Chapter 37
Although there was a casting call just a few blocks away Bellamy could have gone to . . . he didn't. Instead, he slept in, and when he woke up, he ignored the texts from Pike reminding him to go audition. Pike wasn't his agent anymore, so he was about to just block his number. Besides, it wasn't some amazing part anyway. It was for a commercial. A commercial for some kind of cleaning product. Not exactly the dream role he was on the lookout for.
He stepped out onto his balcony, wishing he had a cigarette but knowing he couldn't go out and buy a pack or he'd end up having to quit all over again. Luckily, thoughts of smoking didn't occupy his mind for long, because when he looked over to Clarke's balcony, he found her sitting out there, legs dangling over the ledge, hands gripping the iron rails.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked her. She had a sweatshirt and jeans, but it was more like winter coat weather out there.
"I needed some fresh air," she said, staring aimlessly across the street.
"Well, you won't find any of that here." If he ever stepped out on that balcony and didn't smell sewage and trash, he'd throw a damn parade. The neighborhood just wasn't a good one, but he'd gotten used to it. Apparently she had, too.
Climbing over his railing, he stepped out carefully onto the ledge, and crept across to her balcony. "I take it you ended up being busy last night," he said as he swung his leg over her railing.
"Yeah," she said, glancing over at him momentarily. "Sorry, I know I said I'd see you, but . . . Finn took me out for dinner, and then . . ." She inhaled shakily as he took a seat next to her. "I don't know, things just started to feel really complicated."
He leaned back against the railing, facing her, sprawling his legs out in front of him. "Meaning?"
"Meaning . . ." She lowered her head, mumbling, "I feel pathetic."
"Why?"
She shrugged sadly. "Because he cheated on me. I should hate him. But I don't."
He sighed, trying to be understanding even though he wanted her to hate him. "You still love him?" he asked.
"I don't . . . I don't know," she sputtered unsurely. "Once you fall in love with somebody, do you ever stop loving them?"
He didn't answer. Couldn't answer, actually. He'd never been in love . . . until her.
"I don't like him anymore," she said. "I can barely even stand to look at him right now. But he claims he still loves me."
He grunted angrily. "You really believe that?"
She blinked rapidly, ridding her eyes of tears. "I don't know what to believe. I mean . . . even if he still does, it's not enough."
He gazed at her sympathetically, for as much as it frustrated him that she wasn't sitting there dragging Finn's name through the mud right now . . . he did feel bad for her. He felt compassion. Sometimes he forgot that Clarke was only nineteen. Her life had changed a lot in a year, and it had to be hard for her to handle.
"I overheard him and Raven fighting," she told him. "Apparently he pulled the wool over her eyes, too. She thought he broke up with me. Now I think she's furious."
What a fuckin' jerk, Bellamy thought. He wasn't Raven's biggest fan in the world, but she didn't deserve to have some loser like Finn play her, either. "Good," he said. "She should be. So should you."
"I am," Clarke insisted. "I may not hate him, but I'm so angry with him. I mean, here I was feeling bad about just kissing you, and he's off sleeping with someone else. I mean . . ." It seemed like she was going to launch into a rant until she trailed off, and when she continued on, her voice was quieter, sadder. "I don't know why he would do that to me."
Bellamy didn't know why, either, so that left only one explanation: "He's an idiot."
"Yeah, but maybe I am, too."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
She sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "I didn't tell him what I saw," she admitted. "All through dinner last night, I just sat there and acted like I didn't know anything."
Well, he didn't exactly like the sound of that. But maybe she was just waiting to drop the bomb on him or something. "And he didn't tell you?" he questioned. Another jerk move.
"No. But he didn't break up with me, either." She sighed heavily, shoulders slumping, and revealed, "He basically said he wants to start over."
Bellamy felt his whole stomach drop when she said that. Oh, no, he thought. Please, no. "Don't fall for that," he said.
"I'm not," she assured him. "I don't trust him."
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
Her eyes met his, and she nodded slowly.
"Then trust me on this: He's no good for you."
"I know, but . . ." She groaned in distress. "I told you, Bellamy, I hate the thought of losing him. And I hate myself even more for saying that. But it's like . . . my mom and dad don't even feel like my mom and dad anymore. My friends are off living this whole new life without me. Finn's the only thing—the only person—I haven't lost. Or maybe . . ." Her brows furrowed together unhappily. "Maybe I have, and I'm just holding on to someone who doesn't even exist anymore."
He swallowed hard, trying not to be upset, even though this was . . . upsetting. "So you're gonna stay with him," he said evenly.
"No," she said, and he got his hopes up for a moment before she added, "No, not forever."
Not forever? What the hell did that mean?
"I just . . . I feel like I'm gonna fall apart and never be able to put myself back together if I break up with him right now," she admitted, whimpering. "It's selfish, I know, and I'm so sorry. But after everything that's happened these past couple days . . ." She paused for a moment, shivering. "I wish I was the kind of girl who could just roll with all the punches, but I need a little time to just . . . let things calm down."
He nodded, reluctantly resigned to letting her make her own decision about this. She made her own decisions all the time, different ones than he wanted her to. The strip club, Roan, and now this. But he wasn't about to pressure her into making her decision faster. He hadn't done what he'd done at Roan and Echo's with the expectation that she'd drop everything and be with him. He'd done it because he loved her, plain and simple. And it was also because he loved her that he'd respect her decision, even if he couldn't quite fully understand it.
"But Bellamy, you and me . . . I want that, too," she reassured him, leaning in a bit. "And as horrible as it sounds, part of me kind of loves the fact that he's the one in the dark when it comes to my feelings for you."
So she wanted revenge on Finn then? He wasn't exactly opposed to that, but it wasn't his ideal scenario, either. If he and Clarke—when they got together . . . he wanted it to be all about the two of them, nothing about Finn. "So where does that leave us then?" he asked her.
Shrugging her shoulders helplessly, she replied, "I have no idea."
Great. Neither did he.
"I don't wanna lose you," she said. "But I don't wanna use you, either, especially not after . . ." Her sentence faded.
Not after the other night, he thought. With Echo. Yeah, he'd certainly been used then. Didn't like it very much. At all.
"I'm not choosing him over you, if that's what you're thinking," she assured him. "This has nothing to do with him. I just . . . feel like I need to take a minute to breathe and just . . ."
"Find yourself again," he filled in. As much as he wanted to be with the girl, even he could admit that everything that had happened these past couple of days was a lot to process. No wonder she felt so lost.
"Yeah," she said. "But if you don't wanna wait around for me to figure it out, I understand."
He knew that she was basically giving him permission—not that he needed it—to fool around with other girls in the meantime. But there wasn't one part of him that had any interest in doing that anymore. "No, I'll wait," he said.
She opened her mouth to say something, probably to reassure him that it'd be okay, but he kept going before she got a word out.
"I love you, Clarke," he said, amazed at how easily those words came out now, at how natural it all seemed. "I don't wanna be with anyone else."
She inhaled sharply, and he was mesmerized by the rise and fall of her chest. "I wanna be with you," she said breathily. "And I will be. Just . . . not yet."
It was sort of a hard pill to swallow, but . . . it wasn't like all hope was lost. Clarke wasn't gonna forgive Finn, and if she started to, he'd gladly remind her that she deserved someone better. She deserved everything. "Someday?" he asked, feeling oddly hopeful.
"Yeah," she said. "But I don't know if someday is tomorrow or next week or . . . I don't know, Bellamy."
Tomorrow would have been great. Even next week or next month, he could handle. The longer they delayed this, the harder it was going to be on him. "I'm not goin' anywhere," he said, willing to give her as much time as she needed to be ready for something new. Something with him. Hell, even if she and Finn broke up and she needed some time on her own . . . he'd give that to her. He wasn't going to pressure her for anything; she'd already endured enough pressure.
She smiled appreciatively and scooted closer to him, close enough that she could tilt her head to the side and rest it on his shoulder. He leaned towards her, resting his head against hers, and just sat there with her, imagining what it would be like to do this with her someday—someday—when it was just him and her, when Finn was no longer in the picture. He wanted that day, and he wanted it as soon as possible. But for now, he could give her the time she needed. It didn't make him love her any less.
...
Another night, another performance. Except Clarke didn't feel particularly prepared for this one. She'd winged it up on stage before, but she was a headliner Grounders Girl now, and with that title came pressure and expectations. Anya and Luna were banking on her—literally—to be their number one.
Five or ten minutes before the curtain rose up, Harper came backstage and chirped, "Hey, you almost ready?"
"No." Clarke scrambled around frantically, searching for her makeup under piles of clothes. "I got here late, and I can't find the eyeshadow I want, or the lip gloss, so I look like I just rolled out of bed."
Harper waved off the concern. "Don't worry, that look turns plenty of guys on."
"I guess I am the Girl Next Door," she said, abandoning her quest for the perfect eyeshadow. "I don't have to always look glamorous."
"You look fine," her friend assured her. "And hey, your boyfriend's out there. Is that kind of exciting?"
"Not really." Hastily, she peeled off her generic white t-shirt and threw on a plaid crop top instead. As she tied it above her bellybutton, she rambled on, "I mean, it's weird for him to watch me take my clothes off in front of all these people. But he wants to come to more of these. It's his idea of being supportive, so . . ." She rolled her eyes, honestly wishing he wasn't there. She'd tried to drop hints—major ones—that he really didn't have to come. She'd do her thing and get home at a reasonable time. But Finn was so insistent that this would help them reconnect.
"Well, no sign of Roan yet tonight," Harper said, peeking out of the curtains. "So that's good news."
Just hearing his name made the hairs on the back of Clarke's neck stand on end, so it was better news than Harper even realized. "Yeah, it is," she agreed.
Harper moseyed through the changing room, pretending to be all interested in a fake pearl necklace when Clarke knew full well that, in reality, she had a reason for being back there. That reason came to light when she finally asked, "What all went down with you and him anyway?"
Resisting the urge to shudder at the horrible memory of touching him in that dark alley, Clarke played dumb and asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, the other night when you called me . . . I still don't know what that was all about. You didn't actually end up going over to his house, did you?"
"No," she answered quickly. "No, of course not." She would have, though, if she'd managed to find it. She would have barged right in there without a fake gun, and . . . who knows what she would have done then, but she would have tried to get Bellamy out of there before he and Echo . . . before they . . .
"Look, there was . . . stuff," she admitted, being as vague as possible. "But Bellamy handled it."
"Bellamy was involved?" Harper gasped. "What the . . ."
"Look, Harper, I can't really talk about all this right now. I gotta finish getting ready," Clarke said, sitting down at the makeup table. She grabbed some random purple eyeshadow, pretty sure it would clash with both her skin tone and this top, but she put it on anyway, needing to seem busy so she didn't have to talk about the other night any further.
"Okay," Harper said. She had to still be curious, but she was a good friend, the kind who respected privacy, so she backed off. "Break a leg," she said as she left the room. "Not literally."
Clarke gave her a small wave goodbye, then looked again at her reflection in the mirror. This was really not the right top. Not the right outfit at all, actually. Jeans and a shirt like this would go well with something like "Pour Some Sugar on Me," which Luna was choreographing for somebody, probably for her since it didn't fit in very well with the other girls' brands. But it didn't go with "Apologize," the song Luna had lined up for her tonight. So she quickly untied her shirt and rifled around the closets and chests full of costumes back there, trying to find something that would look softer, more angelic or something.
She ended up putting on something that either could have been a long white shirt or a short white dress. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, but it worked as a dress, sort of like a slip. The material was thin and silky and felt really good on her skin. Too bad she'd have to take it off halfway through her performance.
With matching white heels on her feet, she glided out onto the stage after her introduction, and she went through the motions as well as she remembered them. Luna had devoted considerable time to rehearsing this with her yesterday, but she hadn't been focused. Inevitably, there were parts she forgot and moves she had to improvise, but she doubted anyone could tell. Nor did they care. As long as she circled her hips seductively and rolled her body up against that pole, they'd watch. Hell, she probably didn't even have to get up there and do any of the fancy spins and tricks she'd worked so hard on. But she did, because as long as those moves were part of her routine, it felt more artistic and less objectifying.
The song was a moving one, pretty deeply emotional, and despite not knowing the dance, she was feeling her own dancing. She didn't look at Finn once, though she knew he was over at the bar with Bellamy. She couldn't look over there, because if she did . . . there wasn't any guarantee she could look away from Bellamy. And this couldn't just be a performance for one. It had to be for many.
She danced to a few other songs after that, more upbeat than the first one. The whole night went relatively quickly, and before she knew it, she was smiling and doing her signature wave goodnight to the crowd as they flicked money towards the stage. The stage bouncer collected it for her, giving her the opportunity to slip back behind the curtains and get her normal street clothes on again. She took off her makeup and put her hair up in a ponytail, too, because she found that, the dumpier she looked when she left the backstage area, the less likely it was that men would approach her and try to talk to her.
Of course, there was one man who had every right and reason to approach her when she walked back out into the club, and he didn't hesitate. "There's my girl!" Finn exclaimed, practically running towards her.
I'm not your girl, she thought as he scooped her up in his arms. Keeping a secret from him was sort of . . . comforting. She wasn't the one in the dark about the true nature of their relationship anymore. In fact, now she knew more than he did.
He hugged her excitedly, barely allowing her room to breathe. "You did so good! You were so good up there."
She didn't tell him thanks and hardly even hugged him back, because . . . there was Bellamy, standing at the bar, his eyes on her while Murphy took care of the customers. She could see him over Finn's shoulder, and it was like he was all she could see. Locking eyes with him made all the other people and all the other sounds in that place just fade away. At least for a few seconds.
It was exhilarating.
Then it all came rushing back again. The music, the noise, and Finn's arms around her back and waist. She pushed him away gently but insistently, and with a knowing smirk, Bellamy got back to work.
That night, Finn drove her home, still going on and on about how well she'd done tonight. It was a little . . . much. She knew she'd done well. In fact, there was only one time she hadn't done well up on that stage, and that was because of the flu she'd had. She didn't need Finn complimenting every single move as if he were some Dancing with the Stars judge. It just seemed like he was trying so hard. Too hard.
The trying didn't stop when they got inside their apartment. He shut the door and grinned at her, asking, "You tired?" as he backed her up against the wall.
"Kinda," she said, hoping he wasn't expecting . . . anything.
"You wanna go to sleep then?" he asked. "Or stay up and . . . see what happens?"
Oh, great, she thought. He was expecting something. Something she wasn't willing to give. He started to lean in for a kiss, but she put her hand on his chest, holding him back. "No, wait," she said. "I'm really tired." She really wasn't, but . . . it felt strangely good to turn him down.
Disappointment flashed onto his face. "Oh," he said, backing up a bit. "Alright."
Inwardly, she breathed a sigh of relief, feeling like she'd just saved them from one very awkward sexual experience. "And I just think maybe we should . . . pump the brakes a little bit," she decided.
"On . . . this?" he asked confusedly.
"Yeah. I mean, you said it yourself last night, Finn: We've drifted pretty far apart. I don't think sex is gonna magically bring us back together."
He frowned, sulking down the hall. "So you don't wanna have sex with me?"
Even if he hadn't cheated on her, sex with him had always been . . . unsatisfying. So the answer probably still would have been no. "I just think, if you really wanna reconnect, you don't assume getting it on is the way to do it," she said. "So, no, I don't wanna have sex with you." There was also the fact that he'd just screwed Raven Reyes a couple nights ago. And god, part of her just wanted to drop that bombshell on him that she already knew about all of that, that she'd seen it with her own two eyes. And she wanted to tell him that she'd kissed Bellamy, that she'd spent a couple of nights at Bellamy's place, in his bed, even. And she wanted to tell him that Bellamy loved her, just to see how he'd react to that. And she would. She would tell him.
When she was ready.
Sighing reluctantly, he said, "Okay." And with that, he headed into the bedroom.
It was gonna be awkward no matter what, Clarke realized, these nights with Finn. But hopefully she could just get through them. And then she could get to the point where she felt ready for something better.
...
Clarke really did enjoy hanging out with Harper, whether it was work-related or just for fun. But the girl was head over heels for Monty, so she talked about Monty a lot. And sometimes, Clarke just got distracted.
"So Monty said he might come here for spring break, which I think is a great idea, although maybe we could splurge and go down to Florida together or something," Harper rambled during their break in rehearsal. "But then again, Florida's so tired when it comes to spring break. Everybody goes to Florida. We don't wanna be like everybody else."
Clarke sat comfortably with her friend on one of the couches below the stage, barely even registering the words she was hearing. Spring break? Something like that? She could barely even think about anything, because she was too busy looking over at the bar, where Bellamy was lifting crates full of glasses up onto the counter while Anya sipped a drink and sorted through the mail. God, he had such nice muscles.
"Anyway, so after I got off the phone, I gave birth to a baby pterodactyl," Harper finished up.
"That's nice," Clarke said, but when she stopped and really thought about those words, she realized they made no sense. "Wait, what?"
"Oh, nothing, I was just checking to see if you were actually listening," Harper said. "You weren't, by the way."
"Sorry," she apologized, "I was distracted."
Harper tilted her head to the side and said knowingly, "Watching Bellamy?"
"No, I wasn't watching him," Clarke denied. "I was just . . . looking at his arms." She looked again, finding it hard to tear her eyes away.
Harper craned her neck back to get a look for herself, then agreed, "Yeah, those are good arms to have. Very strong and safe. Not that I would know."
I would, she thought, recalling the way she'd woken up with them around her just a few mornings ago.
"Clarke, you're so into him," Harper blurted suddenly. "Admit it."
She couldn't, though, not even to one of her closest confidantes. "No, he's my friend."
"Oh, I think it's a little more than that." Harper sighed. "You want my opinion? Finn's nice and all, but you and Bellamy have this little thing called chemistry. It's so obvious."
So did she and Finn not have chemistry then? Was that what Harper was implying? Because she refused to believe she'd spent over two years dating somebody she didn't have chemistry with. No, she and Finn had chemistry, although maybe not as much as they used to have. It was just that, nowadays, she and Bellamy had . . . more.
"Clarke!" Anya hollered from the counter. "Come here."
"Oh, no," Clarke fretted. "Do you think she knows?"
"About you and Bellamy?" Harper snorted. "Probably."
Oh, great, Clarke thought, dreading this conversation, especially if it was going to happen right in front of Bellamy himself. Maybe Anya would take her back to her office first.
Clarke got up off the couch and approached her boss nervously. "Yeah?"
Anya held out an envelope and said, "This came for you."
Clarke frowned. Mail? She hardly ever got mail anymore, except for bills, but those never showed up here.
"Lots of our customers use this bar as a post office," Anya said, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, my first fan-mail." Clarke took the envelope from her and slid her fingernail under the flap to open it. "Hopefully it's nothing creepy."
"They usually are," Harper warned, joining her at the counter. "One time, this guy sent me a lock of my own hair. I don't even know how he got it."
Clarke's stomach started to churn when she pulled out a thin piece of paper. Her name was scrawled on the front in handwriting she didn't recognize, but somehow, she did recognize it. Because, immediately, it made her feel uncomfortable. The same kind of discomfort Roan had made her feel.
"Who's it from?" Anya asked, peering over.
Slowly unfolding the paper, Clarke tried to show no reaction when she saw Roan's name at the bottom.
"He left me something, too," Anya said. "Apparently he's leaving the city."
"Good riddance," Harper grunted.
"Exactly," Anya agreed. "I'll miss his business, but not him."
I won't miss anything, Clarke thought, sensing that Bellamy was as fixated on this 'fan-mail' as she was. He'd completely stopped working, but he wasn't saying anything.
The letter was brief, more of a sentence, really, but Clarke knew what it was getting at. I owe you one, was all it said, and immediately, she flashed back to that alley, that night, that disgusting memory. Then she took something else out of the envelope: a check made out to her. For one-thousand dollars.
"I'll give you a thousand dollars if you give me a hand-job."
She shuddered.
"What's that?" Anya asked.
"Oh my god, Clarke," Harper gasped.
She held up the check, trying to keep her hands from shaking.
"What's that for?" Anya asked.
A mistake, she thought. One I'm just gonna have to live with. "Nothing," she said. "I mean . . . I don't really know." Needing to get all remnants of Roan out of her life, she crumpled up his note and tore the check in half, then tore each piece in half again. She set the trash—because that's what it was, trash—down on the counter, knowing Bellamy would dispose of it without asking questions. Then she excused herself from the group and headed into the back room.
She felt . . . pretty shaken by that. But there wasn't one part of her that was even entertaining the idea of cashing that check. She was not a prostitute, despite Roan's best efforts to get her to become one. She wasn't going to accept payment for what she'd done with him. Money was power to him, and she wasn't about to let him have any power over her anymore.
God dammit, she thought, looking down at her hand. Why the hell had she done that with him? Letting him kiss her and put his hands on her when he'd threatened Bellamy's safety had been one thing, but the night in the alley . . . that'd just been her lowest low. And she was embarrassed to have sunk that far.
"You okay?"
She spun around when she heard Bellamy's voice. "Yeah. I'm fine," she said, shoving her hand in her pocket without really thinking about it.
Slowly, he walked towards her, closing the distance between them, and he gently grabbed her wrist to pull her hand out of her pocket. "That was kinda . . ." Massaging her knuckles with his thumb, he mumbled, "I wasn't expecting that."
"Me, neither," she admitted, moving her fingers against his. His touch was warm, comforting.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked.
She didn't feel sure of much of anything anymore. "Are you?" she asked, turning the question back around on him. After all, she wasn't the only one who'd done things she didn't want to do lately.
His eyes stared into hers, and he didn't answer. Didn't get the chance to, because Harper interrupted them. "Oh, sorry," she said, "just wanted to see if . . . never mind." She backed out of the room, but not before shooting Clarke a pointed look.
"It's okay," Bellamy said once Harper was gone. "She already knows how I feel about you."
Harper probably knew a lot more than either one of them gave her credit for. She saw them together all the time. "She knows how I feel about you, too," Clarke confessed.
"What do you feel?" Bellamy asked, and even though he didn't say it, Clarke knew what he was getting at. Love. Did she feel love?
"Bellamy!" Anya called from out in the club, totally interrupting their moment. "This bar's not gonna tend itself!"
Groaning, he reluctantly let go of her hand and sulked back out to the bar, having gotten no answer to a question he obviously couldn't get off his mind.
Clarke let out a shaky exhale, relieved that she didn't have to say anything. Because if she let herself get in this deep, then there was no going back. Ever.
...
Even though Finn was trying to spend more time with her, Clarke wasn't exactly keen on spending some of that time at his stupid work parties. Every single one of them felt the same as the last, and she always felt out of place at them. It didn't matter if she wore her nicest dress or even if she avoided his stupid cousin as much as possible. Inevitably, something happened that made her wish she was somewhere else. Anywhere else. At the launch party for some cosmetic company's new perfume advertorial, that moment came early in the evening when some guy Clarke didn't even know bumped into her and asked what a stripper was doing at an industry party. Finn either didn't hear or pretended not to, because he just got her a drink and sat down with her.
"I think this party's better than the last one," he said, sipping his way to the bottom of his champagne glass.
"If you say so," she mumbled, downing the rest of hers.
"You want another one?" he offered.
"No, I'm good." She didn't exactly need to be getting drunk and giving these pompous people an even lower opinion of her, now did she?
Glancing around, she searched for faces she recognized, people she knew, but there was barely anyone. "No Raven tonight?" she asked, just to gauge his reaction.
Maybe she was just seeing things, but it seemed like he tensed up a bit, and he didn't look at her when he answered, "No, she's, uh . . . she's not coming." And then he finished off his drink.
"Are you guys still fighting?" she questioned.
"Yeah, we're just seeing eye to eye on some things."
Like the affair you wanted to have? she resisted saying. That had probably been his plan, to have both of them in his back pocket. He would have kept her as his girlfriend, and Raven would have been his mistress. Or something like that.
"That's too bad," she said, deciding to push it just a little further, if for no other reason than to get under his skin a bit. "You guys had a great relationship. Working relationship, I mean."
"Yeah, we did." He stared down at his empty glass sadly, really sadly, and Clarke started to wonder . . . just how far did his feelings for Raven go? Was it just about sex, or had he actually fallen for her? Like . . . fallen in love with her?
"Does it upset you that-"
"Look, Clarke . . ." he cut in before she could finish her question. "Let's not talk about Raven, okay? We're out tonight, you and me."
You and me, she thought bitterly. But did he want to be there with Raven? Worse, perhaps . . . did she want to be somewhere else with Bellamy?
Of course she did.
"Okay," she said. "What do you wanna talk about?"
"Well . . ." He paused, grabbing a wine glass of a tray as a serve walked by. "Have you heard from your parents lately?"
She made a face. "Really? That's what you wanna talk about?"
He shrugged. "Just thought I'd ask."
She sighed, not exactly enthused about that particular topic of conversation. "Well, my mom's full steam ahead with her wedding. She keeps asking if I'll come back for the ceremony."
"Will you?"
"I don't know." She hadn't really given it much thought yet. "And my dad's got some new business venture up his sleeve. Some kind of real estate company or something." He'd droned on and on about it on the phone the other night, but she'd sort of tuned him out. Sure, she was glad that he'd have an income again, but that didn't make up for . . . everything.
"My dad got fired," Finn told her suddenly. "I think I gotta start sending some money home to him."
She grunted. "Oh, yeah, 'cause we're just swimming in cash."
"We're getting by," he pointed out. "I can set aside a little bit each month to help him out."
She realized that Finn actually was talking about doing something nice and compassionate, and knowing his parents, they were definitely going to be struggling if they only had his mom's monthly paycheck from the grocery store to live off of. "No, I wasn't trying to sound . . . heartless or anything," she clarified.
"I didn't say you were heartless," he said. Rising to his feet, he took her empty glass from her and said, "Here, let me go get you another drink."
She sat there and watched him slip into the crowd, talking to a few people on his way to a server on the other side of the expansive lounge room this party was being held in. It seemed like he was relieved to get up and move around a little, to not be stuck sitting there with her.
Feeling a bit relieved herself, she took her phone out of her purse and typed out a quick text. To Bellamy. I'm at a party, it said. Really wish you were here. She sent it without overthinking it, but . . . she probably shouldn't have.
...
Bellamy half-smiled when he got Clarke's text, and he quickly sent back, I wish I was too. He'd agreed to hang out with Miller at some party of his own tonight, but Miller had brought Jackson along. Miller was a good friend, but when he was with his boyfriend, that left Bellamy alone on some couch of some guy he didn't even know. Surrounded by people he didn't know. This was definitely more a of a college crowd at this party, and he didn't belong there.
"Hey, you look lonely," a bleach blonde girl with big fake boobs said as she meandered towards him.
"I'm not," he said quickly.
"You sure?"
"Yep." That girl couldn't hold a candle to Clarke. None of the girls here could.
As the Pamela Anderson wannabe slinked off in disappointment, Miller wove his way through the crowd and said to Bellamy, "Really, man? That's the fifth one tonight."
"I know. What's with all these college girls throwin' themselves at me?" He took a swig of his beer, feeling like he was going to need another if he was gonna last there much longer.
"Maybe they're just tired of the average frat boy. I don't know," Miller speculated. "You keep turning them down, though. What's that about?"
Bellamy didn't say anything, feeling like he wouldn't need to.
"Clarke?" his friend guessed. "Oh, man. You and this girl really need to figure your shit out, you know that?"
Yeah. He knew.
"Nate, you gotta help me out there!" Jackson shrieked from . . . somewhere. There were clusters of people all over that house, dancing, grinding, working up a sweat. Jackson was smack dab in the middle of one of them, surrounded by many of the girls who had tried and failed to seduce Bellamy. "The straight girls are mauling me!"
"Oh, girls do love their gays," Miller said. "I'll be back."
"Actually, I think I'm gonna head out," Bellamy told him, standing up. "Got an audition tomorrow."
"Alright, well, good luck with that." Miller gave him a fist-bump before going to his boyfriend's aid.
Since he wasn't drunk, he was fine to drive, but he still felt hungry, and pizza sounded a hell of a lot better than anything he had at his house. So he stopped at Papa Marino's, ordered his favorite kind of pizza, and was content to just sit there and eat it alone while only periodically checking his phone to see if Clarke had texted him anything else. But his plans for that were dashed when two large, gruff guys came and sat down with him. He recognized one of them, the bearded one, right away—he'd been the guy driving around with Roan the other day. He slid in next to Bellamy.
"Well, well, well, look who it is. Stripper girl's brave knight," he taunted.
Bellamy didn't move, barely looked at them, trying not to show much of a reaction.
"Face looks a lot better than the last time we saw him," the other guy, the one who had sat down on the other side of the booth, added.
"What about that crappy place you call an apartment?" the bearded one asked. "You get all that shit fixed up again?"
It sort of made Bellamy's skin crawl to think that these were the guys who had broken into the place where he lived, the same guys who had beat him up in his own parking lot. But he refused to look intimidated. They weren't so tough without Roan backing them. Without their boss, they were just normal low-lifes. He could handle them.
"Not gonna talk, huh?" The bearded guy chuckled. "Fine, we'll just eat then. I'm hungry." He took a slice of pizza right off of Bellamy's plate and helped himself. "You know," he said in the middle of chewing, "Roan was thinkin' about headin' back to Boston before you showed up wavin' a gun in his face. You ain't as tough as you think you are. Anyone could take you out in a second. I doubt anyone would miss you. Well . . ." He wiped his greasy fingers off on Bellamy's napkin and said, "Except maybe your little whore."
Again, Bellamy tried not to react, but it was so hard not to when he heard that word. His hands balled up into fists on their own accord, and his jaw clenched. It was enough for them to notice.
"Oh, that's what gets you goin', isn't it?"
Across from him, the second guy smirked. "She is pretty. And limber. I'd tear that chick open."
Ignore it, Bellamy told himself, but how the hell was he supposed to do that? This was Clarke they were talking about.
"Nah, I'd make her get on my knees and suck my cock," the guy next to him imagined. "Whether she wants to or not."
You just have to ignore it. They weren't really gonna do anything to her now.
"Why stop there?"
The bearded guy chuckled cruelly. "You're right. We could just double-team that bitch. One of us in her cunt, one of us in her ass."
No, that did it. Unable to sit there and hear any more of that, Bellamy shoved the much larger guy next to him out of the booth, and he scrambled out right after so he could lay into him. "Don't fucking touch her!" he roared, holding him by the shirt collar so he could punch him repeatedly in the face. He hit him hard and without restraint, drawing blood as pain radiated through his own hand. He hit him the way he wished he could have hit Roan. One punch hadn't been enough for that guy.
He felt someone grabbing his shoulders trying to pull him off, and at first he assumed it was the guy's partner in crime. But when he heard, "Get down on the ground! Hands behind your back," he knew he was in trouble.
He slowly let up, well aware that it was already too late. Of course he would go berzerk on a guy when there just happened to be an off-duty cop in the restaurant. He would have been willing to just sit there and wait, but the cop pushed him face down on the ground and held his wrists behind his back while the store owner called the police. Seconds later, he heard sirens and saw flashing red and blue lights outside.
Are you fucking kidding me? he thought. These two idiots had been sitting here talking about violating Clarke, yet he was the one who was going to end up getting hauled off in a squad car?
It could have been worse, he supposed. They cuffed him, read him his rights, and took him down to the station for assault. They didn't take the other guys anywhere. And Bellamy didn't bother to try to explain what had happened, because he knew it was no use. The police in this town were useless. Who the hell even knew how much shit Roan had gotten away with over the years? They didn't intervene; they didn't try to stop it. Why would they start doing anything right now?
They took his prints, took a mug shot, and Bellamy complied with it all. He answered their questions and didn't blow up when they told him they were taking him back to lock-up. It wouldn't be for long. It wasn't like he'd killed anybody or even seriously injured anyone. The NYPD had bigger problems than him. The only way this would amount to anything was if Roan's right-hand man there decided to press charges, which he'd never do, because he couldn't risk his own wrongdoings coming to the surface.
"Do I get my phone call?" Bellamy asked as a guard escorted him through the police station towards the jail.
Wordlessly, the guard took a turn, dragging Bellamy with him by the elbow. He brought him to what looked like an old payphone, except it wasn't enclosed and didn't require money. "Make it quick," he snapped.
Bellamy picked up the phone, sighing, and debated only for a second on who he should call. Then he dialed the number he'd memorized a while ago and waited for answer. "Hey, it's me," he said after he got one. "I need a favor."
...
It was almost too easy to think of an excuse to leave the party. Clarke just told Finn she wasn't feeling well and needed to go home. He offered to take her, but she told him to stay and enjoy himself. And he did. She left, got in the car, and drove to the police station to post Bellamy's bail. His bail. Because he'd been arrested. Luckily, it wasn't outrageously expensive, but she still had to stop at the ATM first.
She drove him home in relative silence. He looked upset and kept rubbing his knuckles. They looked pretty red and had some dried blood on them. Probably not his own blood.
She followed him up to his apartment, and she slipped inside with him. "Do you wanna talk about it?" she asked.
"No," he muttered, throwing his jacket on the floor. "Thanks for bailing me out, though. Murphy just doesn't have the money, and Miller was out with Jackson. I'll pay you back as soon as I can."
"Bellamy, don't worry about it." It was a couple hundred dollars she could live without.
"No, I will," he insisted, flopping down on the couch. He looked exhausted.
"So those were . . . Roan's guys?" she asked quietly, having already made the connection in her head. Bellamy hadn't told her much over the phone, but it was enough for her to connect the dots.
"Yep," he grumbled.
She sat down beside him, sighing. "What'd they say?"
"You don't wanna know."
Huh. She could connect the dots on that one, too. "Something about me?" Whatever it was had to have been enough to get Bellamy worked up, set him off. "God, even when he's gone, he's still making our lives hell."
"No, they'll find someone else's dirty work to do soon enough," he said, reaching over to put one hand on her lap. "It won't always be like this."
She wrapped her hand around his wrist softly, reluctant to touch his hand in case it hurt too much. "Why did you let them get to you?" she asked.
"Because I couldn't . . . what was I supposed to do, Clarke?" he shot back, almost defensively. "Just sit there and let them say stuff about you? No, I couldn't protect you with Roan. The least I can do is . . . try to do better now."
"Nothing's better if you end up in jail," she pointed out.
He pulled his hand off her knee, going back to rubbing his red knuckles again. "I can't protect anyone," he lamented. "Not you, not my mom." His lower lip trembled, and his eyes glazed over for a second, like he was remembering things. "I knew what was happening to her, and I couldn't stop it. Every guy she brought home . . . I just let it happen."
She shivered, only able to imagine how traumatic that had to have been. Here she had plenty of issues, and she'd grown up with two loving parents in a stable household. Bellamy had grown up with . . . something else. "Bellamy, you were a kid," she reminded him. "You couldn't do anything about that."
"No, I could've done . . . something," he said regretfully. "I don't know. I'm just always too late."
"What about Octavia?" she pressed. "She's going to college. You've done a good job taking care of her."
He shook his head. "I haven't, though, not really. Not for the past five years. Ilian stepped in and took over for me. I barely even see her."
"Would you quit being so hard on yourself?" she snapped, hating that he'd taken to beating himself up now that he could no longer beat on one of Roan's thugs. "You're a good man, okay?"
He grunted. "Yeah, right. I only exist because somebody raped my mom."
"But you are a good man," she insisted, needing him to believe that. It didn't matter where he came from or how he'd even come to be. What mattered was who he was now, and he was . . . he was somebody who'd seen her at her lowest low the other night. And he still loved her anyway. "Bellamy," she whispered, angling her whole body towards his. "You're one of the best men I've ever . . ." She trailed off, lowering her head, then finished up quietly. "One of the best men I've ever known." And she really meant that.
"I wanna be better," he said, and he sounded so sad, so disappointed in himself. But she didn't understand that. She'd known some men who had seemed good only to end up disappointing her—her father and Finn, primarily. But it didn't seem like Bellamy Blake was going to do that. He hadn't let her down so far, so maybe . . . maybe he never would.