Chapter 57

Bellamy's mind was a mess. Just a mess of thoughts and questions as he drove to his mom's house. In a way, nothing felt real. How could it? Of all the reactions he'd expected to his proposal, no hadn't been one of them. And he never would have guessed what lay behind it. Clarke's reason for saying no, the guilt over a secret finally coming to light . . .

How the hell was this even happening?

When he got to his mom's house, he stayed out in the driveway for a few minutes, just sitting in his car with the engine turned off. Everything Clarke had said, every worthless 'I'm sorry,' ricocheted in his head. Over and over again. An apology just wasn't enough. It couldn't be. There was no way 'I'm sorry' could make up for a whole fucking abortion, and for keeping it from him for so long.

Pissed off as hell, Bellamy got out of his car and went into the house. He stormed straight to the kitchen and opened up the refrigerator, bending down to look towards the back and see if his mom had any alcohol.

"Bellamy?" The door to her bedroom opened, and she came out in a long nightgown. "What're you doing here?"

"I need a place to crash," he said, grabbing the only bottle of beer he saw. It wasn't even gonna get him drunk, but it was better than nothing.

"What's going on?"

He placed the cap of the beer bottle against the edge of the counter, slammed his hand down atop it twice, and the cap came off. "I don't wanna talk about it," he muttered, gliding past his mom on his way to his bedroom. Hell, he was still having a hard time processing everything himself. No need to unload on her right now, too.

He went into his room and slammed the door shut, very much like the moody teenager he'd never actually been. He sat down on the side of his bed and took a drink. A big one. Not that it helped him feel any better. He felt like crying. Or punching a wall. Or maybe doing both. But for now, drinking would have to do.

He held his bottle by the neck in one hand and reached into his pocket with the other, pulling out the engagement ring he'd been so excited to give Clarke, the one he'd paid so much for. It just seemed useless now. Useless and pointless and like a really stupid idea. He stared down at it in the palm of his hand, half tempted to find something to smash it with. But something inside him just . . . couldn't. He couldn't do that. So he closed his fingers around it and squeezed his hand tightly into a fist. The ring dug into his skin, and it probably should have hurt, but he didn't even feel a thing.

A knock on his door caused him to loosen his fist. "Bellamy?" his mom said softly. He didn't respond, but that didn't deter her. "I just wanted to let you know that . . . I'm here," she said. "Whatever's going on, if you decide you wanna talk about it . . . I'm here for you."

Of course she was. She was his mother. And she was a damn good one. She wasn't going to push him to talk if he didn't want to. If he needed space, she'd give that to him. "Thanks, Mom," he managed to scrape out before taking another drink from the bottle. And it wasn't just thanks for letting him stay there tonight or not asking too many questions. It was thanks for a lot more than that. After all, she'd gotten pregnant in high school, too. And if she'd made a different choice, the same choice Clarke had made, then he never would have even existed.

...

After Bellamy left, Clarke cried for a long time. But when she finally stopped, she decided she needed . . . punishment. Of some kind. She needed to feel awful, worse than she already did. It was what she deserved. So she went back upstairs into the nursery, becoming tearful once again when she thought of that excited look on his face and in his eyes as he knelt down and professed his love for her. And that ring he'd held up for her was beautiful. If only she could have worn it.

Still in the nursery was the purple bunny with its green jersey. She grazed her fingers over the name on the back, feeling like the choices she'd made years ago were affecting Avery now. Because Avery could have been Avery Blake. She hadn't made any mistakes yet or done anything wrong. She could have been born and had Blake as a last name, if it wasn't for what her stupid mom had done. What if there was no hope of that now? What if Avery had lost a father because of all of this? The only father she'd ever had.

I ruin everything, Clarke thought morosely. She'd taken a child away from Bellamy, and now maybe she'd pushed Bellamy away from a child. She couldn't blame anyone else for what was happening. It didn't matter that her mom had been in her ear a lot back then, pushing for her to have the procedure done so she could just have a clean slate. It didn't matter that she'd just been a teenager and had been freaking out. It was still all her fault.

She thought of Bellamy's false belief all these years that she was this perfect person, or at least perfect for him, and the tears started coming again. She fled the nursery, went into her room, and began rifling through the nightstand drawer for the necklace he'd given her so many years ago. She found it, looking down at the words etched on the charm angrily. To me, you are perfect. Yeah, right. Yeah, fucking right. Perfect people didn't have abortions and lie about it for years. Perfect people didn't let it get to the point of a proposal before they finally told the truth.

Necklace in hand, she headed back downstairs as fast as her swollen feet would take her. It was slow-going, but she finally made it outside onto the back porch. It'd gotten colder, especially chilly for springtime, but she walked out onto the beach anyway, ignoring a few droplets of rain that had started to fall. She went right up to the edge of the water and threw the necklace out into the ocean as far as she could. It was too dark to see where it landed, the waves too loud for her to hear a splash. But it was out there now, gone. Because the words on it were a lie, and she wasn't telling lies anymore.

...

All night, Bellamy lay awake. His eyes felt heavy, because he'd done his fair share of crying. Of course, he'd done his best to press his face into his pillow so his mom wouldn't hear him. She must have managed to go back to sleep, because she didn't knock on his door at all. She did come in to check on him right before the sun came up, but he pretended to be asleep.

When he wasn't crying or replaying his entire conversation with Clarke over and over again in his head, he stared at the engagement ring, twirled it around in between his fingers. What was he supposed to do with that now? What was he supposed to do . . . about anything?

The sun came up, almost annoyingly bright outside his window, but it didn't make him feel any better. It didn't matter that it was a new day; he still felt the same despair.

...

The curtains were closed, but sunlight still managed to show through them. Bellamy stirred, trying to stay asleep, but it didn't work. He was waking up, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The good part about waking up was feeling Clarke next to him, opening his eyes and seeing her lying in his arms with her head and hand on his chest. He never got to wake up with her like this. Sure, sometimes they dozed off on the couch or in his bedroom for an hour or two, but they were never able to spend the whole night together. And last night they had. And it'd been . . . perfect. They'd tried their best to stay awake so they could keep having sex with each other, but eventually, exhaustion had gotten the best of both of them. Which was fine. Just sharing a bed with her was nice, too. In fact, he couldn't think of a better way to spend his last night in Arkadia, or a better person to spend it with.

Clarke looked content and peaceful as she lay with him. Her hair was sprawled out behind her, and her breathing was calm and steady. She even had a small smile on her face, barely noticeable but still there. Maybe she was having a good dream.

He hoped she was, because their reality . . . it wasn't so good. When he stopped admiring the sight of her, he reminded himself what today was. What it meant for them. This was the last day he got to think of her as his girlfriend, because he had to leave. Tempting as it was to try to convince her to stay with him and give this long-distance thing a shot, he couldn't be that selfish with her. She had her own life to lead; she didn't need to be tied down with him.

It sucked, though, leaving her. And he hadn't even left yet.

Although he hadn't moved, except to peek at the clock on the bedside table, she must have just sensed that he was awake, because she started to wake up, too. Moaning sleepily, she shifted around a bit, stretched out her legs, and blinked open her eyes. "Hey," she said.

"Hey." He removed his arm from underneath her head and turned over on his side so he could get a better look at her. "You look good in the morning."

"No, I don't," she said, "but thanks for saying that." Sighing, she glanced back over her shoulder at the sun shining in through the curtains, then looked back at him and frowned sadly. "Why does it have to be today already?"

"I don't know." He touched her cheek, wishing there was a way to turn back time. "The night went too fast." They hadn't even left the bed, but still, the hours had flown by.

"How much time do we have?" she asked him quietly, almost fearfully, as if she didn't really want to know the answer.

"About an hour," he told her. Just one hour. Sixty minutes, and then he had to be home, loading his luggage into his mom's car. There was a plane ticket with his name on it. He'd be a fool to turn it down.

An hour wasn't much time, wasn't enough time at all. But it was still something. And Bellamy could tell they were both determined to make the most of it when their mouths met in a searing kiss.

...

When Bellamy finally got out of bed, he felt like he could barely move. There hadn't been one football game or one day on the construction site that had made his body and his bones feel as tired and shot to hell as they did right now.

His mom was still there, somewhat to his surprise, sitting on the couch watching TV. She turned down the volume when he emerged from his room, though, and looked at him curiously.

"What're you doin' here?" he asked, dumping last night's empty bottle into the trash can.

"I live here," she said simply.

"But don't you have to work?"

"I called in sick," she explained. "Thought it might be best if I stay here with you."

That was nice of her to do, but he had no intention of hiding out at his mom's house all day. Having had a night to think about it, he'd progressed through the shock stage and was now thoroughly entrenched in anger. "Well, I'm not staying," he said, opening up the refrigerator again. "I gotta go somewhere."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I gotta go see someone." He moved aside bottles of pop and . . . Jackpot. His mom had cans of beer stashed back there.

"Who?" she continued to question him.

"Doesn't matter." He took out one of the cans, popped the tab on it, and took a swig as he headed toward the door.

"Bellamy!" she called after him, shooting to her feet. The obvious concern in his voice was enough to get him to stop and turn around. "What's wrong? Please, tell me," she urged him.

He would. Just not right now. He had to know more himself first. "I'll tell you later," he said. "I promise, I won't keep it a secret." Secrets were Clarke's thing. Not his.

His mom definitely wasn't happy that he was keeping her in the dark, but she didn't demand answers right in the moment. She let him leave, but she stood in the doorway and watched him drive away. She was probably worried about him being behind the wheel, but he was fine. A little alcohol didn't make him drunk, and a little sleeplessness didn't make him distracted. He made the drive to the Griffin house just fine, but when he got there, he was discouraged to see no vehicles in the driveway. Since Abby and Kane had too many vehicles for their own good, they couldn't fit them all in the double-car garage. So if one of them was home, their car would be in the driveway. Even though he was pretty sure neither one of them was home, he got out and knocked on the front door anyway. No answer. So he rang the doorbell. Still no answer. He alternated between the two, even shouting at Abby to let him in at one point. It didn't matter that she wasn't there to hear him. It just felt good to shout at her.

It didn't a genius—thank God, because he wasn't one—to figure out where Abby was likely to be. She was a doctor, so he figured she'd be at the hospital. When he got there, he marched right up to Gaia, the softly-spoken receptionist at the front desk, and blurted, "I need to see Abby Griffin."

"Hi, Bellamy," Gaia said politely. She was on a first-name basis with him since he'd been there so many times for Clarke's appointments. "I'm sorry, she's with patients all morning," The receptionist gave him a weird look, and he wondered just how disheveled he looked. "You might be able to catch her this afternoon, though," she said. "I can schedule you an appointment."

"No, that won't work. I gotta see her now," he insisted. Her patients could wait a few minutes. Nobody in that waiting room looked like they were dying.

"I'm sorry," Gaia repeated, and dammit, he was so tired of hearing those words. "The soonest I can get you in with her is-"

Screw this, he decided. "Abby!" He marched right back behind the counter towards the patient rooms.

"Bellamy, you can't come back here," Gaia said nervously. Luckily, Abby exited the nearest room with a patient, and Bellamy stopped his tirade.

"We need to talk," he told her.

"What's going on?" she asked as her patient scurried on his way. "Is Clarke okay?"

"Clarke's fine," he bit out. "She told me everything."

Either Abby was playing dumb, or she really actually was dumb, because she stupidly asked, "Told you what?"

"Oh, don't act like you don't know," he snarled. "You wanna do this here? You wanna do this right here? Because we can. I'll let it all out."

"Do we need to call security?" Gaia asked nervously.

"No," Abby said. "I'll handle this. Bellamy, come with me." She motioned him to follow her down the hall, and he did, glaring daggers at her the whole time. They ended up in her office, where she closed the door and continued to speak steadily. "Okay, now that we're alone, why don't you calm down and tell me-"

"I'm not gonna be calm, Abby!" he roared. "You know what this is about!" He wasn't gonna bother being quiet, either. If some of her colleagues and the people out there who looked up to her overheard this, then so be it. "You know what she told me!" he yelled. "You knew the whole fucking time!"

"Please lower your voice," she said sternly and slowly. "You're in a hospital."

That just made him want to get louder. "I don't care! Now cut the crap and admit it. Just fucking admit it. You knew all along. You knew Clarke had an abortion."

Abby's eyes widened with alarm, and for a few seconds, she seemed speechless. When she found her words again, she only whispered them. "How did you find out about that?"

"I already told you, she told me everything. Pay attention!" he snapped.

"Why did she . . ." She trailed off, and he had to roll his eyes. Of course that would be one of her first questions. Why had Clarke told him? Because keeping it a secret had been working out so well for them for so long. Abby must have caught herself, though, because she ended up asking a different question instead. "When did she tell you?"

"Last night," he grumbled. "After I got down on one knee and proposed to her like an idiot."

Abby gasped. "You proposed to her?"

"Yeah." He felt like such a dumbass for doing that now. "Don't worry, she said no. You don't have to have me as your son-in-law."

She frowned, probably in an attempt to seem sympathetic, and said, "Oh, Bellamy . . ."

"And then when I confronted her about it, she broke down, told me the truth. She explained it to me," he said, gritting his teeth. "But I wanna hear it from you. I wanna hear it from someone else who knew about it and lied to me for months. What the hell happened, huh? She told you she was pregnant, and then what?"

"Bellamy . . ." Abby lowered her head, looking ashamed very much in the same way her daughter had. And when she spoke again, she said the same useless words. "I'm very sorry. We never wanted you to know."

"Yeah, I pretty much figured. But I don't wanna hear you say you're sorry, and I don't wanna hear her say she's sorry. I'm pretty fucking tired of that." He paced around in her small office, feeling like he was losing it, like any second, he really was going to punch his hand through the wall. "I wanna know what you said to her when you found out. Did you make her have an abortion? Was it your idea?"

"I didn't . . . I didn't make her do anything," she said. "Not exactly."

"What does that mean?" he yelled. "Come on, Abby, you owe me the truth. Better late than never."

"I was panicked, okay?" she said. "I didn't handle the situation well. I'll admit that. I was upset with her, and disappointed. And I was worried. I didn't know how you were gonna react, or if she was gonna end up being a single mother."

"No, I wouldn't have just abandoned her," he said, shaking his head angrily. "Or my kid. I never would've done that."

"That's easy for you to say now, at twenty-four years old."

"No, you don't know me!" he blared. "You don't know what I would've done! You've never known me; you've never even bothered to try to get to know me!" He would've stepped up, even back then. Just like he'd stepped up now for a baby that wasn't even biologically his.

"Then that's my fault," she acknowledged. "But I wanted her to know about all her options. So we discussed everything. Everything, Bellamy. And ultimately she decided . . ." She trailed off, as though she didn't want to say the word. And who would? He didn't like saying it, either.

"Yeah, with your help, right?" he said. "She decided, because you convinced her."

"I informed her," Abby corrected. "And I supported her decision."

"But do you still?" he challenged. "Now that she's pregnant again and you're about to be a grandmother, do you still support it? Or is it different now 'cause it's not my kid?"

"It's different now because she's an adult. She's not sixteen," Abby said. "You weren't here, Bellamy. You left town. You broke up with her. It was over."

"But I came back," he pointed out.

"Five years later."

"But it's not over anymore!" he shouted. "It hasn't been over for months, and neither one of you told me! And what about Jake, huh? He didn't tell me, either. Hell, he gave me permission to marry her." He wasn't about to let that guy off the hook, either, just because he was the nicer one out of Clarke's parents. "Did you know that? He was okay with letting me live a lie. You all were."

"I wasn't okay with anything," she said. "I tried to get Clarke to be cautious about getting back together with you. I knew this would happen."

"But what if it hadn't, huh?" he said, wondering how far she would have let the lie continue. "What if she'd said yes? We'd be engaged right now, and I still wouldn't have one fucking clue she and I ever made a baby."

"It wasn't . . ." She stopped short, took a breath, and started over again. "It wasn't a baby, Bellamy. It—it wasn't that developed." She winced as she said the words, then added, "Scientifically-speaking."

"I don't care about the science!" He slammed his hand down on her desk, fed up her calm, cold demeanor about something that had rattled him to his core. She wasn't even crying. "Maybe you can use that to make yourself feel better because you're a doctor, but it doesn't help me!"

"Listen," she said, still remarkably calm and collected, "I know this is a lot for you to take in and a lot for you to deal with . . ."

"Oh, you think you know?" She didn't know shit about what he was feeling.

"Yes, because it was a lot for me to deal with at the time, too."

"No, you have no idea!"

"But you need to stop and think about this, Bellamy," she said, as if she had any right to tell him what he needed to do. "Even if she had told you all those years ago, she might've still made the same decision. She might've still had an abortion. And that would've still ultimately been her decision to make, not yours."

"But at least I could've tried to change her mind. I didn't even have the chance." His voice broke as he said that, as he imagined what he would have said to her to try to convince her to have the baby. Even if she hadn't wanted to raise it, he would have been willing to do it alone. "You probably told her not to tell me, just so I couldn't have any input," he said. "You've always had it out for me."

She shook her head and denied, "That's not true."

"Yes, it is! Even now, you don't want me in your family. So maybe you're happy about all this. Maybe you're glad this is tearing me and Clarke apart."

"I'm not glad about any of this."

"You know what, Abby? I don't believe you," he decided. Her word meant nothing to him. It was bullshit. "You can go to hell," he muttered, throwing open her office door. He stormed back out into the hall, noticing all the inquisitive, interested looks from the nurses, the receptionist, and even a few patients in nearby rooms. Had he really been that loud?

Good, he thought. Abby deserved the humiliation.

...

Clarke hadn't bothered to lie down in her bed last night. She knew she wasn't going to sleep, and being in that bed without Bellamy would just be painful. So she lay downstairs on the couch all night, crying for long periods of time, then closing her eyes and just thinking for long periods of time. Her phone didn't ring all night, but in the morning, it started making all sorts of noises. It dinged whenever she got a new text, which seemed to happen about every fifteen minutes. First came a random one from Raven, and it was nothing more than a gif of a guy dancing. She'd typed It's Friday! underneath. A little while later, she did text again, asking Clarke if she wanted to hang out later or go get lunch, but Clarke didn't even bother responding. Then came a text from Harper, who apparently needed advice on a birthday gift for Monty. Clarke didn't feel like she was in a position to give anybody advice. On anything.

Her mom started calling around 9:00. And it was one phone call after another. Sometimes the number on the screen was her work number, sometimes her cell phone. She never left a message, but she kept calling.

She knows, Clarke realized. She knew what had happened. Bellamy must have gone and said something to her.

Around 10:00, she received a short but noteworthy text from Aurora. All it said was, Do you need someone to talk to? But it sent Clarke's mind spinning in so many different directions. Had Bellamy already told her everything? Did she know? Was she upset, angry? Empathetic? Or maybe she didn't know the specifics and just knew that something was wrong. After all, Bellamy had probably gone and stayed with her last night.

Clarke felt the need to at least respond to her, so she texted back No, but not wanting to sound rude, she sent another one immediately after that said, Thank you.

Closer to noon came a text from Octavia. It was simple enough, just asked, How was your date with my brother last night? But it was sort of a weird thing to ask. As Clarke sat there and thought about it, she realized that Octavia must have known he was planning to propose. And she must have been terribly confused as to why there were no pictures on Instagram showing off the ring, or why she hadn't gotten a phone call from her brother sharing the good news.

Clarke couldn't quite formulate a response for Octavia, so she just left that message alone. In fact, she even thought about shutting off her phone altogether, until one more text flashed onto her screen. From Murphy this time.

Trailer's up!

Perhaps because she hadn't slept, it took Clarke a moment to even realize what he was talking about. Trailer? she thought. What trailer? She was picturing a freaking mobile home in her mind until it dawned on her that that was the wrong type of trailer. He meant trailer as in promo. As in a promo for . . .

Oh, no. The documentary.

Murphy sent her the link a minute later, and even though she wasn't sure it was a good idea, she clicked on it. That brought her to his YouTube channel, and there, she saw what he had decided to title the film. Constant.

She pressed the play button and stared down at the screen, holding it with shaky hands. The trailer was incredibly well-edited, like one of those Netflix documentaries about some oddly interesting indie topic. Murphy had gotten so much footage, more than she'd even realized. He showed snippets from the interviews he'd done with her and Bellamy, splicing those in with video from the gender reveal party, New Year's Eve, Bellamy's birthday, and so much more. In almost every clip, they were laughing, smiling, or kissing. Some were recent, and her belly was huge, but some were older, back when she'd barely even looked pregnant yet. They looked happy in all of them.

The trailer ended with a clip of Bellamy during one of his solo interviews. He sort of had a grin on his face, and off-screen, Murphy said to him, "She's the love of your life." His grin expanded, and he agreed, "Yeah. She's my constant." Then the trailer smashed to black, and a date slowly appeared on the screen. A date in May, probably Murphy's intended release date.

His constant, Clarke thought sadly. That meant that she was something to him that did not change. Or at least . . . she had been.

Against her better judgment, she pressed the replay button and tried to hold back the tears. They fell anyway.

...

Bellamy sat at Eligius all afternoon, figuring it was the perfect place to drown his sorrows. In fact, since Dropship had closed down, it was the only place. Clarke was too far along to be working, not that she would have been able to drag herself in for work today anyway, and even Charmaine Diyoza appeared to have taken the day off. So that meant his server was a guy named Joe, and Joe was pretty awesome, because he poured Bellamy drink after drink and didn't ask any questions.

He realized he must have really looked like a wreck when even Bree showed up and didn't bother hitting on him. Miller came in for a few minutes, too, but he didn't have much time for Bellamy. Apparently he was supposed to be meeting Bryan, but Bryan was a no-show. He had his own drama going on, so Bellamy kept his to himself. And he waited until Miller left to order another drink.

He was on his fifth or sixth beer and was finally starting to feel it a bit when someone came and sat down on the stool beside him. Not just anyone, either, but his little sister of all people. She looked dressed to go out later, probably with Lincoln. "Hey," she said. "Mom told me I might find you here."

"Mom knows me well," he said, swirling the remainder of the liquid around in the bottom of his glass.

"What's going on?" Octavia asked. "She said she's worried about you."

He didn't mean to worry them, either of them, so he lied and said, "I'm fine."

His sister clearly wasn't convinced. "What happened?" she asked.

"Nothing," he muttered.

She still wasn't buying it, though, and who could blame her? He wasn't exactly selling it very well. "Clearly something happened," she said, "because last I talked to you, you were all excited to propose. Did you not go through with it?"

"No, I did." He downed the rest of his beer, really wishing he was drunk right now. It would've been nice to just . . . escape.

"She said no?" Octavia realized incredulously. "Why?"

"Long story." He didn't feel like going into detail.

"Well, I'm not gonna study for my finals," she said. "So I've got time."

If there was anyone he could confide in, it'd be either her or his mom. But Octavia . . . she was young. It wasn't her job to look after him. "You don't wanna know," he told her.

"Pretty sure I do. That's why I'm here."

"No, trust me, O . . . you don't wanna know about this." He slapped some money down on the counter, probably didn't include a big enough tip for good old Joe, and sulked towards the door.

"Do you need me to drive you?" she called after him.

"No, I got it." He wasn't dizzy or light-headed or anything like that. He was just . . . sad. He'd moved from anger to sadness.

He drove home slowly, not to the beach house but to his mom's house, knowing that he couldn't just crash there again tonight without giving her an explanation. And truth be told, he wanted to open up to someone about all of this. He needed to.

When he got home, he found his mother lying on the couch, curled up under a blanket, fast asleep. She jolted awake when he shut the door, though, and sat up.

"Mom?" he choked out.

"Oh, good, you're back." She got up and came towards him, blanket wrapped around her shoulders. "You've had me worried sick all day, Bellamy."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. There were those words again. Except now he was the one saying them. "Mom, I'm not . . . I'm not doin' so good."

"What happened?" she asked him softly.

Too much. Too much had happened. Almost too much for him to even make sense of, let alone relay to her. He broke down in tears and could barely even understand himself as he let it all out. "Clarke had an abortion, Mom. In high school. I found out about it last night."

His mom's hand came up to her open mouth. She looked shocked. When she lowered it, she carefully went about asking, "Was it . . . was it yours?"

Crying too hard to even speak, he just nodded.

Moving closer to him with open arms, she said, "Come here," and enveloped him. He fell against her, sobbing, wishing a hug from her could make it all better, just like it had back when he'd been a little boy getting scraped up on the football field. But this wasn't something a hug from Mom could fix. This was something that was shaking him to his core.

All the strength just vanished from his body as he cried, and she wasn't able to hold him up. So they sank down on the floor together, and she held him tightly, rocking him back and forth a little, trying to comfort him and soothe him in any way she could. He felt like a complete and utter child in that moment, but he didn't even care. He was devastated, and he just needed his mom.

...

Clarke wasn't sure how many times she'd watched the trailer for Constant that day. At least a dozen. It was sort of . . . torture. So maybe that was why she watched it. Murphy bombarded her with texts asking if she thought it was good or not, and she figured he was sending the same texts to Bellamy. Finally, she responded and assured him that it was. Other people seemed to think so, too. The comment section was filled with people saying how excited they were to see it, because it looked like it was going to be really romantic and really sweet. The video got a lot of likes and only a couple dislikes. It got views. People really did want to see that film.

She made excuses to Raven and Harper so she didn't have to respond to their messages that day. Just a simple I'm tired that seemed to suffice. They didn't reach out to her much that day, which left Octavia and her mom. Clarke wasn't sure which one of them came knocking on the door early that evening, but she knew it wasn't Bellamy. Part of her didn't even want to get up and answer it, but the knocking didn't let up.

Peeking out the peephole, she saw her mother standing on the porch, already wiping tears off her cheeks. All day long, she'd been trying to get a hold of her. She'd left voicemail after voicemail that Clarke hadn't listened to. But when Clarke opened the door, her mom didn't say anything. She just looked at her sadly and came into the house. Clarke broke down into tears right away, and no words were necessary as she and her mother hugged. They were both crying, both reliving everything. They never talked about it, but it'd always been there. It wasn't as if they'd ever forgotten or ever could. There would be no more communicating about it through subtle hints or pointed glances anymore, though. No. Now it was out in the open, where it should have been all along.