Clarke woke up at what seemed like dawn, judging from the dimmed rosy light outside. She was glad to have woken up so early, to make the best of every moment she had left with Lexa. Who knew when she would have alone time with her again… She thought back at the previous day, how wonderful it had been to be around her friend; how contentment had turned into frustration at night. Oh how she blamed her nerves and cursed her cowardice; she had high hopes for that evening. It had been her only chance, and she blew it. Unless… She turned around to face Lexa's bed, intent on getting up and joining her, to give her a propre wake-up call, but all she saw were empty sheets. Immediately on her feet, Clarke inspected the other bed: a set of pajamas—the ones Lexa slept in— were carefully folded and placed on its side. And since there wasn't any noise coming from the bathroom, Clarke deduced that the early bird had readied herself for the day ahead and already left the room. Deeply disappointed but too tired to do anything about it, she went back to sleep, dejected that her latest ruse hadn't gotten her anywhere.
Next time she woke up, the sun was now high in the sky, and Clarke feared she had wasted too much time sleeping. She hurriedly got ready and went looking for her friend. A thirty-minute search in all the places they had been to the previous day led her to the Mother Superior's office, to ask the convent's highest authority where the missing brunette could be.
The nun was everything Clarke imagined her to be; someone right out of The Sound of Music—which happened to be her favorite movie; one she had unsuccessfully tried to force Lexa into watching. Her daydream about her absentee tutor made her miss the Superior's last sentence; the one where she revealed Lexa's whereabouts. So she had to ask her to repeat herself.
"I understand how this might come as a shock to you, my child, seeing as how Lexa came here to be with you. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, as we all know, and His call has to be answered. So I suggest you spend your day in prayer and leave your friend to her calling."
At that, the nun got up and promptly exited the office, leaving a stunned Clarke trying to piece together what had been said in order to figure out what had happened to Lexa.
She went to church next, hoping she would find the pious girl attending Sunday mass. Which she did. Lexa stood in the front row, with a halo of light all around her. She seemed so unattainable, so far away that in that instant, Clarke inexplicably felt like she had lost her. In the urgency of the moment, her body moved of its own accord. But before she could reach out to touch Lexa, bring her back, take her away from this alternate reality that didn't involve them, a hand grabbed her right shoulder and dragged her out of church. Finally able to turn around, she was met with the familiar face of a serene yet determined looking monk, who solemnly informed her that Lexa had taken a vow of silence earlier that morning. All that was left for her to do was bide her time until her parents came to collect her. Crestfallen, Clarke walked away in a daze, her disbelief soon turning into dismay. She made up scenarios in which the clergy was conspiring against her burgeoning love, where the entire convent had been turned into demons on the prowl for a virgin sacrifice—which Lexa happened to still be. If only she had been valiant enough to lay with her now lost love!
The rest of the day was spent coming up with less and less likely explanations, and more and more convoluted plans to save her friend. Around 5 p.m., as she was waiting in the garden for her parents to pick her up, she saw her again—even more of a vision this time around; even more glowing, even less approachable. Clarke didn't know whether it was the sunset light casting a holy luminosity on her magnificent features, or if Lexa really was at peace. Either way, she finally admitted to herself right then and there that from this day on, things would be different; even if she couldn't fathom why or how much things had changed in so little time. She simply had to admit defeat. So she did. Right on cue, she heard thunder, then water was coming down from the sky and meshing together with the liquid coming down from her eyes. She found it ironic, how much this situation reminded her of her rainy encounter with Lexa. That day, she had been out crying over how lonely she felt. The weight of being an only child and having so many expectations to manage without the support of any sibling would often get to her, growing up. On that fateful stormy afternoon, she went out against her mother's recommendations, resolved to find a friend—someone special, who would be all hers—or die trying in the tempest . Fate had led her to Lexa, which was all the sign she needed. Ever since that day, she never doubted their bond; not really. Not until this moment, looking at the celestial incarnation before her. And now all she could do was cry, and hope it didn't mean what she knew in her gut it meant—that whatever they had was over.
The car ride home was filled with an oppressive silence. Abby and Jake sensed their daughter's plight but chose not to interrogate her about it; she looked like she could collapse at any time. Back in the safety of her room, the tears she had repressed in the presence of her parents now flowed freely. She threw herself at her pillow, convincing herself that she could still smell Lexa's scent on it, and drew deep breaths until her oxygenated body collapsed and she fell into a disturbed sleep.
Lexa didn't show up at school on Monday, which Clarke was begrudgingly expecting. But when the better part of the week went by and there was still no sign of the brunette, she started to panic. She tried calling her cell, her grandmother's, their house; her calls remained unanswered. She got Abby to join in, hoping an adult number would trigger a response, but the result was the same. On Wednesday afternoon, she dropped by the Woods' home, knocked on their door until her knuckles hurt and it got dark out. She even contemplated breaking into Lexa's room, which was plunged in darkness and seemingly uninhabited, before giving up and going home. She cried herself to sleep every single night, and roamed the school hallways like a ghost. Like her parents, her friends didn't ask her what was wrong—they knew. They offered up general words of wisdom meant to explain the unexplainable, hugs meant to comfort and plans meant to distract. But nothing could fill the Lexa-sized hole in her heart; it only grew bigger and deeper with each passing day.
By Friday, she had gone through denial, anger, bargaining—she tried asking a God she didn't believe in to bring Lexa back, pledging her eternal faith in return—depression, and was on her way to accepting her friend's change of heart, when the unthinkable happened.
People never really think about bad things happening to them; they hear things on the news, on the bus, in gatherings: this woman got cheated out of her money by her own son, this girl was diagnosed with terminal cancer at eight, this neighbor died of a heart attack in her sleep on the eve of her wedding, this man slaughtered his wife in cold blood in front of their two baby daughters… Clarke always heard tragic news and felt sympathetic, but never empathetic; she never wondered how she would deal with tragedy, because she was at an age where young people feel immortal, especially if, like her, they were lucky enough not to experience any hardship early on in life. She was privileged that way, without realizing it. Her parents had sheltered her from all the bad things out there, which made her in no way equipped to deal with what happened that Saturday morning.
She was in bed, trying to motivate herself into getting up and facing another day without her love, and failing miserably, when the landline rang. As it had been doing all week, her heart quickly adopted a thunderous rhythm, and she was hoping against all hope that it would be Gertrude, asking if Lexa could come over. Instead, Clarke heard her mother's voice take on a tone she wasn't accustomed to. Before she knew it, Abby was in her room, tears streaming down her face. It was Raven. She had been in a hit-and-run. Clarke didn't react to the news. Bad things didn't happen to the ones she loved. Hence, what her mom was saying couldn't be true. She couldn't help but think that she was following a very Lexa logic, which made her feel oddly connected to the absent girl. So she stuck with her reasoning, and was about to get back into bed, when Abby grabbed her shoulders and roughly shook her, repeating what she had just told her. Through the violent tremors, she heard the words Raven, accident and ICU, and this time around, her mind was too busy complaining about her mom's physical assault—the first and only time Abby ever treated her daughter with any semblance of violence—to keep the words from seeping through to her conscience.
Just like that, reality crept up on her. She wasn't shielded from catastrophes anymore. The rest of the day was a blur. The stricken family, the helpless doctors… Then, Sunday morning, the devastating verdict: Raven's left leg, which had suffered the most from her fall after the reckless driver knocked her over, had endured too much nerve damage, and had to be amputated. Clarke wished there was a manual to guide her through the yet unexperienced feelings she was now going through. The absurdity of it all, the injustice, and the pain; an unending amount of it that she could feel everywhere. But above all, she was mad; at the monster who had run over a girl and left her there, at the medical experts who couldn't save her friend's leg—her beautiful, force of nature of a friend who loved running, and who would never again be able to pick Clarke up like she used to and twirl her around. However, none of those guilty parties came close to the one who had wronged Clarke the most; the only person whose presence would've brought the distraught girl some comfort, and whose absence she felt more keenly than anything else. Clarke needed Lexa, more than she needed to breathe; and Lexa wasn't there. Did she even know what was going on, or was she too busy being in her own little world of light and silence? Clarke's anger was quickly evolving into full-blown fury. How dare Lexa turn her back on her like that? How could she get over everything they had said, did, felt, so easily? And if Lexa could do it, why couldn't she? Clarke took all of her questions, her longing, her unadulterated torment, and turned them into one life goal: to make Lexa pay.