Chapter 60

Cleaning the teachers' study was a hell of a lot better than cleaning classrooms. It wasn't as much of a mess, and it didn't smell as bad. Plus, Bellamy found relief in the fact that none of the students could see him back there. Not that he was embarrassed to be a janitor; he just . . . wasn't exactly proud of it, either.

He was in the midst of cleaning the men's bathroom back there when someone knocked on the door. "Occupado," he droned in response.

"Bellamy, it's Kane."

He stopped what he was doing, confused, and slowly opened the bathroom door. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Well, hello to you, too," Kane said.

"Sorry." He hadn't meant to sound rude. "I'm kinda in the middle of something here. This toilet won't clean itself, you know." He lifted up the rim and made a face at what he saw. Normally, it wasn't very bad, but someone must have had stomach issues that day, because . . .

"I just came up to post some flyers about the summer programs we're offering at the center," Kane said, holding up a stack of neon-colored papers. "Some of these kids need something to do when school's out, otherwise they just go get into trouble."

Bellamy nodded wordlessly, wondering if the football team still partied as much as they used to. Maybe they were partying too much. Might explain why they weren't any good.

"I met your boss, Steve," Kane went on. "He seems nice."

"Nice enough." Bellamy squirted some toilet cleaner into the bowl, already dreading the thought of scrubbing at it.

"He told me I'd find you back here," Kane said. "He told me you could take a break. If you want."

If he took a break, it was going to be hard to keep going. The best way to go about this job was just to work without stopping and get it done as quickly as possible. "I got stuff to do," he said.

"I understand," Kane said, "but I'd like to talk to you. Can we?"

Bellamy looked down at the toilet, figuring it had waited all day, so it could wait a little longer. Besides, he actually liked Kane. That guy had always treated him decently.

They ended up going outside, since several teachers were back in the study in line at the copy machine. Outside, they could talk openly, freely, without worrying he was going to overhear them.

"Did you know?" Bellamy asked him outright.

"No," Kane replied. "Abby told me a couple days ago. I haven't gotten to talk to Clarke yet. Don't know what I'd say. Maybe I just won't say anything."

Bellamy grunted. "Wish I had that luxury." He'd done a pretty good job of avoiding Clarke these past few days, with only that one run-in at the beach house. But he knew that, eventually, he was going to have to man up and have a real conversation with her. About all of this.

"I'm not gonna pretend I know what it's like to be you right now," Kane said. "I've never been lied to by someone I love. But . . . I do know what it's like to lose a child."

Bellamy cast him a curious look. "Since when?" Hadn't Kane been a lifelong bachelor until he'd met Abby?

"I was nineteen. Freshman year of college," Kane started in. "I met this girl, and it was . . . a whirlwind romance, as they used to call it. But she got pregnant and ended up having an abortion, during a time when there was an even bigger stigma on abortions than there is now."

Bellamy didn't exactly feel like doing the math and figuring out when that had been, but it must have been crazy. Probably wasn't even something they'd told their parents about, because different generations just had very different attitudes about it. "Did she do it behind your back?" he asked Kane. Because that was the real kicker in his situation.

"No, we talked about it," Kane said. "I would've rather she had the child, but her mind was made up. There was nothing I could do to change it."

Try as he might not to speculate, Bellamy couldn't help but feel like he would have been able to change Clarke's mind.

"It's awful, feeling that helpless," Kane empathized, "feeling like you can't change the outcome no matter how hard you try. But we have to remember that we're not the ones who have to be pregnant. We've got it easy."

"Maybe," Bellamy said. There were definitely certain things that Clarke had gone through that he was happy to avoid. "But it's pretty hard, too. Like you said, we don't have equal input." It was still such a bitter pill to swallow that someone who was half of him could be destroyed without his knowledge or his consent. "I know I was only eighteen, but . . ." He swallowed hard, looking out towards the football field, where he'd lived out all his glory days. "I could've done it. I could've been a dad."

"I don't doubt that," Kane said. "I didn't know you back then, but there are definitely some people who are meant to be fathers. And you're one of them."

Am I? he wondered. If it was meant to be, why hadn't it worked out? Why hadn't he and Clarke had a baby?

"Don't forget, Bellamy, you still have a daughter on the way who's gonna think the world of you," Kane reminded him, "who's gonna look at you like you're her hero and can solve all her problems. She might not have come from you, but she'll still have plenty of you in her."

What if she didn't, though? He'd been able to quiet the fears back when things had been normal and good between him and Clarke, but now that they weren't . . . what if Avery didn't think of him as her dad? What if he was always just her mom's boyfriend and she thought of Finn Collins as her dad? It wasn't a pleasant thought, but what if his only real shot at being a father had disappeared the exact second his and Clarke's baby had?

"How am I supposed to just go back to the way things were?" he asked himself as much as he asked Kane. "It's not the same. It's never gonna be the same."

"No, it won't be," Kane agreed. "But that's okay. Things change all the time."

"Yeah, well, I didn't want anything to change. Except Clarke's last name," he lamented. That sure as hell had blown up in his face. Now he was stuck walking around with an engagement ring that had burned a whole in his wallet and was a constant reminder of what he'd lost. "Look, I appreciate the pep talk, Kane," he said, "but I gotta deal with this in my own way." Part of dealing with it right now was to distract himself with work, and part of his work was cleaning that toilet in the teachers' study. So he lowered his head and sulked back inside to do his job. His fantastic job.

...

Clarke wasn't sure how Raven had talked her into hanging out that day. And not just hanging out at home, either, but actually going out. In public. To the movie theater. Raven could be very persuasive.

"So, what do you wanna see," her friend asked as they surveyed all the movie posters on display out by the ticket counter. "Eternal Love or One and Only?"

Both of those sounded way too mushy for her to handle right now, so she suggested an alternative. "How about . . . Monkey Run?"

"Monkey Run?" Raven echoed. "That's a choice."

"Sorry, I just don't feel like seeing anything romantic," she said. "Ever again."

Raven shrugged. "Then Monkey Run it is." She forked over the money for two tickets and said, "Maybe it'll be so bad it's good. Like, um . . . oh, what was that that movie we watched that one time? With that one guy?"

Clarke was only halfway listening, because up by the concession stand, she spotted two girls from high school. She didn't even know their names, because they'd been freshmen back when she'd been a senior. They'd never talked to her back then, and they weren't talking to her now. They were just sneaking glances at her and clearing talking about her.

"Oh, I can't remember it, but I thought it was hilarious," Raven kept babbling. "Even though it didn't make any sense. Do you know what one I'm talking about?"

She did—Road House—but she couldn't stand there and talk about it. Not when those girls were so clearly gossiping about her. They were two of many people in that town who had heard the rumors, rumors that, as long as they hadn't been exaggerated as they'd gone through the grapevine, were probably true. It was scandalous to them, and therefore, probably very entertaining. "Raven, I can't be here," she said, rejecting her movie ticket as her friend tried to hand it to her. She made her was as quickly as she could to the exit and out into the parking lot.

"Wait, wait, wait, what's wrong?" Raven asked, running after her.

"Did you see the way people were looking at me?"

Raven huffed. "So? Who cares? They don't even know you."

"But they know about me," Clarke said, whirling around. "They know what I did." That was going to be her reputation now, thanks to her mom's so-called best friend. It didn't matter that she'd gone on to graduate salutatorian, or that she was soon going to graduate college with the highest academic distinction, despite being pregnant for her entire senior year. She was always going to be the girl who'd had an abortion from here on out. "I should've just stayed home," she muttered.

"Clarke, I hate to break it to you, but you can't just be a hermit now that your secret's out," Raven informed her. "You're gonna have a kid who's gonna wanna go on playdates someday, who's gonna wanna have sleepovers and birthday parties. You can't just go into hiding."

Realistically, Clarke knew Raven was right. But thinking about all that right now sort of just made her stomach hurt. "It'd be nice if I could," she said. But she'd already tried that once before, and it hadn't worked then. So it wasn't like it was gonna work now.

...

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead."

Clarke's awakening was a rude one when a pillow was thrown at her head. "Raven?" she croaked out sleepily. "What're you doing here?"

"Get up," her friend said, crossing over to the window to pull open the curtains. "We're hanging out today."

"We are?" Clarke held her hand up to block the sunlight.

"Yeah."

"And what're we doing?"

"Whatever we want," Raven said. "Shopping, swimming, movies . . ."

Not one of those things sounded like something Clarke was interested in doing. Her summer vacation had gone the monotonous route ever since Bellamy had left, but she was fine with that. She'd found plenty of time to draw and play her guitar and read. And sleep. Sleep was a big theme. "I kinda just wanna stay in and rest," she said.

"You've been doing that for the past two weeks. And I've let you," Raven said. She peeled back the covers and declared, "But it's time to get up, get out, and get to living your life again. Your friends miss you. I miss you."

Clarke felt a sudden surge of guilt deep in her gut. It'd never been her intention to withdraw so much. Sure, this wasn't at all the summer she'd imagined, but it was still summer, and being cooped up inside the whole time probably was a waste. "Okay," she said. "Just let me get ready. We'll go to the beach."

Raven grinned. "Now you're talking."

Truth be told, she wasn't exactly looking forward to going back to the place where she and Bellamy had been spending so much time. But if she was going to get up and go out, then she felt like she had to go there. Just to prove to herself that she could, just to prove that she could spend a day with her friends and still have a good time. Even without her ex.

It didn't surprise her that a few of the guys joined them. Raven and Zeke were enjoying their last summer together before he went to college, too, and probably wanted to spend the majority of it together. Except the difference was, he'd still be within driving distance, so their relationship didn't have an expiration date written all over it.

Miller and Jasper came out to the beach, too. Jasper didn't look as down in the dumps as he had towards the end of the school year. For most people, summertime was enough to pull them out of their slumps, not put them into a new one.

The guys threw the football around, even though only two of them had ever been players, and Clarke laid out with Raven underneath the shade of an umbrella, trying to relax. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked out at the ocean, imagining herself and Bellamy naked in that water, arms around each other as they kissed. Sex on the beach came with logistical problems, mostly the salt water and sand in weird places. But she'd really loved doing it with him out there. It'd felt so romantic and personal, like they were the only two people in the world.

What am I gonna do if my parents build that beach house? she wondered. They'd been talking about it for the past month, but if they wanted to spend time out there as a family, then her mind was going to be so far in the gutter that she wouldn't even be able to converse.

"You girls sure you don't wanna join us?" Zeke asked as he approached them. His shirtless presence was enough to pull Clarke out of her thoughts, because even though he didn't have that same physique Bellamy had, he still looked pretty damn good and toned. "You could tackle Jasper."

"No thanks," Raven said, turning over onto her stomach, because she turned every fifteen minutes. "I'd rather just lay here and get some rays. How's my back look?"

Her boyfriend grinned and sat down beside her. "Sexy."

"No, I mean, am I getting burnt?"

"I don't think so." He put his hand in between her shoulder blades and asked, "You want me to put some more sunscreen on you?"

"Yeah, sure."

Zeke squirted some cream into his hand and began smearing it all over Raven's skin, making it look all sensual when he did so. They're so gonna fuck later, Clarke thought, looking away. She sort of felt like she was intruding on foreplay.

"What about you, Clarke?" Zeke asked. "You need some more?"

"I'm good. I got the strong stuff on," she said. SPF 80. She wouldn't settle for any less nowadays. People with her skin tone didn't tan. They just burned.

Too bad Bellamy hadn't been there to help her get all lathered up.

"That feels good," Raven murmured, closing her eyes. She looked completely relaxed, like the sunscreen massage from her boyfriend could lull her off to sleep.

Even though she didn't want to ruin the moment, Clarke couldn't help but wonder if Zeke had any news. Like . . . news about what was going on in Florida. Specifically, at UCF. With a backup quarterback. "Hey, Zeke?" she said.

"Yeah?"

She thought about saying 'never mind' or asking a completely random and unimportant question instead, but . . . she wanted to know, so she went ahead and inquired, "Have you heard from Bellamy?"

"Uh, yeah, I texted him," Zeke replied. "He said he's got a roommate. Named Dexter. Hopefully he's not a serial killer."

A roommate, Clarke thought. Did that mean he was less likely to be bringing girls home then? Or did that not matter? Maybe he was already hooking up with someone else.

"Other than that . . . I don't know, I guess he's been pretty busy with practice," Zeke said. "I haven't heard from him much. Have you?"

She hadn't heard from him at all. And that was probably for the best. "No," she said. "Don't tell him I asked about him. I was just wondering."

"Yeah," Zeke said, his casual tone a major assurance to Clarke that he wasn't going to make a big deal out of it. He patted Raven's back, and said, "There you go, babe. I got you covered."

"Thanks." Raven puckered her lips, and Zeke bent forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he got back up and rejoined the boys for their makeshift football game. Clarke hated feeling envious of them, but dammit, did she ever. Raven and Zeke had been together forever. Or at least it seemed like forever. And it probably would be forever, because Raven only had one more year left of high school. They wouldn't live in separate worlds for very long.

Did they have any idea how lucky they were?

"I don't get it, Clarke," Raven said. "Why not just call him up if you miss him?"

"Because, that's not gonna make me miss him any less." Starting to feel a slight discomfort in her abdomen, she sat up straighter, clutching her side.

"What?" Raven asked.

"I don't feel so good," she said.

"What, like nauseous?"

"Kind of. And a little crampy." She also felt bloated as fuck, which was not exactly an ideal feeling when she was donning a bikini.

"You're probably gonna get your period," Raven predicted.

"Great." Clarke sighed, lying down and draping her arm over her eyes. "Just what I need."

...

Clarke stepped aside as a car slowly drove through the parking lot. She got out of the way of it and leaned back against the trunk of a black vehicle that wasn't hers. "I miss him, Raven," she said sadly. "I miss him so much." She couldn't close her eyes without thinking about him, and even when her eyes were open, he pretty much ran on a loop in her mind then, too. "I called him last night," she said.

Raven's eyes lit up hopefully.

"No answer." Lowering her head, she mumbled, "He doesn't want anything to do with me."

"No, he does," Raven insisted. "Just give him time."

Clarke grunted sadly and said, "Look at me. I don't have time." She was so big, due to have that baby in just a couple of weeks now. And when that happened, being a mom had to be her priority. She couldn't be stuck on her own drama with Bellamy when she had a baby to think about and take care of. She couldn't be that selfish.

...

Bellamy got done with work in time to get home and have dinner with his mom. A late dinner, of course, because she'd been working, too. But a dinner nonetheless. She'd offered to cook, but hell, that woman was doing so much for him just by letting him stay there while he sorted shit out. So he decided to cook for her. His cooking was little more than macaroni and cheese out of the box, but at least that was so simple that even he couldn't screw it up. Besides, he had plenty of experience making that for Clarke. Or with her. He was pretty much a mac and cheese expert by now.

He stood at the stove, stirring in the cheese sauce while his mind wandered. All afternoon and evening, Kane's words had weighed heavily on his mind. Words about Avery and how she'd be his daughter, how there would be some of him in her. He really wanted to believe that. He really did.

The doorbell rang, and his mom said, "I'll get it" and got up from the living room couch. Bellamy didn't move a muscle, instead continuing to absentmindedly stir the macaroni.

"Raven, hi."

He stiffened, not sure as to why the hell Raven would be there. Unless everyone who cared about him had a rotational shift schedule worked out, and now it was her turn to check up on him.

"Hi, Mrs. Blake," Raven said. "This is my boyfriend, Murphy."

Murphy was there, too? Bellamy stopped stirring, because . . . dammit, that kid had become one of his closest friends, and he was actually kind of glad he'd stopped by.

"Oh, I've heard about Murphy," his mom said.

"Glowing things, I'm sure," Murphy joked.

Bellamy moved the pot of macaroni to one of the back burners of the stove and went to the sink to wash his hands. "Is Bellamy home?" he heard Raven ask.

"Yes, he is," his mom replied. "Bellamy! You have visitors."

There was no dishtowel out, so he had to wipe his hands on his pants when he was done washing them. He left the kitchen and joined his friends in the living room. "Hey, guys."

"Hey," Raven said. She looked at him closely, and Bellamy wondered what she was seeing. A man who looked pathetic, like he'd lost everything? Or just some washed up loser who needed another drink?

"What's up, man?" Murphy said, holding out his hand. Bellamy clasped it, and they bro-hugged. Very manly.

"I'll leave you guys alone," his mom said. She picked up her book, her blanket, and went into her bedroom.

Even though they were obviously there to talk about Clarke, Bellamy really wanted to talk about something else. Lately, every conversation he had revolved around the most devastating revelation of his entire life. He needed a break from it, so he attempted some small talk with Raven by asking, "How's work?"

"Oh, um . . . fine," she said, seeming surprised by the question. "Same old, same old. Cars need fixing."

"Yeah." He could relate. Just today, there had been a toilet that needed fixing, and an air conditioner, and a desk. Apparently people at the school thought that, since he was a janitor, he could also pass as a handyman. But he had no idea what the hell he was doing. He'd managed to fix the toilet and air conditioner, but he'd only ended up doing more damage to the desk. School was probably just gonna have to get a new one.

Since that conversation had clearly stalled, he tried the small-talk thing with Murphy, too. "Hey, it looks like the trailer's done well. That's good." He'd only watched it once, but he checked back in on the comments, likes, and views when he couldn't sleep. It was getting a good response.

"Yeah." Murphy looked down at his feet, cringed, and didn't seem half as excited by his channel's success as Bellamy had anticipated he'd be. "I'm probably gonna take it down," he revealed, much to Bellamy's surprise.

"What? Why?"

"Well, I'm not gonna post the film anymore," Murphy explained. "You can still see it, if you want to, you and Clarke, but . . . I'm not gonna post it."

"No, I think you should," Bellamy told him. "It's your career we're talkin' about here. Besides, you worked hard on it." He and Clarke both knew what they'd signed onto when they'd agreed to be the subjects of Murphy's documentary. There was no need for him to suffer, too, because of what was going on between them.

"I'll think about it," Murphy decided. "I'll see what Clarke says."

Bellamy nodded slowly, wondering if Clarke would feel differently. He supposed he could talk to her about it, make a case for Murphy still being able to release the film. But talking to her about anything right now . . . that didn't seem so easy.

"We just wanted to see how you're doing," Raven said quietly. She looked at him with concern in her eyes, probably because she'd never seen him looking so crappy.

"Well . . . I could lie to you," he said, "but . . ." What was the point of that? Raven was a genius, and Murphy was a smart guy, too. They'd see straight through him.

"Clarke said she left you a voicemail," Raven said.

"Yeah. I haven't listened to it yet." There it sat on his phone, un-played, and it would quite possibly remain that way.

"Maybe you should," Raven suggested.

He shook his head stubbornly and muttered, "It's not gonna change anything."

Raven and Murphy exchanged a look, and Murphy sighed heavily. "Then maybe these will," he said, opening up his jacket. He pulled out an envelope and handed it over to Bellamy, and without even looking inside, Bellamy knew what was in there. And he knew that opening that envelope would sting, because it'd be a reminder of a hell of a lot happier time. Still, though, he opened it up, peered inside at the photos, and slowly lifted one out. It was one from the park, where he'd been kneeling down to kiss Clarke's belly. She was smiling at him, and she looked so beautiful.

What a chump, he thought as he looked at himself. He hadn't known it at the time, but days after that picture, he'd kneel down again, only this time, he wouldn't get a smile out of her. He'd get the ultimate rejection, followed by some life-changing news, of course.

It would have been easy to just look at that photo and feel negative things. Disappointment in both her and himself. Sadness. A longing to turn back time and live in that moment forever. But mixed in with all of that negativity was something he couldn't quite shut off: Love. He still loved Clarke. He loved the Clarke in that photo and the Clarke who was probably holed up in her beach house right now. It would have been easier to just hate her, but he didn't. He couldn't. Because he loved her. And that was clearly why these two had come by, to remind him of that.

He and his mom did end up having their macaroni and cheese dinner that night, and she was tired, so she went to bed early. He claimed he was going to do the same, but instead, he grabbed the envelope Murphy had given him and went out. There were options for where he could go. He could always go to the bar, but if what Miller said was true and word had really gotten out about all of this, then that wasn't where he wanted to be. Drunk people weren't especially known for their sensitivity and compassion. He figured he could go hang out with Jasper or Miller, or maybe even Lexa. Any of the three of them would be willing to play some video games for a few hours. But what if they were already in the middle of something? Jasper had Maya, and Miller had Bryan or whoever the hell he was dating now, and Lexa had her long-distance girlfriend. He didn't want to interrupt.

In the end, it was inevitable where he ended up. In fact, even when he'd left the house that night, he'd assumed he would go see Clarke. Because seeing all those pictures from the maternity photo shoot had made him sort of . . . ache. On the inside. He missed her.

The house was dark when he got there, so he assumed she was asleep. He used his key to let himself in quietly and was surprised to see that the downstairs TV was still on, providing the only light. And there was Clarke, asleep in the recliner, an afghan falling from her shoulders.

She must have been tired, because she didn't stir or seem to hear him. And he didn't want her to. Sleep was hard for her these days. She was lucky if she got one uninterrupted hour at a time. And she needed to rest. She was more pregnant now than ever before.

I'll just leave the pictures and go, Bellamy decided, tiptoeing towards the coffee table, sneaking a peek at what she'd been watching. It was some Hallmark movie, but she had the volume on low, like she'd just wanted a little background noise to fall asleep to.

He tried to find a place to set the envelope, but the table was covered with snacks. Boxes of crackers and granola bars and cookies, along with a nearly empty bag of Doritos. It was good to know she still had an appetite. He set the pictures down on the couch instead, and then as quietly as he could, he cleared off the coffee table, bringing everything back into the kitchen. Clarke still didn't wake up, but she did move around a little, and the afghan fell off her shoulder. If that had happened in bed, and if he'd been lying beside her, he would have reached over and covered her up again. He did that a lot during the night. If she was restless, that meant he had to be restless, too. He woke up a lot and checked on her.

Who's checking on you now? he wondered, making his way back towards her. Surely Raven and Harper and everyone else were stopping in to see her, too. And she had her mom and dad and Kane. She wasn't alone. Even though she was alone right now, she wasn't really alone.

When he grabbed hold of the blanket to pull it back up over her arms, he caught sight of something wedged in between the arm of the recliner and her legs. Her sketchbook, the one he'd gotten her for her birthday. She must have been drawing before she fell asleep. He picked it up and squinted through the darkness, able to see himself in the pencil lines. There were two sketches of him, actually. On one side of the page was a drawing of him from high school. No beard, slightly shorter hair. And then on the other side was a drawing of him now, beard and everything. He was smiling in both drawings. He looked happy, as happy as he had in the pictures from that photo shoot. Happier than he'd been for days now.

He stared at those drawings for a long, long time. God, he wanted to feel that happy again.