Chapter 53
Clarke had gotten used to being the last one out of the classroom. It just took her so much longer to get her things gathered up than anyone else. Simply leaning forward and bending down to zip her backpack was quite the chore.
As she trudged to the front of the classroom, struggling to carry a bag on her back and her belly on the front, professor Jaha smiled at her sympathetically and said, "How are you holding up at the end of the year, Clarke?"
"I'm alright," she said, downplaying her discomfort since she knew it wasn't something the average person wanted to hear about. "Um, did my academic advisor talk to you about me taking finals early?"
Jaha nodded. "Yes. We'll set it up through the testing office. I won't be there, but a proctor will."
"Okay." Clarke really hoped they could get it all set up soon, because she was ready to get them done and out of the way. "It's just 'cause . . . well, obviously, I'm pretty far along now, and I really don't wanna give birth while I'm multiple choicing."
Jaha laughed. "Some are true/false."
"Good to know." True/false were the worst. Some people thought they were easy because you had a fifty/fifty chance of getting them right, but that also meant you had a fifty/fifty chance of getting them wrong. "Thank you, sir," she said, appreciative of the fact that all her professors had been so accommodating.
"Hang in there," he told her, waving as she slowly walked out of the room.
"I will," she said. "Bye."
When she got outside, Clarke couldn't even enjoy the nice weather, because she knew she had to walk a couple blocks to get back to the parking lot. And a couple blocks, with all the weight she was carrying, felt like a marathon. Bellamy had taken a lot of stuff out of her backpack these past couple weeks, leaving her with only the bare essentials to get through her classes; but even if that bag hadn't had anything in it, she still would have gotten winded walking around that campus. And it wasn't even a big campus. Not compared to . . . well, UCF, probably.
She'd only started down the steps—which she had to take very slowly since she couldn't really see where she was stepping very well—when a loud, "Hey! You!" caught her attention. A thin girl with stringy blonde hair ran up to her and shoved a neon green flyer underneath her nose. "You should join us at our rally tomorrow night," she said. "We wanna make sure more beautiful babies like yours are born into the world. You'd be a great spokesperson."
Clarke noticed the words Pro-life on the flyer and quickly thought of a way to let the girl down easy. "Oh, well, you see, I can barely stand for ten minutes without being in pain, so I don't think I'm up for a rally," she said, handing the flyer back. "Sorry."
"Well, if you're in the area . . ." the girl urged her.
"Sorry," she said again, stepping around the girl. She spotted Miller a few feet away, smirking at her, apparently having seen the whole encounter.
"College activism," he said. "Gotta love it."
"Hey, Miller." She didn't actually love college activism at all. Some of it was important, but there were so many people who wanted to protest the simplest of things. It was the Age of Outrage, it seemed, as a couple of months ago, someone had actually approached her about coming to a rally protesting midterms.
"So are you gonna miss all this?" Miller asked as he walked with her. He put his hand underneath her backpack to lift it up and make it lighter on her.
"No, I think I'm ready to graduate," she said. College had been good to her, and she had no real complaints. Except that she'd let her parents convince her to major in biology instead of art or music.
"Me, too," Miller said. "Too bad it's never gonna happen."
"Oh, it will. You'll graduate," she assured him. "Cut yourself some slack. You were really busy those first couple years doing the whole student athlete thing."
"Yeah," he agreed, "and then I was busy doing the whole slacker thing."
"Well . . ." At least he could be honest about that. "It takes a lot of people longer than four years."
"Six and counting," he said. "I'm not surprised you did it in four, though. You and Raven and Monty . . . you guys are geniuses."
"No," she denied. "I'm . . . academically-inclined at best." Monty was super smart, and Raven had always been one of the smartest people she knew. She, on the other hand, was just good at school. There was a difference. And there were different types of intelligences, too. Miller was definitely street smart, just like Bellamy. And she and Harper were creative. But if anyone gave Raven a pen and paper and told her to draw, she'd have no idea where to start.
As Avery started to move, Clarke made a face, but she kept walking. Miller noticed it, though, because he asked her, "You okay?"
"Yeah. There's just a lot of movement in here."
Teasing, he said, "Are you gonna make it to graduation?"
"Let's hope so." First there were finals, then the commencement ceremony. Then the overwhelmingly daunting task of motherhood. Hopefully it all happened in that order, but she'd definitely be cutting it close.
Upon arriving home, since she felt prepared for all her upcoming exams, Clarke decided to not study and instead tried on her graduation robe. She'd dreamt last night that it didn't fit, but when she slipped it over her head, all her fears were put to rest. It was one of those one-size-fits-all things, and since it was black, it was actually kind of slimming. The stole was a bright blue and had the Arkadia State logo on one side and the graduation year on the other. She also got to wear a medal around her neck since she was graduating with honors, and of course, no graduation regalia was complete without that hideous square hat. Despite what it would do to her hair, she put that on, too, and took a look at her reflection, a reflection that looked very different than the last time she'd donned a cap and gown.
Bellamy came to stand in the doorway, and she felt him smiling at her. "Look at you," he said.
"Yeah. I look like a big black balloon," she said. "I wonder what's gonna get here first, the baby or the diploma."
"We'll see." He walked into the bedroom and came to stand behind her, grinning at her through the mirror.
"Which side's the tassel supposed to be on again?" she asked, blowing the hat's tassel out of her face.
"Uh, the right, I think," he said. "Until you graduate."
She moved it over to the correct side and complained, "These are the ugliest hats."
"You make it look good," he told her, his hands settling on her sides as he moved in closer behind her.
"So be honest," she said. "Are you dreading the thought of sitting through a graduation ceremony?"
He snorted. "Isn't everybody?"
"Probably." Nobody liked having to dress up and go sit somewhere for an hour or two, just to see one person walk across a stage in a matter of a minute.
"Nah, it's alright," he said. "I'll sit through it. You sat through mine."
Yeah, she had. And it'd been nice. But it hadn't been easy.
...
Finding a dress to wear to graduation had proven to be quite the challenge for Clarke. Most of her dresses were too fancy, more suitable for a ritzy charity function for the hospital or a school dance than a commencement. She'd gone shopping with the hopes of finding something casual but not too casual, but nothing had caught her eye. In the end, she'd reminded herself that this day wasn't at all about her. Nobody was going to be looking at her when the senior class was on their way out. So she ended up wearing a long, pink dress from the back of her closet, took a straightener to her hair, and splashed on her typical makeup. Nothing spectacular.
Since her parents had no interest in attending the ceremony, she went with Raven, who looked way cuter than she did, and who seemed much more chipper than she was. On the way there, she talked about how she was excited to see Zeke get his diploma, and how she couldn't wait to go to his graduation party afterward. Clarke just nodded and said, "Yeah," to all of that, but . . . she didn't feel that same excitement.
When they walked into the gym, Clarke was struck by how crowded it was. Their high school wasn't huge, and neither was the graduating class. Sixty or seventy people, tops. Her own class was even smaller than that. But it seemed that everyone in Arkadia had shown up for this day. The bleachers on both sides of the gym had been pulled out, and there were large metal risers at half-court, all of which were rapidly filling up. There were also dozens of folding chairs set out on the gym floor, but they seemed to be reserved for families. And in front of those chairs was a large stage, with chairs for all the graduates and a podium for the speakers. Behind the stage was a projector screen, showing images of all members of the senior class from when they were younger. Babies, toddlers, kids. An appropriately sappy song played in the background, enough to make anyone feel at least a little choked up.
"Pretty crowded," Clarke remarked.
"Yeah," Raven agreed, leading them through throngs of people.
"Are you gonna sit with Zeke's family?" Clarke asked her.
"No, I'll sit with you," Raven said. "Just in case you get emotional."
"I'm not gonna get emotional," Clarke decided. "This is a happy day. Bellamy's probably relieved to finally be graduating. And he's got college to look forward to, so . . . happy day." Despite how many times she said that or even thought it, she just couldn't really manage much of a smile.
As they climbed up the bleachers, Raven said, "Next year, it'll be my happy day."
"And then I'll really be left alone," Clarke muttered. She kind of understood what it felt like for poor Jasper seeing his idol graduate this year. It wasn't fun feeling like everyone was leaving.
"Oh, don't be too sure," Raven said, slinking past a few people so they could get to an empty spot in the bleachers. "With my financial situation, I'm probably just gonna end up going to Arkadia State. So I'll still be around."
They sat down, and Clarke didn't say it, because it would sound really selfish, but she hoped Raven would just go to Arkadia State. It wasn't the Ivy League, but hell, it wasn't a bad school. And if she stuck around, then Clarke wouldn't have to lose a boyfriend and a best friend all within such a short time span.
She looked around some more, trying to locate Aurora and Octavia. She finally spotted them down in the family section. Octavia was talking to a boy sitting next to her and fiddling with the sleeves of her dress, and Aurora was just looking up at the projector screen, a small smile on her face. There was an older woman sitting next to her, grey hair and glasses, and Clarke wondered if that was Bellamy's grandmother. And maybe the boy Octavia was talking to wasn't a crush or anything like that. Maybe it was a cousin.
Behind them sat a woman who looked very much like Bree. She looked young enough to be an older sister rather than a mother. The apple definitely didn't fall far from the tree with that one, though, because Bree's mom was dressed . . . kind of scantily. Not exactly appropriate for her daughter's graduation. Zeke's family, on the other hand, all cleaned up pretty well, and they were so massive that they took up several rows. Certainly not all the family members had gotten floor-level seats, so Clarke started scanning the bleachers on the other side of the gym for more familiar faces. She spotted Monty, sitting near the band, and waved at him. He'd probably tutored a good number of the people graduating today, but she knew he was mostly there for Bellamy. Beside him sat someone else who was there for Bellamy, but someone who looked a whole lot more sullen: Jasper.
I get it, Jasper, Clarke thought, smiling at him sadly. I totally get it.
"Is that Miller?" Raven asked, pointing up to the projector screen.
Clarke looked up at the picture of a little boy with one of his father's ties dangling around his neck and said, "Yeah, I think so." Some of these people had looked really different when they were young, but Miller's face hadn't changed a whole lot.
"Aww, he was so cute," Raven said as a few more pictures of him appeared. When it switched to her boyfriend, she recognized him right away and exclaimed, "Look, that's Zeke!"
Zeke's pictures were mostly school pictures over the years. He looked like a Gerber model baby in all of them. "He was cute, too," Clarke said.
"Still is." Raven grinned. "Oh, come on now, baby Bellamy. That's what we need to see." They watched and waited for a few more minutes until the most adorable smiling face came up on screen. Bellamy didn't look completely different, but he wasn't as recognizable as Miller had been. The freckles were a dead giveaway, though. And appropriately enough, in the picture, he was holding a squishy football toy.
"There he is!" Raven said. "Aww!"
Clarke recognized a few of the photos as coming right off of Aurora's fridge. The silliest one was probably a picture of him with a bowl full of spaghetti over his head, but the sweetest was of a five year-old Bellamy holding his baby sister in his arms.
"He's actually kind of a softy," Raven said.
"Yeah, he loves his family," Clarke said. Even though people like his grandmother and probably his aunt and uncle and their kids had shown up to support him today, Bellamy's family was definitely small. Without a dad in the picture, it was really just him and his mom and his sister. He had a fierce love and loyalty to them, and they had the same for him. It was a bond Clarke really admired. Because even though one could argue that she and her parents were in a similar situation . . . it just didn't feel the same. They loved each other, no doubt, but they just weren't quite so closely-knit.
About fifteen minutes later, five minutes after the ceremony had been set to begin, the video stopped playing, and everyone got quiet. Except for an annoying baby who decided that it was a good idea to cry all the way through the band's rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance." In fairness to the baby, the band didn't sound very good, so it was just making the sounds everyone wished they could be making.
"Here we go," Raven said as the graduates started to file in from outside the gym.
Yep, here we go, Clarke thought, catching sight of Bellamy almost right away. Since they were walking in alphabetically, he was part of the second duo in line. That also meant that he had to walk with Bree. Emma Anderson and Christine Andrews were the only two students in front of them. Bree, undoubtedly, was thrilled to get to walk with Bellamy. She was as much of a hot mess as she always was, as she'd hiked her graduation gown up to look like more of a short green dress. She also looked like she was wearing a bra with some major padding.
But Clarke didn't really care about Bree. She cared about the guy walking arm in arm with her. Because that guy managed to make even the notoriously unattractive graduation attire look good. That guy smiled when his football teammates chanted his name as he walked by the risers. That guy just laughed and shook his head when a group of junior high girls squealed, "We love you, Bellamy!" And that guy had also glued something kind of funny to the top of his square hat.
"Is that your prom princess tiara?" Raven asked.
"Yeah." Not every Arkadia graduate did something special with their hat, but it was somewhat of a tradition, so most did. Sometimes they put stickers for their college on top of it, or painted names or words. Bellamy hadn't told her for sure that he was going to use her tiara for graduation, but when he'd asked her for it, she'd suspected as much. If he'd tried to put his own crowns on top of there, it would have been like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Being at the beginning of the alphabet meant that Bellamy got to sit in the front row up on the stage. Once he'd taken his seat, Clarke paid little attention to the other students in the processional. She watched him, not surprised that he waved at his mom and his family. He joked around with Octavia by making faces at her, and when Bree leaned over and said something to him while the seats around them filled up, he rolled his eyes at her. There were a lot of facial expressions to keep up with. But when he scanned the crowd, Clarke knew he was looking for her. He found her pretty easily, and their eyes met, and he stopped making faces. He smiled, just slightly, and she smiled back at him shakily.
Once all of the seniors were up on stage, the band stopped playing, and Principal Sydney stepped up to the microphone to welcome everyone and say her introduction. Clarke mainly spaced out on that and asked the person next to her to see her program. She'd neglected to get one on the way in, so she had no idea what the order was going to be or how long this was going to take. For such a small school, Arkadia had a huge program. It was multiple pages and felt more like a small book than anything else. The first pages were mostly boring, listing off all the speakers and honored guests, all the school board members and faculty in attendance, as well as highlighting all the class officers. Only after that were the actual names of the graduates in the program. Some of the names had symbols after them, and when Clarke looked at the key, she understood why Bellamy's name didn't come with any symbols: They were all symbols for academic achievement. Things like being in National Honor Society, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, and being a National Merit Scholar. There was no symbol for receiving an athletic scholarship.
It took forever to find the actual schedule part of the program. By the time Clarke located it, Principal Sydney was already done with her opening address, and the guidance counselor was stepping up to the microphone. Apparently she'd been chosen as the special guest speaker for the day. Chosen by who, though, Clarke wondered. She didn't even know the woman's name. Then again, she wasn't one of those kids who was in need of a lot of . . . guidance.
The speakers continued after that, with Emma Anderson giving the salutatorian address and an uber-smart kid named Justin Hanes giving the valedictorian speech. Emma's was better than Justin's, because his went on and on, but hers was short and to the point. Hers also ended with the class motto, which Clarke had spotted printed on the back of the program booklet: "Together, we have experienced life," she said. "Separately, we will pursue our dreams. Forever, our memories will remain."
Clarke clapped at the end of that speech, just like she clapped at the end of every speech. But that motto struck a bit of a chord. It was about the graduating class, and she knew it. But it also kind of felt like it could be about . . . her and Bellamy.
For some reason, after the speeches, someone had decided that that was a good time to have two of the best singers in the high school choir sing "I Will Remember You" by Sarah McLachlan. That song got a lot of parents and family members in the audience to start to tear up, including Aurora. Clarke couldn't look at Bellamy during that. She couldn't really look at anyone, so she just stared down at her lap and tried to get through it. Beside her, Raven seemed to be doing a lot better. After the song came to an end, she clapped along with everyone else and said to Clarke, "That was beautiful."
And sad, Clarke thought. Wasn't Raven's heart breaking at all? Or was she just that confident that she and Zeke would last? Did she just know and have this sense of certainty that what they had was forever?
Thankfully, the superintendent came up to the podium after that song and finally got the show on the road. He began announcing the graduates, and they walked up to the podium one at a time to receive their diplomas from the head of the school board.
"Bree Barrett," he said, and Bree's mom let out a shrill holler as her daughter staggered up to the podium in high heels that were way too tall for her. "Bree plans to attend the college of hair design to become a cosmetologist."
Raven grunted and muttered, "If she doesn't get knocked up first."
Clarke was barely even listening. She watched as Bellamy stood, before his name was even announced, and stretched.
"Bellamy Blake."
As he walked towards the podium, the cheering for him was loud, probably louder than it would be for anyone else. "Yeah, Bellamy!" his teammates shouted. Girls whistled. It was like a high school rock star was up there on the stage.
"Bellamy will be attending the University of Central Florida on an athletic scholarship," the superintendent read off his notes as Bellamy received his diploma and shook hands with the school board president. "He plans to play football there."
"Woo!" Raven shouted. Her cheerleader voice managed to carry. But Clarke didn't shout anything. Not because she wasn't proud of him, because she was. Not that she wasn't happy for him, either. Because she was. It was just that she was feeling a mix of emotions, not all of them positive.
Instead of returning to his seat, Bellamy ran down off the stage to hug his mom. He handed his diploma to her and said something, but Clarke couldn't make out what he'd said. Probably something like, "This is for you," or maybe just "I love you." Then he ran back up onto the stage and took his seat again. Bree tried to give his arm a squeeze, but he just shrugged her hand off.
Once everyone had their diplomas, it was time for one more song, and just like the last one, it was emotional. One of the same singers sang this one, too, accompanied by an acoustic guitar played by the band teacher. It was that "Time of Your Life" song by Green Day, a staple of graduations everywhere with its lyrics about a fork in the road and time and memories. Clarke listened and lost herself in her own memories, thinking about how she'd had the time of her life this year. With Bellamy. Because of him. It was all because of him.
At the end of the song, Principal Sydney once again returned to the microphone, and she gave a short closing address, then said, "Congratulations to the newest graduates of Arkadia High School!" The seniors all moved their tassels from the right side to the left side of their hats, then stood up and threw them into the air in celebration. The tiara stayed on Bellamy's, and he caught it on the way back down.
Raven nudged Clarke's arm as the band once again began to play the graduation song and all the students filed back out in reverse alphabetical order this time. "Not gonna get emotional, huh?" she said.
Clarke looked at her, having to blink tears from her eyes to see her clearly. She hadn't even realized she'd been crying. But of course she had been. Because as much as she tried to tout today as a happy day . . . for her, it just wasn't. It was a sad one.
After the ceremony, Clarke parted ways with Raven so they could each go to their own boyfriend's graduation party. Clarke rode with Bellamy, his mom, and Octavia back to his house, where it was being held. Some of the families with more money had rented out bigger spaces, but Aurora was playing double duty of host and proud mother. She'd put up decorations, including a big banner in the living room that said Congratulations! On top of the fireplace was a shrine of various photos of Bellamy over the years, not unlike the ones that had been projected on the slideshow. And all of the food she was serving were Bellamy's favorite foods.
Since Bellamy was the focus of everyone's attention, Clarke didn't want to monopolize his time. She kind of hung out on her own while he talked to family members and played with younger cousins. He was the man of the hour, or hours, more precisely, since Aurora seemed to have prepared enough food for the party to last a while. And it was good that she'd prepared food for more people than just the family, too, because it wasn't just family who was there. Jasper and Monty showed up for about half an hour, and some other people from school did, too. Still, Clarke mainly kept to herself, just because it was easier to be on her own than to have to plaster on a smile and act like she wasn't selfishly sad to see Bellamy moving on to this next chapter of his life.
She was looking through an old photo album stocked full of lots of pictures of Bellamy as a baby when his grandmother approached her and said, "Hi there."
"Hi," she said, shutting the book. She'd been a little too shy to introduce herself earlier, but the crowd had cleared out a bit now, and Bellamy's grandma was probably wondering who this blonde girl was that had shown up with her grandson and hadn't left this whole time.
"Are you one of Bellamy's friends?" the older woman asked.
"Yeah." She wasn't sure whether she should introduce herself as his girlfriend or not. Now that his senior year had wound down, what if he stopped referring to her that way? "You must be his grandma," she said, managing what felt like a convincingly chipper smile.
"What gave it away, the grey hair or the wrinkles?"
Clarke laughed. "Oh, neither. You just look a lot like Aurora."
"Well, I did once," his grandma said, sighing wistfully. "It's nice of you to be here today."
"Yeah, well, Bellamy's been . . . a really good friend this year," she said.
"And how did you two get to know each other?"
Oh, now that was a question. "Uh . . . we . . ." She couldn't very well tell her the truth, that they'd slept together on a whim and then just . . . kept sleeping together. So she quickly concocted a story about how they'd gotten to know each other through football and cheerleading, but luckily, she didn't have to tell it, because Bellamy came up to them and put his arm around Clarke's shoulders.
"I see you met my girlfriend," he said.
"Girlfriend?" His grandmother's eyebrows arched with intrigue. "Well, she left that part out."
Clarke relaxed a bit, relieved that she still got to be his girlfriend for a little while longer. "I'm Clarke, by the way," she said, extending her hand.
"Nice to meet you." His grandmother shook her hand, then said to him, "So pretty, Bellamy."
"I know," he said.
"Let me guess: You're a cheerleader."
Clarke nodded. "Yeah, I am, actually." Football player and cheerleader. They were just that much of a stereotype, weren't they? Oh, well.
"It's a perfect match," Bellamy's grandma said. "Are you going to Florida, too?"
I wish, she thought. As crazy as it sounded, right now, she would have followed Bellamy down to Florida if she could have. She would have transferred to some high school there and left everything else behind. "No, I haven't graduated," she said, trying not to sound too sad about that fact.
"She's a sophomore, Grandma," Bellamy informed her.
"Oh, I see." His grandmother nodded, smiled at her, and reiterated, "Well, it was nice meeting you."
"Yeah, you, too," Clarke said as she walked away. Turning towards Bellamy, she said, "She's sweet."
"Yeah. I don't get to see her very much," he said. "Honestly, a lot of the people here . . . family members I don't even know."
She understood the feeling. Family gatherings for her had always felt like more of a chore than a genuinely good time. "Well, it was still nice of them to come," she said.
"Yeah, I guess." He wrapped his arms around her waist and looked down at her with undisguised lust in his eyes. "I kinda wish it was just us, though."
She felt a tingle zip up her spine as she imagined what they would be doing if it was just the two of them.
"What're you doin' tonight?" he asked her.
"You mean after the party?"
"Yeah."
As long as the party wrapped up long enough before her curfew, she had plenty of ideas of things she could do. "Congratulating you on this huge milestone in life," she told him.
"And how are you gonna do that?"
"You'll see." She smirked, feeling like a blow-job was in order. Among other things. They didn't have to stay here. They could get in his truck and go for a drive, go someplace where they could be as loud as they wanted to.
"Bellamy," his mom called to him. "Come tell Uncle Dan about what dorm you're staying in."
Bellamy sighed heavily, removed his hands from Clarke's waist, and said, "I'll be back," as he walked away from her.
Clarke watched him go, feeling sort of . . . let down. Because it just sucked to have their flirting interrupted by anything. But it was almost symbolic, wasn't it, that Bellamy would be taken away from her so that he could go talk to someone about college. About the next era of his life. An era that didn't involve her.
...
Clarke felt Bellamy's hands slip from her waist and watched in the mirror as he walked over to the bed and flopped down on her big, cushy pregnancy pillow.
"Do people give speeches at college graduations?" he asked.
She took off her hat and tried to rub away the red line that it had made on her forehead. "Yeah, of course."
"Like a valedictorian and salutatorian?"
"Oh, no, not those kinds of speeches," she said, removing both her honors medal and the blue stole as well. "But they have guest speakers. Usually alumni or one of the deans or something. It's gonna be pretty boring."
"Well, at least it's not 'til next month." He picked up their old high school yearbook off the bedside table and asked, "Why's this out?"
She spun around and said, "Oh, I was looking at it. Before you got home. Did you know that I'm gonna be the first girl in my class to have a kid? Out of all of them."
"You had a small class, Clarke," he pointed out.
"Yeah, but still . . . I'm the first one." She made a face. "Isn't that weird?" She'd graduated as the salutatorian. Even now, she was still graduating with honors. Didn't that mean she was more . . . responsible than the average person?
"It's not that weird," he said, flipping pages. "Half the girls in my class got knocked up straight outta high school. I think that's why most of 'em moved away. Couldn't stand the stigma."
She frowned. "Well, there shouldn't be a stigma. There's nothing wrong with it."
"No, there's not," he agreed. He flipped one more page and said, "Hey, look, there I am." Pointing at another picture on another page, he added, "And there I am. That's a good picture, even though I'm beardless."
She laughed and went to sit down beside him. "You have the most pictures out of everyone in that yearbook," she informed him.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. It lists all the pages everyone's on in the back. Look at yours."
Bellamy flipped to the back of the book, and his eyes widened when he saw all the page numbers next to his name. "Oh, shit."
"Yep." No one else even came close to being pictured as much as he was. Not only was he on the senior class pages and the football pages, but he was pictured at graduation, at homecoming, at prom, and in various candids throughout the year.
"Hey, you're in here a lot, too," he said, showing her her name.
"Mostly with you." Her list wasn't too shabby, but it wasn't anywhere near as long as his was. "You should look at my eleventh grade yearbook; it's an entirely different story."
Although she'd meant that to come across as lighthearted, it made Bellamy close the book and give her a serious look. He hesitated before asking, "Were you sad that year?"
That year . . . that had just been a rough year. So rough that she hadn't been able to find it in her to remain a cheerleader, even though Raven had begged her. So rough that she almost hadn't even gone to prom. "Yeah," she admitted. "I missed you."
He gazed at her sadly, almost like he felt bad for leaving her. But he didn't have any reason to feel bad. He'd done what was best for him at the time. "I missed you, too," he said. "Do you think we would've made it if we'd stayed together?"
"With you at UCF?" She'd thought about it a lot over the years, dreamt up versions of their lives where they hadn't spent so much time apart. "I guess we'll never know."
He set the yearbook aside, sad up, and cupped her cheek with his hand, stroking his thumb against her skin. "But we're back together now," he said quietly. "That's all that matters."
She looked down, pressing her cheek to his touch. It was all that mattered. It had to be.
