Chapter 35
With classes set to start back up in two weeks, Clarke decided to make the most of her time off. She wanted to relax and hang out with her friends and with Bellamy, but she also wanted to be productive. There were things that needed to get done, like registering for baby shower gifts. Her apps had suggested doing that a couple weeks ago, so she felt like she was already behind schedule.
A couple days after New Year's, when her friends finally seemed to have recovered from their long-lasting hangovers, she went to lunch with Harper and Raven and told them about her plans to register at Target. In Arkadia, there were no specialty stores like Buy Buy Baby, so her options were limited. Raven apparently saw it as a tactical maneuver when she said, "You're gonna go to the place where Finn works to register for baby gifts? That's so savage."
"Well, it's either Target or Walmart. And Target's way nicer," Clarke pointed out. "Plus, they give you a free gift bag with all these, like, coupons and samples and stuff." It just seemed like the obvious choice.
"And . . . Finn works there," Raven said. "So you can rub it in his face how DILF-y Bellamy's being."
"Wasn't even a consideration," she claimed, even though she kind of relished the thought of doing just that.
"Uh-huh," Raven said skeptically.
"Sure," Harper added.
Clarke wasn't about to own up to something so petty, so she quickly pushed the conversation along. "Listen, I'm less concerned about where I'm registering and more concerned about if you guys are actually gonna get me anything on my wish-list."
"Of course we will," Raven assured her.
"Yeah, we're good aunts," Harper said. "We do get to be aunts, right? Aunt Harper, Aunt Raven?"
"Obviously." Being an only child meant that her friends pretty much had to be aunts, whether they wanted to or not. Luckily, they both wanted to.
"Oh, god," Raven said, a look of horror sweeping her face. "Does that mean Murphy's an uncle?"
Harper burst out laughing, and a couple seconds later, Clarke joined in. Uncle Murphy? Well, she supposed every family needed at least one weird relative.
...
"This is gonna be fun," Bellamy predicted as he and Clarke roamed back to the expansive baby section at Target. He had the scanner in his hand and was ready to register. Hopefully their friends and family would come through and get them a lot of this shit, because there was so much they needed and couldn't afford on their own.
"Bellamy Blake, are you actually excited about shopping?" Clarke said.
"Hey, I don't mind it as long as we're shopping for baby stuff or sexy clothes for you," he said.
"Are you sure you don't wanna just use your phone?" she asked, motioning towards the scanner. "Like a normal person."
"No, this is way more fun. I feel like a badass." He aimed the scanner like a gun and made exaggerated sound effects as he pretended to shoot. "Pew-pew-pew!" When it beeped, he said, "Oh, shit," and stopped playing. "Think I scanned something we don't even need." He shrugged, figuring it didn't matter to have something extra on their list. "Where do you wanna start?"
"Strollers," she said, leading the way.
"Those things aren't strollers," he said, in awe of their massive size. "They're cars."
"I know, right? That's why I want a smaller one, something easier to maneuver."
He caught sight of the price tag on one of the biggest ones and shook his head in dismay. How was anyone supposed to be able to afford all of this? It was ridiculous. "I don't even know if my mom had a stroller for me," he said. "I think she just carried me everywhere." Had baby registries even been a thing back then? If so, his mom probably hadn't made one. She'd been in high school, probably more ashamed to be having a kid so early than anything else. It couldn't have been easy on her. But she'd made it work.
Some of the stuff they scanned was stuff that Bellamy had anticipated: diapers, wipes, bottles, things like that. But Clarke had a list pulled up on her phone, and on it were things Bellamy hadn't even thought about. Like a fingernail clipper. Did babies' fingernails really grow so long that they needed clipping? And a mobile. Hell, he'd figured he'd just jingle his car keys overhead and the baby would get a kick out of that. And some of the stuff they needed was just gonna break the bank. Like a car seat. If he wanted the highest-rated, safest one, which he did, then that was a couple hundred bucks. Their friends didn't have that kind of money to just throw around. They were all still either in college or only a couple years removed from it. They couldn't afford this stuff, unless they went in on a gift together.
Clarke seemed less intimidated by the price of things than he did, maybe because she'd grown up with money, or maybe because she knew her mom and dad could both afford to get them anything their friends didn't. She perused the store methodically and told him exactly when to stop and scan. When they got to the baby bathtubs, he'd lost some of the scanning enthusiasm that he'd had at the beginning.
"Wait, babies need their own bathtubs?" he said.
"Yes. How else are they supposed to get clean?"
"I thought we just set 'em in the sink." He was pretty sure that was what his mom had done with him, and he'd turned out alright.
"Well, we set the bathtub in the sink, and then we just . . ." She trailed off, and her whole face lit up when she spotted a bathtub in the shape of what looked like a giant pink tulip. "Oh my god, look at this one. Isn't this cute?"
"It's a big flower," he said.
"Imagine what she's gonna look like sitting in this, splashing all around and being adorable." Clarke held her hand to her chest, smiling wistfully. "Scan it, Bellamy."
He aimed the scanner at the bar code and said, "Pow." And just like that, it was on the list.
Next came the potty chair, which got him to thinking about diapers, which got him to worrying because he didn't even know how to change a diaper. He was going to have to ask his mom. Sure, it'd been years since she'd changed one, but it wasn't like she'd forget how.
"Oh, the potty seat," he said. "Can't wait to clean that. Over and over again."
"Should we get one shaped like an animal?" Clarke asked.
"No, she needs a throne." He tapped the seat that had caught his eye right from the start. It was pink, of course, like most things geared towards little girls were, and had three of the Disney princesses on the back. "A princess throne," he said.
"I grew up to be a princess, and I didn't poop on a throne," she pointed out.
"Yeah, but . . ." He wanted his little girl to be treated like a princess. Not the spoiled kind, of course, but . . . dammit, he wanted that poop throne.
"Go ahead and scan it," she said.
He smirked and did just that.
All in all, despite Clarke having her list pulled up on her phone, registering took a couple hours, mostly because they were both brand new at this and didn't know what some of the products even were. He had to resist the urge to grab a couple toys and outfits on the way out, because although that was the fun stuff to shop for, they probably had those things covered already.
"You wanna go anywhere else?" he asked her as they headed back up towards the front of the store.
"No, I think we're good," she said. "And my back hurts." She stopped abruptly as they approached the checkout counters, turned to him, and said, "Kiss me."
"Why? Tryin' to make Finn jealous?" he guessed.
"No." She glanced back over her shoulder, then mumbled, "Maybe. I just wanna show him how happy I am. How happy we are."
Well, he had to admit, he wasn't opposed to that. Despite not knowing Finn very well, Bellamy really didn't like the guy. And he didn't have any respect for him. So he had no issue lowering his mouth onto Clarke's and giving her a big, obnoxious, PDA-filled kiss right there. He felt the eyes of a couple people passing by stop to look at them, and he didn't care.
As their lips parted, Clarke touched her stomach and said, "Ooh, the baby wants to interrupt that."
"Does she?"
"Yeah." She grabbed his hand and put it on top of her belly, right where the kicking was happening. It wasn't as obvious of a sensation for him as it probably was for her, but he still felt some movement. And it was awesome.
...
Clarke cringed, unable to even look down at her stomach as Dr. Jackson examined her stretch marks. Yes, stretch marks. She'd started noticing them a couple weeks ago, but lately, they'd really started to bother her. The texture was just unpleasant, and her skin felt itchy.
"So everything looks normal?" she asked.
"Yes." Dr. Jackson motioned for her to put her shirt down and took a seat on his roll-able stool. "Don't worry, Clarke, stretch marks are very common."
"But they're also very ugly," she lamented. Right now, hers were more white and flesh-colored, but she'd made the mistake of getting online and seeing what other women's stretch marks looked like. Some were huge and dark. "Will they go away?" she asked, really hoping for a definitive answer.
"They'll start to fade after you've given birth," the doctor assured her.
That wasn't definitive, though. She wanted more. "Completely?"
"Possibly."
She felt her eyes widen as she tried not to freak out. But . . . possibly? Just possibly?
"Just keep using lotion to help with the itching," Dr. Jackson advised. "But that's normal, too."
She glanced quickly at Bellamy, who had very wisely never mentioned one thing about her stretch marks, but she wondered what he thought of them. Were they as repulsive as they felt to her? "I thought I was supposed to be having the model pregnancy," she grumbled.
"You are," Dr. Jackson said.
"This doesn't feel very model-esque."
"Every woman's body changes, Clarke," he said. "It's all just symptoms of a healthy, growing baby."
Well, when he put it like that . . . "I guess," she mumbled. Of course a healthy baby was the most important thing, way more important to her than any physical feature on her body. But still, it would've been nice to carry a baby without stretching out so much. "I feel like everything up here is good," she said, motioning to her face. "I'm not breaking out, my hair feels thicker, and Bellamy says I've got the glow."
"You do," Bellamy said with a smile. "I'd tell you if you looked crappy."
"No, you wouldn't." He knew better than to say something that would set her off. "But then you work your way lower," she went on, looking down at her breasts and stomach, "and it's just a freak show. I mean, my nipples are starting to look like pancakes. And I have random body hairs popping up in random places. And I swear to God, my feet are already so swollen, I don't know how I'm gonna walk by the end of this."
"Oh, it's not uncommon to go up a half a shoe size or more during pregnancy," Dr. Jackson informed her. "Your ligaments are lax, so your feet do spread."
"Spread?" she echoed in horror. In her mind, she just pictured huge, ugly clown shoes, and she started to panic as she envisioned herself wearing them. "Like permanently?"
"Yes."
What the hell? she thought, outraged. As if it wasn't enough that her waistline would probably never go back to being the same size, now her feet were gonna grow, too? "So all my cute size seven and a half shoes aren't gonna fit anymore," she said tearfully, "and I'm gonna have to move up to the eights?"
The doctor nodded and said, "Probably."
Eights? She'd never worn a size eight shoe in her life. In fact, she sort of loved having small, cute feet. This wasn't even fair. What had the female gender ever done to deserve such punishment?
As she started to cry, unable to control her emotion, Bellamy stood up from his chair and came to her side. "Oh, baby, don't worry," he said, reaching out to rub her back. "We can stop at the shoe store on the way home."
"Don't talk to me!" she snapped, swatting his hand away. When she got like this, she just had to let it all out. Even if she looked ridiculous and ended up crying all her makeup off, she just had to cry. And then later she'd feel better.
...
Bellamy always looked forward to check-ups with the doctor, and even though today's checkup hadn't involved an ultrasound, he'd still enjoyed it. He liked getting that confirmation that everything was happening the way it was supposed to happen and that the baby was growing the way it was supposed to grow. Clarke's weight gain was right in the average range, and none of her symptoms were abnormal. Of course, that was a lot more frustrating for her than it was for him.
"You wanna look at your new shoes again?" he asked, carrying half a dozen boxes inside. He set them down on the couch, making sure to conceal the Crocs. She'd had another mini-breakdown in the shoe store when he'd insisted that she try them on, but then once she'd gotten them on her feet and found out how comfortable they were, she'd agreed to get them.
"No. I'd rather go upstairs, put some lotion on my gross, disgusting stretch marks, pluck this random hair out of my neck, and then take off this bra so my huge nipples can breathe," she said, dropping her purse on the floor.
"Want me to bring some food up for you?" he offered.
"Yeah, that, too. Thanks, Bellamy." She trudged on up the stairs, and once she was at the top, he saw her bra come flying back down to land on the bottom step.
Bellamy sighed and shook his head, willing to give her some space tonight if that was what she wanted. When Clarke got in moods like this and felt down about her body, he sometimes wasn't sure whether to just leave her alone or to do something or say something to remind her how beautiful he thought she was. Yeah, he'd noticed the stretch marks, but he didn't think there was anything wrong with them.
Having just kicked his shoes off and ridded himself of his jacket, Bellamy was ready to start making some dinner for his girlfriend—he'd found that, no matter how crazy her taste buds got, macaroni and cheese was still something she never turned down—when his phone rang. He grabbed it out of his pocket and checked the name on the screen, surprised to see that her dad was calling him. "Hey, Jake," he answered.
"Hey, Bellamy," Jake returned. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"No, not at all." Balancing his phone between his shoulder and his ear while he set about gathering the supplies for macaroni, Bellamy said, "We actually just got back from the doctor."
"The doctor?" Jake echoed. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything's fine. Just a check-up." Bellamy waited until he was filling up a pot with water to be boiled, making sure Clarke wouldn't be able to hear him as he told Jake, "She's not too happy about the way her body's changing, but . . . you know."
Jake paused for a moment, then said, "Right." But that was all he said. Usually the guy was more . . . conversational. And if he'd called, surely there was a reason.
"So what's up?" Bellamy asked him, shutting off the water when the pot was full enough. "Did you wanna talk to her?"
"No, I . . . I thought I'd call you instead." Jake let out a heavy, audible exhale, then mumbled, "I couldn't bring myself to tell her."
Bellamy stopped what he was doing and frowned. "Tell her what?"
Again, there was a long pause from Jake, an even more drawn-out one this time. When he finally did speak again, his voice was even quieter, and a lot sadder. "Alyssa had a miscarriage."
Bellamy stood still as his mind grappled with that word. Miscarriage. No. That couldn't be right. "Are you sure?" he asked, recalling everything he'd read and heard from the doctor about how some bleeding was normal and there was nothing wrong.
"Yes," Jake said solemnly.
No, no, no, his mind kept protesting. That wasn't supposed to happen. "'cause Clarke had a scare a couple months ago," he said, clinging to some small shred of hope, "but it was nothing, and now she's fine."
"It wasn't a scare," Jake said. His voice was steady and calm, but he still sounded emotional about it regardless. "We lost the baby."
Shit, Bellamy thought. Jake sounded . . . certain. The kind of certain a man could be when he'd gone to the doctor and gotten that dreaded confirmation that the baby was . . . gone. Swallowing hard, Bellamy wasn't even sure what to say in response, so he said the only thing he could. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you," Jake said. "You guys can tell Abby, too. Tell her she doesn't need to call me."
Bellamy just nodded, even though Jake wasn't there to see him nod. "Is there anything we can do?" he asked.
"No. I just want Clarke to focus on her own pregnancy," Jake said. "Alyssa and I . . . we'll be fine. We have each other. We'll get through this."
He's trying to hold it together, Bellamy thought, but he wouldn't be surprised if Jake got off the phone with him and then started crying. He couldn't imagine losing a kid, how hard that would be. And Jake and Alyssa had been so excited to have one. "I'm really sorry, Jake," he said again, wishing there was something more he could say.
"Me, too," Jake said sadly. "Goodbye, Bellamy." He ended the call before Bellamy could say anything more, which was probably fine because . . . what else was he gonna say? 'I'm sorry' again?
To be quite honest, Bellamy wasn't sure if tonight was the best night to tell Clarke about any of this. She'd definitely been down in the dumps today, and this wasn't exactly uplifting news. But he also knew he couldn't not tell her, so he forgot about making dinner for the time being and headed upstairs. He heard music, not the guitar that she usually played, but the piano that tended to collect a lot of dust. She must have sat down on that piano bench around the same time he'd gotten on the phone. She still had on the same clothes that she'd worn to the doctor's today, but her shoes were off. He stood back for a minute and watched as her fingers moved gracefully over the keys. She didn't have any music in front of her, and he didn't recognize the song she was playing, but it sounded nice.
"That's pretty," he said, making his way towards her. He squeezed onto the bench with her, sitting behind her, his larger frame encompassing hers.
"It's out of tune," she said, cringing when she hit the wrong note. "I don't play this much. Maybe I should start. It's kind of relaxing. Makes me forget about how horrible I look."
"Don't say that," he told her, rubbing her arms and shoulders. "You look beautiful."
She didn't say anything to indicate that she believed him, and it pained him to know that she had a low opinion of her appearance right now. Her looks weren't even the best thing about her. Not by a long shot.
"You wanna learn to play something?" she asked him.
He would have said yes had it not been for that troubling phone call he'd just received. "Not right now," he said.
"Not right now?" She seemed to take that as something more sexual than it was as she stopped playing altogether and shifted around on the piano benching, managing to get herself turned around so that she was facing him, her legs draped over his as she pretty much hoisted herself up onto his lap. "I'm sorry I yelled at you in the doctor's office today," she said, scrunching his shirt up in her fists. "I got overly-emotional. Imagine that."
He laughed a little. Just a little, because he didn't really feel like laughing.
"You're not mad at me, are you?" she asked.
"No. No, I'm not mad." He brushed her hair back from her face, keeping his hand close to her face so he could massage her cheek with his thumb.
"Well, you look upset," she noted.
He let out a heavy sigh, wishing he didn't have to tell her this. But it was what Jake had told him to do, so he was gonna do it. "I gotta tell you something," he said.
Her brow furrowed with immediate concern, and she gripped at his shirt more tightly. "What's wrong?"
He wasn't gonna draw it out, wasn't gonna make her worry about it any longer than was necessary. There was no easy way to say it, so he just went ahead and said it as succinctly as possible. "Your dad just called," he told her. "They had a miscarriage."
Her hold on his shirt loosened gradually, but the rest of her didn't move, didn't even flinch. She stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, eyes that almost at once started to fill with tears.
He saw her swallow hard, and he heard her breathing start to become . . . shaky. He opened his mouth to try to say something comforting, but no words came out. She moved faster than he'd seen her move in weeks as she practically leapt off his lap and raced into the bathroom, slamming the door just as she started to cry. The sink started to run after that, probably her attempt to block out the sounds of just how much she was crying.
...
Clarke felt . . . a little bit numb. Once she'd stopped crying, she just sat down on the bathroom floor, one arm on the edge of the tub, letting it all sink in. Her dad and his girlfriend had been expecting a little baby, and now they just . . . weren't. Just like that, it was gone. A whole life full of potential and promise snuffed out in an instant.
It really just wasn't fair.
...
The second she heard the dogs across the street start to bark, Clarke knew her father was home. She jumped out of her bed, ran to the window, and pulled back the curtains just in time to see his Lexus rolling into the driveway.
Wasting no time, she bolted downstairs, eager to intercept him before her mom had the chance. Luckily, her mom had fallen asleep on the couch about an hour ago and wasn't even stirring, so Clarke didn't even bother to be quiet as she raced outside. "Dad!" she exclaimed.
"Clarke, put your coat on," he said, lugging his briefcase in one hand, pulling his suitcase behind him with the other. "It's cold out here."
"I missed you," she said, jumping right in front of him to block his progress. "I'm so glad you're home. Mom's been unbearable. You have to talk to her."
He sounded a bit impatient when he asked, "About what?"
"About Bellamy." She'd pretty much been grounded the entire weekend, which was both juvenile and excruciating. Plus, her mom had taken her phone, too, so she couldn't even call him. "I know you wouldn't forbid me from seeing him, right?" she said, desperately seeking an ally in this unfair war her mom was waging on her boyfriend. "She was just saying that?"
Unfortunately, her father's lips just drew tightly together, and he motioned for the door and said, "Let's go inside."
"No, Daddy, please . . ." She got a sense of her own desperation when she called him Daddy instead of just Dad. That was what she used to call him when she'd been a little girl, but nowadays, she only used that name for him when she really wanted something. "Please change her mind," she begged. "Bellamy's a good guy. I wouldn't be dating him if he wasn't."
"He's a senior, Clarke," her father said. "He's graduating this year."
"I know. That's why I wanna spend time with him while I still can." Couldn't they just compromise just a little bit? Even if her curfew was set an hour earlier and Bellamy had to come over for dinner once a week or something . . . that'd be better than this. "Look, I'm on the pill," she said. "I'm not gonna get pregnant. And I'm not gonna go out and get drunk anymore. I just wanna go see a movie with him or go have dinner. Is that really too much to ask?"
Apparently it was, because instead of being understanding, her father sounded very stern when he responded with, "Clarke, your mother and I talked about this . . ."
"But I know you don't hate him as much as she does. She has, like, this vendetta against him, Dad. It's not fair!"
Her dad . . . he just wasn't budging. No matter what she tried, he remained steadfast, his expression not even changing. "When you're a parent someday," he said evenly, "you'll understand where we're coming from."
That was what all parents said. But did they really think that, or were they just trying to justify their own crappy decisions? "No!" she yelled stubbornly. "No, I won't understand!"
"Please try to be reasonable about this."
"Reasonable?" she huffed. "When you guys have it out for my boyfriend?" No, she wasn't going to be 'reasonable' about that. She was going to fight it, because her relationship with Bellamy . . . it'd come to mean so much to her in such a short period of time. And they didn't have time to waste. "Please, Dad, change your mind," she whimpered, letting her eyes well up with tears, hoping he might give in if he saw that she was close to crying.
He seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, but when he simply said, "No," she realized he hadn't been thinking about it at all. Either he really did agree with her mother about all of this, or he was content to just sit back and let her take the parenting wheel. Either way, she was screwed. She wouldn't be getting any help from him.
"I hate you," she ground out, turning and storming back into the house.
...
Clarke didn't even move when Bellamy knocked lightly on the bathroom door, and he didn't wait for an answer to open it and come inside. "You okay?" he asked.
"No." She sniffed back tears, trying not to start crying again.
"Can I sit with you?" he asked, slowly approaching the tub.
She wasn't the best company right now, but sitting with him was probably better for her emotional state than sitting by herself was. "Sure," she said.
He took a seat next to her, groaning as he lowered himself to the floor. The tile wasn't exactly comfortable, but . . . she didn't feel like getting up and moving into the bedroom right now.
"Remember how scared I was when I thought I was having a miscarriage?" she said, having flashbacks of that blood in her underwear. Everyone once in a while, she'd still have a nightmare about it.
"Yeah," he said. "I was scared, too."
She felt so lucky that it hadn't been the real deal. But poor Alyssa had probably seen a similar sight, and it hadn't been a false alarm. "I can't imagine it being real," she said sadly. "I still worry about it sometimes."
Bellamy leaned over, putting one arm on the edge of the tub to wrap around her. "You're in the second trimester. The chances of anything happening now . . ."
"I know." She'd done her research about miscarriages. She knew the statistics and knew that she was past the danger zone for having one. "But still . . . It just hits home. I feel really bad for her. For both of them."
Nodding somberly, he said, "Me, too."
Thinking about it all now, she felt like she'd been such a bad daughter in this whole situation. And that made her feel horribly guilty. "I wish I hadn't been such a bitch when I found out," she said regretfully. "They were so happy, so excited, and I just . . . I made it all about me. I was so mean to them."
"It just caught you off-guard," Bellamy said, obviously trying to make her feel better. "That's okay."
"No, it's not. I should've just been happy for them right from the start. But I wasn't. I'm a horrible daughter."
"Would you stop that?"
"No, I am."
"You're not," he insisted. "You came around on the whole thing. And part of your New Year's resolution was to be a good big sister, remember?"
"Yeah, well, can't do that anymore." A few tears spilled over, and she quickly wiped them away. "Look, here I am still making it about myself when it's really all about them. God, I can't imagine how horrible Alyssa must be feeling right now. I mean, I can imagine, but . . . I don't want to. And my dad . . ." Her lower lip quivered, and she just wished she could reach through the phone and hug him. "He's a good dad. I know he moved away after the divorce, and we don't see each other as much anymore, but . . . I love him a lot."
"So call him," Bellamy suggested. "Tell him that."
"Tonight?" She wasn't sure that was such a good idea. "Or should I wait until tomorrow and give him and Alyssa . . . you know, time to grieve."
"I don't know."
She didn't want to seem uncaring, but there must have been a reason why her dad had called Bellamy and not her. He was probably still plenty emotional about it himself, and if they got on the phone with each other right now, it might just be too much for him. And for her. "I'll wait," she decided. "I don't wanna be a blubbering mess when I talk to him." She'd call him to tomorrow to check in, and to offer her . . . condolences? What were you even supposed to say to someone who was going through this? Sorry just didn't cut it.
"Come here," Bellamy said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him as he scooted closer to her. She lay her head down on his shoulder, glad to have him there. He'd been the best support system she could have asked for all day long, and considering what an emotional mess she'd been, it couldn't have been easy on him.
Her daughter moved inside her belly, to the point where Clarke thought she could even see her stomach move. And it was surreal, just like it always was. She put her hand on her bump, no longer as aggravated by the changes her body was undergoing as she had been earlier today. As awful as it was, this miscarriage her father and Alyssa were dealing with really put things in perspective, and suddenly, she didn't mind her stretch marks so much anymore.
