Chapter 62
Clarke's pace was . . . slow. Snail-like, one could say. Turtle-ish. Just getting from the car to the rec center felt like a marathon, one she had to take step by step. In contrast, Raven was obviously raring to go. She had her yoga mat tucked under her arm and her abs on full display with the sports bra top she was wearing.
"You look so uncomfortable," she noted as they headed back to the studio.
"I am," Clarke groaned. "My uterus feels like it weighs twelve pounds."
"Maybe it does," Raven speculated.
"No, don't say that. We don't joke about that kind of stuff." The thought of delivering a twelve-pound baby was terrifying. All her ultrasounds seemed to indicate a relatively normal-sized kid, but she still had nightmares about an abnormally large one. "Six or seven pounds," she said. "That'd be a healthy, manageable baby."
Raven held the door open for her as she waddled into the yoga studio, and she'd only taken a few steps when Luna flittered towards her and greeted her warmly with a big smile on her face. "Hi, Clarke. Welcome back."
"Hey," Clarke said, unable to muster the same enthusiasm. It was prenatal yoga. She was over it at this point.
"Um, I hate to tell you, but I think you're a little too far along to take part in today's session," Luna said apologetically. "I'm sorry."
"Oh, I'm just here to watch and get out of the house," Clarke told her. There was no way her body was going to bend or contort at all anymore. Motioning to Raven, she added, "It was her idea."
Raven smiled and waved.
"I see," Luna said. "Well, that's fine by me." She looked towards the door, almost as if she expected someone else to walk in. And then, she asked a question that made Clarke's heart sink. "How's your boyfriend? Bellamy, right?"
Is that right? Clarke wondered. They may not have gotten engaged, but they hadn't officially broken up, either. But they weren't even living together anymore. Or were they? Was this just like a hiatus? She didn't know how to define what they were anymore.
"He didn't wanna tag along?" Luna asked.
Trying not to make a big deal out of it, Clarke softly answered, "No, he didn't." Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but she actually felt pissed at Luna for even asking that. It wasn't like Bellamy had ever come to yoga class before. That was always her and Raven. He'd gone to Lamaze class with her, to learn everything he could about bringing a child into the world. Because he was her partner. He was gonna be there for her. Or . . . at least that's what they'd planned on.
"Tell him I said hi," Luna said. She glided back towards the front of the room, impossibly beautiful as ever, and Clarke felt her anger subside. Luna hadn't meant to upset her. It'd been an innocent question, one that she hadn't realized would hit so hard.
"Wow," Clarke said in surprise. "Someone who actually doesn't know what's been going on."
Raven unfolded her yoga mat and plopped it down on the floor. "She doesn't strike me as the type who'd be into small town gossip."
"Still . . . I thought everyone had heard by now." It was probably silly to think that people were sitting around talking about her all the time, though. Sure, Arkadia was small, but people had larger things in life to worry about. Still, she wanted to know just how far the conversations were reaching, so she asked Raven, "Have you heard people talking about it?"
"No," Raven said, leaning to the side to stretch out. "But I'm your best friend. And most everyone knows I'm your best friend. It's not like they'd say anything to me."
"What about Murphy?" she asked.
Raven made a face. "No, Murphy's not saying anything."
"No, I mean has he heard anything?" Clarke clarified. People wouldn't talk bad about her to Raven, but maybe to him . . .
"Oh." Raven stood up straight, pulling her arm across her chest to continue stretching. "Yeah," she said. "A couple of things."
"True things?" Clarke asked. Raven's silence was all the answer she needed. "Well . . . better than rumors, I guess," she decided. At least the truth was something she could own up to. Rumors, on the other hand, would be something she had to combat. "I'm sure it's all pretty harsh, though, right?" she guessed. After all, people liked to gossip about the scandalous stuff.
"Some of it," Raven admitted. "But he stands up for you. I mean . . . look, it's not like everyone here is living in the Dark Ages or anything, but abortion is just . . . it's one of those things where everyone has their own stance on it, and it's really hard to get some people to change their minds. And then you throw the Bellamy thing into the mix, and . . . well, you know how people in this town feel about Bellamy. He's still their star quarterback, their football hero. They love him."
Clarke looked downward for a moment and mumbled, "He's easy to love."
"But people are gonna stop talking about it eventually, though," Raven assured her. "Probably as soon as you have Avery. Everyone gets distracted by cute babies."
So all she had to do to get people to stop talking about the baby she'd aborted was to give birth to one? Lovely. But someday years in the future, when Avery was no longer a baby but rather someone old enough to understand, Clarke knew she'd have to sit her down and have a very real conversation with her. About the sibling she'd never know. Because it'd be better if she heard about it from her mom than from anyone else in Arkadia.
Raven walked over to the drinking fountain to fill her water bottle up before the class began in a few minutes, and Clarke waited until she came back to ask her friend, "What's this been like for you?" She'd spent the better part of the past couple weeks thinking almost entirely about herself, and her relationship with Bellamy. But there were other people in her life, so there were other peopled involved whether they wanted to be or not. "Because you've been really good to me, you and Harper both," she said. "And Murphy. Everyone. But . . . they didn't know me back then, and you did. You knew me, and you knew what Bellamy and I were like together. So are you disappointed?"
Raven didn't answer.
"It's okay if you are," Clarke said. "You can just tell me."
Hesitating for a moment, Raven finally answered with a very honest, "I'm still processing, to be honest."
Clarke nodded, figuring that was what Bellamy was doing, too. Except he had more to process. "That's fair," she said. She'd had years to come to terms with her decision, and even now, because she'd kept Bellamy in the dark about it, it wasn't something she could totally reconcile with her conscience. It probably never would be.
"But I still love you," Raven made sure to add.
Clarke smiled a bit. "Thanks." That was the kind of thing she needed to hear right now. But it would have been nicer to have heard it from Bellamy. That was who she really needed to hear it from.
...
Bellamy wasn't sure why the hell the school's track was empty when it was fucking track season. They had enough people out to make a team on both the girls and boys sides. But apparently practices either happened in the morning or were optional. Either way, he wasn't surprised that no one in town seemed to have faith in them making it to state.
Since the track was empty, Bellamy decided to use it for himself, just to have a place to run. Four times around gave him a mile, so it was easy to keep track of how far he'd gone. He set his watch to time himself and then proceeded to get pissed when he didn't make his intended mile time. So he took off again, feet pounding the track as his heart pumped rapidly in his chest. It was warm out, and it didn't take much to get him sweating, so he was pretty drenched by the time he finished up his second mile, once again taking longer than he'd wanted to. As he neared the line he'd started at, he slowed his pace, because he wasn't alone out there anymore. Miller had come to join him.
"Look at us," his friend said, motioning to the football field the track surrounded. "Let's do the time warp, huh?"
Bellamy slowed to a stop and put his hands on his hips as he struggled to catch his breath. "Just wanted to go for a run." He hated that this actually tired him out nowadays. He definitely wasn't a kid anymore.
"You should've called me," Miller said. "I'm down to work out anytime."
He wasn't out there just for the sake of working out, though. In fact, it wasn't really about that at all. "Thought it might clear my head if I came out here alone," he said.
"And did it?" Miller asked.
Oh, if only, but there was too much up there to clear. "No," he answered. It was either this or alcohol, though, and this seemed more productive, wouldn't worry his mom as much. "What're you doin' here?" he asked his friend.
"Oh, I just got out of a meeting with the new athletic director," Miller replied. "Turns out they need a new assistant football coach to try to turn this dumpster fire of a program around."
They definitely did, but . . . Bellamy was surprised he hadn't gotten a phone call about it. "You gonna do it?" he asked.
Miller shrugged. "Maybe. I could use the extra money."
So could I, Bellamy thought.
"I'm sure they would've asked you if . . ."
"If I hadn't gotten a girl pregnant in high school?" he filled in. "Yeah, the PTA would probably have a field day with that one." In light of the recent news, parents probably wouldn't want him coaching their kid.
"I was gonna say if you didn't have a baby on the way," Miller said. "They know you're gonna be busy. Or maybe they're just holding out to offer you the head coach position someday."
Bellamy didn't want to expect too much, so he remained glum and said sarcastically, "Or maybe I'm just doing such a bang-up job as a janitor that they don't wanna let me go."
Miller shot him a sympathetic look.
"You should do it," Bellamy said, quickly trying to deflect the pity. "Take the job, I mean. Team's crap nowadays. You could help 'em out." Maybe if the football team stared winning, there would be a resurgence of some actual school spirit around town.
"I gotta think about it," Miller said. "Maybe I need to try clear my head, too. You got a few more laps in you?"
Bellamy's legs felt tired, but hell, it wasn't like he had anything better to do with his day. Instead of answering, he just took off, and Miller sprinted after him. As they fell into step beside each other, Miller asked, "What lap is this?"
"Nine."
"Holy shit, man. How much stuff do you have on your mind?"
"A lot." There was Clarke and . . . well, Clarke, mostly. And Avery. Lots of Avery, too.
"Well, I can keep up with this pace," Miller said. "I think. You wanna talk about it?"
Bellamy slowed down just a bit, grumbling, "What's there to say?" And then the words just started pouring out. "I'm still in love with a girl who betrayed me. I wanna be there for her, but I don't know how to do that anymore. She's gonna have a baby in a little over a week, and I was all set to be the father until I found out I fathered someone else. And now I don't know if I can be the kind of dad Avery needs and deserves. I don't know if can help give her a happy family. Because this whole thing really fucked me up, you know?"
"It'd fuck anyone up," Miller said.
But it wasn't just anyone who was dealing with this. It was him. And he didn't feel like he was dealing with it very well.
All talked out for the time being, Bellamy picked up speed. Despite how tired he felt, he surged forward, putting some distance between himself and his friend. "Hey, Bellamy, wait!" Miller called after him. "Slow down!"
But he didn't slow down. He just kept running on his own.
...
Just getting from the couch to the door was a hell of an effort for Clarke. She felt like she was going in slow motion, so slow, in fact, that she halfway expected whomever was on the other side to be long gone by the time she opened the door. But when she finally did, there was in fact still somebody standing there. Not Bellamy, not the person she wanted to see the most. But not someone like Finn, either.
"Alyssa," she said, both confused and surprised to see her dad's girlfriend out on her porch. What was she doing there?
"Hey," Alyssa greeted. "Sorry to just stop by. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"No, you're fine. Come in," Clarke invited, stepping aside to open the door wider. "I was just being lazy."
Alyssa came inside, and Clarke noted the lack of makeup, the simple ponytail. When she wasn't glammed up, she looked a lot more like a regular girl instead of a could-be supermodel. She actually looked prettier with less makeup on. "Sorry to make you get up," she said.
Clarke shrugged and shut the door. "I'm just gonna go back down again." She struggled back to the couch, plopped down on the middle cushion, and felt like a whale. Muting the television, she said, "It's good to see you."
"Yeah, you, too." Alyssa sat down next to her and said, "I really wanted to come with your dad when he visited, but . . . I figured that was more of a family thing."
"Well . . . you're part of the family now," Clarke reminded her. The engagement was coming, surely. And once that happened, it probably wouldn't take her dad long to put together a wedding. With all his money, he could probably make things happen really fast.
Two weddings, Clarke thought. Her mom and Kane, and her dad and Alyssa. She'd probably be a bridesmaid at both. And that was really gonna be something, wasn't it? Standing up at that alter, watching them get married while thinking about how she'd turned down Bellamy's proposal.
"I just wanted to see how you're doing with . . . everything going on," Alyssa said, approaching the obvious topic of conversation slowly and delicately, as if she'd rehearsed it.
Clarke nodded slowly and admitted, "It's been tough." Understatement, but . . . she and Alyssa were still getting to know each other. She wasn't sure how deeply she wanted to dive into her feelings with her.
"I'll bet," Alyssa said. "Well, I'm sure you've got a good support system with your friends, but I just wanted to let you know . . . if you need anything, anyone to talk to . . . I'm just a phone call away."
"Thank you," Clarke said. Although she wasn't sure she'd ever take her up on the offer, it was nice to know it existed.
"And you don't have to feel like you can't talk to me about anything baby-related just because I had a miscarriage. I'm here for you."
Truth be told, that was part of the reason she felt so reluctant to say much to Alyssa, though. It felt wrong to talk about how she'd chosen to abort a baby when Alyssa's had been taken from her without her consent. "That means a lot," she said, thinking about how much she'd misjudged this woman at first. She wasn't just some gold-digging bimbo. She wasn't that at all, actually. She'd been nothing but nice, even when Clarke hadn't been so nice to her.
"So how did you find out the first time?" Alyssa asked, angling her body towards her.
"Oh, I . . . I just started having symptoms, I guess," Clarke recalled. "I couldn't ignore it."
"It's scary," Alyssa said. "How'd you feel?"
Even now, years later, she still remembered the speculation, which had quickly turned to worry, which had then gone on to turn into panic. And even fear. The fear of telling people. The fear of it actually being true.
...
Clarke used her fork to push food around her plate, trying to make it look like she'd eaten more than she actually had. It probably would have tasted good—best restaurant in town and all—if she wasn't feeling slightly queasy.
"Well, this was nice," her mother proclaimed. "We should have more family nights like this."
"We should," her father agreed. "We will." He glanced at Clarke, as if waiting for her to agree, but when she didn't, he seemed to notice how much food was left on her plate. "How was the spaghetti, Clarke?" he asked. "You didn't eat much."
She'd managed one slice of garlic bread and about half the spaghetti before her stomach had told her to stop. "I'm not really hungry," she mumbled, trying not to make a big deal out of it. Because it wasn't a big deal. She'd been battling a stomach bug or something lately.
"Well, we can probably get a box to take it home," her dad said, motioning the waiter over.
"Yeah," she agreed, setting her fork down. Maybe she'd be hungrier tomorrow.
Her parents did most of the talking on the short drive home, which was fine. She didn't have much to add to the conversation and tuned out of it for the most part. While they discussed work or politics or something she had very little interest in, she sat in the backseat and looked out the window. They drove past Bellamy's house. But obviously Bellamy wasn't there.
When they got home and walked inside, her stomach started to revolt. She tried to disguise it as best she could, but she felt like she was about to get majorly sick, so she needed to get to a toilet soon. Trying to hold it all in, she handed the box of leftovers to her mom and said, "Will you put this in the fridge for me? I have to go to the bathroom."
"Sure," her mom said.
She moved quickly through the living room, waiting until she heard her mom and dad start talking again to clutch one hand to her stomach and pick up the pace even more. By the time she got to the stairs, she was nearly running, and by the time she got to her bathroom, she'd clamped one hand over her mouth, just in case. She'd just barely gotten down on her knees and lifted up the toilet seat when she lurched forward and threw up. It was disgusting and almost painful in the way her whole body shuddered and broke out in a sudden sweat. She thought that might be it, but then another wave hit, and she threw up some more. Tears seeped out the corners of her eyes, because it was so uncomfortable, but there was no controlling it. She really hoped her parents couldn't hear her.
Once she'd finally stopped and managed to catch her breath and calm her body down a bit, she flushed the toilet, sat down in front of it, and just focused on breathing, trying to pull one steady breath in right after another. Except they weren't steady, because she wasn't calm. Not really. She'd vomited a couple days ago, too, before she'd even eaten anything. And that wasn't normal.
She definitely still felt nauseous, but at least she felt better. Physically, at least. Emotionally . . . that was a whole different story.
She had to lie to her mom and dad—just a little white lie—and tell them she had a stomach ache that night in order to get out of watching a movie with them. Her mom told her to take some Pepto-Bismol, but the last thing she wanted to do was put even more things into her stomach, so she downplayed how crappy she was feeling and said just needed to get comfy in bed and go to sleep. As far as her parents knew, it was just a stomach ache, no reason to be concerned, so they told her to get some sleep and assured her she'd feel better in the morning. But she highly doubted that.
That night, she lay in bed, wide awake, trying to resist the urge to look some things up on her phone. It was probably a really bad idea. When she'd been little, she'd liked to pretend she was a doctor like her mom, so whenever she'd had a sore throat or stuffy nose or even just a bug bite on her arm, she'd gotten online to try to diagnose herself. And that had usually caused her to feel scared, because everything online made it seem like she was dying. So she'd learned to stop doing that a long time ago and just go directly to her mom if she was feeling under the weather. But . . . what if it was something she couldn't go to her mom about this time?
She sat up in bed and switched from her phone to her laptop, going straight to Google. She typed in 'symptoms nausea' and of course pregnancy was one of the first things that came up. But there were other things, too, like food poisoning and the stomach flu. There were plenty of other mundane things it could be.
Except nausea wasn't her only symptom, was it? She didn't have to add 'missed period' into her Google search to know what kind of results that would bring up.
You're just late, she reminded herself. Just like she'd been reminding herself for the past four days. Girls were late all the time. It didn't necessarily mean that she was . . .
She made the mistake of venturing to a website that listed all the early signs and symptoms of pregnancy, mostly because she was hoping to see all sorts of symptoms she didn't have. Except she had felt tired lately, and she had dealt with a couple of headaches. And there were other things that fit with how she was feeling, too.
You're not pregnant, she told herself, but she got up out of bed anyway, turned on her bedside lamp, and walked over to the full-length mirror next to her closet, just to study her reflection. She turned to the side, inspecting her belly, trying to be honest with herself about whether or not it looked . . . bigger. It didn't. Physically, she didn't look any different than she usually did. She didn't look pregnant, so . . . maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was stressing and worrying about nothing.
But what if she wasn't? What if the nausea wasn't nothing? What if her late period wasn't just late, but absent altogether? After all, even though she was on the pill, that wasn't one-hundred percent effective, and the last night she and Bellamy had been together, they hadn't bothered to use a condom.
You're not pregnant, she told herself again, resting her trembling hands on her flat stomach. She kept consciously trying to push that thought through her head, trying like hell to buy into it. Because she had to. Bellamy was gone, off living a whole new life without her. She couldn't be carrying his baby.
...
"I was panicked," Clarke recalled. "But in a quiet way."
Alyssa nodded sympathetically, as if she'd felt the same. "Did you take a home test?" she asked.
"Yeah." That was another moment she'd never forget, seeing the result appear on the little window, confirmation that her life had changed forever. "I went to Polis just to buy it," she said. "Couldn't have anyone at the pharmacy here in town recognize me."
"And did you take it alone?"
The corners of her mouth drooped downward, and she nodded sadly. There had been a split second when she'd been reading the instructions and feeling overwhelmed by them, despite how simple they were, that she'd thought about calling Bellamy to tell him what was going on, then staying on the phone with him while she took the test and found out the result. But she'd chosen differently. "Afterward, I didn't tell my parents for a week," she said, remembering how quick they'd been to assume she was just having another down week because she was missing Bellamy. "I was too scared."
"At least you told them, though," Alyssa said. "I never did."
The conversation had pushed Clarke so far down memory lane that she almost didn't catch that last part. "You mean you . . .?" She trailed off, giving her father's girlfriend a curious look.
Alyssa nodded. "I was fifteen, end of my freshman year of high school. There was this guy who was a senior, and I thought he was so cute." She rolled her eyes. "Turned out to be a real jerk, though."
I can relate, Clarke thought, not sure why she'd ever settled for a relationship with a guy like Finn when she'd known all along what it was like to be with Bellamy.
"When I told him I was pregnant, he told me to take care of it," Alyssa said with a sad shrug. "So I did. Never told my mom anything. Or my grandma, or anyone else who could've helped me make my decision or been there to support me."
Clarke couldn't imagine never telling her parents, just going through with an abortion all on her own. Most states didn't even allow it, because it was a major medical procedure. So either Alyssa had grown up in one of those states, or she'd gone somewhere pretty damn shady to have it done. Either way, it sounded awful. "I had no idea," Clarke said, shocked to realize they had something so personal in common.
"Nobody does," Alyssa said. "To this day, your dad's the only person I've ever told."
Clarke's eyes widened as she envisioned all the ways that conversation may have gone. "How'd he react?"
"Oh, he's always been understanding," Alyssa replied. "Or at least he's tried to be."
"That's good," Clarke said. "He was really disappointed in me for going through with it. But I guess he didn't even know you back then, so . . . he can't really be disappointed in you." Part of her wondered, though, even as their relationship strengthened again, if her father would always look at her differently in light of what she'd done.
"Your dad loves you, Clarke," Alyssa assured her. "And you did the right thing by telling him and your mom when you found out. I wish I'd told someone." Her eyes teared up, but she blinked them back quickly.
"You didn't have to tell me," Clarke said. Although now that she had, it made a lot more sense why she'd come here instead of just picking up the phone.
"I know. But I just thought you might wanna talk to someone who can empathize. A lot."
"Yeah, but I don't know if I deserve sympathy," Clarke argued. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't."
"Yes, you do," Alyssa insisted. "You were just a kid. You were sixteen."
"And look at me now. Sixteen versus twenty-two. Is it really that much of a difference?"
"Yeah," Alyssa answered without hesitation. "Listen, it's good that you're having this baby now, but you're not some awful person just for having an abortion back in high school."
"But I was almost seventeen," Clarke continued to protest. "I was gonna be a junior. I could've handled it. Or at the very least, I could've told Bellamy."
Alyssa didn't dispute that last part. And how could she? There was no way to justify keeping it a secret from him. "How's he doing?" she asked.
Clarke shook her head somberly. "Not so good." Their conversation at the hospital had been . . . a start. But it felt like a slow start. And what if they just stalled out from there?
"That's the part I can't empathize with," Alyssa said. "The guy who got me pregnant . . . he wasn't a good guy. I didn't owe anything to him. But Bellamy . . ." She let her sentence fade.
"Bellamy's a great guy," Clarke filled in. "Always has been. And I'm the girl who broke his heart."
"But broken hearts don't always stay broken forever," Alyssa pointed out. "Look at your mom and dad."
Clarke made a face, not exactly comforted by that reference. "My mom and dad got a divorce."
"Okay, maybe not the best comparison," Alyssa acknowledged. "I just meant . . . your mom found someone, and your dad found me, so . . ."
Clarke's stomach clenched. Because all that made her do was think about Bellamy finding someone else someday.
"But just think about everything you and Bellamy have already overcome," Alyssa said. "You guys were apart for . . . how many years again?"
"Five." She'd had half a decade to try to forget what she'd done.
"Five years, and you still found your way back together. Like a fairytale," Alyssa said, smiling encouragingly.
Was it a fairytale, though? Could any story like theirs truly be a fairytale? She wasn't really a princess. Princesses didn't abort babies.
"If that's not meant to be," Alyssa said, "then I don't know what is."
It was nice to hear that, especially from someone who wasn't one of her best friends. Because people like Raven and Harper were practically required to be encouraging. It was their job to try to keep her spirits up. But Alyssa was further removed from the whole situation, and she really seemed to believe what she was saying. Clarke wanted to believe her, too, but it felt risky. After all, there was a fine line between being hopeful and getting her hopes up.
