Chapter 101

None of that had gone well. Bellamy hadn't expected it to, but . . . somehow, it'd gone even worse than he'd imagined.

He hadn't meant to insinuate that she'd led Finn on. But he had.

He hadn't meant to upset her so much that she refused to let him hold Avery. But he had.

He sure as hell hadn't meant to bring up the abortion again, because that was in the past, but . . . he had.

He didn't know why he'd said the things he said, or why he was back in the car driving over to the bar again right now. It was like someone else was in control of him, making one bad decision after another. He knew they were bad, but he just . . . couldn't stop.

His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles—the ones that weren't bandaged over—turned white. His jaw shook as he tried not to break down. Couldn't do that while he was driving. He was already distracted enough as it was.

When he ran a stop sign and almost got hit in an intersection, that freaked him out. He had to slam on the breaks, and the car coming at him from the side had to swerve to get around him. The driver honked his or her horn and probably breathed the same sigh of relief he did when they avoided a collision.

I gotta get outta this car, he thought, just sitting in the intersection for a moment. It probably wasn't a good idea for him to be driving. Then again, nothing he was doing right now was actually a good idea.

Luckily, the bar was only a few blocks away. He slowed his speed and got there without further incident, and from the second he walked in, he felt like he was back in his safe haven. No one was going to yell at him for drinking a lot there. And as long as Finn didn't show up again, he didn't have to worry about fighting or arguing with anyone.

Stacey or Carmen or whatever the hell her name was gave him a look when he reclaimed his seat at the bar. "Back so soon?"

"I guess." He was gonna have to stay a while, too, because apparently he wasn't allowed to go back home now, since he'd walked out.

"Are you gonna get in another fight?" she asked, already filling up a tall glass for him.

"Nope." He was just gonna knock back some more alcohol in hopes of numbing himself to all this shit he was feeling. "I might've just destroyed my marriage, though," he told her, "so I need more to drink."

"Why did you destroy your marriage?" she asked, sliding the glass towards him. "Don't you love your wife anymore?"

"Of course I love her." Despite everything he'd just said to her and everything she'd just said to him, that wasn't the issue.

"Then why screw it up?"

That, on the other hand, was a very good question. "Because I'm a failure," he answered somberly. At this point, it was the only explanation that made sense.

...

Twenty-four hours had passed, and nothing seemed to have been done. Nothing by the athletic department, nothing by the university. Coach Lightbourne had sent out an email reminding everyone of the travel plans for the Peach Bowl, as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Bellamy texted him repeatedly and eventually even tried calling, because he wanted to be a pain in the ass to that guy. He felt like it was his only chance of making anything happen.

Since his coach seemed to have perfected the art of ignoring him and never responded to any of his calls or texts, Bellamy decided he'd go back to the police station and make himself a pain in the ass there, too. He marched right up to the front desk and said, "Hey, I was here yesterday. I reported a sexual assault."

"Who'd you speak to?" the woman behind the desk asked him.

"Deputy Hansen. But I gotta talk to someone else today. He's not-" He stopped talking abruptly when he saw that same deputy emerging from the back of the station with none other than the rapist himself. Deputy Hansen and Brady were actually laughing. Definitely no thorough investigation happening there. "No fucking way," Bellamy said. He hadn't hoped for much, but . . . was the corruption around here really so bad? Were the police so far up the athletic department's ass that they just didn't even give a shit anymore?

Brady noticed Bellamy as he walking out, offering him a cocky smirk as he left the police station as carefree as he'd probably entered it. Bellamy followed him outside and shouted, "Hey!" to get his attention.

Brady didn't slow his pace, but he did respond as he walked towards his car. Pretty expensive car, by the looks of it. "Nice try taking my spot in the lineup," he said. "It's not gonna work, though. In fact, that very helpful deputy just wished me good luck on Saturday. Wasn't that nice of him?"

Bellamy caught up with him, pushing his car door shut right after he opened it. "This isn't the first time you've done this, is it?" he said.

"Done what?" Brady asked, feigning innocence. "I had sex with a girl who told me I could."

"You raped her," Bellamy corrected. "Do you even care?"

Brady tilted his head to the side, as if thinking about it, then basically neglected to answer when he said, "You know what's funny? You're accusing me of doing something very serious, but the only face that girl probably remembers seeing is yours."

Bellamy tensed up a bit. It hadn't ever occurred to him that that girl might think he'd been the one to do something to her.

"In fact, come to think of it, maybe you were the one who was with her that night," Brady went on. "Yeah, I think I remember that. I'm sure Winston will, too. And all my other friends."

That was a threat, no doubt about that. But Bellamy refused to give into it. "You really think you can try to pin this on me?"

Brady laughed, almost maniacally, and said, "Now why would I do that?"

"Because you want me out of the way. 'cause you're scared of the competition."

"You're not competition for me," Brady said, standing taller, as if to show that he wasn't intimidated. "This whole white knight bravado thing you're trying on for size . . . it doesn't affect me. Not in the slightest. You tried to get the cops to arrest me. Didn't work. You tried to get coach to bench me. Won't work. You tried to be the big dashing hero for that girl the other night . . . and you didn't get there in time. There's a word for you, Blake: failure."

As much as he wanted to have a comeback for that, he didn't. It all felt . . . kinda true. Ever since he'd stopped hanging out with Gina, he'd fallen in tighter with these guys on the team, and . . . they were pretty bad guys. Now that he was trying to be better than them, it just felt like too little too late. "I'm not gonna let you get away with this," he vowed. He wanted to do the right thing and step up and be a good guy. For once.

"You don't get it, do you?" Brady said, grinning smugly. "I already have. Coach has my back. This whole fucking university has my back. I'm too valuable to them. They'll bend the rules for me. They always do."

That definitely made it sound like he'd done this before then. Bellamy felt sick to his stomach as he thought about how it might have even happened at other parties he'd attended. There were probably dozens of girls on that campus who had been taken advantage of by Brady and Winston and all sorts of guys Bellamy had gotten used to hanging out with.

"And what if that girl comes forward?" he said, feeling like that was their only chance to achieve some kind of justice. "UCF can't help you then."

Brady put his hand on Bellamy's shoulder and said, "Let me let you in on a little secret: Colleges make money. And money can keep anyone quiet."

With every passing second and every further word that came out of Brady's mouth, Bellamy felt like the veil covering this place was gradually lifting for him, and he was seeing it for what it was rather than what it pretended to be. Maybe it wasn't some gateway to a brighter future. Maybe it was all just a lie.

"Oh, come on, are you really this stupid?" Brady said. "They buy girls' silence all the time. Not just here. Everywhere. There's nothing you can do about it."

Everywhere? Bellamy thought in horror. That probably wasn't true, but in that moment . . . it felt true. It felt like, no matter where he ended up or what team he tried to transfer to, he was just gonna end up dealing with the same thing, the same people. And eventually, if he was around them too long, what if became as bad as them?

"You know what? That girl was alright, but I think I can do better," Brady said. He scratched at his chin, exaggeratedly thinking about it, then added "Like maybe those two chicks you've been hangin' out with. They look like they're down for anything."

"Leave them alone," Bellamy said. It didn't matter if they were all just screwing around. He still didn't want them to get hurt.

"Or maybe that plain Jane who used to tutor you," Brady went on, sending a jolt of panic through Bellamy. "What was her name again?"

Stay away from Gina, he thought, but he didn't want to say her name.

"Ah, it doesn't matter." Brady's eyes lit up with excitement as he said, "Or here's a thought: How about I bang that hot little blonde girl you got back home? I bet she'd love to feel my dick in her."

"If you fucking touch her . . ." Bellamy roared, grabbing Brady's shoulders, slamming him back against his car.

"Careful now, Blake," Brady cautioned, not one trace of fear on his face or in his voice. "There's a whole bunch of cops in there who could rush outside any minute. But remember, out of the two of us, I'm the only one who gets away with everything."

As much as he would have loved to take a swing at the guy or slam his face down into the pavement, Bellamy couldn't deny that . . . he actually was intimidated. Brady was older and had all these connections. Who could compete with that? If they got into a fight out here, the cops would break it up, of course, but they were gonna take his side. He had everyone in his back pocket, not only bending the rules to help him, but outright breaking them.

Slowly, Bellamy let go of him. Not because he wanted to, but because he felt like he had to. Brady got in his car, actually checked his hair in the mirror, and practically ran over Bellamy on his way out of the parking lot. He just didn't care about anyone but himself. He was the center of his own universe.

Meanwhile, though, Bellamy felt like his own universe was in shambles. And he didn't even know where the center of it was anymore.

...

"I'm sure you're not a failure," Stacey/Carmen said. As if she really knew anything about him at all.

"No, I am." There were only a few things he'd ever truly been good at, and he'd screwed them all up in fine fashion.

"People say your team's playing well, though," she pointed out.

He snorted and muttered, "It's just a game. It doesn't really matter. Doesn't make someone a good guy." It didn't matter to him at this point if he ever held a football in his hands again. He just wanted to hold Avery.

"Hmm. Well, you sure seem down in the dumps," Stacey/Carmen said, stating the obvious. "Maybe I could make you feel better."

Bellamy's eyebrows shot upward. That was direct.

She smiled at him flirtatiously and said, "I get off at 11:00 if you wanna . . . get off at 11:00."

That was even more direct, so he decided to be just as direct in letting her down. "No."

She seemed surprised. "Seriously?"

"Yeah." No matter how drunk he was, he wasn't gonna cheat on Clarke. No way. "I told you, I love my wife."

"Then why are you here?" she asked him again.

"Because . . ." He stared forlornly at the liquid in his glass, sinking even lower into himself as he thought about his answer. "I don't know if she loves me anymore."

...

Calming Avery down had ended up being pretty easy for Clarke. Calming herself down . . . not so much.

While her daughter slept upstairs, she sat up on the couch downstairs with her phone in her hand. Bellamy had left two hours ago, and even though she'd told him not to come back, she wanted to know where he was. And she desperately wanted him to be somewhere other than Eligius. The thought of him sitting at that bar just continuing to get hammered filled her with dread, so much dread that she actually called the bar a few times. Nobody picked up. And she didn't want to call him, because . . . he wouldn't even answer. And if he somehow did, what would she even say to him?

The only other thing she felt like she could do was to check in with some people he might have gone to stay with. Her first call was to Octavia, who answered with a chipper, "Hey, sis."

"Hey." It was really hard not to sound really sad. "Um . . . sorry to call so late."

"It's only 10:30," Octavia said.

She supposed it just felt later to her, because this night was by far one of the worst nights of her life. And like any bad night, it seemed endless. "I was just wondering if Bellamy was over there," she said, trying to sound less concerned than she actually felt.

"No," Octavia said. " "Is he supposed to be?"

"No. I was just checking." It would have eased her mind a little to know that at least Bellamy was settled in somewhere for the night, but of course he wasn't. "Um, if he calls or shows up, can you just let me know?"

"What's going on, Clarke?" Octavia asked.

"Nothing." She wasn't about to spill all her marital troubles over the phone, or at all, so she said, "I'm sorry to bother you," and ended the call quickly. Dammit, she thought, already debating whether or not to make another call. Maybe it was best to give him some space and not alarm more people who cared about him.

She couldn't just sit there and do nothing, though. As wrecked as she felt about what he'd said to her tonight and the way he'd been acting, she still needed to check up on him, find out where he was and assure herself that, for tonight, at least, he was gonna be okay.

She dialed his mom's number, hating that she was probably going to be waking her up, because she wouldn't go back to sleep after this. "Aurora, hey," she said when her mother-in-law answered the phone. "It's Clarke. Have you seen Bellamy?"

...

Glass was empty. That wouldn't do.

"Just one more," Bellamy practically begged, not sure why the charm thing wasn't working with Stacey/Carmen anymore. It'd gotten him this far, hadn't it?

"Sorry," she said apologetically. "I hate to have to cut people off, but . . ."

"No, you can't—you can't do that," he said, desperation setting it. "That's a Diyoza thing. You're the cool bartender. You're my favorite. Keep goin'." He felt like he could handle at least a few more, and hell, he knew what he was capable of drinking more than she did.

"This is textbook drowning of the sorrows," she said. "It's kinda pathetic."

Well, that insult had come out of left field, but if she really thought that, no wonder his attempts at being charming weren't working anymore. "I thought you were into me," he said.

"I was, before you started slurring all your words."

"I'm not slurring."

She took his empty glass away from him and suggested, "Maybe you should call someone and have them drive you home."

"No, I'm not supposed to go home. She said, 'If you walk outta this house, don't come back.'" If he left this bar, where was he supposed to go? To Murphy's? Miller's? "She doesn't want me there," he said, wondering if his best bet might just be to go get a hotel room for the night. The Arkadia Inn was pretty gross, though; he didn't wanna go there.

"So she kicked you out, huh?" Stacey/Carmen said. "Can't blame her."

He frowned, not sure why she was suddenly saying all this stuff to make him feel worse. Hadn't she just offered to hook up with him a couple hours ago?

"I'm just saying, you don't look very hot right now," she said. "Maybe she'd be better off with that guy you beat up earlier." She shrugged, left him to think that nice little gut-punch over, and walked around the bar to go help some guys at a corner table.

Jesus fucking Christ, Bellamy thought. Now even a relative stranger thought Finn was better than him? Finn? Of all people? That didn't make him feel any better. But then again, nothing was gonna make him feel better, except that alcohol she now refused to give him. If he drank enough, maybe he could just shut everything off. At least for a little while.

When he was pretty sure no one was watching, he stood up, leaned over the bar, and fumbled around for a bottle. Any bottle. He managed to grab one by its neck, pulled it up to take a look at it. What even was that, tequila? Sure, he could knock back some tequila. It'd already been opened, but most of it was still in there. Perfect.

He slapped some money down on the counter, hoping it was enough to cover what he owed, and stood up, a bit wobbly on his feet. He laughed at himself a bit, waited until he'd gotten his balance, and then left the bar with his brand new tequila bottle in hand. When he got outside, he heard a semi-familiar voice say, "Hey, Coach, you okay?"

"I'm fine." He didn't look up to see who'd said that, because he didn't care. Most of his players probably drank, at least once in a while, and hell, he was an adult. He could drink if he wanted to.

He tripped as he tried to step down off the curb and fell against his car. It sounded like a couple people were laughing at him, but he paid them no attention and got into the front seat. The first thing he did was bring the bottle up to his mouth and take a drink. It must've been some cheap stuff, because there wasn't much of a taste to it, though it still did make his mouth burn.

Where the fuck am I even going? he wondered as he started up the car. Arkadia only had so many options. He supposed he could go sleep in his office, but . . . he really didn't wanna sleep there. Maybe his best bet was to just get out of Arkadia for the night. If he could just get to Polis, they had a decent hotel there. And they had a couple bars in that town. If one of them cut him off, he could just go to the next one.

He almost forgot to check his rearview mirror before backing up. But he did.

Once he was back out on the road, he almost ran another stop sign. But he didn't.

He knew he probably shouldn't be behind the wheel right now. But he was.

His phone rang just as he was turning onto the road that would take him out to Polis. He shifted in his seat, keeping on hand on the wheel as he reached into his pocket to grab it and see who was calling. The name on the screen was kind of blurry, but he could still make out that it was Clarke. Was she wondering where he was? Or did she just wanna fight with him some more?

He thought about answering, but what if that bartender was right and he really was slurring his words and just couldn't tell? Clarke would be so worried. He'd just text her when he got to the hotel and let her know he was alright. It'd only take him twenty or so minutes to get there.

He tossed his phone in the passenger's seat next to his tequila bottle and imagined what she was doing right now. Holding Avery, perhaps, or pacing around the house. Crying. Yeah. She was probably crying.

His wedding ring was in his sight as he drove down the relatively deserted, old highway. Just one glance at it transferred him back to that day. In his mind, he saw himself back on that beach with Clarke, her in that beautiful white dress as she said her vows and slid the ring onto his finger. He remembered what he'd said to her and how it'd made her cry happy tears and smile.

When he accidentally drove onto the shoulder of the road, he jerked the steering wheel left to get back onto it. The sudden move of the car tore him out of his memories, and there he was back by himself again. No beach, no wedding. Just the vows he'd really meant but somehow failed to uphold.

He slid his ring off his finger, feeling like he didn't even deserve to wear it. As upset as he was at Clarke and as much as he hated shouldering so much of the blame for this . . . he really was more at fault than she was. She hadn't wanted a custody dispute, and she obviously hadn't wanted Finn to kiss her. Hell, she probably hadn't even wanted to have an abortion six years ago, so why had he even brought that up again? What kind of husband did that make him?

I wanna go home, he thought, spinning the ring around between his right thumb and index finger. A hotel wouldn't do him any good tonight; it'd only make things worse. It'd make the loneliness feel even lonelier, the hopelessness feel even more permanent. But if he could just get home, then maybe she'd let him back in the house after all. Maybe he could just put his arms around her and apologize, and maybe, somehow, that would be enough to make everything alright.

Almost symbolically, he dropped his ring after running over a pothole in the road. It landed on the floor in front of the passenger's seat, just out of his reach. "Shit," he swore, feeling like he needed it back, like he needed to have it on his hand again. So he bent down to grab it. Fumbled around a bit down there. He took his eyes off the road, and it was a stupid thing to do. Because when he sat back up, he was already careening into a ditch.