Chapter 99
Clarke didn't know who to go to for advice, but she knew she needed to go to someone. Obviously, she considered her parents first, but not for long. Even though her mom and Bellamy had patched things up, there was always the chance that things could get rocky between them again if Abby knew what was going on. Same with her dad. He and Bellamy had gotten pretty close, and she didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. She also didn't feel like she could talk to Aurora, because she didn't want to worry her yet. In fact, she hoped they could get things under control as soon as possible so Aurora never even had to know about it. Octavia would probably be inclined to take her big brother's side and give him the benefit of the doubt no matter what, and as for Raven and Murphy and all her friends . . . they didn't know anything more about this problem than she did. It'd all be new to them, too.
That pretty much left Kane, who seemed like the best choice anyway. He was level-headed and rational, and he was good at taking control of situations and letting people know what they needed to do. She went to the community center during lunch on Tuesday and sat down with him in his office. "Thanks for carving out some time for me today," she said, setting Avery's carrier down next to her chair. The baby was fast asleep.
"Of course. You're my stepdaughter." He caught himself and corrected, "Or . . . almost my stepdaughter."
"I feel like your stepdaughter already," she assured him, glad that he saw her that way, too. "Seriously, though, thank you, 'cause . . . I don't know if there's anyone else I can talk to right now."
"What's on your mind?" he asked.
"A lot." The more she tried to sort it all out, the more jumbled it all became. And even though Bellamy didn't want to hear it, the stress of all this definitely was having an effect on the whole breastfeeding situation. It wasn't getting any better, that was for sure. "I remember you telling me once that you had kind of a rough home life growing up," she said, trying to approach the topic sensitively, "that your mom had a bit of a drinking problem."
"Oh, it was more than a bit," he admitted. "She had a serious problem for several years there."
"Right." She couldn't even imagine dealing with this for several years; that was why she was trying to nip it in the bud. "That must've been really hard."
"It was," he said. "I wish it hadn't happened, but . . . I guess the bright side is that I'm really proud of her for overcoming it. She's one of the strongest people I know."
And then there was Bellamy, who was already one of the strongest people Clarke knew. The way he'd forgiven her for the secret she'd kept from him . . . that took strength she knew she'd never be able to comprehend. "So did she just quit on her own?" she inquired. "Or did she have to go to some kind of therapy or rehab or . . ."
"You know, Clarke," Kane said, "it might help if you tell me what's going on."
She knew she couldn't beat around the bush much longer, but actually opening up to someone and confiding all this in them . . . it felt like a really big deal. "You have to promise you won't say anything to my mom. Please," she begged.
"Well, that depends what's happening. If I feel like it's something she needs to know . . ."
"It's not. Trust me," she assured him. "I don't even know if . . . I don't know for sure what's going on. I just have a lot of suspicions."
Kane nodded contemplatively before asking, "About Bellamy?"
"Yeah." Unfortunately.
"I noticed things between you two seemed a little tense at the fundraiser last night," Kane remarked.
"More than a little." She hadn't even been bothering to try to hide it, because she'd just been so pissed off. "He hasn't been this mad at me since he found out . . . well, you know." She still hated to even bring that up, let alone say the actual word. "And I'm mad at him, too. Because he just won't stop."
"What? Drinking?" Kane asked.
She just stared at him sadly, letting her silence confirm that.
"Oh, Clarke . . ." He sighed and shook his head. "This doesn't sound good."
"It's not. I'm really worried."
"And how long have you been worried?"
She thought back and replied, "Almost a month now. I started noticing some things when we started letting Finn spend time with Avery."
"So you worry he's using alcohol to cope with his . . . insecurities?"
She shrugged. "His insecurities, his anxiety, his fear . . ." The possibilities were endless. "I don't even really know if he's stopped to think about how he's feeling, but he's definitely feeling . . . bad. And drinking just seems like the wrong way to cope."
"It is," Kane agreed. "Are you seeing a pattern?"
"Yeah. He drinks on the days Finn comes over." It was like a trigger or something.
"What're we talking about here? One drink? Two? More?" Kane asked.
"It just depends. One night, he couldn't even drive home. But this past Sunday, he seemed fine except . . ." She trailed of and winced, sort of wishing she was still in the dark about what had been in that water bottle. Ignorance would have been bliss, perhaps. "He came home with vodka, but he was trying to be all sneaky about it. And when I confronted him, he got really angry and started trying to make me feel bad just for being worried." For a while there, she actually had started to feel bad, until she'd snapped herself out of it.
"I hate to say it, but that all sounds very familiar to me," Kane said.
If that was what he had dealt with when his mom had been drinking heavily, then Clarke felt even more validated in feeling the way she did. "So you think he has a problem?"
"I don't know. I'm not a doctor. The only experience I have with this is my mom's experience," Kane said. "But when I tried to talk to her about what she was doing, she got very defensive, too. We ended up needing to have a whole intervention for her."
Clarke's eyes bulged in alarm.
"I'm not saying that's what you're gonna have to do with Bellamy," Kane quickly added.
"So what should I do then?" Her bottom lip quivered as she struggled to keep a handle on her emotions. "He barely talked to me this morning. He doesn't wanna hear anything I have to say."
Kane thought about it for a moment, then suggested, "Try to approach him with . . . compassion. As much of it as possible. That might get him to open up rather than shut down."
That was what she'd read online, but she feared it was already too late for that. "See, I think that's where I screwed up," she confessed. "We'd talked about it before this, briefly, and he said he was gonna stop altogether. But then he didn't, so yesterday . . . I was so angry with him. I felt like he lied to me."
"Well, he did," Kane affirmed. "You don't have to feel bad about being angry."
"But I really kinda lashed out without even trying to figure out the best way to have the conversation. And now he's angry, too, at me, and it's just . . . a big anger-fest."
Kane frowned, lowered his voice, and quietly asked, "You don't feel unsafe, do you?"
"Oh, god no, nothing like that." She didn't want to give off the wrong impression and make him think Bellamy was suddenly becoming violent or anything.
"I didn't think so. I just wanted to make sure," he said. "If you ever do . . ."
"He's not gonna hurt me, Kane. He's still Bellamy." Even if he was an alcohol-infused version of himself, he wasn't gonna do a complete 180 like that. "I know he loves me and Avery, and honestly, if I hadn't found out he had vodka in that bottle, I wouldn't have even known he was still drinking. He's been fine; he's been completely normal. So then I sit there second-guessing myself, wondering if I'm crazy and just blowing things out of proportion."
"No, don't think that," Kane said. "If you have concerns, then they're something you need to explore. Besides, nobody knows Bellamy better than you do. If you think something's not right, then trust your instincts."
Her instincts were definitely telling her something was wrong. At this point, there was no shutting them off or ignoring them. They were going to keep screaming at her until she managed to get through to him somehow. "So what do I do now, other than trying to keep talking to him?" she questioned.
"Let's do some research about how to handle this," he proposed. "I can help you."
She breathed a small sigh of relief, grateful to no longer feel like she was alone in this. "Thank you," she said. "And you still promise you won't tell my mom, right?"
"For now, I promise," he said. "But if things start to escalate . . ."
"No, they're not going to, because we're gonna get a handle on this," she said, determined to not let this get to the point where it was out of control, where they needed a full-on intervention like his mom had required. "We're gonna stop it before it gets worse." She looked down at her sleeping daughter and whispered, "We have to."
...
Making room in the back of the fridge for a 12-pack of Budweiser didn't prove to be too difficult. Bellamy just rearranged a few things, moved some stuff to the other side of the fridge, set some things on top of each other. Plenty of room.
"No problem," he said to himself, shutting the refrigerator door.
...
The door to Coach Lightbourne's office was open, so Bellamy walked right in and blurted, "Hey, Coach, we got a problem."
He was watching film of the team they'd be facing off against in the Peach Bowl, but he paused it and said, "What? You need to see the trainer?"
If only that was it. "No, a different kind of problem. Are you able to talk?"
"Sure. Shut the door."
Bellamy did that and took a seat in the chair in front of his coach's desk, nervous as hell to tell him what he'd seen last night. But also ready.
"What's going on?" his coach inquired.
Bellamy expected him to sound more concerned. "Something happened last night, and I need to tell you about it," he said.
Coach Lightbourne leaned forward, arms on his desk. "I'm listening."
And I'm talking, Bellamy thought, not about to let Brady intimidate him. He wasn't gonna stay silent. "A lot of us guys went to this party at Brady's frat house."
"Right before our bowl game. Great."
"I—I know it's kinda stupid, but . . . we party a lot," he admitted. That couldn't have come as a shock.
And apparently it didn't, because Coach Lightbourne muttered, "You and every team I've ever had."
"Well . . . things kinda got out of control. There were a lot of people there, and there was a lot of drinking and . . . I mean, there were girls there who were drinking a lot," Bellamy said, wondering if any of the rest of them had ever been assaulted at those parties before. What if it'd been going on this whole time and he'd been blind to it? What if he could have stopped something else, and he just never had?
"Go on," his coached urged him. He almost souned a little . . . impatient.
"And at one point, I saw Brady and Winston and these two other guys I don't even know bringing a girl upstairs," he revealed. "She couldn't even walk; they were carrying her." He shook his head, so furious with himself for not putting a stop to it right then and there. Why had he ever let them take her upstairs? He should've known what they'd been planning to do with her. "By the time I got up there, I was . . . I was too late." He swallowed hard, nearly starting to cry as he envisioned it in his head all over again. "I kicked in the door and they were . . . they were all over her, Coach. They had her laying there on the bed, and Brady and Winston both . . . they were having sex with her." He stopped, anticipating some sort of horrified reaction from his coach, but the man's expression didn't change. "She wasn't even awake. She didn't even know what was goin' on," Bellamy reminded him. It wasn't like this had been consensual. "So I got her out of there, but Brady told me not to say anything. But of course I'm gonna say something. I probably should've called the cops." He dragged one hand through his hair, feeling like a failure. "I didn't know what to do."
"No, I'm glad you told me first," his coach said. "You did the right thing."
"So what do we do now?"
His coach sat back in his chair and said, "I'll talk to Brady and Winston."
Bellamy waited, expecting to hear an 'and' tacked onto that sentence. When he didn't, he asked, "And what then?"
"Well, I'll see what they have to say first."
Bellamy made a face. "Coach, they're gonna deny it. But you have to believe me, alright? They were . . . they took advantage of her. She drank way too much. She didn't even know what was going on."
"And who is this girl?" he asked.
"I don't know. She ran out before I-"
"She ran out?" Coach Lightbourne narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously. "I thought you said she was unconscious."
"She was, while they were . . ." He didn't like this, didn't like the doubt he was hearing. "I don't know, then it was like she just came to and took off."
"Maybe she did consent then," his coach suggested.
"What?" He hadn't heard that right, had he?
"For all we know, she was acting something out with them. A fantasy."
Bellamy was speechless for a few seconds, because that was . . . what even was that? Who would think that? "No!" he shouted, standing up. "No, she wasn't—she wasn't acting anything. And even if she was, what kind of fucked up fantasy's that?"
"Well . . ." His coach shrugged nonchalantly.
"No, I swear, I know what I saw," Bellamy insisted. "They raped her." Why the hell was he the only one freaking out about that? Why wasn't this adult man more concerned?
"Forgive me if I sound a bit skeptical," Coach Lightbourne said, "but . . . the timing's awfully convenient."
"What do you mean?"
"We've got our game Saturday, biggest one of the season. And I know you'd love to be the starter. But that's not gonna happen while Brady's around."
Bellamy sat back down, trying to wrap his very tired mind around what his coach was insinuating. "Wait a minute, you think I made this up so I could . . ." That was a fucking conspiracy theory if he'd ever heard one. It was ridiculous. "That game is the last fucking thing on my mind right now. I don't give two shits if I play."
"Well, I'll keep that in mind."
"What the fuck's going on here?" he roared, shooting back up to his feet. "Are you really not gonna do anything about this?"
"No, I told you, I'll talk to those guys."
"And then do what?"
"That doesn't concern you."
He honestly felt like he was losing his mind. "This whole thing concerns me!" he yelled.
"Keep your voice down, please."
"No!" He refused to do that. This was a big fucking deal, and it needed to be dealt with the right way. "I-I saw it, Coach! I saw it with my own two eyes! Please, you gotta do something!"
Coach Lightbourne finally rose to his feet, pointed an accusatory finger at Bellamy, and growled, "If you were so worried, why'd you let them take her upstairs?"
"I . . . I didn't think they'd . . ." he stuttered, trying to formulate a response. "I don't know." The guilt he felt over that was already worse than anything he'd felt in his entire life. If he could have just turned back time, he would have done so much differently.
"You know what I think? I think you saw an opportunity to make them look bad, and you went for it," Coach Lightbourne said.
"No."
"You wouldn't be the first player I've had who's tried to undermine a starter." The coach walked around to the front of his desk, sat down on it casually, and folded his arms over his chest. "I get it. You were the top-dog in high school, and you wanna recapture those glory days. And you will. Just not this year."
Of course he wanted to be the starter, but it'd never even entered his mind to go about it this way. "No, it's not—it's not about that!" he insisted loudly. "I don't care, okay? I don't care! Please, I came to you for help. You gotta help me. I don't know what to do about this on my own. I don't . . ." He was just a freshman, nineteen years old. He'd come to college to throw a ball around, and this was what he'd ended up embroiled in? He needed to do something about it, not to make himself feel better, because nothing was gonna do that. But because it was the obvious right thing to do. "Please," he said, his voice cracking with emotion. "This girl deserves our help."
"You don't even know who she is," Coach Lightbourne reminded him.
He didn't need to. She was somebody's daughter, maybe somebody's little sister. He thought of how he would feel if something like this ever happened to Octavia, and he felt sick.
"But if you find out, let me know," his coach said. "I'd love to sit down and talk with her, too."
"Why, so you can silence her?"
Coach Lightbourne didn't have a response for that one. "We're done here," he decided.
Bellamy shook his head, so fucking frustrated. He'd actually looked up to this guy for months now. But not anymore. "You're a piece of shit," he grumbled, happy to burn his last bridge with him on his way out the door. He refused to be the kind of person who just let something like this go or tried to excuse it away. Those guys had to pay for what they'd done. He didn't want to go to any college that would just let them off the hook.
...
Right after Bellamy had finished rearranging the fridge, Clarke came in the door. She didn't say anything to him, just like she hadn't said anything this morning.
"Don't freak out, but I put some beer in the fridge," he told her.
"Oh, lovely," she muttered sarcastically.
"It's not just mine, okay? You can have some if you want. It's mainly just for us to have on hand if we have people over, like for a party."
"Yeah, 'cause we're so in the party spirit right now." She lifted Avery out of her carrier and set her down on her play mat on the living room floor, scattering a couple toys out in front of her so she could practice reaching for them.
"I'm not gonna walk on eggshells, Clarke," he said. "I'm not gonna let you treat me like an alcoholic when I'm not one."
"I never said you were."
"No, but you implied it."
"Whatever," she muttered, sitting down on the couch. Her back was too him, so his first indication that she was crying was when he saw her shoulders start to shake. It wasn't long before one loud sob caused her whole body to slump forward, and she covered her face with both hands.
Oh, no, he thought, feeling like . . . a piece of shit. Even though he was still upset with her, he never wanted to see her cry like that because of him. He walked over to her, sat down, and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry." He knew now that it would have been better to just bring that whole bottle of vodka in the door instead of trying to sneak it in. It wasn't like it'd all been for him. He'd wanted to have some on hand for a potential party, just like the beer. "Give me a chance, alright?" he asked of her. "Give me a chance to prove to you that this is no big deal. I can have alcohol in the house and not feel like I have to drink it every night. I can go out to the bar and not get completely wasted."
"But that one night . . ." she said, her words muffled.
"Yeah, that one night," he emphasized. "That was a rare thing. How many times have you ever seen me get that drunk in my life?"
She lifted her head, sniffed, and wiped the underside of her nose with the back of her hand. "Not very often."
"See?" If he was getting that drunk every single week, then he'd understand why she was so concerned. "I mean, let's not forget, Clarke, we had some nights in high school where I pretty much carried you home."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning everyone has those nights once in a while. It's not something that's becoming a habit for me. That's when you'd really have to worry."
Her body shook as she inhaled, and it shook again as she exhaled right after. "I wanna trust you," she said.
"Yeah, I want that, too." Other than the water bottle fiasco, he didn't feel like he'd kept anything from her. So why wouldn't she trust him? "We're gonna be okay, Clarke," he said, putting his hand on her back, rubbing it gently. "I promise." This was just a bump in the road for them. As long as she let him do what he felt was best for himself, then they'd be fine.
...
Every morning for the next three days, Clarke woke up, went downstairs, and checked the status of the 12-pack in the refrigerator. And she wasn't subtle about it, either. Twice, she did it right in front of Bellamy, because she wanted him to know that she was monitoring things, that she wasn't just going to push everything aside and act like nothing had happened. The good news, at least, was that, in three days, it hadn't once been opened. And to her knowledge, he hadn't once gone out to the bar. She had Diyoza helping her out, agreeing to keep her in the loop if he showed up. She knew better than to fall back into that false sense of security, though, so she kept her guard up, watching closely for any hints that might be indicative of a problem. Bellamy acted . . . pretty normal, for the most part. He wasn't his usual flirty self, but he just . . . didn't talk about it. When he got home from practice, he spent most of his nights playing with Avery, sometimes reading to her. But as the weekend approached, Clarke couldn't help but wonder if it would last. When the time would come for her to open that fridge Sunday morning, she fully expected at least one of those beers would be gone.
Friday night was, of course, the next football game. It was a home one this time, and Bellamy said he was really excited about it. The team they were playing had lost by forty-six points last week. Apparently they'd had to invoke the mercy rule, whatever that was. He said he didn't want to get cocky, but he felt like they were guaranteed a win if they just played as well as they had last week.
Octavia and Lincoln accompanied her to the game again, and they took Avery off her hands for her while she went to grab a Gatorade from the concession stand. It was a super hot late August evening, and she totally regretted wearing jeans instead of shorts.
"Clarke!"
She looked around, trying to figure out who was saying her name as she walked away from the concession stand. She finally spotted a woman with short blonde hair waving her over to table where she sat with two other middle-aged women. "Come here!" she exclaimed. "Have a seat with us."
Who the hell is that? Clarke wondered, heading that way. "Hi," she said, not sure if she'd ever known their names or not.
"I'm Tim's mom," he short-haired woman told her.
"Right. Tim." She had no idea who Tim was. Bellamy talked about his players sometimes, but he usually called them by their last names.
"And I'm Tyler's mom," one of the other women introduced herself.
"I'm Wade's stepmom," the last one said, "but I still get to be part of the crew."
Tim's mom patted the space beside her and said, "Well, sit down."
She really didn't want to. These women all had those squeaky PTA-Mom types of voices. But she didn't want to be rude, so she went ahead and sat.
"We just wanted to tell you that your husband's done a remarkable job with this team," Tim's mom said. "It's a night and day difference from last year."
"Oh, absolutely," Tyler's mom agreed. "You know, Ty wasn't even sure he wanted to play this year. He just didn't see the point after the way that last two years had gone. But now he just seems revitalized, says he loves the sport again."
"Well, that's good," Clarke said. "I'm glad." She'd try to pass that on to Bellamy. The more good things he heard right now, the better.
"It's all because of your husband," Tim's mom said. "You must be very proud."
When it came to his coaching, it was hard not to be. But when it came to the other stuff . . . "Yep," she said, managing a small and hopefully convincing smile. "Very proud."
...
Clarke grimaced as two guys collided hard near the sideline. God, football was a rough sport. They both got up like it was nothing, though, probably used to it.
"Pick-up of seven on the play as the Rockets continue their drive down the field," the announcer said. "And that's the end of the third quarter, folks. Rockets forty-two, Panthers twenty."
"They're playing really well tonight," Octavia remarked.
"Yeah," Clarke agreed. She watched as Bellamy gathered his team into a huddle, and she wondered what he was saying to them. Probably something about not letting up on the gas now, finishing strong, playing until the very end. One of his motivational speeches. It'd been a while since she'd heard one of those.
"I'm still more interested in watching you than watching the game, though," Octavia said to Avery, jingling a rattle around in front of her. "You're just too cute."
Avery made some kind of unintelligible noise that made Octavia's whole face light up with excitement.
"Oh my god!" she exclaimed. "Did she just say my name?"
Clarke laughed. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, you're hearing things."
"Because it sounded like she just said my name."
"You have a four-syllable name," Clarke reminded her. "No way that's gonna be her first word."
Octavia pouted. "Wishful thinking on my part then."
"Yeah, I think her first word's gonna be-" Clarke didn't finish, because all of a sudden, Avery let out this awful, shrill cry and reached out towards the field.
"Hey, none of that now," Octavia said.
"Uh, Clarke?" Lincoln piped up. "You might wanna . . ." He trailed off and pointed out onto the field.
She looked out that way and immediately saw that something wasn't right. Bellamy had one hand on Miller's shoulder, and he didn't look steady on his feet.
"What's going on?" Octavia said.
Clarke sat up straighter when one of the players had to hold Bellamy up on the other side. He and Miller started helping him towards the bench, and Clarke shot to her feet and ran down the bleacher steps. Something bad was happening.
"What's wrong?" she asked, making her way across the track. "Is he okay?"
"Just give him some space, guys," Miller said to the players. He grabbed Clarke's arm, pulled her in close, and kept his voice quiet when he told her, "I think he's been drinking."
"What?" No, he wouldn't have done that. Not before a game. Right?
"I think he's been drinking and now he's dehydrated," Miller said. "You still lightheaded, man?"
Bellamy didn't respond, and all his players continued to crowd around them, many of them removing their helmets now. "Get the trainer over here," Miller told them.
Clarke got in front of her husband, knelt down, and said, "Bellamy, look at me." His eyes were closed, though, and his head was wobbling, like he couldn't hold it up. She grabbed both sides of it, noting how cold and clammy his skin felt. "Can somebody help?" she said, right as the trainer finally got over there.
"Here, back up, guys," he said to the players. He put his hand on the side of Bellamy's neck, quickly checking his pulse, then said, "I think the heat's gettin' the best of him. Go get some water."
A handful of players rushed off to do that.
"Is he gonna be okay?" Clarke asked.
"He's gonna be fine," the trainer assured her as he opened his cooler and took out some ice packs. He pressed one against the back of Bellamy's neck and had Clarke hold another against his face. "Bellamy, can you hear me?" he asked. "We sat you down so you don't pass out, alright? I want you to say something if you can hear me."
He groaned a bit, but he still seemed so out of it.
"Bellamy?" Clarke tried, figuring that, if he could hear any voice, it'd probably be hers. He still didn't respond, though, until the players brought the water over. The trainer poured a little over Bellamy's head to cool him down, and that seemed to snap him out of his stupor a bit. "Clarke?" he said.
"I'm here. You're gonna be okay."
"Here, Bellamy, drink this," the trainer said, holding a plastic cup up to his lips. "Can you hear me now?"
"Yeah." With shaky hands, Bellamy managed to grab hold of the cup and take a sip. "What happened?" he asked.
"You got dehydrated," the trainer informed him. "But don't worry, we're takin' care of you."
His eyes opened further, meeting hers, and he said her name again. "Clarke?"
"Are you okay?" She kept that icepack pressed to his cheek, just in case.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Shh, don't worry about it." She was just glad he was going to be okay and was already looking so much better now. And she didn't smell any alcohol on his breath, so . . .
"You know where you are?" the trainer asked him.
"Yeah." He sat up straighter, and the ice pack fell off the back of his neck. Clarke removed the one she was holding, too.
"Let's, uh . . . let's get him over to the ambulance, just to have him checked out," the trainer suggested.
"I gotta finish the game, though," he said, trying to stand back up.
"I got this, man," Miller said, putting a hand on his shoulder to keep him down. "Just go do what you gotta do. I'll tell your sister you're okay."
Clarke could tell by that look on Bellamy's face that he didn't want to go sit in that ambulance. But he didn't exactly have a choice. He said he didn't need any help walking, though, so he stood back up on his own. Clarke insisted on having him put his arm around her, though, just in case he was weak, and together, they headed over to the side of the field where an ambulance was always required to be waiting. The crowd, which she hadn't even realized had gone nearly completely silent, clapped for him in the same way they clapped for injured players as they hobbled off the field.
Once in the ambulance, Bellamy got his blood pressure taken, and the paramedics used a stethoscope to check his breathing. Clarke sat back there with him, still so freaked out by the whole incident, even though his blood pressure and breathing appeared to be relatively normal.
"Yeah, all of a sudden everything just got kinda blurry," he said to the paramedics. "And every sound was muffled, and I felt weak. I don't think I ever really completely conked out, but I don't really remember what happened. It's all just . . . fuzzy."
"You need to remember to drink lots of water when you're out there," one of the paramedics told him.
"Yeah. I don't know how I ever used to play in heat like this," he said. "Guess I'm not as young as I used to be."
"It for sure seems like dehydration, though?" Clarke asked. She didn't want them to just send him home if they weren't exactly sure that was what was going on.
"Oh, yeah," the one who had taken his blood pressure replied confidently. "And now that he's got some water in him, he seems to be doing fine."
"So I can go coach the rest of the game," he said, staring to stand up.
"Not so fast. I do think you should just head home and rest," the paramedic said. "Besides, your team's way ahead. They're gonna win."
Yeah, there were more important things than a game, and his health was definitely one of them. "I can go get the car and pull it up here," Clarke offered.
"I can just walk to it," he said.
"No, I'm gonna go get it. Just wait here." She wanted him off his feet and taking things as easy as possible for at least the next twenty-four hours.
As she headed towards the parking lot, she ran into Octavia and Lincoln, who still had Avery with them. "Hey, is he gonna be okay?" Octavia asked.
"Yeah. He was dehydrated."
"Thank God. I thought it was something serious." She breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "Can we go see him?"
"Yeah. Thanks for watching her."
"No problem." Octavia handed Avery over, and they headed towards the ambulance while Clarke continued to the parking lot. She was in a hurry to get home now, but she still double and triple checked Avery's carseat, making sure that everything was latched in and fastened correctly.
"Oh, what a night, huh, baby girl?" she said. It was almost eerie how Avery had let out that loud cry when Bellamy had been out on that field, almost like she'd noticed before the rest of them that something was wrong with him. "Daddy's gonna be okay, though," Clarke assured her little girl. "Mommy's gonna take care of him." She shut the door to the backseat and got in behind the wheel, starting the car up. For some reason, though, before backing out of the parking space, she stopped and just stared at the glove compartment. She didn't know why, but something told her to pop that open and look in there.
When she did, she saw a mess of papers, mostly old car registrations that Bellamy never threw out, and the official car manual, that looked like it had never been used. When she reached further back in the glove compartment, though, she felt something different. Something that didn't belong there. Something metal.
Her heart sank into the pit of her stomach as she pulled out a silver flask. When she shook it, she heard some liquid slosh around in there, and when she opened it to take a whiff, she couldn't even determine what was in there. It was definitely alcohol, though, and the flask definitely wasn't full.
Dammit, Bellamy, she thought, glancing back over at that ambulance. He hadn't just gotten dehydrated because of the heat; it was because he'd been drinking. Again. And he'd kept it hidden from her. Again. Octavia had been worried that what had happened tonight was something serious . . . and it was.
Hiding the flask between her thighs, she drove over to the ambulance, getting there in time to see Bellamy climbing out. "It's embarrassing," he was saying.
"No, it's not," Octavia said. "Everyone's just glad you're okay."
He's not okay, though, Clarke thought sadly. That was the problem.
"Well, thanks for checking up on me," he said, giving her a hug. He even shook Lincoln's hand, then waved back to the paramedics and told them, "Thank you." He got in the car with Clarke and sighed. "Not how I pictured the night ending."
"Me, neither." She waited until Lincoln and Octavia had headed off to hand him his stupid flask. "Here's this, if you want it," she said, wondering what he'd say. Much to her surprise, he said nothing this time. Slowly, he took it back from her, his fingertips brushing against hers as he did so. Even that slight touch sent a shiver up her spine. She couldn't bear to look at him as he leaned forward to open up his glove compartment and stashed it back in there with no explanation. Not a single word.