A/N: This is completed on AO3, but I realized today that I never did add any of the other chapters to this story on here. So here is chapter 2 for anyone who may still be interested?
As Monty pulled up to Arkadia Academy, the nerves started getting more and more prominent for Clarke. Arkadia Academy loomed in front of them, the students bustling about. Many of them were getting dropped off just as Clarke was about to. They all looked so happy and hopeful for the new school year. It all seemed completely normal.
What Clarke was about to do was anything other than normal. She expected, if she could pull it off, it would be a great story to tell people. But if she couldn't pull this off, it could really screw up her future. She tried not to think of that fact. It made her want to run screaming in the other direction- all the hard work her friends had done be damned.
"Guys," Clarke interrupted the guys' banter about how long Clarke would be able to pull this off. "I don't know if I can do this." She wiped the sweat from her palms onto her school uniform pants. If she was this big of a wreck before even starting in on her lie, what would it be like when she met her roommate for the first time?
What if she was making a horrible decision? What if they kicked her out of school? With that reputation, she would have to move out of the area to finish school. Would colleges even look at her if this failed? She was breaking so many rules, and she'd be deceiving so many people. It had been easy to think about doing it, but now that she was looking it in the eye, she wasn't sure she could go through with it.
"Don't be getting cold feet now," Monty told her as he pulled up in front of the school, placing the car in park before turning in his seat to face Clarke.
"Since when does Clarke Griffin get cold feet?" Jasper asked, leaning forward from the back seat. He placed his hand reassuringly onto her shoulder.
"Since she's going to be impersonating a boy," Clarke retorted, pulling down the visor to look into the mirror, pulling her wig into place. She still looked feminine, but she hoped it still looked somewhat natural. No one knew what Finn looked like, she reminded herself, it would be fine.
"Do your best Finn voice," Monty instructed, trying to get her to focus on something other than the possibility of failure.
Clearing her throat, Clarke lowered her voice a little, "Yo, I'm Finn Collins, the new center forward."
"Try more gravely," Jasper suggested.
Clarke did as she was instructed, "Finn Collins, center forward."
"Much better," Monty and Jasper agreed, smiling at her encouragingly.
"Get out and show us your manly walk," Monty told her.
Clarke turned and stared out the window of the car, watching the other students walk down the sidewalk. The moment she stepped out of the car was the moment all of this became real. There'd be no turning back. Everyone would see her, and she'd have to start in on the lie.
Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself to be immediately ridiculed and seen as a fake as she opened the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. A couple girls walking by nodded a greeting in Clarke's direction, and she immediately tried to scramble back into the car.
"Oh my god, they knew!" she hissed at Jasper and Monty as she tried sneak back in. It wasn't too late to stop this madness.
"What?" Monty asked, leaning forward into the passenger seat so that Clarke couldn't get back in. "No, they didn't. They just said hello!"
"They could tell just by looking at me," Clarke cried.
"They were just being friendly!" Monty replied.
"Get out of that car this instant. You're making a scene!" Jasper stage whispered at them as he got out of the car and attempted to pull Clarke out from behind.
"You guys need to take me home now," Clarke insisted, not budging from her position as half in and half out of the car.
"No, we're not. We worked really hard to get you here, and we're not backing down now," Monty told her, shoving at her shoulders.
"This was a mistake. They're going to find out, and it's going to ruin my life," Clarke told them, as she shoved Monty's hands away.
"Clarke Griffin, you get out of this car now," Monty whisper yelled at her as he shoved her forward. Jasper grabbed Clarke by the waist and pulled her fully out of the car while Monty crawled over the console and out of the passenger side of the car.
Standing up straight, Clarke smoothed down the wrinkles in her pants and made sure her wig was in place as she glanced around to see if anyone was staring at them. Thankfully, no one was paying them any attention; they all had much bigger things to be worrying about.
"Now show me your strut," Jasper insisted as Monty slammed the car door. They just needed to get confident Clarke back.
Clarke sighed as she straightened her blazer jacket. After taking a deep breath, she turned and walked a few paces away, mimicking the way Monty walked. On her way back, she mimicked Jasper's walk. She'd been doing her homework and had started mimicking all the guys she saw. If she was going to mimic a guy, she wanted to do it right.
"Good," Jasper approved. "Now hawk a loogie."
Clarke wrinkled her nose. "Hawk a loogie? What, am I going to be doing that a lot?" she asked slightly appalled.
Jasper shrugged, "You never know when the occasion might arise. You have to be ready for anything."
After giving Jasper a look, she glanced around to make sure there weren't too many people watching before she spat her best loogie onto the sidewalk. She felt gross for doing it, but it was for a good cause.
"I'm so proud," Monty cut in before Clarke could say anything else. "We've raised you well."
"You've made Monty and me very proud fathers," Jasper jested, unable to stop himself from laughing at his own joke.
"Well, you guys have been the best dads any trouble making son could ask for," Clarke continued with the joke.
They really had been a great support base. She wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them hooking her up with everything that she would need. They had been oddly serious about the situation, genuinely helping her without any questions asked. Of course, they joked about certain aspects of the whole thing- because really, this was a hilarious situation. Clarke was just a bit too close to see that now.
"Just remember: Inside every girl, there's a boy," Jasper told her. "Wait..."
"That did not come out right, but you get the gist," Monty replied. "Go get 'em, Tiger!"
Clarke nodded before grabbing her bags from the trunk and started heading up the sidewalk onto campus. She turned back once to wave goodbye to the guys. They wave furiously at her before she continued down the sidewalk in search of her dorm.
There were a ton of students on campus already unpacked or procrastinating unpacking. As Clarke walked, she watched as several were throwing a frisbee back and forth on the green, there were tables set up all over to help people find whatever they needed, but most of the students were kids trying to find their way to their own dorm rooms the same as Clarke was.
Fortunately, Clarke knew which dorm and room number hers was. She just had to find it. Thankfully, people at the tables were friendly and pointed her in the right direction. She'd successfully had a conversation with someone who didn't immediately know she was actually a girl. Winning!
The entire walk, her heart pounded, waiting for someone to shout that she was a fraud. Someone was bound to see through the disguise. Blessedly, no one did, and she had been able to walk the campus in relative peace. It was a miracle.
As she pulled open the door to her dorm building, she saw guys running through the halls, throwing things at each other. Laughter and yelling and teasing filled the hallway. Some were dressed, some had no shirt, and some were running around in only a towel. It was pure chaos.
She could do this. She was Finn Collins, a dude, a boy, a man. She was an attractive, feminine man. She could do this. She could be a man. She just needed to act cocky, like she owned the place.
Winding her way through the hall, she ducked under basketballs and tried not to trip over the soccer balls getting kicked around. It was hard not to run into anyone as she turned corners, as it always seemed someone was barreling down the hallway. Everything was a mess, and it took everything in Clarke not to panic.
Thankfully, she found her room number and found the door to be open. Hurrying between two boys, she practically fell into the room, spun, and slammed the door shut. Leaning her forehead against the coolness of the dorm, she seriously wondered how she was going to fit in here with all this madness.
Letting out a deep breath, she turned and found herself staring at three boys who were all staring at her. She needed to make a good first impression, she knew. Of all the people she needed to get along with on campus, she needed it to be her roommates. It wouldn't make this situation any better to be living with a person who hated her for two weeks. And if she could trick her roommate into thinking she was a boy, she could trick anyone into believing it.
"Hey," she said, and then realizing that had come out more feminine than she wanted, she cleared her voice and tried again, deeper and gravellier like Monty and Jasper had instructed. "Hey!" And that came out like she was yelling. She wanted to hit her head against the wall. Coughing to cover up her blunder, she just continued, "What's up?"
Do something cool, she told herself. So, she tried to throw her keys in the air and catch them. You know, what cool kids do. Instead, the keys bounced off her palm, and she looked like an idiot as she fumbled to catch them. Just get to the bed, throw your stuff down, and be cool!
Clarke Griffin, girl, was not used to being such a mess. She wasn't necessarily popular, but she didn't normally come off so stiff and rigid. Clarke Griffin, girl, was a natural born leader who got things done and wasn't scared of anything. Clarke "Finn Collins", boy, was a giant klutz apparently who couldn't say anything the way it was supposed to come out.
"You guys must be my roommates," she tried again when no one immediately said anything.
One of the guys was only wearing a towel around his waist as he was digging through a bag. He chuckled a little at her awkwardness. "What's your name?" he asked.
Clarke finally managed to get to the bed and dump her stuff onto it without looking like a bumbling fool. "I'm Finn Collins." Clarke held her hand out to the guy,
"I'm Bellamy Blake," he took Clarke's hand.
Jasper and Monty were always doing secret handshakes and the like, so Clarke decided it would be cool to do one of them with Bellamy. So, when Bellamy accepted Clarke's handshake, she pulled him in for a hug as well, clapping Bellamy on the back.
"Okay," Bellamy seemed surprised, caught off guard. "Okay," he pulled himself away rather forcefully and Clarke was a little concerned as to what she had done wrong. Her friends did it all the time. "Uh, this here is Miller and Murphy, they'll be next door." Bellamy gestured to his friends.
Clarke waved politely at them.
"Freshman dorm's that way," Miller told her, a frown on his face.
"Seriously, how old are you?" Murphy asked.
She hadn't taken into consideration that she'd look that young to these guys. "Uh, I skipped a couple grades," she replied, laughing slightly to cover up how nervous this whole conversation was making her. The longer she had it, the worse she began to feel. Lying was never her forte.
Turning, she headed for the bed, tripping slightly on the edge of it as she tried to sit down. She closed her eyes as she tried to get situated. She couldn't even look Bellamy in the eyes. What must he think of her? That she was a klutzy idiot? A socially inept moron? A freak? All would be correct. Her entire face was on fire and she could only imagine how red her face must be at the moment.
"So, uh, when's soccer tryouts?" Clarke asked, trying to get back onto solid ground. She was losing them. She needed to get them to think she was okay.
"Tomorrow," Bellamy answered. "You play?" Clarke had to give him credit for at least attempting to be nice and converse with her still.
"Absolutely. Center forward," Clarke answered. "Do you play the beautiful game, bro? Brothers? Brethren?" God, she needed to stop talking, she was just making this ten times worse.
Bellamy laughed before answering, "Yeah, I'm a striker. Murphy and Miller are halfbacks."
"Sweet!" Clarke nodded before turning to start unpacking her bags. The sooner this conversation ended the better.
Pulling out her shoes, she set them aside while she dug out her uniforms. They needed to be hung up right away before they wrinkled. As she pulled them out of the bag, her hand hit her shoe, which was hiding her tampons, causing the shoe to fall onto the floor and making her box of tampons extremely visible.
"Why do you have tampons?" Bellamy asked, a little concerned. And even with her back to the boys, she could hear Miller and Murphy get up and stand behind Bellamy, waiting for her answer.
Clarke wanted to crawl under her bed and never come out. Think,think, think! Why would a boy have tampons? Thankfully, one of the other reasons Clarke had excelled being team captain was that she was quick to think on her feet. "Nosebleeds," she blurted. "I get really bad nosebleeds."
"So, you stick them up your nose?" Murphy asked confused.
Just go with it, Clarke told herself before turning around. "Uh, yeah. What?" she made herself look concerned. "You've never done that?" The boys all shook their heads in unison. "Oh, Beckham does it all the time!"
"Seriously?" Bellamy asked.
"Duh, that's why I started doing it. I figured if a great soccer player such as him was doing it, it's got to be the right thing to do. Look," she bent down to retrieve her shoe and grabbed a tampon from the box. Pulling it out of the wrapper, she explained, "you take that off, whatever that is," she threw away the plastic applicator, "and you stick it into your nose. It absorbs right up!" Clarke stuffed the tampon up her nose.
The boys burst out laughing, turning away from her. "My god, your roommate's a freak!" Murphy told Bellamy, elbowing him in the side.
Clarke turned around, tampon still up her nose. Sighing, she took it out and threw it away quickly. She just needed to keep a low profile for the rest of the day. Tomorrow in soccer tryouts, she'd show them how good she was and earn their respect that way.
Thankfully, the guys left her alone to unpack and mostly ignored her. They stayed in the room playing video games, which Clarke didn't mind. This gave her a good chance to observe them and get a feel for them, to learn what she could about them.
It didn't take her long to unpack as she didn't bring much since she wouldn't be here for long anyway. When she finished, she grabbed her sketchpad, her pencil, and her phone and settled onto her bed. The boys didn't really acknowledge her existence, which was fine with her.
Grabbing her phone, she pulled up her text messages. Finding the group chat between her, Jasper, Monty, Monroe, and Fox, she typed in a quick message: Met my roommate. Cover isn't blown yet.
Immediately, Monroe replied: Never a doubt in my mind you could do this.
Jasper's reply came shortly after: I had some doubt.
Making friends? Monty asked.
I don't think I made a great first impression. Roommate is playing video games with friends and ignoring me. Clarke replied.
Please tell me you aren't moping on your bed and sketching Monroe typed.
Clarke frowned, not knowing what could be wrong with sketching. So?
You need to be social! Fox told her.
I don't want to shove myself at them on the first night! Clarke defended herself. And she didn't. If she asked to play video games, they'd probably let her, but they clearly didn't want to.
Sketching isn't manly! Jasper informed her.
What should I do instead? Pretend to shave my nonexistent beard? Sketching wasn't manly? Since when? She glanced up at the guys, whose backs were to her. She didn't think they really cared what she was doing so long as she didn't bother them.
Is there a TV? Turn on soccer, Monty suggested. Manly men watch sports.
And yell at the TV about stupid calls even though the refs can't hear them, Fox agreed.
If they're passionate, they even break things, Monroe said.
Clarke chuckled to herself. She wouldn't mind watching a soccer game, though she for sure would not be yelling at the TV or breaking anything. She didn't need her roommate and his friends thinking she had anger problems.
I'll just watch the game quietly, I think , Clarke texted back before she shoved her sketchpad in her bedside table drawer. Reaching for her laptop, she found a game she could stream online, turned the volume down to low and settled in.
After Murphy and Miller left, Bellamy asked what game she was watching, and they chatted for a few minutes about it. Bellamy went to bed, leaving Clarke alone with her thoughts. She turned the game off, not wanting to keep Bellamy awake. Putting her laptop back on her desk, she grabbed her toiletries and pajamas and hurried to the bathroom, hoping to change in a stall.
Thankfully, there was one open, and she was able to change in peace. She hurried to brush her teeth and get back to her room before anyone else came in. She had met her quota for socializing for the day and just wanted to go to sleep.
She was in luck. Only a couple other boys came into the bathroom and all left her alone. It was a bit of a shock when she was brushing her teeth to see a boy walk in. She wanted to tell them to get out of the girls' room, but then realized where she was. How long before all of this became her new normal?
As Clarke slipped beneath her comforter, she had never been so excited to sleep as she was at that moment. She was sure she was out before her head even hit the pillow.