you do it?
Clarke's voice broke. There was no other question that mattered. Why in the world would Lexa hurt herself? Clarke thought that if she knew the reason, she could prevent it from ever happening again. But she had known why Finn had hurt himself and it had not changed the outcome. She suddenly felt attacked by the amount of care and respect she had toward Raven.
Raven had survived Finn's fate. Clarke already knew she would not survive if it happened with Lexa.
"I don't use it, Clarke."
"Stop saying my name. Answer me."
Lexa sighed slowly. There was no easy way to answer. It didn't matter what words she would use, Clarke would only remember what she wanted to remember. It didn't matter if they said goodbye at this very moment. They wouldn't even be aware of being apart. They would only notice the way it happened.
"I don't know.""How do you not know?!"
Clarke's voice was on the edge of breaking again and there was nothing Lexa could say to prevent it.
But Lexa truly didn't know why she did it. She used to wonder that same thing about people who cut themselves before she started doing it herself, and she realized only after that there was no answer. She could never figure out why she did that.
"I don't know," Lexa repeated." I just wanted to feel something other than pain."
"It makes no sense," Clarke spit. "It makes no sense because you hurt yourself."
"No, Clarke. It didn't hurt the way you think it did. It forced me to focus on the blood. It forced me to look at my body rather than my soul. It made me focus on something I could control. How deep I would cut, how long it would last, how many times I would let the blade touch my skin, those were things I could control rather than being the slave to my thoughts. It reminded me I was still alive."
Clarke struggled to remain immobile. All she wanted was to jump into the ocean and swim away from this person she wasn't sure she knew anymore. She wished she had the strength to interrupt Lexa's morbid explanation, but all she could do was listen .
"It was curiosity at first. It didn't stay that way. You cannot understand how addictive it is until you try to stop. It helped me cope with the loss. I knew it was wrong, Clarke, trust me when I say that. I also knew if it wasn't that, it would be something else."
"Nothing could be worse," Clarke harshly said.
"I know it seemed like it but there are worse things than that. I either hurt my body or I fed the turmoil in my soul. I either attacked my skin or I let my soul be poisoned."
"You cut yourself, Lexa. I think your soul was pretty much gone already."
The words were hard to hear, but Lexa understood why Clarke said them.
Clarke didn't want to be mad, but she couldn't help it. She knew Lexa couldn't simply have chosen to cut herself. Things weren't that simple. But she was incredibly angry.
"It kept me grounded here, alive," Lexa tearfully admitted. "When you can't shut your thoughts, when the world goes pitch black, when there's no 'off' button anymore, you are eaten alive by the pain. You need to find an anchor."
"And self-harm was it? That's the answer you found?"
"For a moment, it was. It's addictive. It's… one day you wake up and you have to do it. I cannot explain."
Clarke bit the inside of her cheeks, swallowing the stones she wanted to throw at Lexa.
"I was told the surgery had gone well. I was given hope. Costia was given hope. After five years of hospital beds and recurrent nightmares, she could finally go home. It was all taken away from us. I know it's not an excuse, but I want you to understand. The transplant was not perfectly compatible, but it was our best option. Costia's parents didn't want to do it, but I pushed them to accept. I begged them. I made researches to convince them. I pulled all the scientific articles I could find to plead them to go through it."
Clarke thought they were awfully alike.
Clarke thought they had been through the same things.
And maybe that was why she was so mad at Lexa. Because she had gone through hell and she never had the need to harm herself, but Lexa did. Why Lexa? Why not her? What made them so similar yet completely different at the same time?
"I begged them. I gave them hope. But you know what's worse than not having any hope at all? Having it given to you on a silver platter only to have it stolen a few weeks later. I didn't help them. Costia's heart got infected and she died, and I was alone, and I had no idea what to do, Clarke, no idea."
There was nothing but the stars over them, and Lexa showed her wrist to Clarke. Even though they were blinded by the night, the simple fact that she knew the scar existed made Clarke saw it.
"Yes, I have a scar. And I asked for it," Lexa said. "But I won't have any other."
"How can I believe you? You just said you wanted it. Who knows how many invisible ones you have too. I certainly don't."
Lexa shivered, not because of the cold, but because of the amount of blood that had flown out of her veins. She could not count the invisible scars because there were too many.
"I can tell you if you want. All about it."
Clarke remained silent.
Lexa spared the details to Clarke, but she had a feeling the blonde knew them all regardless.
"I'm asking you, please, believe me. I have a knife. I don't use it. It's in my bag. It's small. It's a pocketknife. It's brand new and I've never used it. I threw the old ones away. I keep that one because it reminds me of my mistakes and I can't let it go yet. I want to. I want to throw it away. Ask me anything and I'll offer you the truth."
But Clarke didn't want the truth anymore. She wanted reality to be covered with a filter that made everything better, that brought them back to three days ago in the comfort of Lexa's room. She wanted to forget this conversation, just for a moment.
She wanted to believe Lexa and everything she said about letting go, but she knew it wasn't easy. Finn had told Raven countless times that he was going to change until the long awaited relapse. Finn had given Raven hope and taken it away. Clarke understood too much how much it hurt.
Lexa stared at her with a pleading look, with so many emotions in her eyes that Clarke could not think properly anymore. She wished the moonlight would give her the answer.
"When was the last time you thought about it?"
Lexa closed her eyes.
"Not so long ago."
Clarke wished she could stay mad. It would have been so much easier to be mad and yell at Lexa for her stupid behavior, and blame her for all that was wrong with the world, but she couldn't. She couldn't because in her head, all she could imagine was Lexa's silhouette standing in the dark in the middle of nothing. All she could see in her head was Lexa in pain, Lexa hating herself.
All Clarke knew was that she cared too much about Lexa to remain angry.
"You should have told me. I would have helped."
"I couldn't. I couldn't put that on your conscience, Clarke."
"I don't care about my conscience!" Clarke shouted. "You want to know what I care about, Lexa? You. I care about you. I care about your health. I care about you being alive and I'm talking one hundred percent alive. I care about you hurting yourself. I care about knowing whether or not you're safe. I care about that knife you're hiding in your bag. I care about all the times I could have helped but didn't because I had no idea what was going on."
Clarke took a deep breath. She threw a sad glance at Lexa.
"You have to let me care about you," the artist whispered.
Lexa looked away. She wasn't sure how to do that.
"I won't die, Clarke. I have no intention of dying. I don't want to. I never wanted to. I needed a temporary escape, not a permanent one. I don't need any escape anymore but my imagination, just like you taught me."
Clarke felt her chest becoming constricted. It was becoming difficult to breathe and she knew she had to slow the pace of the conversation if she wanted to avoid a panic attack. She could not help it. She felt helpless. She could not ignore the flagrant comparison between Finn and Lexa's behavior. She could try to move on, but it was as if she was the one with the scar.
It was as if seeing Lexa's scar had cut through her own skin as well.
That was how much Clarke felt connected to Lexa. That was how much she cared.
"I'm sorry I never told you," Lexa murmured.
Clarke reached for Lexa's hand. They were both trembling from the heaviness around them.
"I'm sorry I didn't notice before," Clarke cried silently.
She cried for Lexa's pain, for the grief they both had been through, for the guilt that still sometimes threatened to eat them alive, for the shadow of the past that seemed permanently hovering over them. She cried for their lost innocence and the way they'd never get it back. She cried for their search for a restful mind that didn't exist.
The silence filled the air between them.
The waves kept crashing at their feet.
"Clarke?"
The creatures of the sea came to ask for their sorrows and take them away from the shore.
"I care about you too."
I do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
I want to be full on my own
I want to be so complete
I could light a whole city
and then
I want to have you
'cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire
- Rupi Kaur
There was so much they had to talk about. There were so many words they could say to kill the silence. But they allowed themselves a few minutes of peace. They weren't tired. They weren't on the edge of falling asleep. They were wide awake, previous words still ringing in their head. Even at nearly two in the morning, sleep was the last thing they had in mind. They held each other's hand preciously, fighting the cold air coming from the other side of the ocean. They watched the stars.
They watched the stars and fell in love with the way they reflected in the other's eyes.
They tried to avoid the next subject. They tried to deny it, but it was right in front of them. They thought if tonight was the official night for talking about hard subjects they would get a full meal of them. They postponed the moment as much as they could, but sooner rather than later, even the stars assembled themselves to influence the words that came out of their mouth.
Clarke was going home in a few days.
Lexa had no intention of coming back with her.
Clarke had thought that the gravitational pull between them would have changed Lexa's mind, but she had been fooled by a level of optimism she should have known she could not trust. Clarke had had this irrational hope that their love would be enough, that Lexa's words about building forever were real, but now she laughed bitterly at herself.
"Are you leaving because of it? Because you think I can't handle the truth of you hurting yourself?" Clarke asked with a small voice.
Lexa was repulsed by the idea that Clarke would think it was her fault. Lexa hated that she had acted in a way that would ever suggest this.
"Of course not. I'm leaving because I need to go."
"That's a stupid answer and you know it."
Clarke didn't know if it was because they were talking in the middle of the night or if it was because she had spent so much energy to remain in control so far that she had none left, but she felt the anger bubbling back to the surface. She didn't even try to hold it back anymore.
She had a right to know why Lexa thought saying goodbye was better than coming back home. She had a right to know why, after everything they'd been through, Lexa still didn't want to stay with her. She demanded to know why, despite nights of moaning each other's name, days of breathing each other's presence, evenings of whispering hopes and dreams to each other, Lexa still needed to leave her behind.
She had to know because she was hopelessly in love with Lexa and she knew she would not survive the ache in her heart if they parted ways. She needed to know because she had poured all of her energy into this relationship, this miracle of a relationship, and Lexa would throw it all away in three days.
She had to know because they belonged together and Lexa acted like they didn't.
She had to know because she loved Lexa and Lexa loved her, and it was all that really mattered, and the girl in front of her seemed to have forgotten it.
In a perfect world, it would have been all that really mattered. But they didn't live in a perfect world. They lived in a corrupted universe and the air surrounding them would never be pure to breathe.
"You said you didn't want to live in the past anymore. Was it a lie? The words about wanting forever, about wanting to be remembered, if you meant them, how can you just leave?"
"Just because I do not wish to live in the past anymore does not mean it's done. I am not at this point yet. I have work to do, things to process, memories to accept."
"So do I and you don't see me walking away from the greatest thing that has ever happened to the both of us since we lost people that mattered to us."
Her words were dipped in poison and Clarke didn't care anymore. Lexa said beautiful things, created dreams with her speeches and transformed Clarke's world with her actions. But right now, Lexa was being selfish and her words were spears that were piercing through Clarke's heart.
And maybe Lexa had her ideas about what was wrong and right in her life. Maybe Lexa thought she knew what was best for her. Maybe Lexa had this idealized idea of how her life should be. Or maybe she was simply blinded by what she had been taught by life.
Clarke would not let Lexa go without a fight.
"What do you need?" Clarke asked with a voice tired of not obtaining clear answers.
"I need to find myself. I know how it sounds. I know it sounds like an excuse. I'm sorry. I cannot offer you anything but words right now. I know they are not enough. I cannot go home. Not yet. But I promise you, this is not the end."
"I can help you."
Lexa shook her head sadly.
Despite so many years, so many experiences proving her theories wrong, she still believed she had to rely on herself only. She remembered when she had reached a point in her life when no one was around, when even her closest friends had turned their backs to her, when her second family had looked at her with eyes that showed how empty they were after Costia's death.
Staying with them had only meant facing her greatest failure everyday, remembering her mistakes, realizing the love she once felt was now tainted with the vilest poison. Her social support had fallen apart and she had learned to keep walking the hard way.
Asking Clarke to put her back together felt like putting her life into the blonde's hands. And what if she could not be fixed? What if Clarke kept trying and trying until she had no energy left, exhausting herself for a lost cause, collapsing at Lexa's feet until she lost herself as well?
Lexa would never steal Clarke's energy, even if the blonde was willing to offer it to her, even if she kept claiming it was impossible to go through life alone. It was possible to go through life alone. Lexa believed it was. It was the hardest thing, but she had done it for a long time.
The green eyed woman was certain this would not be the both of them trying to be better together, but rather one of them pulling the other constantly toward the wrong direction. Lexa thought, no, she was sure that she would end up dragging Clarke towards hell.
Lexa felt the weight of her decisions pressing against her chest.
"Listen to yourself," Clarke falsely laughed. "Do you think we are in some movie? Do you think it's romantic to break someone just because you have to go find yourself? Do you believe it's deep and full of philosophical shit to just walk away without a word? We didn't even talk about it."
"We are talking."
Clarke could feel the tears burning her eyes. She feared she wouldn't recognize herself if she spoke out loud. She feared she would become a monster if she let her soul speak freely.
"I can't go through another goodbye," Clarke said harshly. "You can't decide when a relationship is convenient and expect me to just follow your lead. Not this time. I have a say. We're in a relationship. I know you care. You know I care. You can't just decide you want something and not ask me about it."
Clarke let go of Lexa's hand and green eyes filled with worries.
"Clarke. This is not what I want. I wish I could keep you. I wish we could be together the way we both want to. I wish I could wake up everyday by your side. I wish I could kiss you whenever I want, embrace you whenever you want. But I'm not at this point. I don't trust me with you."
"Clearly I won't stay if you don't even give me the chance to."
"I don't trust myself around you. I don't trust myself to not hurt myself when things get bad, when everything goes out of control. I don't trust myself to keep you safe emotionally. I don't trust my ability to care for you the way you deserve to."
"I can decide what I want for myself. And I want you. I need you, Lexa, don't do this."
Clarke was begging and she felt weak. But if being weak was what it took for Lexa to truly see it would lead them nowhere to separate, then Clarke would be the weakest person on earth. She didn't wait for Lexa's answer and continued with a shaky voice.
"You're not supposed to be in control of everything. That's the thing. Life, love, they can't be controlled. They're unpredictable and beautiful and made of impulsions. You have to take chances. That's why they're magical. That's why people want to be in love. Because of the thrill. Without it, it's boring, it's useless. I'm not asking you to be in control. I want to be here when you have your highest highs and I will support you when you can't even stand by your own."
"I know."
Lexa knew. Lexa was sure Clarke would be there. But it was not what she needed.
"I'm grateful. I thank you for this, Clarke. But you have to let me go. It's something I feel I have to do. I don't want you to become the person I rely on. It has to be me. I have to trust myself first or it won't work. It will be doomed if I stay."
"You can't give me inspiring speeches and act the exact opposite way the next day!"
A flash of alertness flashed through Lexa's eyes and through her entire body as she realized how right Clarke was to accuse her of doing contradictory acts.
She was handling this all wrong. Tonight was a disaster. The kind of disaster that didn't leave place for seconds chances. But she had no idea how to explain her feelings to Clarke. She had no idea how she even felt at the moment. All that mattered was that she didn't want to leave Clarke. Not now, not ever.
"I will come back," Lexa repeated.
Her hand had never felt as cold and lifeless as it did at this precise moment.
Clarke scoffed at her words.
"Maybe I won't. Maybe I don't want to feel like I'm at your service. You can't just ask me to wait when I have no idea how long it would take for you to come back. You can't ask me to come back when you feel like you want me back. I'm not your puppet."
"You can't ask me to stay."
"I shouldn't have to ask you to stay. Because you care about me, remember? You can't leave and have me too. I can't exist at two places at once."
Lexa listened to the way water seemed to fall apart once it came in contact with the rocks. All she wanted was to protect Clarke from a similar fate if the blonde got too close to her darkest sides.
"What are we?" Clarke asked with lightning in her eyes. "What do you think we are? I think we are together. I think we belong together. I think you and I, we have something special, something different. You have no reason to be scared of losing me because I'm not the one walking away. But I will be if you act like this is just a game."
Lexa didn't answer.
She was terrified.
She was terrified she would lose Clarke tonight. She was paralyzed by the thought that she could ever hurt Clarke, even unintentionally. She didn't want to spend everyday wondering whether or not she would hurt Clarke.
She was stuck in a corner. If she stayed with Clarke, the urge to leave would win sooner or later, and she would only move the heartbreak for the future. She felt it in her entire being. She had to keep moving. She had to keep walking, running, travelling. She could not settle yet. Her soul was not made to stay at one place.
This was not a game. This had never been a game to her.
If Lexa left, Clarke would not be waiting for her. The blonde had made her point loud and clear. So clear that Lexa felt a crystal dagger pointed at her heart, ready to pierce it any moment now.
"It's not a game to me. It's everything. But Clarke, I am not complete yet."
"Change your speech, you're repeating yourself and I'm sick of it."
Lexa obeyed the only star she would ever stare at.
"You put the stars in the sky and the life on earth. You smile and everything becomes brighter. You showed me how to make dreams come true and how to travel in time. You transformed the impossible into something possible. You touched me without using your hands. You changed me without even meaning to. You made me believe in things I thought no longer existed in my life. You are the reason I wake up in the morning thinking that this day will be great. You are the reason I want to be better. You reminded me that I existed, that I was alive, that living was more than surviving. You made me trust life again. I owe you so much, Clarke. I owe you more than you will ever know."
Clarke kept repeating the same question over and over in her mind, like a broken record that could never be stopped.
Why leave? Why ask for misery to visit them when there was no reason to?
Why ask for a broken heart when they both knew it might never heal again?
Why ask for pain when they loathed it?
"Then why leave?"
"Because I have learned that love is not enough."
It was as if she was saying those three words and Clarke's heart stopped for a minute.
"Even with me?"
Lexa exhaled the ache in her heart.
She controlled herself today. But what about tomorrow?
The simple fact that she had doubts about tomorrow told her that she was not ready to be fully with someone.
She would never ask her blonde nemesis to care for her, when caring included thinking of the possibility Lexa might hurt herself. She would never ask Clarke to protect her from herself. It was not Clarke's responsibility. She would never put this weight on her lover's shoulders. If she lost control, she would not give the guilt to Clarke to bear.
Lexa knew Clarke would blame herself if she cut. She knew Clarke would think she was not enough. She knew Clarke would be reminded of her previous losses every second of every day.
Clarke was not ready to spend days and weeks and months watching her words, wondering if she was doing the right thing, wondering if her support was enough, hoping that it was enough. She couldn't spend her energy on Lexa, couldn't change the course of her own life to care for Lexa's. She couldn't dismiss her own life for Lexa's. She couldn't spend years fearing not being enough for Lexa. She couldn't spend decades feeling responsible if something happened in the end.
Lexa would never ask Clarke to watch over her when she knew it could destroy her.
She would never put her demons in Clarke's hands.
"Clarke…"
"No, shut up."
Lexa's eyes widened at the words but Clarke continued emotionally before she could interrupt.
"I've had enough, Lexa. You talk about how important I am to you, you talk how special we are, but then you say that love is not enough for you to just stay with me. Which is true? Both cannot be true at the same time."
"They are."
"They can't. Don't you hear how ridiculous it sounds? Do you even care about me? That. That is all that matters. Whether or not you care enough about me to not leave me behind. Whether or not you care enough about me to not hurt me whenever things don't go well. Because that's what you do, Lexa. You hurt me."
Lexa swallowed the guilt.
Hurting Clarke was the last thing she wanted to do.
And yet, she knew it was all she kept doing. It was all she did, even if she tried so hard not to. Again and again, like a broken record, except she was a broken person who could not find the right way to balance every aspect of her life. It didn't matter the words she used or the actions she made, she was the cause of the rage and sadness twirling in blue eyes right now.
But Lexa didn't see things the simple way. She saw extreme opposites. She saw a future spent being entirely dependent on Clarke or one in which she was condemned to walk alone. She saw a tomorrow as a day voided of any marks on her wrists or as a crimson poppy field. She saw herself as strong or weak, as standing by her own or crawling across the ground. And she thought she was deeply in love with Clarke, but what if it was the complete opposite? The thought made her shiver.
The middle did not exist. Compromises did not exist. In her world, it was all or nothing.
"You destroy everything we've built because you think you'll be better off alone than with me. But look at the facts. You've never been happier. I've never been happier. And you're willing to throw it all away because you're scared I won't stick around as soon as things get hard. But I'm here. I've been here all the time and I don't plan on leaving. And where are you? You're not with me. You don't get to say love is not enough when you can't even admit you love me."
Lexa flinched.
Why couldn't she say those words out loud to Clarke when she had let them out when she had spoken with Anya, just a few days before?
Her breathing became louder. She felt her lungs refusing to cooperate, to let her live. She was choking, but her facial expression remained unshaken.
"I love you."
Clarke's voice remained steady as she confessed what they both already knew. She had nothing to fear and nothing to lose but Lexa, and she would do everything she could to avoid losing her.
She loved Lexa and every one of her flaws. She loved the way Lexa whispered her name, the way she bruised her body with kisses, the way she looked at her like no one else mattered. She loved the way Lexa's eyes darkened at the sight of conflict, the way her voice raised when she wanted to make her point, the way her tone shifted to annoyance when boundaries were crossed. She loved decrypting the hidden world in her eyes and the way she could convey everything with a simple nod. She loved the way Lexa would walk as slowly as possible when they were on their way back at the end of the day, the way she ran towards the world as another would start.
She loved Lexa, the warrior and the survivor.
She had also fallen for Lexa, the lost soul .
Lexa read her mind and understood, but she could only remain quiet at the silent words.
She wanted to say those words back but she knew she would be selfish. She couldn't tell Clarke those words and at the same time, ask for her to let her go. She couldn't tell Clarke she loved her when she had just said love wasn't enough. She couldn't tell Clarke those three little words because what if her eyes did not convey the same message as Clarke's? What if those words coming out of her words didn't sound just as perfect as they did from Clarke's?
She angrily scolded herself in her head. She made things complicated when reality could be so much easier.
And she thought, maybe she did love Clarke and she did have feelings for her. Maybe it was stronger than what she once felt for Costia.
And still, maybe they weren't deep enough. Maybe the way she loved Clarke was different from the way Clarke loved her.
She was wrong, but she was too blinded by the wrong possibilities to realize it.
"I will always be with you."
No matter the distance.
No matter how many miles separated them.
Even if Clarke didn't wait.
And right now, Clarke didn't wait.
"It's not enough," the blonde mirrored Lexa's words.
She shook her head as if everything was a joke. She glanced toward Lexa before she got up and walked away, her blonde hair flowing with the salted air's rhythm. She walked fast, never looking back, almost as if doing so would make her run back into Lexa's arms.
Lexa watched her, hoping tomorrow would come faster so she could allow herself to run after Clarke. She remained immobile.
Lexa stayed there all night, listening to the beating of her heart, hearing her fragile organ crashing as the waves came to die on the rocks. She remembered every single step she had taken since she had first talked with Clarke. All the cities. All the countries. All the miles separating them until they didn't anymore.
She closed her eyes and recalled the way the grandiose New York City had seemed empty without Clarke's answers. She remembered the way she had felt when she had first met Clarke's path, the way she knew everything would be different. She remembered the countless nights she had spent awake, her face illuminated by the bright light of her phone.
She remembered how safe she felt with Clarke's hand in hers and a picture flashed in her mind. A single poem that she had taken in picture as Clarke kept rushing her to visit another beauty of the world. Lexa whispered the tale of a great vessel that was meant for glory but couldn't escape a tragic fate, and almost cried at how similar it sounded to her life, to her relationship, to herself.
She wondered if everything had just been a miraculous dream.
If felt like a dream.
It hurt like a nightmare.
Le vaisseau d'or, by Emile Nelligan, is a famous poem. It is the one Lexa took in picture while being on vacation in Montreal. It is the one mentionned at the end of the chapter.
Here is the French version, followed by the English translation.
Ce fut un grand Vaisseau taillé dans l'or massif:
Ses mâts touchaient l'azur, sur des mers inconnues;
La Cyprine d'amour, cheveux épars, chairs nues
S'étalait à sa proue, au soleil excessif.
Mais il vint une nuit frapper le grand écueil
Dans l'Océan trompeur où chantait la Sirène,
Et le naufrage horrible inclina sa carène
Aux profondeurs du Gouffre, immuable cercueil.
Ce fut un Vaisseau d'Or, dont les flancs diaphanes
Révélaient des trésors que les marins profanes,
Dégoût, Haine et Névrose, entre eux ont disputés.
Que reste-t-il de lui dans la tempête brève?
Qu'est devenu mon coeur, navire déserté?
Hélas! Il a sombré dans l'abîme du Rêve!
The Golden Ship
It was a great ship built of solid gold
Its masts reached to the skies on uncharted seas
The Goddess of Love, her hair streaming, her flesh bare,
Flaunted herself on the prow beneath a blazing sun.
Then one night it struck the great reef
In that treacherous ocean where the Siren sang,
And the horrible shipwreck cast its keel
To the depths of the abyss, a changeless coffin.
It was a Golden Ship whose diaphanous sides
Revealed treasures which those profane mariners,
Loathing, Hate and Neurosis, disputed among themselves.
What remains of it in the brief tempest ?
What has become of my heart, deserted ship ?
Alas ! It has foundered in the depths of the Dream !