Chapter 4
One second, it was quiet. Just Bellamy and his mom, sitting on the couch, looking through old photo albums. Then, the door flew open, and in walked Octavia.
"Ugh, I hate college! I hate it!" she screamed, throwing her backpack down on the floor and slamming the door shut. "My British lit professor assigned a hundred more pages of reading. Not ten, not twenty, but a hundred. That we have to finish by Monday. Can you believe it?"
"One page at a time, O," Bellamy said without so much as a glance at her. "Just like I used to do."
"Or I could just skim it," she went on, sitting down on the arm of the couch. "Or, I don't even have to do that. I can just pretend that I read it. And if he calls on me in class, I'll just lie my way through an answer. I'm really good at lying."
"That's what every mother loves to hear," their mom mumbled sarcastically.
"I'm just not cut out for college," Octavia bemoaned. "You get that, right, Bellamy? Can't I just drop out like you did?"
"No," he and his mom answered in unison.
"You guys are so unfair." She pouted, then got up and headed into the kitchen. When she re-emerged, she had a Diet Coke in her hand. "So who have you hung out with since you've been back, Bell?" she asked, perching herself on the edge of the couch again. "Miller?"
"Yeah, I went out with him last night." He chuckled as he flipped past an old photo of him and some of the football guys drenching their coach with Gatorade for his one-hundredth win.
"God, Miller's so hot," Octavia said.
"Miller's so gay," he reminded her.
"I know. But I used to have a huge crush on him."
"Maybe this will be the year you have a crush on someone your own age," their mother suggested, sounding hopeful.
But Octavia just scoffed at that. "No way. Freshman guys are so immature. It's like they're still in high school. The older boys are better."
Bellamy gave his mom a look. Fan-fucking-tastic, they had to worry about Octavia going after guys who were about to graduate then. It was a good thing he was back. He could play the whole protective dad part pretty well if he needed to.
"What're you guys doing anyway?" she finally asked them.
"Mom broke out the photo albums. We're trying to find that one picture of Grandma," he explained.
"Oh, the one where she had the toilet seat over her head?" Octavia laughed. "Oh, Grandma. So confused."
Bellamy's mom nudged him suddenly and said, "Look at this." She pointed out a picture of him and Clarke all dressed up in their formalwear at his senior year prom. Her hair had been a lot longer then, and he'd been a lot more clean-shaven.
"Oh, that's right!" Octavia exclaimed as she leaned over to get a good look, too. "You get to see Clarke again. When are you gonna do that?"
"I already did," he told her, "a couple nights ago."
"And how much of her did you get to see?" she teased.
"Really, O?"
"What? I'm just asking because you guys were sex freaks back in the day."
Well . . . that was kind of true, but he still didn't have to tell her anything. "That's none of your business," he said.
"Oh." She leaned across the back of the couch and whispered loudly, "That means they did it, Mom."
"Thanks, honey," she said, "I got that."
"You know what?" he passed off the photo album to his sister and suggested, "Why don't you look for Grandma's picture? I'm gonna go for a drive." He got up, grabbed his keys off the end table, and headed out. He loved his sister dearly, he did, but when she was in either rant mode or taunt mode, he sometimes needed a break from her.
Although he could have stopped and put in some applications at a few places around town, he ended up just rolling the window down and driving with one hand on the wheel. He thought about swinging by Miller's place to see if he wanted to hang out for a while, but he was pretty sure his friend (in between drinks) had mentioned that he spent most of his days working at a physical therapy clinic now. So he ended up just driving around kind of aimlessly, no real destination in mind.
At one red light, he made the mistake of looking over at the car next to him, and dammit all to hell, there was Bree. Of all the people he could have run into from high school, he had to run into her? Her whole face lit up when she saw him, and she started trying to pantomime something he couldn't quite understand. He just smiled and nodded, praying for that light to turn green any second now, but it never fucking did.
Bree was the same girl, apparently, hadn't changed a bit, because at one point, she lifted up her shirt and showed off . . . new boobs? He could only assume they were new, because they looked a hell of a lot bigger than used to be. He really wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he just gave her a thumbs up, and then finally, at long last, the light changed to green, and he was able to floor it.
Perhaps out of habit, he found himself up at the high school. He pulled up in the bus-loading zone and put his car in park. Damn, that school looked no different. Behind it, the football field probably looked the same, too. Although he'd heard these days that the numbers on the scoreboard were pretty different.
High school was supposedly a time a lot of people wanted to forget, but not him. In fact, there were a lot of things he hoped he'd always remember.
...
"Fourth down. Six seconds left. Rockets need a touchdown to stay undefeated."
Bellamy blocked out the announcer and blasted his own voice through the huddle, wanting his team to hear him and only him. "Listen to me, we are not losing this game!" he thundered. "One last play. You give it all you've got. We're winning this. You hear me?"
The guys, completely gassed and ready to pass out, all nodded.
"We're not losing!" Bellamy yelled again, and they broke the huddle and trotted back up to the line. The field lights shone down on them, and the crowd roared. He could pick out his mom's voice above all the others, cheering him on. Everyone was cheering for him. Everyone hoped he'd find a way to win.
It was a lot of pressure, but he was used to it. This wasn't his first game that had gone down to the wire. He'd faced tougher defenses than this. All he had to do was launch that ball down the field and hope Zeke caught it. Zeke was his best receiver. They'd already connected for two touchdowns that night. Now they just needed one more.
He crouched down behind his center, surveying the defensive scheme. Fuck, he thought, recognizing that Zeke was gonna get double coverage. There was no way he'd be able to get open, and even if he did, Bellamy wasn't sure he could dance around in the pocket long enough to extend the play. He knew the coaches were gonna shit their pants, but he had to do what he had to do. Time to call an audible.
"Black 41!" he yelled, watching the play clock tick down. "Black 41!"
Everyone shifted around on his command, and the defense tried to match up.
Here goes nothing, he thought, making sure everyone was in place before he called, "Hut!"
His center snapped him the ball, and he wasted no time handing it off to Miller. He couldn't see the play after that, couldn't bother to look back and make sure Miller was able to pitch it back to Zeke. Because his job was to find his crease in the defense and just run. The defense didn't know what was going on. They stumbled around, confused as to who had the ball and where it was going, and Bellamy used that to his advantage as he rushed past a safety. Close to the forty yard-line, he looked back and kept his eye on the ball as Zeke launched it through the air. The crowd erupted as Bellamy hauled in the catch, and from there, he just put on the jets. He felt the defenders fall back, and that end zone got closer and closer with each step.
Once he was in, he spiked the ball, fell to his knees, and watched as his teammates ran towards him. With the play clock now at zero, the guys on the sidelines were jumping up and down, and all the cheerleaders were doing the same. People in the stands, parents and students and even young kids, were up out of their seats, screaming and hugging each other.
Holy shit, he thought as his teammates swarmed him. He'd had some pretty miraculous endings to games before, but this was something else. Winning a close game on a trick play, one that he'd called himself at the line of scrimmage? Catching his first touchdown pass? Yeah, this was one for the ages.
He wasn't sure how it happened or who lifted him up first, but somehow he ended up on the shoulders of his teammates. His helmet came off, and everyone continued to celebrate and cheer. It was a great feeling coming through for everyone like that. He hadn't let the fans down once so far this season, and he didn't intend to.
After the game, he'd barely had time to catch his breath before a reporter from the local news station pulled him onto the track and interviewed him. He was sweaty and dirty and grimy, but happy, so he answered every question with a smile on his face.
The last question, of course, was, "So what do you think about the people saying this team's bound to make it to the state finals this year?"
Coach had told him this question would come up if they won this game tonight, so he was ready for it. "I hope they're right," he said. "We're just gonna keep working hard, take it game by game. That's about all we can do."
After that interview came a quick interview for the local paper. He and Zeke were the only players they got quotes from. All Bellamy really wanted to do was get to the locker room and get in the shower, but as the quarterback, he knew he had some responsibilities the other guys didn't.
As it turned out, there was a recruiter in the crowd that night. His mom intercepted him on his way to the locker room and introduced him to some guy from Pittsburgh who couldn't stop raving about how impressed he'd been with how he'd played that night. Two touchdown passes, a run into the end zone, and then even a catch. Yeah, it hadn't been a bad night to be him.
"Let me know when you wanna schedule a visit," the recruiter said, handing him his business card. "I look forward to seeing you."
"Thanks," he said.
"Thank you," his mom echoed. She took the card from him and took a look at it, her whole face lighting up. "Well, this is exciting," she said. "Lots of prospects."
"Yeah, hopefully that translates into lots of scholarships." If he kept playing at this level, he felt like his chances of getting a football scholarship were actually pretty decent. Nobody thought of Maryland when they thought of high school football players, but he was trying to put himself on the map.
"It will," his mom said confidently. "I'm so proud of you."
He had to admit, as great as it had been to win the game, hearing that from her was even better. Cheesy but true. He loved his mom so much.
"Aurora!" Miller's dad shouted from the far side of the bleachers. "You comin'?"
"Just a minute!" she yelled back. "You good here?" she asked Bellamy.
"Yeah. I'll see you at home." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, happy to let her go do her thing with the football dads. His mom actually lived a pretty tame lifestyle, except on game nights when she filled in for his absentee dad. She could knock some drinks back with the football fathers, especially on a night like tonight when there was a lot to celebrate.
Although it seemed that it was finally time for that much-needed shower now that the field and the bleachers were clearing out, Bellamy got distracted from that pursuit when he saw Clarke down on the track, stuffing her pom poms into her bag and taking her bow out of her hair. Most of the other cheerleaders were with their boyfriends or already headed up to the parking lot, and there she was all by herself. Almost like she was waiting for him.
He walked up behind her and asked, "So what'd you think?"
She spun around, her eyes wide with excitement. "Oh my god, Bellamy, that was amazing!" she raved. "I don't even really like football, but I was so into it."
"I don't even like cheerleading, but I'm into this," he said, taking in the sight of her in that little skirt. How had he never paid more attention to her at games and pep rallies last year? Clarke was sexy as hell and had a body that wouldn't quit. She put the other cheerleaders to shame. Raven was hot, too, of course, but he felt like Clarke was even hotter than her.
"Are you gonna be at the parking lot party?" she asked.
"Of course. Are you?"
She pretended to think about it, then decided, "I could make an appearance."
He put his hands on her waist, pulling her closer to him even though he knew he must have smelled pretty bad. He sort of wanted to kiss her, and he probably would have had he not heard a shrill "Bellamy!" from Bree.
Groaning in frustration, he slowly turned to the side to see the homecoming queen stomping towards him.
"What's this?" she demanded, motioning between him and Clarke. "I thought we were gonna hang out tonight."
"Since when?" They hadn't made any plans to do that.
"Well, I just assumed . . ." She trailed off.
"Maybe I wanna hang out with Clarke tonight," he said, not really concerned with being polite. Bree was clingy as hell sometimes, and he'd always tried to be pretty up front with her that their relationship was strictly about sex.
She took another look at Clarke, snorted, and rolled her eyes. "Whatever." Then she stormed off towards the parking lot. She'd probably try to make out with Miller tonight, but . . . little did she know, Miller wouldn't be interested.
Returning his attention to Clarke, he grinned and asked, "Wanna have some fun?"
As it turned out, Clarke was all about having fun that night. When he came out of the locker room, she was waiting for him on the bed of his truck. She hopped right off of it, and he could tell she'd already had something to drink, because she hiccupped and he smelled alcohol on her breath. She said she wanted another beer, though, so he got her one out of the cooler in the backseat. He watched her start to chug it, and that look on her face made it so obvious that she wasn't used to chugging beer, so he stopped her halfway through and took the beer from her. "The rest is for me," he told her.
She smiled and leaned against his chest.
Parking lot parties were always a good time, but this one was particularly lit, probably just due to how good the game had been. Music blasted out of Miller's car, and a lot of people started dancing. It was so much better than homecoming, where the DJ could only play the clean versions of songs. They played some real nasty shit, and it seemed to be making Clarke horny. At one point, she climbed up into his truck, giving everyone a little peep show of the spandex beneath her cheerleading skirt, and motioned for him to crawl up there with her. People were definitely already noticing how much they were spending time together tonight, so he just went for it. He got up in the truck with her and kissed her, the alcohol on his breath mingling with the alcohol on hers, but he quit when he sensed cell phones coming out to snap pictures and take videos. "Stop," he told everyone. He didn't want any of this partying shit posted on Twitter or Instagram, not when he had colleges scouting him.
The party started to get a little wilder after that. Bree ended up in the backseat of someone's car, and everybody knew she was getting fucked. Zeke went home and swiped some of his parents' booze, so the drinks were still flowing, and the music had gotten so loud that some of the neighbors were starting to scream at them to keep it down. Normally, the cops gave parking lot parties a wide berth, but when people started hearing sirens in the distance, they all cleared out pretty quickly.
"What's going on?" Clarke asked, stumbling over her own feet as he helped her to his truck.
"Party's over," he said, helping her into the passenger's seat. Just one too many drinks for Clarke Griffin tonight. No way was she gonna be able to drive home.
Normally when he took girls home after football games, he took them to his place, but Clarke was three sheets to the wind—probably hadn't done a whole lot of drinking before. So he drove to her house, or at least onto the street where he was pretty sure she lived. She mostly just fiddled around with the radio on the way, but when she saw her house, she pointed and said, "There."
There? he thought, his eyes bulging at the size of her house. Wasn't it just her and her mom and her dad? What did they need a house that big for? That place was one of the biggest houses in Arkadia. He remembered seeing people building it his freshman year of high school. He and Miller had snuck in there when it still wasn't finished and smoked a couple joints during their short-lived pot phase.
Basic movement was a struggle for Clarke right now, so he had to help her out of the car and walk with her to the front door. "Oh, Bellamy," she groaned. "I don't feel so well."
"Yeah, that's why I took you home." She didn't know it now, but she was gonna feel even worse in the morning.
"Am I drunk?" she asked him.
"Yeah, you're pretty wasted."
She leaned her head against his shoulder and mumbled, "I don't think I've ever been drunk before." All her words were kind of blending into each other. If her parents were still awake, there wasn't gonna be a way to disguise what she'd been doing.
It took a minute to actually get into the house, because Clarke couldn't find her keys. Once she did, she couldn't get it in the lock. He did it for her, then helped her through the door, but he wasn't ready for what was inside.
That house . . . was amazing. Their living room was bigger than his whole home. It was one of those two-story living rooms with a big chandelier hanging from the ceiling and huge windows that looked out onto . . . was that a pool? That was a fucking swimming pool, wasn't it? And they had a grand piano and a huge big-screen TV, and one of those long wrap-around couches with perfectly arranged pillows on it. Damn. And they had a pretty nice kitchen, too. Double-fridge, double-oven, an actual full dining room table, which he and his mom didn't even own. His family tended to eat around the TV. Marble countertops, wood floors . . . everything here looked like something straight out of an interior design magazine.
"Where's your room?" he asked, feeling like he could wander around that house for half an hour and still not find it.
"Up the stairs," she replied.
They had to walk across the living room to get to the staircase, but so far, no sign of her parents, so that was good. "There you go, just one foot in front of the other," he said as she struggled up the steps.
At the top of the staircase, after they'd already headed to the right, she veered back to the left and said, "Wait, I have to tell my parents I'm home. Mom, I'm home!"
There were some giggles coming from behind some big double doors that probably led to her parents' bedroom, followed by her mom saying, "Okay, honey!" in response.
"Ew, I think they're doing it," she said, wrinkling her nose.
"Nothing wrong with that." Hell, if her parents were fucking, then it was her lucky day. They were gonna keep each other occupied tonight, and that meant she'd get away with her night of teenaged debauchery.
"Here we go," she said as he helped her to her bedroom. "This is my stop." She pushed open the door, once again revealing a room that was nicer than anything he ever could have hoped for. It was kind of girly, very pink with everything exactly in its right place. It was nice for her, though. Plus, she had this cool bay window where she probably sat and looked outside sometimes.
"Let's get you in bed," he said, walking into the room with her. Well, she wasn't exactly walking anymore. He was kind of dragging her with him, but she was pretty lightweight, so it wasn't tiring.
"I like it when you get me in bed," she said, laughing at her own joke.
"Funny."
She flopped down, face first, but he turned her around so that she was on her back. He sat down with her, smoothed her hair back from her face, and asked, "Did you have fun tonight?" even though the answer was obvious.
"Yeah. Lots," she said, her eyes barely open now.
"You know, if you weren't so drunk right now, I'd definitely wanna fuck you."
Hearing that word seemed to snap her back to her senses. "We can still fuck," she said, starting to lift her shirt up.
He grabbed her wrists and stopped her. "No." It was tempting, but he wasn't gonna screw Clarke when she was like this. Even though they'd done it before, it was just kind of a murky area whenever a girl was drunk, and he didn't wanna cross any lines he shouldn't. "You need to sleep," he told her. "Sleep it off, Clarke."
She pouted. "Am I gonna be sick in the morning?"
"Probably." He spotted a Disney princess trash can underneath her nightstand and pulled it close to her bed. "Here, a puke bucket, just in case."
"Okay," she said, turning over onto her side. She looked like she could fall asleep at any minute, but he wanted to cover her up, so he grabbed a blanket from her bay window and draped it over her. "Mmm," she moaned. "Thanks for taking care of me."
He didn't usually go out of his way like this for most girls, but . . . Clarke was young, and he kind of had this little attachment to her he couldn't quite shake, so he said, "No problem," and waited until she'd fallen asleep before he decided to leave.
...
Bellamy drove around the parking lot, which was full of cars right now since school was in session, and he wondered if they still had parties there. Octavia hadn't mentioned any, but Octavia wouldn't have gone even if she'd been a cheerleader. She didn't want to be anywhere around that school. She'd always just been Bellamy Blake's sister, she said. Even though she got better grades than him and was a decent athlete herself, she always felt like she'd been living in his shadow as a student there. He felt bad about that, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
The truth was, he wouldn't change much about high school. It'd been a good four years for him. Especially that last one. And it kind of sucked that it couldn't just be like that again.
...
Determined not to spend her whole Saturday just sitting around feeling sorry for herself, Clarke got up, got dressed, did some reading for her bio class, then went out to look for a job. It was time. She'd been living in the beach house for a while, and the rent stipulation, while new, was something that she understood and even agreed with. She didn't need to be a freeloader off her parents anymore. Time to be an adult. For real this time.
Since she knew the manager at Eligius, she figured that was a good place to start. Charmaine Diyoza was a boss ass bitch. She'd bought that place a couple years ago and completely renovated the inside of it, and it had since become the place to hang out in their small town. She was there that afternoon, of course, because the Maryland college football game was on ESPN, so a lot of people had shown up to watch it there. "Hey, Clarke," she said as she wiped down the bar. "What can I do for you?"
Clarke slid onto an empty bar stool and said, "Possibly a lot."
"Oh, great. This sounds involved." Diyoza grabbed two empty shot glasses and offered, "Should I pour tequila?"
"No." It was true, though, that sometimes she liked to come in here and drink and vent to this woman when she was having relationship woes. That was actually what she'd been attempting to do five weeks ago when Finn had shown up and . . . well, things had just escalated, hadn't they?
"No, tequila?" Diyoza pouted. "No fun."
"Sorry," she apologized, but she wasn't about to explain why she was turning down alcohol right now. "I was just wondering if I could maybe get a job."
The older woman's eyebrows shot upward in surprise. "Here?"
"Yeah."
Diyoza processed that request for a moment, then chuckled. "No offense, Clarke, but have you ever worked a day in your life?"
She knew better than to be insulted by that question. Diyoza was just very blue collar and had been working since she was fifteen. "Yeah, I used to work at the library, the one on campus," she said. "But that didn't pay very well and-"
"And you think this will?"
Clarke shrugged. "It's better than nothing. My parents want me to pay rent for the beach house. So that I can be more independent. Which is fine. But I paid last month's rent with karaoke tips. I really need a steady paycheck." She shifted around a bit, then mumbled, "Besides, I think I'll have some . . . expenses coming up in the next few months, and I need to be able to afford it." She'd done a little research last night after she'd gotten home. Baby's really broke the bank, it seemed.
Diyoza gave it only a few seconds' thought, then slid the bar rag across the counter to Clarke. "You wanna start now?"
Clarke smiled, relieved that it'd been so easy. "Thank you." She took the rag, got up, and walked around the counter to start wiping it down. She'd just figure out this job as she went. It couldn't be too hard. As a frequent patron, she pretty much knew the menu by heart, and if she didn't know how to make a drink, she'd just ask someone who had worked there longer.
Even though the football game was going badly for Maryland—total blowout—the people who had shown up were rowdy. They kept yelling at the refs, celebrating whenever Maryland managed a first down, and all in all just had a great time with their booze. Clarke passed out a lot of drinks, along with typical bar food like pizza and chips and burgers. There was only one guy back in the kitchen who had to make everything, and she felt sorry for him. Things didn't start to quiet down until once the game was over, and even then, some people just stuck around and kept living it up. Clarke couldn't say she blamed them. If she hadn't been pregnant, she might have had a drink, too.
When the next football game came on—Notre Dame versus Rutgers; who'd care?—the door swung open, and Clarke froze like a deer caught in the headlights behind the counter when none other than Finn Collins walked in with some of his friends.
Oh my god! she thought, panicked. Her first instinct was to hide, so she dropped down to the floor, happy that the bar could shield her from him.
Dammit, that was going to be the downside of this job, wasn't it? Finn wasn't here every night or anything, but he did show up once in a while. Entertainment options in Arkadia were limited. It was pretty much either this, the movie theater, a cockroach-infested club, or whatever sporting event happened to be going on at the college or at the high school on any given night.
Diyoza rounded the bar, giving her a curious look. "Clarke? What're you doing down there?"
"My ex-boyfriend just walked in," she said quietly.
Diyoza took one look towards the door, her eyes tracking Finn as he moved to a table. "Oh, yeah, that guy," she said. "He looks cute. Not as cute as the guy you were with the other night, though. Who was that?"
"That was Bellamy, my other ex-boyfriend," she explained, and yeah, even though Finn was good-looking, too, Bellamy was way hotter. "But I can't talk about him right now. Can I just take an early break?"
Diyoza shook her head, laughing at her, and said, "Sure, why not?"
"Thanks." In an effort to stay concealed, she crawled on her hands and knees towards the break room in the back. It was ridiculous and embarrassing, but hey, it was better than being around Finn right now. They were gonna have to talk eventually, obviously, but . . . not yet.
Flinging herself onto the old, green, ratty couch back there, she groaned dramatically. This was horrible. What if he was there for hours? She couldn't take that long of a break. Maybe she could go help out the guy in the kitchen? He definitely looked a little overworked, like he could use some assistance.
Thankfully, her brand new boss came back into the break room about five minutes later and told her to take off early, that she'd already done enough work that day. Clarke thanked her profusely and slipped out the back. She headed straight home, glad to see that it wasn't too late and that she had some time to veg out and relax for a while.
She crawled into bed early, before 8:00, because her feet were killing her from being on them for hours today. Of course, though, mental relaxation was not as easy as the physical kind. She could lie there like a slug if she wanted to, but that didn't mean she could shut her mind off.
She ended up on her phone, looking up nearby doctor's offices where she could have her first ultrasound done. It wasn't like she could just pop on by the Arkadia hospital and have it done there, not with her mom being a doctor. She wasn't ready to tell her yet, but word would get around if she had the ultrasound done in town. So she checked nearby Polis instead, found a small clinic where she could have it done, and decided that might be her best bet. That way she wouldn't have to drive into the city and wait forever at some huge hospital.
Most of the information she found said that she could have her first ultrasound at six weeks if she wanted to. Which would be next week. That was about the earliest they could detect a heartbeat. But she didn't see the need to do it quite so soon. Maybe during the seventh week would be best, just so the findings could be a little more . . . conclusive. She really didn't want to go, have them not be able to detect a heartbeat, and then have to wonder whether she was still pregnant or not. That would involve taking more home pregnancy tests afterward, and that just sounded . . . awful. Because if she had to take another one of those things, it just felt like a lose-lose situation. Either it was negative and that meant something had happened to the baby, or it was positive and she was a total failure as a mother for not feeling happier about that.
She typed out a quick reminder in her phone for tomorrow. Schedule ultrasound. Then she shut the whole damn thing off, set it on her nightstand, and turned off the lamp next to the bed. Rolling over onto her side, pulling the covers all the way up over her shoulders, she hoped that the low background noise of the TV would be enough to calm her busy brain and lull her to sleep. And once she was sleeping, she hoped she'd dream about Bellamy. That would be nice.
