Chapter 59

Since Clarke wasn't really sleeping, whoever was knocking on the door that morning didn't really wake her up. She was able to answer the door quickly since she'd been downstairs in the recliner, covered by blankets, lost in a multitude of thoughts brought on by good old insomnia.

When she opened the door, she was glad to that it was Harper, and Harper had a sack in her hand. "Hey."

"Hey." Despite everything she had learned about Clarke's past in the last twenty-four hours, Harper still smiled at her and asked, "Can I come in?"

"Sure." Clarke stepped aside and hastily tried to tidy up the coffee table as Harper entered the house. She'd left last night's dishes just lying about. "Sorry about the mess," she apologized.

"It's fine," Harper said, shutting the front door. "Did you sleep down here?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because it takes a lot of energy for me to go up and down the stairs these days," Clarke explained, setting her dinner plate and silverware down in the sink. "Besides, the bed just . . . doesn't feel the same without Bellamy."

Harper looked down at her feet and mumbled, "Right." Her smile expression morphed into a sad one, just for a moment, but in typical Harper McIntyre fashion, she snapped herself out of it quickly. "Well, I brought you something," she said, handing the sack she'd brought in to Clarke. "Graduation gear. They decided to get us new robes and hats."

Clarke took a look inside and lifted out a maroon gown. "I totally forgot about this," she said. Just a week or so ago, she'd tried on her black cap and gown. That probably would have been more slimming than this new color would be.

"Did you hear they're moving it up a week?" Harper asked.

"They are?" Clarke was so out of the loop. She had checked her school email in days, nor did she care to. "Why?"

"Weather forecast," Harper replied. "All the professors are doing final exams a week early."

That seemed a little drastic for a forecast that might not even turn out to be true. "It's not even hurricane season," Clarke said.

"No, but it can still get bad. And I'm not complaining. One less week of classes," Harper said. "And hey, now you can graduate before you have the baby. Weren't you gonna be cutting it close?"

"Yeah." Clarke touched her stomach and agreed. "This is better." She'd been starting to doubt that she'd make it to her graduation ceremony. Some moms could stay active up until the very last week of their pregnancy, but she did not feel like one of those moms. "Well, thanks for bringing me my stuff," she said.

"Yeah, no problem," Harper said. "I wanted to check up on you, too, see how you're doing."

She wasn't doing very well, but it was nice of her friend to be concerned. "I'm okay," she said.

Harper nodded, seeming to accept that, and then told her, "Raven's probably gonna come by later."

"That's sweet," Clarke said, "but you know, you guys don't have to be so nice to me."

Harper made a face. "Clarke, we're your friends."

"Yeah, but . . ." That didn't mean that they couldn't be pissed at her. "I know what I did was wrong," she acknowledged. "You don't have to act like everything's normal."

"Well . . ." Harper shrugged. "We've all made mistakes."

"Yeah, but have you ever aborted a baby without telling the father?"

Harper grimaced.

"Didn't think so," Clarke said. What was Harper's biggest mistake, messing up in a dance? It was nice of her to try to empathize, but what she'd done was on another level. "Look, I know you're more pro-life and you don't agree with what I did," Clarke said, "so I know you must be disgusted by me."

"No." Harper shook her head. "No, not even. I didn't even know you back then. And I don't know what it's like to be pregnant. So I'm not gonna judge you for having an abortion, Clarke."

"Then judge me lying to Bellamy," Clarke told her. "Please." Still, though, even when she was practically begging for some judgement, she didn't see any in her friend's eyes. "You can't just let me off the hook with this," she said. "You and Raven . . . you guys have to be upset with me."

"Is that what you wanna hear?" Harper said. "We are, and we both feel horrible for Bellamy. But we're not gonna stop being your friends over this. No way." Reaching out, she placed a hand on Clarke's shoulder. "This is when you need your friends the most."

In a way, it was comforting to hear that. But it was also frustrating. Because Clarke couldn't shake the feeling that what she needed and what she deserved were very different things.

...

Bellamy wasn't sure how he was gonna make it into work tomorrow, how he was going to do his job when all he felt like doing was getting wasted. He had yet to truly drown his sorrows over all the shit he was dealing with. A couple drinks here and there wasn't getting the job done.

He went back to Eligius Sunday afternoon, not surprised to see that it was mostly older men there. It was the post-church crowd. After they went and worshipped, they came here for good old boy time. Clarke said they usually stayed a while, too.

He had nothing in common with them to converse about, and they took up most of the counter space, so Bellamy sat down in a booth instead. The one he used to come sit in when he wanted an excuse to be there while Clarke was working. He ordered a burger and a drink, and he'd already ordered another drink before his burger arrived.

As he was working on his second bottle, the door chimed, and in walked someone who was definitely not one of the good old boys. Miller waved to all of the men, though, friends of his dad's, most likely, and made his way straight to Bellamy. "Dude," he said, sliding into the other side of the booth. "What the fuck's goin' on?"

"What do you mean?" Bellamy asked.

"I just ran into Roma, who apparently still hasn't accepted the fact that I'm gay, because she tried to hit on me," Miller started in. "Anyway, when she finally figured out it wasn't gonna work, she started askin' about you, about what you're up to. And she starts talkin' all this shit about Clarke. I mean ridiculous rumors, man."

A few days ago, Bellamy would have rolled his eyes at that. But not anymore. "What was she saying?"

"Just . . . stuff about high school," Miller answered vaguely. "About Clarke doing something in high school. Something she'd never do."

Like an abortion? Bellamy wondered. Was that what Roma was spreading around?

Hesitantly, quietly, Miller asked, "That is just a rumor, isn't it?"

Wish it was, Bellamy thought. But instead of saying anything, he just took another drink.

Miller gripped the edge of the table and said, "Holy shit."

"Did she say how she found out?" Bellamy asked him. He kind of wanted to know the source.

"No, she just said she heard it from someone." Miller still had a look of shock on his face, like he couldn't quite believe it. "You mean to tell me that's all true? Clarke had a . . ." He trailed off and shook his head, experiencing the same immediate denial Bellamy had felt. "No way. No, she wouldn't."

"She did," Bellamy confirmed. He wasn't gonna lie to one of his best friends.

"What?" Miller gasped. "What the hell? Was it . . ."

"Mine, yeah," Bellamy said. Yep, it'd been his baby.

"What the fuck, man?" Miller rubbed his head, looking stressed, even though it wasn't his own drama. When the door chimed again, he looked that way and said to Bellamy, "Hey, isn't that . . ."

Bellamy looked over and saw none other than Jake Griffin approaching the bar. He sat down on the end and waved bartender Joe over.

"Her dad," Bellamy said. From what he gathered, it was a rare thing to see Jake set foot in Arkadia these days, so Bellamy knew he couldn't pass up the chance to give the guy a piece of his mind. "We'll talk later," he told his friend. Bottle in hand, he walked up to the counter and stood next to Jake, who looked surprised to see him.

"Bellamy," Jake said.

Bellamy didn't even bother to greet him. He watched as Joe poured him a shot and said, "Drinking. Not a bad idea if I do say so myself."

"I'm not staying long," Jake said. He thanked Joe for the shot and quickly downed it.

"Are you on your way outta town or into it?" Bellamy asked him.

"In," he replied. "I need to see my daughter."

"Yeah, I saw her last night," Bellamy said. "She looks guilty. Kinda like you, Jake."

Jake looked down at his empty shot glass, no longer the strong, confident guy Bellamy usually saw him as. Sitting at that bar, he looked just as pathetic as the rest of them. "I never wanted her to have an abortion," he said quietly, not that any of the grandpa types around him had good enough hearing to overhear. "Believe it or not, I fought hard for her to have that child. Fought so hard it tore my marriage apart."

Bellamy gave him a long, hard look and grunted. "So this is your strategy? Play the victim?"

"No."

"Because you're not the victim here, Jake. I am," he growled angrily. "And so is that kid. My kid." He didn't have any sympathy for this guy and his broken marriage. So what if fighting about Clarke's decision had caused him and his horrible wife to get a divorce? They were better off without each other anyway. "How would you feel if Abby had aborted Clarke, huh?" he challenged, just to put things in perspective. "And you never even got to know her or have any input whatsoever."

"I'd be devastated," Jake readily admitted.

"And how would you feel if she kept it from you for years? How would you feel if her whole family kept it from you?" He felt like there had been this ongoing effort to keep the wool pulled over his eyes, and he resented them for it so much. "You can't blame that one all on Abby, can you?"

"No," Jake said with a sigh. "We all decided together never to tell anyone."

It sounded like a fucking conspiracy, and maybe it was. They'd conspired against him. "You know, I thought I liked you," Bellamy snarled. "You were decent to me. You didn't treat me like shit."

"That's because I respect you, Bellamy."

He laughed angrily at that. "Oh, that's a good one. You respect me? Yeah, you respect me enough to keep me in the dark." That wasn't respect; it was the opposite. "You gave me your blessing to marry your daughter, but you knew about all of this the whole time. Did you know it was gonna come out when it did? Did you know she was gonna turn me down right when I got down on one knee and proposed to her? Did you know it was all gonna blow up?"

"To be honest, Bellamy, I thought we were done with it," Jake said. "And I was glad. Because when Clarke . . . did what she did . . . it put a strain on our relationship, too, as father and daughter. We've been rebuilding it for years. And this year was the first time it felt normal again."

There he goes again, Bellamy thought, trying to get sympathy. Any damage done to his relationship with his daughter was Jake's own fault, though. He'd chosen to move away. It wasn't like his divorce had mandated that. "You shouldn't have told me I could marry her," he said through clenched teeth. There was no excuse. It didn't matter if he'd thought it was all over. There was no fucking excuse.

Jake surprised him with what he said next: "But I wanted you to. I wanted you to marry her."

Bellamy couldn't help but be confused. Even though he'd gotten the guy's blessing or permission or whatever they wanted to call it, part of him had assumed that Jake still looked at him and saw the guy from high school who had changed Clarke forever. Especially now that he knew he'd gotten her pregnant.

"She's my little girl, Bellamy," Jake said, his voice full of sentimental emotion. "Whatever she's done, whatever decisions she's made . . . she's still my little girl, and I love her. I want her to be happy. And she's never been happier than when she's with you, so . . ." He looked down at the empty shot glass again, blinking back tears this time.

Well, I've never been happier than when I was with her, he thought. But right now, he wasn't happy. Right now, he was just miserable.

Two guys from down at the other end of the bar had gotten up and come their way, and they were all smiles as the said, "Jake, good to see you."

Jake's tone shifted when he said, "Hey, Howard. Jim."

"What brings you back to town?"

"Oh, just here for some family business."

Sensing that their conversation was over, Bellamy grabbed his bottle and headed out. He didn't even care if he was technically breaking some open container law by walking out of there with a drink in his hand. Although knowing his luck, some cop would spot him and give him a ticket.

He got in his car and managed to get home without incident. Of course, he'd polished off his drink by the time he got there, and he'd already finished everything left in his mom's fridge. So drowning his sorrows was once again going to be impossible unless he went to the store and bought some booze himself.

He didn't feel like going anywhere, though, especially not if word had gotten around about what he and Clarke were dealing with now. How Roma knew was a mystery, but he was certain it hadn't come from his mom or Octavia. It was possible that someone at the hospital had gossiped about it. His argument with Abby had gotten pretty loud, after all.

Bellamy sulked to his bedroom and stood in the doorway, looking inward at the space. It was so . . . high school. It wasn't him anymore. But luckily his mom hadn't changed it, otherwise he really wouldn't feel like he had a home right now.

Although it wouldn't have been the first time he felt that way.

...

Even indoors, Orlando was hot. Bellamy felt it the second he stepped off the plane. He definitely wasn't on the coast anymore.

That whole airport was Disney-themed. He thought about stopping at some of the stores and picking up something for Octavia, but he thought better of it when he got a look at the price tags. Maybe, though, if he was able to save up some money the next couple of years, he could take his family to Disney World, just for a day or two. They'd never really been able to do the whole family vacation thing before. Of course, they'd be able to afford a lot of vacations if he made it to the NFL.

There was no one from UCF there to greet him or make a big deal out of his arrival, and he felt dumb for expecting anything of the sort. He was a college athlete, not a celebrity. Hell, he wasn't even a starter yet. It was back to being a freshman for him, bottom of the totem pole. Except he'd never actually been the bottom of the totem pole in Arkadia. He'd always had . . . notoriety.

He went and picked up his bags, then proceeded to get overwhelmed as he tried to figure out the cheapest way to get to campus. There were buses and airport shuttles and Ubers and taxis, all things they didn't have in a small town. He ended up just hopping in a taxi, but trying to tell the driver where to go was easier said than done, because the guy barely spoke any English. It'd been two years since Bellamy had taken a Spanish class, and even then, it wasn't like he'd actually studied or done well at it. Thankfully, modern technology made everything a little easier, and when Bellamy showed the driver a picture of his assigned dorm on his phone, the driver nodded, said, "Si, si," and started driving.

The drive wasn't exactly a short one. In Arkadia, you could get anywhere in ten minutes, fifteen at the most. But it took about a half an hour to get to campus, and the driver brought him to the wrong dorm, which took up even more time. Finally, they got to the right place, and Bellamy handed over nearly all the cash in his wallet to pay for the ride. He didn't know what was acceptable to give as a tip, but he did know this driver didn't deserve a huge one, so he gave him two extra bucks, said, "Gracias," because despite how bad he'd been at Spanish, even he knew that meant "thank you," and got his own luggage out of the trunk.

He recognized this living community from one of the campus tours he'd taken, but there had been so many people there in the fall. Now that it was summer, it was kind of . . . dead. Although there were some especially tan people playing on a sand volleyball court. He ended up having to interrupt their game to ask them where he should go check in, and they directed him to the main office.

While he waited for his room key, he spotted what looked like a rec center or gym of some sort right across the street. That made sense why a lot of athletes apparently lived in this area then. And he was pretty sure he smelled chlorine from a swimming pool, so he was gonna have to go find that later. It wouldn't be as fun as swimming in the ocean, though.

"Alright, here's your room key, Bellamy," the woman behind the desk said, handing him an electronic card. "Welcome to UCF."

"Thanks." He loaded himself up with all his bags and suitcases again and checked the room number on the card. Oh, great. He had to haul this stuff up to the third floor.

He took a couple of wrong turns, but eventually, he found his dorm room. Most of the rooms were suite style, but he could tell that his was not. Probably because it'd been a last-minute thing, him showing up there that summer. He had to take what he could get.

When he opened the door, he saw a skinny kid with jet black hair sitting at his desk on his computer, his back to Bellamy. He didn't turn around or anything.

"Hey," Bellamy said, kind of pissed that he was already going to have to deal with a roommate.

The guy still didn't turn around, though, and Bellamy understood why when he spotted the headphones in his ears.

"Hey!" he greeted, louder. That got the other guy's attention. He turned around but didn't take out his headphones. His hair fell in front of his eyes, and all Bellamy could think was that he looked like one of those punks from mid-2000s emo bands. Octavia had gone through an emo phase, and this kid, with his eyeliner and piercings looked like he'd fit right in with all the musicians she'd once listened to.

Don't judge him, Bellamy told himself. Hell, Jasper was a stereotypical nerd, but he'd still become a good friend. "I'm Bellamy," he introduced himself. "I'm your new roommate."

His roommate didn't say hi, didn't even bother to introduce himself. Instead, he just nodded, turned up the volume on his music, and turned back around to face his computer. He looked like he was on some band's website.

Well, so much for pleasantries, Bellamy thought, lugging all his things into the room. The door shut behind him, and he set everything down, grateful to not have to carry it anymore. No need to hit the gym today. He'd already done some lifting.

Since his roommate clearly had no interest in him, he looked around the space. Very small, although he was used to that with his bedroom back home. The bed looked long enough, but it also looked . . . uncomfortable. Maybe just because it was only mattress right now and didn't have any pillows or blankets on it. His whole side of the room was blank, empty, vacant. Nothing on the walls, nothing in the closet or on the desk. But his roommate's side was adorned with posters. Not of emo bands, as it turned out, but heavy metal bands. Like Slipknot.

Great.

Sensing that this wasn't going to be somebody he could just hang out and talk about sports with, Bellamy decided not to make an effort with his roommate, and instead, he sat down on the bed, took out his phone, and thought about calling his mom to let her know he'd gotten there. Or maybe . . . maybe he could call Clarke. Even though she'd told him not to.

He swiped through the names on his phone, stopping on hers, and he debated whether or not to click on it. He could ask her if she knew anything about Slipknot just so he and his roommate had something to discuss.

Or I could just leave her alone, he thought. It was what they'd agreed to do, let each other start fresh so they weren't tied down. She was probably hanging out with Raven right now, or doing something with her family. She didn't need him bothering her.

He sighed, set his phone aside, and looked again at his empty side of the room. Home sweet home, he thought grumpily. Hopefully it'd be better once he got settled in.

...

Bellamy sat down on the floor, right there in the doorway, leaning back against the frame, almost wishing he had to go to work today. It would've been something to do, at least, something to distract himself from how fucked up he felt. But since he didn't have to work, instead, he sat, feeling pretty alone. And lost.

...

"Thanks for hanging out with me today," Clarke said as Harper walked out the door.

Turning back around, her friend asked, "Feel any better?"

"A little bit." She still wasn't doing backflips or anything, but at least having Harper around had gotten her mind on some other things.

"I meant what I said, Clarke. Raven and I aren't going anywhere."

"Thank you," Clarke said. "That means a lot." Lesser friends would have abandoned her right now, left her to fend for herself and sort out this mess she'd created all on her own.

"In fact," Harper said, her eyes traveling sideways as a car pulled to a stop on the other side of the street, across from hers, "if you want me to stick around a little longer . . ."

Clarke didn't even need to see those familiar waves of dark hair to know that Finn was paying her a visit. She recognized that car, and the sound of its dilapidated muffler, right away. "What's he doing here?" she grumbled as he got out.

"I can stay," Harper offered again.

"No. It's okay. I can deal with him."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Harper had done more than her fair share of friend duty today, so Clarke wanted to let her off the hook. "Thanks." Besides, when it came to her and Finn, it was probably best if everyone else was out of dodge.

Harper gave her a quick hug, then stepped down off the front steps and pointedly ignored Finn on the way to her car. He did said, "Hey, Harper. You look great," but her only response was, "You look like an ass." Clarke had to stifle a laugh.

Once Harper was gone, Finn came up to the front door as if he expected to be let in, but Clarke stood in the doorway stubbornly. "What do you want?" she demanded.

"Well, I heard," he said, as if that somehow explained what the hell he was doing there.

"Heard what?"

"About you," he said. "And Bellamy."

Me and Bellamy? Her stomach tightened with nervousness. "What exactly did you hear?"

He made a face. "Oh, come on, Clarke, everyone's talking about it. Everybody knows."

No, she thought, her bottom lip starting to tremble. Everybody doesn't know. How could everybody know?

"Kinda ironic that you wouldn't even consider an abortion when I suggested it to you," he said, "even though you'd already had one."

Oh my god. He wasn't just talking out his ass then. He did know. Somehow, some way, he'd found out. "Who told you?" she asked as calmly as she could.

"Atom."

"Your—your roommate?" she sputtered. How did his roommate know?

"He heard about it from someone else," Finn said. "You know how small towns are. Everyone knows everyone else's business."

But they weren't supposed to know this. This was so personal, so private.

Finn just wouldn't let up, though. He had his ammunition, and he was using it. "I just think it's kinda crappy that you try to make me out to be a deadbeat dad when you haven't exactly been mother of the year, now have you?"

She was trying, though. She was trying to be a good mom this time around to make up for last time. Didn't that count for anything?

Feeling mortified, imagining all the gossip that was flying around about her, Clarke went back inside and slammed the door in his face. Her hands shook, and her heart pounded. It wasn't supposed to have happened this way. No one was ever supposed to know, let alone everyone.

Luckily, Finn didn't stick around. He'd gotten his jabs in and must have been satisfied with that. But Clarke still felt shook after he left. If he and his loser roommate knew, then that meant people from high school knew. Former classmates, teachers . . . whether they'd liked or disliked her, they now all had inside knowledge into just how screwed up she'd been once. She imagined word getting out to Bree, who'd always needlessly been a bitch to her but now finally had a way to claim she was better. She thought about what her ex-boyfriend Wells would say once he found out, because Wells had no flaws, and he'd have a hard time believing he'd ever dated someone who could . . . do this. And then there was someone like Mrs. Sydney, her old principal, who undoubtedly had had plenty of conversations with her staff members back in the day about how that Clarke Griffin girl was going to end up pregnant if she wasn't careful with Bellamy Blake. Well, she hadn't been careful, and now everyone knew.

Though she hadn't been planning on leaving the house that day, Clarke did end up going to her mom's house shortly after Finn stopped by. It rapidly became apparent that her abortion and subsequent lies were the hot topic all over town. Her phone started to ring incessantly with calls from people who had heard and were concerned about her. Hopefully that meant they were calling Bellamy and checking in on him, too.

Her mother was right outside planting flowers when she got there. She looked so Stepford and wholesome that Clarke almost felt bad about ruining her afternoon. Almost. "Mom!" she said loudly as she got out of the car.

"Clarke? What're you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Honey, you need to rest," her mom said, getting to her feet. "You've still got two weeks of this pregnancy left."

"Trust me, I would love to be resting right about now," she said, "but I can't, because guess what? Everybody knows."

Her mother stiffened. "About what?"

"What do you think?" she spat. "I just got a phone call from Lexa. She heard. And Jasper and Maya and Anya, who I don't even like, and . . . god, even Finn knows!"

Abby hung her head.

"So who told them, huh?" Clarke yelled. "'cause I sure didn't."

"I didn't, either," her mom said.

"Well, someone had to."

"Maybe it was Bellamy," her mom suggested. "Aren't he and Jasper friends?"

"Yeah, but-"

"And isn't he friends with Lexa?"

"Yes, but he wouldn't let Finn find out." As far as she knew, the only two people he'd told were his mom and his sister. And sure, Octavia had probably told Lincoln, but Lincoln was, like, the most trustworthy guy on the planet. He wouldn't tell anyone. That left only one place where the information could have sprung such a leak. "So who'd you tell, Mom?"

"I told Marcus," she said.

"Who else?" There had to be someone else, because Kane wouldn't say anything. Her mom didn't admit to telling more people, but to Clarke, it just seemed obvious. "You told Callie, didn't you?"

Her mom took off her gardening gloves and dropped them down onto the ground. "Honey, she's my best friend."

"No, she's not! She's a bitch, Mom!" Clarke groaned in distress, dragging her hands through her hair. "As if it isn't bad enough that she wants your man, now she wants to humiliate your daughter. You know it was her. You know she told everyone. No one else would've."

"Clarke, I'm so sorry," her mother apologized tearfully.

"You know what? Now I know why Bellamy got really tired of hearing those words." In that moment, she wanted her mom to take that sorry and shove it up her ass. She'd had no right to tell Callie Cartwig, a known gossip-monger, something so personal. Now everything they were dealing with was just even worse, because it was out there as public information. Most people wouldn't act like Finn. They'd be polite enough not to say anything about it. But some people would. Some people reveled in the downfall of others.

She left her mom crying on the front lawn, in no mood to try to console her, and headed back home, feeling like she needed to relax. Her Braxton-Hicks contractions often worsened when she was stressed, and she was super stressed out right now. No need to go into actual labor on top of all of this.

Unfortunately, the stress just kept piling on, because when she pulled up to her house, she saw her one of her dad's expensive cars there. He was ringing the doorbell, but he spun around when she got out of the car.

"Great," she muttered. "Yeah. Let's just get all the parental arguments out of the way in one day."

"I'm not here to argue," he said. "I'm here to see how you're doing."

"I'm . . . a wreck, Dad," she said, flapping her arms against her sides. "How else would I be?"

He moved towards her, arms open as if he wanted to hug her. "Come here."

"No. I can't hug you right now," she said, pushing past him so she could get into the house.

"Why not?"

She whirled around in the doorway and said, "Because I took away your grandchild, remember?" During their worst fight about her decision, he'd told her that, if she had an abortion, he'd never be able to forgive her for it. And those words still lingered.

"You're about to give me another one," he pointed out.

She shook her head. "It doesn't make up for it. Ask anyone—literally anyone, because apparently everyone knows—and I'm sure they'd tell you . . . it doesn't make up for it." She backed into the house, flinging her purse and keys onto the recliner, and sat down on the arm of the couch, holding one hand to her stomach.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't feel bad about this," he said as he came inside. "We all should; we all do. But you're about to be a mother, and I will not let you beat yourself down over this."

"What am I supposed to do?" she cried. "Dad, I—I betrayed the one person in the world who means the most to me. I lied to him. He doesn't trust me. And he has no reason to." Trust was the foundation of any good relationship, and she and Bellamy had lost that now. All because of her.

"I saw him today," her father said.

"What?" Right away, she had a million questions, like how had seemed, and had he said anything about her, and did it seem like he was doing okay? But she asked just one. "When?"

"Earlier," he said. "At the bar. He was pretty upset with me."

"Well, can you blame him?"

"No," Jake said. "I know what it's like to be upset about this." He gave her a stern look, one that made it clear that he did still harbor some anger about what she'd chosen to do, regardless of how far their relationship had come since then. "He's hurting," he said. "He's lashing out. But once he calms down, you two will work it out."

"How?" Clarke wondered. "How are we supposed to just work through this? I mean, look at you and Mom. You guys got divorced because of 'irreconcilable differences.' Well, what's more irreconcilable than this?"

"Clarke." Her dad bent down, put his hands on both her shoulders, and gave her a gentle shake, as if to shake some sense into her. "You and Bellamy are nothing like me and your mom," he said. "You're stronger than us. You didn't communicate with him for five years, but the second he came back to town, you two got right back together. Now why is that?"

"Because . . ." She sniffled and wiped the tears from her nose. "Because we love each other," she whimpered.

"That's right. And that kind of love doesn't just go away," he said. "It lasts. It overcomes."

The cramps in her midsection started to subside, and she found herself . . . actually really listening to him. Because of all the conversations she'd expected to have with her dad, this was not one of them. She'd expected him to lecture her, not try to motivate her.

"Now I'm not saying it's gonna be easy," he said. "But I've seen the way he looks at you, the way he cares about you." Glancing down at her stomach, he added, "About both of you. Something tells me he's not going anywhere this time."

She took in a shaky breath, torn between believing him and expecting the worst. She wanted to believe him, though. She wanted to believe that she and Bellamy had the type of love that could overcome anything, even something as horrible as this.

It wasn't until that evening that she finally had some time to herself. Her dad had stayed with her all day, and it'd actually been . . . really nice. He told her about his own process of forgiving her, how it had taken time to move past the disappointment, but how he'd never stopped loving her. She wondered if he was telling her that to draw a comparison with Bellamy. Would it be the same for him? Would he still love her, even if he was working through issues with her?

She shut her phone off while he was there, because dealing with everyone else just felt like a little much. Lexa and Jasper and all those people who were just now finding out . . . she didn't blame them for calling or texting. They were just trying to be good friends. But time with her dad turned out to be just the thing she needed, because when he left, she felt . . . sort of energized. Still not like she was about to do backflips or anything, but energized enough to turn her phone back on, ignore all the voicemails and unread texts, and call up Bellamy.

It rang four times. With each ring, she became less and less hopeful that he would answer. She wasn't surprised when it kicked onto voicemail. In fact, she'd been anticipating it.

"Hey, it's Bellamy. Leave me a message."

A beep signaled that it was time for her to start talking. "Hey, it's me." Would he even listen to this? Didn't matter. She was leaving him this voicemail anyway. "I know you probably don't wanna hear from me right now, but I just wanted to let you know . . ." She stopped for a second, because Avery started to kick. Wildly. As if she was telling her daddy something, too. "I love you," she said quietly, feeling the words as she said them. "I've always loved you. I always will." That wasn't going to change for her, no matter what. And since she knew it wouldn't change, she felt compelled to add on something he'd once said about her, something that was true for him, too: "You're my constant."