Chapter 55
Clarke's pencil broke right as she was on the last sentence of the last essay question of her last final exam. Right as she was pressing new lead out, the proctor announced, "Time's up." She quickly scribbled down enough words to finish her thought, not sure if it would even be legible, and then put her pencil down. It wasn't a perfect essay response, but it would suffice.
She gathered up her things and made her way to the front of the room, setting her exam booklet down in front of the proctor. On her way out, he said to her, "Best of luck with . . . everything," and motioned to her stomach.
"Thanks." Being this pregnant hadn't exactly made taking her finals easy. She'd lost valuable minutes of work time because of her frequent bathroom breaks, and all her aches and pains were distracting to say the least. But at least finals were done now, and she only had a few weeks of pregnancy left. Not that she expected caring for a newborn baby to be any easier.
When she stepped outside onto the sidewalk, she was surprised to see Bellamy darting across the street. "Hey, babe," he said, bending down to kiss her cheek.
"Hey. What're you doing here?"
"Just thought I'd swing by," he answered, "see if you were done with your finals."
"Well, I am." She handed him her backpack, happy to have him carry it since she was carrying enough weight on her front. "Shouldn't you be at work, though?"
"Oh, I took the day off," he said, starting down the sidewalk with her. "I had . . . something I had to go do. But that means you're free now, and I'm free. So we should do something."
"Like what?" she asked.
"Like go out," he said. "On a date."
"A date?" she echoed. "What's the occasion?
"Does there have to be one?"
There usually was. Either a romantic holiday or an anniversary of something or another. But this didn't feel usual. "No," she said, "I guess there doesn't."
"Great," he said. "So where do you wanna go?"
"I don't know," she said, feeling put on the spot. "This is your idea. You have anywhere in mind?" It wasn't like they had a whole lot of options in Arkadia.
"What about the place we went on Valentine's Day?" he suggested. "Big Italy or something?"
"Little Italy," she corrected.
"Whatever. You wanna go there?"
"Uh, sure," she replied. "Their food was good. You wanna go now or wait until dinner?"
"Let's wait," he said. "It's more romantic that way."
They stopped at the crosswalk, and she turned to him and teased, "Oh, so it's a romantic date now?"
"Clarke. Look who your boyfriend is," he said, motioning to himself. "They're all romantic."
"Oh, yeah, right!" She gave his shoulder a playful shove and stepped down off the sidewalk when the crosswalk signal showed up. Although . . . he was kind of right. Bellamy knew how to make almost any night a night to remember.
...
Even though Clarke still felt very . . . heavy all over, she was determined to get dressed up for her spontaneous date night with Bellamy. She'd ordered a really cute maternity dress online, one she'd found simply by typing sexy maternity dresses into Amazon. It was light pink and had an off the shoulder top that offered a lot of support for her boobs. It was form-fitting, but it actually fit her form pretty well, and she was excited for Bellamy to see her wearing it.
When she walked out of the bedroom, he was emerging from the nursery, shutting the door behind him. "What were you doing in there?" she asked him.
"Oh, just . . ." He trailed off without answering, and his eyes roamed all over her, as if they were soaking in what they saw. "You look sexy," he said.
"If you say so." Even though she felt pretty good in this dress, she still felt like a humpback whale.
"No, you really do," he said, putting his hands on her sides. "I'm so in love with you right now."
"Right now?"
"More like all the time," he corrected himself. Leaning in, he gave her a big kiss, the kind that had the potential to escalate into more than that and likely would have had they not called and made a dinner reservation.
"You're being, like, extra romantic right now," she said.
"Am I?"
"Yeah. Not that I'm complaining. I'm just curious as to what's spurring all this on." First the suggestion that they go out on a date, now all this affection. It felt like Valentine's Day all over again.
"Well, I'm just excited for you now that you're done with finals," he said. "Let's just say it's the start of summer."
She shook her head. "It's not, though."
"Well, let's just say it is," he urged, taking one of her hands in his. "Come on." He led her towards the stairs, and she smiled as she thought about everything this summer would entail. It'd be an adjustment, no doubt about that. Once Avery arrived, everything would revolve around her. But at least she didn't have to do any of this alone. Bellamy was there, and unlike their last summer together, he didn't have any reason to leave.
...
Clarke sat outside on the tiny front porch of the Blake house, listening to the sounds of nighttime: a booming bass from some house down the street, the annoying whir of the cicada bugs that never shut up, and a couple's argument across the street. She couldn't hear any of the conversation Bellamy and his mom were having inside, and she didn't need to. It wasn't any of her business. She was only there because Bellamy hadn't dropped her off at home after getting that phone call at the beach.
The front door opened, and Clarke glanced up as light from inside flashed onto the porch. Octavia stepped outside and closed the door behind her. "Hey, Clarke," she said softly.
"Hey." Clarke tried to smile at the younger girl, but . . . smiles weren't really possible right now.
"Are you gonna come in?" Octavia asked.
She'd thought about it, but it just made more sense to stay out there for now. "Maybe later," she said. It was a perfect night, not too hot and not too sticky, so she could sit out there a while longer. "I'm just gonna let your mom and your brother talk about things right now."
Octavia sat down beside her on the porch steps and said, "They're talking about UCF."
Yeah, Clarke thought somberly, I know. She wondered how much of the conversation Octavia had listened to or overheard. She was only in seventh grade, so college talks might have been something she tuned out of. But then again, she and Bellamy were so close, so maybe she'd been paying attention.
Octavia reached forward and picked a stick up off the ground, using it to pretend doodle on the sidewalk before she snapped in half. "I don't want Bellamy to leave early," she mumbled, throwing one half of the stick out into the front lawn. "I want him to stay for the summer."
So she had been listening then. And she wasn't happy about it, either. "I know," Clarke empathized. "But he has to do what he has to do." That was what she'd kept telling herself during the ride home from the beach, that he had to do what he had to do. Whatever was best for him.
Octavia looked at her curiously and asked, "Are you gonna miss him?"
"Yeah," she replied without hesitation. Of course she was going to miss him. Every single day.
"So am I," Octavia said. She sniffled, and Clarke noticed her blink back tears. But she didn't cry. Instead, she kept on with her questions. "Are you gonna find a new boyfriend?"
Right now, she couldn't even contemplate being with anyone else, so she muttered, "I don't know."
What Octavia said next wasn't exactly comforting: "He'll probably find a new girlfriend. Bellamy always has a girlfriend."
Great, Clarke thought. What did that mean then? He was going to go to college and find Bree 2.0? Or what if he found the opposite, someone really amazing? Florida girls were beautiful and tan, because they hung out at the beach all the time. Or at least that was how she pictured them. She knew she couldn't expect him to just never hook up with anyone, especially when he was bound to have offers.
"But you're the one he's dated the longest," Octavia kept on. "I think he really likes you."
It definitely had amounted to more than Clarke had ever expected. What had started out as a simple mission to lose her virginity had evolved into a real relationship, one that had lasted for nine months. And it wasn't so easy to give up now. "Well . . . I really like him, too," she said, struggling to get the words out.
Octavia waited a moment, then cocked her head to the side and brazenly inquired, "Do you love him?"
Clarke was so caught off guard by the question that she couldn't even answer. No one had ever asked her that before. Not her mom, not her dad, not even Raven. So she'd managed to avoid asking herself.
Thankfully, the front door opened again, and this time, Bellamy stood in the doorframe. "O, can you give me a minute with Clarke?" he asked.
"Sure," Octavia said, getting to her feet. She slid past her brother and went back into the house. Bellamy shut the door, sat down beside her, and sighed heavily. He wasn't the same guy who'd shown up at her house that morning with beach towels in his backseat. Now, he just looked kind of down.
They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before she decided to give him the easy way out. "You don't have to say anything," she told him, standing up. She took a few steps away from the porch, keeping her back to him so he couldn't see the tear that slipped from one of her eyes.
"Clarke, I'm sorry," he said apologetically.
Shaking her head, she tried to subtly wipe the tear away. "No, there's nothing to be sorry about," she assured him. "If your coach wants you in Florida early, then that's where you've gotta be." Logically, she understood, but still . . . it sucked. It sucked so bad. It wasn't even close to being the end of July yet, and already, they were being torn apart.
"It's just that the guy they've got starting got injured in the spring game," he said. "They might need me to start; they might not. But either way, I gotta be ready. So I gotta go put in the extra practice."
"You don't have to explain it to me. I understand," she assured him. College football seemed to be a pretty all-consuming thing for the athletes and coaches alike, so in a way, none of this came as a surprise to her. It was just so sudden, though, and if she and Octavia were saddened by it, then Aurora had to be, too.
Turning around, convinced that she had her emotions sufficiently in check now, Clarke asked him, "What'd your mom say?"
He sighed, still sitting all slumped over on the porch, looking down at his feet. "She understands, too," he said. The way his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard made her think that he and his mom had just had a pretty emotional conversation about all of this. "It's the life of a college athlete, you know?" he said. "Breaks are short, and you don't have a whole hell of a lot of 'em. It's what I signed up for."
"I know," she said. "I've always known. It was always gonna come down to this." He'd never promised her a lifelong relationship. He'd told her that he could give her now, and she'd accepted that. Because it'd been better to have now than nothing. But the now was now ending, and she had no idea where that left her. How was she supposed to date anyone else after this? What if she never truly even fell for anyone else again?
He lifted his head, looking her right in the eye, and his voice wavered as he said, "I don't wanna leave you."
So don't, she thought selfishly. But that wasn't possible. He had a scholarship to keep, a career to pursue. She couldn't hold him back from that. "When do you have to go?" she asked, afraid of the answer.
"Soon," he said.
"What, like, next week?" She waited for him to respond, and when he didn't, her stomach started to knot up. "Sooner?" Did they really not even have seven days left together now? Was it really all gonna end that fast? As fast as it had started? "How much time do we have, Bellamy?" she asked him.
"Not much." He stood up, came to stand in front of her, and put his hands on her waist. "I'm leaving Saturday morning."
"Saturday—S-Saturday morning?" she stammered, her eyes immediately welling up. "No, that's—that's not enough time. That's too soon." This was already Thursday night.
"I have to," he said. "I have no choice. They're paying for my flight."
"But how are we supposed to . . ." She couldn't help but cry, openly and right there in front of him. Selfish as it may have been, she couldn't pretend to be happy for him or excited, not when she was this devastated. "We were supposed to have seven more weeks, so how are we supposed to cram all of that into one day?"
"Clarke . . ." He cupped her cheek, using his thumb to wipe away some of her tears.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I don't mean to be like this."
"It's okay," he said comfortingly. "My mom cried, too. And O . . . she'll probably cry."
Clarke sniffed loudly, pretty sure that Octavia had gone to her room and was already crying. "She loves you," she said.
"I love her."
Because you're family, she thought, suddenly feeling like she was robbing Bellamy of time with his family. She was just his girlfriend. She didn't deserve to be hogging him. "Then you should be with her. And your mom," she said. "Spend time with them. Don't even worry about me. You can just swing by on your way to the airport." She took a few steps to the side, but he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her back.
"No, Clarke, I'm not . . . I'm not just gonna swing by," he said, moving in close to her again. "Look, tomorrow, I'm gonna go say goodbye to my friends, and I'll spend some time with my mom and Octavia. But I wanna be with you."
Why? she wondered. They were supposed to be over now.
His voice was low and insistent when he said, "Spend the night with me tomorrow night."
She would have loved to, but . . . "I can't," she said. "My stupid curfew . . ."
"It doesn't matter." His eyes bore into hers, so full of passion, and he said it again: "Spend the night with me."
Her heart pounded, and she felt breathless as he gazed at her, his face hovering mere inches from her own. He was right. Her curfew didn't matter. One last night with Bellamy was so much more important than any trouble she got into.
...
Clarke thanked Bellamy as he helped her into the car and shut the door for her. He reminded her so much of his high school self as he ran around the front of it to hop into the driver's seat, smiling from ear to ear. He used to get that same look on his face when they went for a joyride or went to the beach.
"We're gonna have a great night," he predicted, starting the car up. And she didn't doubt that. Every night she got to spend with Bellamy was good.
...
Bellamy was so nervous, he didn't even feel like eating. But he ordered something anyway, just to keep up the charade that this was a completely normal date night. Except it wasn't. He had a ring in his pocket and a half-written proposal running through his mind. He didn't want to think about it too hard, because he wanted it to sound like it was coming from the heart rather than something he'd rehearsed.
"Do you really not want your breadsticks?" Clarke asked as she chowed down on the last of hers. Had she eaten three? Or four?
"No. I gotta save room for the lasagna," he said, patting his stomach.
"Then can I have them?" she questioned.
He gave her a look. "Do you even have to ask?"
"No. Just thought I'd be polite." She removed his breadsticks from the basket and set them down atop her plate. "Mmm, you know what I've been wondering?" she said while she continued to eat. "When I'm not pregnant anymore, is my appetite just totally gonna drop off?"
"Who knows?" He tried not to fixate too hard on her barren left ring finger and instead be present in the conversation with her.
"And will I ever like tacos again," she wondered, "or are they just ruined for me now?"
"Let's hope not." He wasn't sure how he wanted to go about this. Maybe he could ask the waiter to hide the ring in her meal? But what if she didn't find it and ate it instead? And it was a nice ring. He didn't want it getting all messy. No, that was a dumb idea.
"And what about all my weird cravings?" she rambled on. "Like, am I really gonna enjoy a doughnut with mustard after all of this?"
"A . . ." That revelation jerked him out of his proposal thoughts. "You ate a doughnut with mustard?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "Because it sounded good at the time."
He scrunched his face up in disgust. Just the thought of it . . .
"Don't judge me, okay?" she said. "You don't know what this is like."
"No," he admitted, although he liked to hope that doughnuts and mustard wouldn't be a regular food combo for her after her pregnancy was over. "Although I feel like I've lived through it with you."
"Well . . ." She wiped her hands off on her napkin as she finished the rest of that breadstick. "'cause you pretty much have. You were the first person I told."
"Right after we had sex," he recalled. That'd been one hell of bombshell to wake up to.
"Probably not the best timing," she acknowledged.
"No, I'm glad you told me first." In a weird way, this baby, one that he'd had no part in making, had helped bring the two of them back together.
"I'm glad you kept on loving me," she said, smiling softly at him.
"I'm never gonna stop," he said, feeling the weight of the ring in his pocket. This was it. Now was the perfect time. Except that she already had her next breadstick in her hand, and the servers appeared to be gearing up to sing happy birthday to a little boy at a table on the other side of the room.
"What?" Clarke asked.
"Huh?"
"You're looking at me weird."
Was he? Dammit, he hadn't meant to. But he was sort of somewhere else, up in his own mind, weighing his options. He either proposed here, or he went with Plan B. Which was, quite possibly, a hell of a lot better than Plan A.
"I'll be back," he blurted, getting up. "I gotta go to the bathroom."
She snorted and grumbled, "Welcome to my world," as he left the table.
Of course, he didn't have to go to the bathroom at all. At least not to take a piss. But he did need a quiet, secluded place to make a phone call.
"Come on, pick up," he said after quickly dialing a number he knew by heart.
Finally, after the fourth ring, Octavia answered with, "What's up, loser?"
"What's up?" he echoed. "What's up is that I'm proposing to Clarke tonight, and I don't know how to do it."
"Tonight?" his sister exclaimed. "You're doing it tonight?"
"Trying to." So far, it wasn't going so well, though. The date wasn't bad by any means, but Little Italy was not exactly the same romantic venue it'd been on Valentine's Day. There were a lot more kids and families there—not that he had anything against kids since, hell, he was about to have one. It just wasn't the right place.
"Finally!" Octavia said exaggeratedly. "Okay, what's your plan?"
"Well, we're out a restaurant right now. I was thinking I could propose to her here, but . . ."
"Meh," Octavia cut in. "Kinda boring."
"Well, I got another idea, too."
"And what's that?"
He realized it wasn't going to sound very exciting when he told her, but he really did feel like his backup plan was best. "I'd propose to her at home."
"Also kinda boring," Octavia declared.
"No, I got something . . . sentimental set up," he assured her.
"Sentimental?"
"Meaningful." Maybe that was the better word. Honestly . . . it was cute. He'd set up something cute for her.
"Go with that one then," she suggested.
"You think?"
"Yeah. I don't even have to know the specifics to know that it's better than proposing to her in a restaurant."
Yeah, he'd pretty much figured, but it was nice to have a girl's reassurance. "Okay. Thanks, O."
"You got this, big brother," she said, as if to pump him up before ending the call.
He stayed in the bathroom for a few more minutes, just to talk himself up and simultaneously calm himself down. The nerves he felt had nothing to do with uncertainty. It was just . . . it was a huge thing for any guy to do in his life. And he had one shot at it.
When he went back out to the table, he saw that their food had already been served, and Clarke was in the midst of devouring it. "I ordered more breadsticks," she told him. "I hope you don't mind."
"No, that's fine." Instead of sitting back down, he went around to her side of the table and knelt down beside her, not in a proposal stance, but low enough to be eye level with her. "You wanna just take our food home, though?"
"What?" She was already twisting her spaghetti around her fork.
"Yeah. Let's just have 'em box it up for us and get outta here," he suggested.
"But you asked me out on a date tonight," she pointed out.
"I know," he said, putting his hand on the back of her chair. "But now I wanna take you home."
A slow grin crept to her face, and she set her fork down. "Bellamy Blake. Do you have naughty thoughts going through your head?"
He had thoughts, for sure. Just not exactly naughty ones. "Something like that."
She smiled at him, and he could practically see the naughty thoughts starting to run through her mind. She may have still felt like she had a bowling ball in between her legs, but that didn't mean she wasn't still horny. "Excuse me, sir?" she called to their waiter, waving him over. "We need boxes."
...
This is it, Bellamy thought as he and Clarke walked through the front door. We're gonna get engaged. He balanced their boxes of food in one hand and reached into his pocket to check for the ring with the other. Yep, still there. Just waiting to slide onto her finger.
"Alright, put that stuff in the fridge and get me undressed," Clarke said eagerly, stepping out of her shoes.
He opened the fridge and put their food inside, but he went up to her and stopped her as she reached behind her back and tried to pull down on her zipper. "Not so fast," he said.
"What do you mean?"
The sex could definitely happen . . . after the proposal. "I want you to see something first. Come on." He took her hand in his and led her towards the stairs.
"You are being so weird today," she said as she followed him up.
"I know. Bear with me." It'd all make sense to her soon.
She groaned impatiently when they got upstairs and said, "Shouldn't we be on our way to Pound Town by now?"
"Later. I promise." He stopped in front of the door to the nursery and said, "I gotta show you something."
"What?"
"It's in here." He opened the door and motioned for her to head inside.
"Okay," she said, stepping into the center of the room. She looked around, probably trying to spot something new or something out place, and asked, "What am I supposed to be seeing?"
"Look in the crib," he told her.
She made her way over to the crib and peered down, gasping in delight when she saw the stuffed animal he'd set out in there. "Aww, how cute!" she exclaimed. "Look at that." She picked up the purple bunny, which was now wearing a green Rockets jersey, and recalled, "Didn't you win this for me at the carnival?"
"Yeah." He was pretty sure they could count that as their daughter's first toy. "You think that jersey would fit Avery?" he asked.
"Probably," she said. "Depends how big she is."
He smirked, loving that she still had no idea what this was all leading up to, that it would be a surprise. "Look at the back," he urged.
She turned the bunny around and read the name on the back of the jersey. "Blake. That's really cute. She'll look adorable in this."
Avery Blake, he thought, reaching into his pocket. Clarke Blake. He took out the ring, spun it around between his two fingers while she was still sufficiently distracted by the stuffed animal. Her back was mostly to him, so he went ahead and got down on one knee, holding the ring up for her.
"So cute," she said again. "So is this what you wanted me to . . ." She spun around, stopping abruptly when she saw what stance he was in. Her eyes widened, and she just froze. "See," she whispered to finish her sentence. A few stunned, silent seconds later, she asked, "What're you doing?"
"What do you think?" He laughed a little, because it couldn't have been any more obvious. "Clarke . . ." he said, staring up at her in amazement. Didn't matter if she was tiny enough to fit into a cheerleading skirt or thirty-seven weeks pregnant like she was right now. She was still his girl. "I fell in love with you years ago," he told her, his heart racing with anticipation. "I didn't know it at the time, but I figured it out in the time we were apart. And now that I've gotten to be with you again, I know I don't ever wanna be with anyone else."
Tears shone in her eyes, and she looked like she could barely breathe as she listened to him.
"I'm in love with you. I'm so in love with you," he said, letting the words come from the heart, whatever felt natural to say. "You're the one for me. To me, you really are perfect, and I wanna spend the rest of my life with you." He smiled, holding the ring up higher, and finally popped the question: "So what do you say, Princess? Will you marry me?"
She still didn't say anything, and that expression on her face didn't change. He hadn't expected it to be quite this much of a shock, but apparently it was.
And then it was her turn to shock him.
"No."
He frowned, not sure if he'd heard her right. "What?"
Her bottom lip trembled, and her eyes welled up with even more tears. He kept waiting for her to smile, to laugh, to say that she was kidding, but . . . she never did.
"I'm sorry, Bellamy," she said sadly. "I can't." Without any explanation, she hurried out of the room, moving faster than he'd seen her move in months.
Still down on one knee, still holding up the ring, he wracked his brain for . . . anything. A reason. Something that made sense. But nothing did. He didn't understand. How had this just happened?
Slowly, he lowered the ring, still holding it tightly between his fingers, even though it was supposed to have been on her finger by now. She was supposed to have said yes. Yes, without a doubt. Yes, absolutely. Yes, a million times yes.
So why hadn't she?
