Chapter 29
Alone
OR
Not Alone
CLARKE
"Do you WANT him to knock you out, or what, Clarke?" Octavia asked, half laughing, half scolding Clarke. She sat on the edge of the mats, enjoying her rest from the sparring rotation, shaking her head at Clarke while judging from afar. "If so... I think you can just ask and he will be happy to oblige. If not... Maybe try keeping your hands up for once."
Clarke shook her own head in an attempt to clear the fog between her ears. She was on her hands and knees on the mats again, and again she had no clue how she had ended up there. She hadn't even noticed Aden's foot until the thump against the side of her head, the sound both amplified and strangely dulled by the foam of her helmet, sent her crashing to the ground again in confused surprise.
She tasted the sharp metallic bite of blood on the tip of her tongue from the slit where her chapped lips had torn under the sharp edges of her teeth. She hardly ever bothered to wear her mouthpiece during practice, but it seemed forgoing the extra protection tonight had been a mistake. Clarke wiped at the cut with her sweaty sleeve, pushed herself onto her feet again, straightened her helmet, and turned to face Aden again, splitting her stance, raising her fists, and trying to force her wandering mind to focus.
"You're bleeding." Aden said, the look on his face apologetic save for the small shine of pride in his blue-gray eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hit you that hard. Honestly... I thought you would block it."
"It's fine." Clarke answered. "It was a fair shot. I just wasn't paying attention. Plus... I barely felt it." Clarke lied, hiding behind a teasing smile. "You didn't knock me down. I slipped. My feet are sweaty." Clarke made a small show of dragging the soles of her feet across the mat to dry them while Aden laughed, clearly unconvinced.
"Are you saying I should hit you harder?" He smirked. "Or are you saying you need a time out to dry your nasty feet? Maybe we should get you some little booties with grippers on the bottom..."
"Naw... That's not necessary. How about I just dry my nasty feet on your hogu?" Clarke answered, charging forward with a fast-kick that was not nearly fast enough. Aden dodged the attack almost lazily, countering it with a well-placed back-kick that sent her stumbling backwards onto her ass again. But Clarke barely registered the slam of her tailbone against the mats. She barely registered the rushing of the air fleeing her lungs. Because this wasn't the first time she had been knocked on her ass by that exact back-kick. She had been nailed by that counter a hundred times over the years. And she knew exactly from whom Aden had learned it. And for the millionth time tonight, she was thinking about Lexa.
"Time!" Master Anya's shout rang out across the mats. "Rotate! Octavia... Step in with Aden. Clarke... You're with me."
"Yes, ma'am." Clarke answered, though what she really wanted to say was 'uh-oh.' Clarke wasn't sure if it was anger or disappointment or sadness reflecting from Anya's dark eyes, but whatever the case, Anya didn't look pleased. Over the years Clarke had watched Master Anya dole out life lesson after life lesson to her students in the ring, and she couldn't help but wonder if she was about to be the recipient of a spinning-hook-kick to the face and (a source of much longer-lasting impact) a word to the heart. But Master Anya didn't raise her fists. Instead, she sank to the ground as Clarke approached and patted the mats beside her. It seemed she was skipping the theatrics of the fight and going straight for the realer, deeper battle.
"What are you doing here, Clarke?" Master Anya asked with a concerned frown.
"You mean besides getting my ass handed to me by a ten-year-old?" Clarke replied with a chuckle and a smile she knew Master Anya could see right through.
"Your head is not here..."
"Sure it is." Clarke interrupted. "Aden just nailed it three times."
"Your head is not here." Master Anya repeated, completely ignoring Clarke's pathetic attempts at levity. "And neither should you be. Why don't you go see her?"
Clarke didn't have to ask who Anya was referring to, and there was no point in pretending otherwise. "She doesn't want to see me." Clarke answered, swallowing hard at the sudden tightness in her throat. She ran her tongue over her lips, letting the tip linger on the salty, frayed edges of the fresh cut Aden had blessed her with. "She asked us to leave her alone."
After two days of unanswered phone calls, Clarke had rallied the troops earlier this afternoon, and she, along with Raven, Octavia, and Luna, had shoved her way into the hideously bright little bedroom where Lexa was now holed up.
"If you think rejecting our phone calls and ignoring our texts is going to keep any of us at bay, Lexa, you're sorely mistaken." Raven had said by way of greeting.
Lexa had been sitting in the center of her twin-sized bed, a splotch of checkered purple in a sea of sunshine yellow so bright it could bring tears to your eyes. She had looked up in surprise at their storming entrance and quickly shoved a large book under the daisy-covered comforter draped around her knees.
"What are you guys doing here?" She had asked, her voice a slew of mixed surprise and anger and indifference.
"Are you serious, or what?" Octavia had answered. "We came to check on you, of course."
"I'm fine." Lexa had answered, dropping her gaze. "You guys should go."
"We missed you in school today again." Clarke had said, ignoring her words. She stepped forward and pulled a notebook from her backpack. "I brought notes from Trig for you. Copied them straight off the board. But I don't have any idea what Mr. Sinclair was talking about the whole time..." (A very true statement since Clarke hadn't been able to focus on a single thing since the moment she had left Lexa crumpled in that plastic chair in the cold white hallways of the hospital). "So if you can't make sense of them, you'll have to ask Raven to decipher them for you."
"It's simple, really..." Raven had spoken as Lexa had hesitated before finally taking the notebook and tossing it onto the mattress beside her without uttering a single word in reply. "Basically we just practiced expressing the sum and difference formulae for sine and cosine in matrix form..."
"Raven, will you please stop?" Luna had cut her off with a roll of her eyes. "I don't think Lexa gives a shit about the Matrix formulas right now."
"Formulae in matrix form." Raven had corrected her.
"Whatever." Luna had replied with another eye-roll, reversing the direction as if to balance them out. "She doesn't want to hear about it right now. None of us do."
"I was just..." Raven began.
"Will you two just shut up, or what?" Octavia had interrupted with her own masterful eye roll. "We're here for Lexa, remember?"
"Right..." Luna spoke. "How are you, Lex?"
"What an inane question, Luna." Raven had whispered, as if Lexa weren't sitting right before them in clear ear-shot of every word being spoken. "Her mother just passed away. How would YOU be at a time like this?"
"I was being courteous, Raven." Luna had huffed. "Isn't that what you're supposed to ask in a situation like this?"
"Will you two shut up?" Octavia had repeated. "You're not helping."
"What these idiots are trying to say is we're all here for you." Clarke had spoken over the bickering girls.
"We're worried about you." Octavia had added. Luna and Raven had nodded, eyes wide and earnest. It seemed the only thing the girls were in agreement on.
"I'm fine." Lexa had said again. But by the stiffness in her back, the sag in her shoulders, the way her eyes darted to the side and her bottom lip pulled in at the words, Clarke knew they were a lie. "Really... You all should go. I just... I just want to be alone right now."
"Maybe she's right." Luna had whispered nervously. "Maybe we should just give her some space. Come on, you guys." She had tugged at Raven's and Octavia's wrists, pulling them towards the door.
"We're right here when you're ready, Lexa." Raven had promised, turning sadly to follow Luna from the room.
But Clarke was still standing at the edge of the bed, watching Lexa's bent form, searching for the sea-green eyes that refused to meet hers. Octavia's fingers wrapped around Clarke's wrist.
"Come on, Clarke." Octavia had whispered, tugging her gently away.
But Clarke had shaken loose of the grip and stepped closer to Lexa. She pulled the shoe box from her backpack and set it down on top of the notebook Lexa had cast to the side. "You don't have to be alone, Lexa." She had whispered before finally allowing Octavia to pull her from the room, feeling like she was breaking inside; feeling like she was leaving a piece of herself behind.
"Lexa may have said she wanted to be alone, Clarke." Anya spoke softly, pulling Clarke's troubled mind back into the muggy, sweaty, present. "But I really think she could use a friend right now. I really think she could use a friend like YOU right now."
"She doesn't want to see me right now, Master Anya. She won't talk to me. I... I... I don't know how to be there for her. I don't know what to say; what to do."
"Sometimes it's not about saying or doing anything, Clarke." Anya spoke. "Sometimes being there for someone really is just about being there. Just being there, beside them."
Clarke knew all too well what Master Anya meant. And yet, the idea of going to Lexa after Lexa had just asked for space and time alone, made her so uncomfortable, she felt like she might throw up. It was something more than discomfort... It was fear.
Clarke still remembered the awful days after her father had died. She remembered how the things that she had once loved... His old worn La-Z-Boy with the stuffing leaking out, the movie Contact, pancakes and lasagna, Mickey Mouse and the smell of Old-Spice aftershave, the space books her father had read to her sitting on her nightstand and the very night sky above her... All of the things that reminded her of her father... Had caused her such unbearable pain, she could never fully love them again. She thought of how Lexa had confessed that for years after her own father died she could not bring herself to look up at the stars, no matter how much beauty they held, because they held the memories too.
What if Clarke was like the night sky? What if every time Lexa looked at her all she would ever see was Clarke kneeling helplessly over her dying mother? What if Lexa could never look at her the same way again? What if all Clarke could ever bring Lexa now was pain?
"What if she never forgives me, Master Anya?" Clarke asked, the fear suddenly spilling out of her in hot tears she was powerless to hold back.
"Forgives you?" Master Anya asked, confused.
"I couldn't save her, Master Anya. I couldn't save her."
Master Anya suddenly threw her arms around Clarke and pulled her close until Clarke's face could burrow into the curve of her collar bone. "It wasn't your job to save her, Clarke." She whispered. "No one could have saved her. You did everything you could to help her. You did so good, kiddo. You did so good."
'Kiddo.' It was the first time Master Anya had ever called Clarke 'kiddo,' a name she had always reserved for Lexa. And Clarke felt herself break inside under the weight of the name. She felt herself crumbling in Master Anya's fierce embrace. She felt herself falling apart. And she felt herself coming back together again.
"No one could help Lexa's mother, Clarke. No one could have saved her. But Lexa... Well... If anyone can help her now... It's you." She pulled away, putting her hands on Clarke's shoulders as if to impart her own strength into her. "Now, go get yourself out of this nasty, stinky gear and this nasty, stinky studio and go be where you belong." She opened her fist to reveal a house key. "I'll pick up some food for the two of you. I'll make sure I take my sweet time getting home." She smiled.
And with a deep breath and the smallest of nods, Clarke plucked the key from Anya's hand and wrapped her fist around it like courage.
***...***
LEXA
I lift my gaze just in time to see a flash of the saddest shade of blue as Clarke turns and lets Octavia drag her from the room.
"Well THAT didn't exactly go as planned." I can hear Octavia's whisper drifting down the empty hall and slinking through the crack in the door.
"She just needs some time." Luna says. "Lexa's strong. She'll be okay."
"I don't know." Raven says. "I've never seen her this... Broken... Before. No matter how morose or disconsolate she's been in the past... She's ALWAYS answered my texts and calls. She's never wanted to be all alone like this. Barricaded in that god-awful overly ebullient room like a patient voluntarily kept in isolation at a mental-health facility..."
"You're overreacting, Rae." Luna argues. "She's just sad, is all. She just lost her mom."
"I know that, Luna." Raven shoots right back. "But I just don't think it's healthy for her to be all alone right now, navigating through something this traumatic with no one to hold on to."
"She's not all alone." Octavia states. "We told her we're right here. She knows she's not alone."
"But she wants to be." Clarke says, and even from this distance I can hear the pain in her sigh. "Let's go, guys."
I hear the muffled shuffling of footsteps and the thud of the front door closing like the door of my heart. I suppose I should feel guilty at the pain in my friends' voices, at the hurt in Clarke's eyes. I suppose I should feel sad. But I don't feel anything.
I pull the old photo album back out from beneath the covers and run my fingers over its worn leather casing, but suddenly I don't feel like looking through it anymore. I already have all of the photographs memorized anyways. Pictures of my father laughing and my mother rolling her eyes and myself grinning; pictures of the time before; pictures of a time that no longer exists.
I had thought that revisiting these memories might make me feel something inside. When Clarke and the others had stormed into the room, I had already been staring down at the same photograph for ten minutes. It was a picture capturing a chilly spring day at the coast years ago, taken by some kind passerby long forgotten. It was a picture of me grinning proudly squatted next to the ugliest sand-castle on the verge of collapse, my mother and father hovering over me with fingers intertwined and lopsided smiles, all of us bundled ridiculously in snow coats and beanies in front of a furious gray sea. I had stared and stared and stared at the picture, waiting to feel something. But I could not feel the pride of the little girl with the toothless grin or the contentment of the couple framing her. I couldn't feel the rage of the stormy ocean or the despair of the crumbling sand-castle. I had waited for the pain. I had waited for the tears to finally fall. But all I had felt was as empty as the gap between that little girl's teeth; as indifferent as the stranger who had paused to snap the photo and then had continued walking down that beach, already forgetting the family she had left behind.
I had stared and stared and stared. And still the tears had not come. And I wonder if there is something broken in me. Because I should be crying and hurting and aching inside. But still I feel nothing.
I sigh and cast the book aside then turn my eyes to the shoe box that Clarke left beside me. Despite the enormous black swish on the lid, something tells me this box doesn't contain a shiny new pair of Nikes. I hesitate, inexplicably nervous to open it.
"You don't have to be alone, Lexa." Clarke had whispered. And the words reverberate inside of me. But Clarke is wrong.
I am alone. I am alone. I am alone.
I suck in a breath and pry the lid from the box and I feel the air catch inside of me. I pluck a star from inside and dig my fingertips into its plastic points and the memory floods my mind like starlight.
My first sleepover at Clarke's house, laying beside her in the darkness, my belly so full of cheese pizza and double-stuffed Oreos and fake-butter popcorn and grape soda I was worried I might puke. And yet, there we were lying side-by-side popping Dots (the only candy besides Smarties and licorice still left in Clarke's Halloween stash) into our mouths and chomping down into the chewy sweetness with freshly brushed teeth.
Before I popped each Dot into my mouth, I had held it up before me, trying to inspect it in the semi-darkness, with little more than the glow of the fake stars on her ceiling for light.
"What are you doing, Lexa?" Clarke had asked.
"I don't like the yellow or green ones." I had answered.
"What are you talking about?" Clarke had laughed. "The lemon-lime ones are the best."
"That's what my dad always said." I had whispered back, torn between the urge to laugh and the sudden pain in my chest. "He loved Dots. Besides Baby Ruth, they were always his favorite. He used to eat all the green and yellow and let me have all the red and orange. Dots always remind me of him." I had sighed, my throat suddenly tight. I never talked about dad with anyone, but, even back then, with Clarke... Well, sometimes things just came out.
Clarke hadn't said anything for a long moment. She had just lain there, chewing thoughtfully, staring up at the ceiling above us.
"These stars always remind me of my dad." She had finally said. "He gave them to me when I was little, right before he had to leave for two weeks on a business trip. He told me that no matter where either of us was around the world, the stars above us would always be the same. And I told him, 'No daddy, if you're going to Australia, the stars will be different there, it's the Southern Hemisphere.'And he laughed and said I was just too smart for my own good. But what he meant was that even if the stars were different, wherever he was, he could look up at them, and wherever I was, I could look up at them, and it would be just like we were together again. And as long as we could look up at the stars, we could know we were never alone."
I toss the plastic star back into the box and pull the bulging Ziploc baggy onto my lap. And I reach into the clumps of red and orange. And I place the Dot on the center of my tongue and push it against the wall of my teeth until the sweetness of artificial berries coats my mouth. And finally, finally, finally, the tears flood my eyes and cascade down my cheeks, and fall like raindrops splattering the stars.
Finally, finally, finally, I feel something inside.
