Chapter 102

Oh, fuck. Bellamy felt like his head weighed a ton and like his brain was about to burst. It hurt to move his neck, too, but since his head was pounding, all he could think about was getting up and getting some medicine.

When he opened his eyes, however, he saw that he wasn't even in bed. He was in the front seat of his car, no longer driving. There was smoke curling out of the semi-crushed hood, and some of the glass on the passenger's side had shattered all over the seat. A light pole stood tall in front of his car as the thing he'd crashed into. It'd probably stopped him from rolling further into what seemed like a pretty big ditch.

Holy shit, he thought, unlatching his seatbelt. His first instinct was to get out of the car, so he tugged on the door handle, but either he was weak, or it was stuck, because it wouldn't open. He kept trying, pushing against it with his full weight until he finally fell out onto the ground. He felt sick to his stomach, like he might throw up, but he still wanted to get away from the vehicle, so he crawled on his hands and knees back towards the side of the road. He hadn't gone that far off the shoulder, thankfully, so it wasn't like he'd be stranded out here. Someone would see the accident, stop, and help him.

His whole body felt stiff and sore, but he managed to get to his feet and survey the wreckage. He didn't see or hear any flames, but he'd seen enough movies to know that sometimes cars exploded after they crashed, so he stumbled away from it to the opposite side of the highway. He saw headlights a little ways down the road, so he figured he'd just wait.

I'm so stupid, he thought, reaching up to touch a cut on his forehead. It didn't feel like a huge one, but it was still bleeding. That bartender was right. He should've just called someone to drive him home.

When the headlights got closer, his heart started to pound, because he realized how drunk he was going to seem to whoever ended up stopping. No, not just how drunk he was going to seem; how drunk he was. It wasn't just the crash that had him feeling dizzy or that had his head hurting. God, he'd fucked up.

As if things couldn't get any worse, when that car got closer, red and blue lights started to flash on top of it. A cop. Unbelievable. This wasn't gonna go well.

The police car slowed to a stop on the other side of the road, and the cop got out and ran across towards Bellamy. "This your car?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Are you alright?"

"I think so." He was gonna have to do his best to act alright in front of this guy.

The policeman radioed in something that Bellamy couldn't understand, probably reporting the accident and requesting assistance. Then he went over to the car, which wasn't smoking as much anymore, shone his flashlight onto the inside of it, and checked it out. He tried to pop open the hood, but it was stuck. He radioed in something else Bellamy couldn't hear and came back across the street to question him.

"What happened?"

"I . . . I'm not sure," Bellamy lied. "I think something darted out in front of me, so I swerved and . . ." That was plausible, wasn't it? An animal in the road?

"Right," the police officer said. The word indicated that it was buying it, but his expression didn't. "You been drinkin'?"

Yes. "No."

"You tellin' me the truth?"

"Yeah." No.

The officer looked at him skeptically and asked, "What's your name?"

"Bellamy."

"Last name?'

"Blake." At least he was coherent enough to remember the basics.

"Where were you headed?" the officer asked.

"Uh . . ." Where had he been headed? Home? Hotel? He couldn't remember if he'd decided, so he just went with, "Home," since that was where he wished he was right now.

"And where'd you leave from?"

That was the kind of question meant to trick him into looking even more suspicious than he already did. He'd been honest about his name, of course, but this wasn't the kind of question to answer honestly. "Oh, I was kinda just . . ." He felt like he was struggling to find his words, and saying them extra carefully so as to avoid slurring. "I was driving around for a while."

The cop squinted his eyes at him, peering closer at his face and asked, "Are you sure you're alright? Your eyes look a little bloodshot there."

"Yeah, I'm just tired." Hopefully that was plausible, too. "Oh, but I didn't fall asleep at the wheel or anything," he made sure to add. "There was that animal, like I said."

"Yeah? What kind of animal?"

He blurted out the first one that came to mind. "A deer."

"A deer? That's strange. We don't see many deer along this highway."

"No? Well . . ." He was sticking to his story that he'd seen one.

"And I thought you said you thought you saw an animal dart out in front of you."

Had he said that? Crap. He should've given a more uncertain answer.

"You mind if I have you do a couple field sobriety tests, Mr. Blake?" the police officer asked him. "Just to make sure you're not under the influence of anything."

"Oh, I'm not," Bellamy promised, reluctant to take any tests on the side of the road here, because he wasn't sure he could pass any of them.

"Then these should be pretty easy for you," the officer said. "Please stand with your heels and toes together, hands by your side. Don't do anything until I tell you to. Understand?"

Bellamy's heart started to pound faster. "Yeah."

"Glasses or contacts?"

"No. I have glasses at home, but . . ."

"That's fine. You won't need them for this test."

I'm gonna fail, he thought, panicked. I'm gonna fail. He was failing at everything these days.

"I'm gonna start by checking your eyes," the officer said. He took a pen out of his uniform, pointed to the tip of it, and instructed, "Follow the top of my pen here with just your eyes. Don't move your head. Do you understand?"

He nodded nervously. "Yep."

The police officer kept his pen at Bellamy's eye level and moved it over to the right. He did his best to follow it with just his eyes, but considering he was already dizzy, that wasn't so easy to do without shifting his head. When the officer moved the pen back to the left, it got even harder. He repeated that a few more times, and Bellamy thought he might have gotten a bit of a handle on it until he switched it up and started moving the pen vertically. Looking up made him feel like he was about to fall over.

"Alright, please stand with your heels and toes together, hands by your side," the officer repeated, putting his pen away. "Don't do anything until I tell you to. Do you understand?"

Bellamy nodded again.

"Do you understand?" Apparently more than a nod was required.

"Yes."

"Good. Come here." He motioned Bellamy over to a long crack in the pavement and said, "Now take your left foot and place it on the line," he ordered.

God, please don't let me screw this up, he thought, trying to do as he was instructed and make it look as easy as possible.

"Put your right foot in front of it with your right heel touching your left toe."

Just trying to make sense of that felt . . . difficult. Bellamy could only process what he was being asked to do in fragments. Right heel. Left toe.

"Stop there," the officer said. "When I tell you to begin, I want you to take nine steps like that straight down this line. Count them out loud, keep your arms at your sides, and look down at your feet. When you get to the end of the line, turn back around and take nine more heel-to-toe steps, once again counting them out loud. Do you have any questions?"

His mind felt like it was spinning, but he processed as fast as he could. "No."

"Whenever you're ready."

Just fucking walk, he told himself. And count. He took his first step. "One." Second step. "Two. Three."

"Hands at your side," the cop reminded him.

Weren't they? He didn't even realize he'd raised them to try to keep his balance. Lowering them again, he continued on. "Four. Five." He accidentally stepped off the line and had to get back on. He took a few more steps without saying anything, so the officer had to remind him, "Count out loud."

He stopped walking and admitted, "I forgot what I was on."

"That's eight."

"Eight." He took one more step. "Nine." That was where he was supposed to end, wasn't it?

"You think you can make it back?"

He felt like he had to, but . . . he wasn't sure he could. "I feel a little dizzy," he said. "I hit my head in the crash." Maybe that cut he had would be good for something, make his excuse seem a little more legit.

"The paramedics are on their way," the police officer said. "One more test. I'd like you to lift the leg of your choice . . ." He demonstrated. "Straight out like this, toes still facing forward, and count out loud: 'One-thousand and one, one-thousand and two, one-thousand and three,' until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?"

"Yeah." He understood that he was gonna suck at this, too.

"Go ahead and begin."

He went ahead and lifted his left leg out in front of him, struggling to keep his balance right from the start. "One-thousand . . . one. One-thousand and two. One-thousand . . ." He had to put his foot down, because if he didn't, he felt like he might fall over.

"That's enough," the officer said. "Come with me."

Bellamy followed him over to his car, staggering a bit, wondering if there was any way to pass all these failed tests off as a concussion. That was probably his only hope.

A minute later, another cop showed up on the scene, pulling up in front of the accident instead of behind. He and the first cop conversed quietly for a moment while Bellamy just waited by the car, wondering if they were eventually gonna handcuff him. At least this was all happening on the edge of town, because if there had been people around who knew him and were watching all of this . . . it would've been even more humiliating than it already was.

The second cop on the scene began to survey the wreck while the first one got on the radio again. Bellamy watched the one inspecting the car, knowing that that tequila bottle was probably still in there. And even if it had somehow miraculously flown through the windshield, it wasn't like it'd be hard for them to find.

"Sir," the second cop said as he shone his flashlight into the passenger's side. "Look at this."

Oh, no, Bellamy thought. It was pretty much all over now, wasn't it? Not that he'd been doing a great job of hiding his intoxication or anything.

The original cop on the scene sauntered back towards Bellamy after he'd taken a look and said, "Bellamy, this isn't looking good. You didn't pass my tests, and you have alcohol in the car."

"I only had a couple drinks," he lied.

"Well, we'd like for you to take a breathalyzer. Are you willing to do that?"

"I . . ." He'd taken a breathalyzer only once, but it'd been in Italy, and the cops there didn't care as much if you failed them. And he hadn't failed, so . . . "Do I have to?"

"Legally, I can't force you to, but this could help you out," the officer said. "I'm gonna tell you the truth: I think you're over the limit. But this is gonna let us see how far over the limit you are. Or it could prove that you're not."

He felt like there was no way it was gonna prove that. He was in a lose-lose situation. Either he took the breathalyzer and failed, or he didn't take it and looked sketchy as hell.

"Sir," the second cop piped up again. "Car seat in the back."

He pictured that car seat, and even though he knew he'd been in that car alone, suddenly all he could think of was his little girl, trapped back there, hurt . . . or worse. All because of him. "Avery?" he said. "Avery!" He sprinted towards the car, nearly colliding with the second officer as he tried to get his own look into the backseat.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" the officer said, holding him back.

"Is it empty?" he asked desperately. He had to know his little girl wasn't back there.

"Yeah," the officer said. "Don't go chargin' at me like that again, you hear?"

"I was worried she . . ." He almost started crying, because what if she had been back there? What if something had happened to her, and it'd been all his fault? God, what kind of father was he? What was wrong with him?

"Is she a baby?" the second officer asked.

"Yeah." He should've been home with her right now.

"Was she in the car with you at all this evening?"

"No. No, I would never . . ."

"There's our ambulance," the first officer interrupted as one rolled down the road. "Alright, listen, Bellamy, they're gonna get you stitched up, and then you're gonna come with me, alright? I need you to put your hands behind your back."

"No, please don't," he pleaded. "You're arresting me?"

"I am," the officer confirmed. "Unless you pass that breathalyzer."

Fuck. He knew he wasn't going to, so he put his hands behind his back, dreading the inevitable feel of the handcuffs.

...

As if feeding Avery hadn't already become hard enough, now Clarke had to try to do it while she was crying. It certainly complicated things. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that Avery could tell something was wrong, that she wasn't relaxed and comfortable. And in turn, that made Avery not be relaxed and comfortable. Clarke had almost never had so many problems getting her fed before as she had that night.

"Okay. Is that enough?" she asked when Avery willingly unlatched. She patted her back, managing to get a small burp out of her, and put her back down in her crib. "Go back to sleep now." She pressed a kiss to her fingertips, then pressed her fingertips to Avery's cheek. "Mommy loves you."

The baby let out a content-sounding coo. Good, Clarke thought, anticipating that she wouldn't need fed again until morning. At least she was still able to take care of her little girl.

She shut off the lights in the nursery and sulked back towards the stairs, feeling like she didn't even have the energy to walk down them. So instead, she sat down at the top of them, took out her phone, and checked her messages. She had plenty of texts from Octavia, Aurora, and now Raven, Murphy, Miller, and Harper asking if Bellamy had come home yet. She'd gotten them all worried, perhaps rightfully so, and now she was going to have to respond no to every single one of them. Murphy had also texted that he was going to go drive around and try to find him, and Miller said he'd gone and checked the bar and that Bellamy wasn't there.

They were all being really good friends, and she was grateful for them. But in that moment, the only message she wanted to get was one from her husband.

...

Clarke's phone buzzed, and she almost lost it when she read the name on the text. At first, she thought it was Bellamy. But then she read it again. Billy. Billy Ford. He was one of the sophomores on student council asking her about the holiday food drive they'd just gotten done hosting. She texted him back and ended up getting a thumb's up emoji in response.

Beside her at the kitchen table, Raven was already done with her homework. Their stupid school had actually assigned things to do over Christmas break, and Clarke and Raven had decided to have a "Buckle Down Day" just to get it done. Of course Raven had already completed everything while Clarke still had two more anatomy chapters to read and a whole research paper to type out.

"Oh, look, the Peach Bowl's on," Raven remarked as she scrolled through her phone. "Wanna watch it?"

"No," Clarke answered quickly.

"Why not?"

Setting her pen down, she gave her friend a look. "Raven. I heard what team's competing in that game."

"Oh, come on, don't you wanna see if he gets to play at all?"

"No," she said again. Although . . . of course she did. There had been a few UCF games televised this year, and it'd been so hard to avoid watching them. Some people in town were talking about having watch parties for this one, all in support of Bellamy. "Okay, fine, just . . . just put it on in the background," she relented. "Like for white noise. We're not gonna watch."

Raven pranced over to the TV, turned it on, and started channel-surfing. Once Clarke heard the sounds of a football game in the background, she felt like she could no longer concentrate on the words on the pages in front of her. Curiosity immediately started to get the best of her.

Not even five minutes later, she and Raven sat right in front of the big-screen TV on their knees, practically playing Where's Waldo? whenever the camera panned over to the sidelines. "Is that him?" Raven asked, pointing to yet another guy who wasn't him at all.

"No." Those weren't Bellamy's arms. Or his shoulders. She didn't need to be able to make out the name on the back of the jersey to know that it was somebody else.

"What's his number?" Raven asked.

"I don't know." Knowing him, he'd probably tried to get number 69 or something, but didn't most colleges not even allow that number anymore?

"This guy kinda looks like him," Raven said, pointing to a guy who, although he wasn't short, definitely wasn't as tall as some of the giants on that team.

"It's not." She felt like she'd recognize Bellamy instantly if she spotted him, even if he was only on the screen for a split-second. Disappointedly, she sat back on her butt and said, "God, what are we doing, Raven?"

"Trying to spot your boyfriend," Raven replied, eyes still glued to the screen.

"Ex-boyfriend." It was really pretty pathetic, wasn't it? He probably wasn't scrolling through the school's Twitter account trying to find pictures of her. "I can't keep doing this," she decided quietly, not even sure her best friend had heard her.

Apparently she had though, because Raven gestured between Clarke and the TV confusedly an asked, "Wait, you've done this before?"

"No, not this, exactly." She was being more abstract, more . . . big-picture. "I can't keep missing him."

Raven crawled towards her, plopped down next to her, and put her arm around her. "If you miss him, you miss him," she said, hugging Clarke to her side. "You can't control that."

"But I have to get over it," she said, feeling like . . . it was time. She couldn't keep living in the past like this. "I have to try to move on."

Ever the diehard stan, Raven asked, "You do?"

"Yeah." Maybe Bellamy would return home after this bowl game for a belated Christmas celebration with his family, but he wasn't ever coming home for good, not with the kind of talent and potential he had. So that only left her one option: "I have to try to get used to life without him."

...

She really regretted telling him not to come home. Even if they'd locked themselves in separate rooms and not spoken for a week, that would have been better than this.

Clarke was just about to text Miller back, recommending that he go check up at the school, when she got a call from Octavia. Oh god, please, please, she thought, answering quickly, praying that Bellamy had shown up there. "Hello?"

"Clarke, turn on the news," Octavia blurted. "Channel 7."

"What? Why?" She shot to her feet and hurried down the stairs to do so.

"There's a wreck, and it looks like Bellamy's car."

"What?" she shrieked, her heart pounding in fear. She tried to reach for the remote on the coffee table, but her hands were already shaking, and she accidentally knocked it onto the floor. She bent down, picked it up, and changed the channel, and indeed, there was a news reporter standing out on the highway with a dark red car crash not far in the distance behind him. It looked like there were police there, and a tow truck, too.

"Are you seeing it?" Octavia asked.

"Yeah." She wished the reporter would step out of the way a bit so she could get a better look. Her stomach was in knots, and she felt so panicked that she couldn't even hear what he was saying. There was a text banner on the bottom of the screen that said something about a drunk driving accident. It didn't name anyone, though.

"Isn't that his?" Octavia said, sounding as afraid as Clarke felt.

"I can't tell." It looked like the car had run into a streetlight or some other kind of pole. It was all crunched up at the front, but the back of it looked okay. "Let me call him again." She ended the call with her sister-in-law, but before she could ring up Bellamy, another call came in. Not from him or one of their friends or any of their parents. It was from a number she didn't recognize this time, but it was still local.

"What?" she snapped. Her mind automatically feared the worst. Oh, god, what if this was someone from the morgue telling her she needed to come identify a body? What if it was a doctor telling her her husband was dead? "Hello?" she said impatiently when nobody said anything.

She heard a familiar deep voice first clear his throat, then say, "It's me."

"Bellamy?" A wave of relief washed over her. Thank God. "Are you okay?"

Again, he didn't say anything for a few seconds. When he finally did, his voice was quiet. Really quiet. "I . . . I need you to come bail me out," he said. "I'm in jail."

She just sat there, gripping her phone tightly, glancing back at the television screen. That was definitely his car. And he'd definitely been that drunk driver.

...

Sobering up behind bars was . . . a pretty sobering experience. Although he was pretty sure that he still had plenty of alcohol in his system, getting arrested was something he was never going to forget. As much as he wanted to.

At the station, they'd made him take a breathalyzer, said he'd blown a .18. Well over the legal limit. No wonder he'd crashed his car. He shouldn't have even been behind the wheel. They said he was lucky he didn't seem to have any serious injuries and even luckier that he hadn't hurt someone else out there. And he knew that.

After he'd used his phone call on Clarke, he returned to his cell and waited. She hadn't said that she was coming to get him. In fact, she'd just hung up the phone. To be honest, he wouldn't have blamed her if she'd just let him rot in there tonight. He deserved it.

There was a big, overweight guy in the cell next to him who wouldn't stop looking at him. Bellamy wasn't about to say anything to him, though. He'd seen enough movies to know that the best thing to do when you were locked up was to just keep your head down and not say anything.

"You look familiar," the man finally said. "Football coach, right?"

He shut his eyes and winced inwardly. Shit. Everyone was gonna hear about this. People were even gonna see his mugshot.

"Yeah, I saw you on the news," the guy said. "They were interviewing you."

He was probably on the news tonight, too, for a different reason. All his players and their families would have to see that. But even worse . . . his family would see it. His mom and his little sister. His wife. Maybe even his daughter would see it someday.

"What'd they get you for?" the man asked. When he didn't get a response out of Bellamy, he just kept on talking. "Ah, I popped my wife a good one tonight. She deserved it. Bitch was screamin' at me."

Bellamy already felt kind of nauseous. And hearing his guy talk like that made him feel that way even more so.

It just got worse, though, because the guy went on, "Shoulda popped the kid, too. He's a little bitch just like his mom."

Oh, god, Bellamy thought, angling his whole body in the opposite direction of his next-door cell neighbor. I need to be out of here. For a second there, he felt like he was right back in college with those guys who took pride in their violence. Sure, he'd clobbered Finn tonight himself, but hearing somebody talk about hitting his wife and his kid . . . it was just different. And it made Bellamy feel incredibly uncomfortable. That was the point, he supposed. Jail wasn't supposed to be comfy.

"Blake."

He shot to his feet, ignoring his dizziness when a guard came back to his cell and unlocked it.

"Your wife's here."

"She bailed me out?" he asked.

"Yep."

He let out a sigh of relief, so happy to not have to sit in there any longer. Even if it was what he deserved, he wasn't gonna be able to handle it much longer. He wanted to see Clarke. He wanted to see Avery. He wanted to just . . . hold them.

When he walked out into that station and met eyes with Clarke, he quickly realized there would be no touching her at all. She looked so disappointed in him, and just so sad. That sparkle that he usually saw in her eyes just wasn't there. That light that she always seemed to have about her . . . it'd just gone out.

She didn't say anything to him, and he didn't say anything to her. The officer discharging him, someone completely different than the guy who'd originally pulled him over or the second one who'd shown up on the scene, was the only one to talk. He said that they needed to call back tomorrow to get more information on how to proceed. He also mentioned something about having thirty days to show up in court. Great, Bellamy thought sarcastically. This wasn't something that was going away. It'd be on his record now, a huge strike against him when it came to adopting Avery. He'd never really fucked things up this badly before, had he?

Things between them remained silent as they got in her car and headed home. He wasn't used to her being the one to drive him around, but right now, she still needed to be. He leaned against the window, looking out at all the familiar roads and familiar houses. They drove past his mom's house, and he wondered briefly if she might pull into the driveway and just drop him off there. But she kept going. Seemed like she was bringing him home whether she really wanted to or not.

"How much did that cost?" he asked her, wondering if she'd had to ask her parents for help.

"You don't wanna know," she muttered.

Even if she had been able to cover it on her own . . . crap, they probably were gonna have to get help from Jake and Kane and Abby, weren't they? There was the cost of towing his car and possibly fixing it, if it could be salvaged. If not, he'd have to get a new one. Plus, he was probably gonna end up paying a thousand or two-thousand dollar fine. And if he had a court date to show up at, was he gonna have to get a lawyer for this, too? Legal fees added up fast.

The money was definitely a concern, but not his biggest concern. His biggest concern was sitting right next to him. Because as awful as it had been for him to say she'd killed his kid, she probably could've forgiven him for that. This, though? He'd put his own life in jeopardy tonight. Other people's, too. This had to be a lot harder to forgive.

He'd expected to feel relieved when he got home, but unfortunately, he still felt tense. Clarke walked into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and just stood there facing the sink, drinking it slowly. She looked like her whole body was one tightly-wound knot of stress and anxiety.

"Where's Avery?" he asked, feeling like he needed to see her. He still couldn't get the imaginary image of her in the backseat of that car wreck out of his mind. He needed to see that she was okay.

"With Octavia," Clarke replied. "She's gonna take of her tonight."

Nodding slowly, he realized he had no grounds to dispute that. Clarke had been right earlier when she'd said that Avery didn't need to be around him when he was like this.

Once she'd drunk more of her water, she set the glass down, walked over to him, and said, "Let me see your head."

He turned his face to the side a bit, letting her get a good look at the small gash. Could it even be classified as a gash, really? It'd bled a lot, but they'd stitched it all up now and put a bandage on it. She reached up and touched the bandage with just the tips of her fingers before putting her hand back down.

"Paramedics checked me out," he said. "They don't think I have a concussion." If he was remembering correctly—which, he might not have been—they'd said that the cut probably came from a piece of glass. He'd also probably flung forward in his seat, too, but somehow, he'd had just the slightest sense of mind to put on a seatbelt, so that'd prevented him from hitting the steering wheel. He didn't even remember doing that, but it was a good thing he had, because his airbags hadn't deployed. He could have ended up with a serious head injury.

"Just a cut then," she said.

"Yeah. I'm really lucky." He wasn't the most religious man by any means, but he was going to thank God tonight that he'd survived and hadn't hurt anyone else.

He tried to take her hands in his, just to see if she'd let him, but she quickly pulled hers away and walked over to the sliding door so she could look outside at the ocean. She looked . . . deep in thought. Thoughts that she didn't seem to feel like sharing with him. Maybe she was trying not to say something she'd regret. Probably not a bad idea.

"Sorry about the car," he apologized. "I'll get it fixed."

She grunted, shaking her head as if the car was the least of her concerns. And right now, it probably was. "Just go upstairs, Bellamy," she told him, not even looking at him. "Go to sleep."

Sleep? Was he really gonna be able to sleep after all of this? Mentally and emotionally, he felt like the answer was no, but once his head hit that pillow, his body was probably gonna have different ideas. He'd move the bathroom trash can over to his side of the bed in case he had to throw up. He'd lie on his side so he didn't choke on his own puke or anything. That was the smart thing to do. Even though he'd made the dumbest decisions of his life tonight, at least he could try to be smart now.

He sulked up the stairs, wondering if she'd come check on him, if he'd be awake whenever she did so. Or maybe she'd seen enough of him tonight and just wanted him out of her sight. If that was the case . . . he understood. He wasn't gonna look in the mirror, because he wanted himself out of his sight, too.

At the top of the stairs, he heard something that broke his heart. Crying. His best friend, his soul mate, the love of his life . . . was crying. Because of him.