Chapter 76
Two players collided together with a huge thud, and Clarke cringed. "Oof. That looks like it hurts." It was cool to get to watch football practice, to see Bellamy in his element as a coach, but once the team actually started tackling, everything just got really painful.
Octavia, who sat beside her on the bleachers, had a much different reaction. "Looks fun."
"It is," Lincoln said, rubbing her shoulders, "until you can't see straight."
Clarke readjusted the top of Avery's carrier to further shield her from the sun, asking, "What other sports did you play, Lincoln?" she asked.
"Oh, he played everything," Octavia said, sounding proud.
He shook his head. "She exaggerates."
"Don't be so modest," she said. "You told me you even played beach volleyball."
He shrugged. "For fun."
The thought of doing any sport just for fun was so foreign to Clarke, but that probably explained why Lincoln was in the physical shape that he was.
"Hey, we should play that sometime this summer," Octavia said, motioning among them and out to Bellamy. "The four of us." She beamed at Lincoln and predicted, "I bet we'd win."
"Of course you would," Clarke said. "Two athletes versus one. That's not even a fair match." Now maybe if they were having a dance-off, she'd be able to contribute something. She just had to think back to all her old cheer routines.
"I don't know, Clarke," Lincoln said. "Octavia tells me you've been hitting the rec center a lot lately."
She patted her tummy. "Just to try to get back in shape." Although her body still wasn't looking exactly the way she wanted it to look, she felt like she was seeing at least some improvements.
"So what's been the best workout so far?" Lincoln asked.
"Oh . . . you know." She looked out at Bellamy, who looked so hot as he got out there on that field and demonstrated one of the plays to his hapless quarterback. His arms, his hands, his everything . . . "Treadmill," she blurted, even though last night's return to sex had by far been the best exercise she'd gotten in a long time.
"I'm more of an elliptical girl myself," Octavia said. She wriggled Avery's purple bunny around in front of her face, then asked—in a non-baby voice because Octavia made it clear that she just didn't do baby voices—"What about you, Avery? What do you do for exercise?"
"She's been trying to roll herself over," Clarke revealed. "They usually don't do that until later, though."
Octavia gasped exaggeratedly. "Do we have a child prodigy on our hands?"
Clarke laughed. "Who knows?" At the rate she was going, Avery was definitely going to be rolling herself over sooner than most babies did. So maybe she'd gotten some sort of athletic genes after all. "Are you guys good with her?" she asked. "I have to use the restroom." Even though her body was getting back to normal, her bladder still wasn't.
"Yeah," Octavia said. "Oh, but you should go inside. The bathrooms down here are as sketchy as ever."
"Noted." Clarke actually remembered fooling around with Bellamy in those bathrooms once. But she'd insisted that Bellamy just hold her up and not let her body touch anything, because they'd been gross even back then.
Practice continued as she got up from the bleachers and headed back towards the school building. It felt like an impossibly long trek for someone who had to pee so urgently, but she managed to make it in time. She stayed in the toilet stall a little longer than necessary, just getting a kick out of some of the crap that girls had written on the walls and doors. Back in the day, there had been so much written in there about Bellamy, but that had all been painted over now.
When she exited the bathroom and started walking down the halls with no need to pee urging her on, she took things at a more leisurely pace, taking a moment to recall what it had been like to be a student there. She'd barely set foot in the school since graduating, and even then, she hadn't ventured far beyond the office. But when she rounded the corner and saw rows upon rows of dark green lockers lined up on either side of a long, empty hallway, she stopped walking and just stood there for a minute, remembering.
...
Since her backpack was—for one day at least—lightweight, Clarke slung it over only one shoulder as she headed downstairs. Her mother, of course, was already awake, standing by the dining table with a cup of coffee in her hand. She seemed entranced as she looked out into the back yard, almost lost in thought, but the second she noticed Clarke, she put a smile on her face and said, "There you are. I was beginning to wonder if you fell back asleep."
I wish, Clarke thought. She would have loved to not have to go to school today.
Her mom surveyed her outfit—black sweatpants and a loose-fitting white t-shirt—and cocked her head to the side curiously. "So that's what you decided to wear?"
"Yeah." Clarke looked down at the comfortable ensemble and bristled. "What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing," her mom said quickly, taking a sip of her coffee as if to stop herself from saying anything more.
"I just didn't feel like dressing up." She was well aware that most of the girls would look all cute and fancy for the first day, and normally, she would have picked out something nicer to wear, too, would've done more with her hair than put it in a low ponytail. But she didn't want attention or to be noticed at all, really. No need to stand out.
"That's fine," her mom said, setting her coffee cup down. "Here, come stand in front of the fireplace. Let me get a picture."
Clarke groaned as her mom grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the living room. "Are we really still doing this?"
"It's tradition." Her mom situated her in front of the fireplace, posing her almost like a mannequin, then backed up, took her phone out, and aimed it at her. Just like she'd done every single year on the first day of school since kindergarten. "Smile, Clarke," she said.
Clarke just stared at her, her expression unchanged because she didn't feel like smiling.
Her mom reluctantly snapped the photo anyway and mumbled, "I guess that'll have to do."
Yeah, it would, because unlike her, Clarke didn't feel like she could plaster on a fake smile and act like this was just like any other first day. "I'm gonna head out now," she announced, heading briskly towards the door.
"Wait a minute," her mom said. "Your dad's taking you."
She spun around, confused. "What? Why?"
"Because." Her mother hesitated, looked her up and down, then spoke quietly when she said, "You had a surgery. You're still recovering."
Clarke scoffed inwardly at that. Was that how they were going to refer to it now, if they even referred to it at all? As a surgery instead of an abortion? "They said I could drive after twenty-four hours," Clarke reminded her. "I'll be fine." It'd been almost forty-eight hours exactly now, so there was no reason she couldn't get behind the wheel.
"Clarke. Just let your dad drive you," her mom said. "You two need to spend some time together."
As much as she wanted to argue against it (because seriously, how embarrassing to have a parent drive her to school when she was almost seventeen now), Clarke couldn't really deny that she and her dad did need some father-daughter time. They'd barely spoken in days, partially because she'd barely come out of her room. And whenever they were in the same room together, it was like he couldn't even look at her. He was so ashamed. But was a car ride to school really going to change anything? She doubted it.
Just as she'd anticipated, the drive with her dad was an awkward one. He turned on the radio to some oldies station, and even though it played a couple songs she happened to know for a fact that he loved, he didn't sing along to them or even hum the melody. He was just stoic and silent, so she didn't bother to say anything, either.
When they pulled up outside the school, she felt a flurry of butterflies in her stomach. On the one hand, everything looked so normal: A few kids were piling off the busses, and mostly everyone was smiling and chattering as they filtered into the building. Nervous freshmen, however, scrambled inside with fear in their eyes, and confident upperclassmen loitered outside in the parking lot.
But what if it wasn't normal? The fear plagued her. What if somehow someone had found out about . . . everything? All it would have taken was for one person to snap one picture of her either entering or leaving that clinic in Baltimore, sending it off to someone, them sending it off to someone else. Things could go viral so quickly these days. Although highly unlikely, it wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility that someone might know.
"Have a good first day," her dad told her. There wasn't even a hint of any genuine emotion in his voice, so clearly driving her here had not been his idea. It'd been her mom's. He'd go home and tell her what a spectacular failure it had been, and they'd probably argue about it.
Clarke didn't even thank him for driving her, because to be honest, she was pissed that he hadn't done or said something more to put her mind at ease. Here she was going back to school after the most life-altering decision she'd ever made, and he acted like he didn't even care.
Once she was out of that car, Clarke wasted no time heading for the main double doors. A bunch of kids were unloading from one of the busses at that point, so she fell into step with them, hoping to just blend in, but someone of course said, "Hey, Clarke," and she couldn't help but look up.
"Hey." It was Wells, headed back out to the parking lot. He'd probably forgotten a binder or something. He was the type of student who had color-coordinated binders for every one of his classes. He didn't say anything more than that, and they just passed each other by, but still . . . someone had noticed her.
So much for being invisible, she thought. It wasn't going to happen. Hell, she'd been voted prom princess last year and everything.
Because she hadn't gone to the optional open house event last night, Clarke had no idea which locker had even been assigned to her that year, so she had to stop by the office and get her combo. She'd ended up in the same hallway as last year, mercifully distanced from most of the freshmen, but also all too close to where Bellamy's locker had been last year. As she walked by, she noticed that a girl had it this year.
Her locker, as it turned out, was a piece of crap. Either that or she was just putting in the combination wrong. She tried it repeatedly, each time having no success whatsoever, and eventually became so frustrated that she kicked at the damn thing. It still didn't open, so she sighed frustratedly, took a deep breath, and readied herself for one more attempt.
As she was spinning the lock, a large figure sidled up next to her. She barely glanced over but recognized Dax from the football team. "What's up, Clarke?" he asked. "How was your summer?"
"Fine." She tried to focus all her attention on the lock, spinning carefully from 33 back to 12.
"How's Bellamy?" he asked.
Of course someone had to ask about him. Dax was the first, but he wouldn't be the last. "Great, I guess," she muttered.
"You guess?"
"I haven't talked to him." She tugged up as hard as she could on the lock, but the door remained shut.
Dax didn't even bother to try to help her, instead probing into something that was none of his damn business. "Oh, really? Bad breakup?"
She spun the lock a few more times, debating whether or not she really cared about trying it again.
"Well, if you need anything, I'm here for you," he offered. "If you need . . . anything."
She slammed her hand against the locker, keeping most of her frustration bottled up inside, and growled, "I don't," before making her way past him, backpack still slung over her shoulder. Did that guy think he was smooth or something? She wasn't an idiot; she knew exactly what kind of 'support' he was offering.
It seemed like a safe bet to just head straight to her first class, except that she'd barely gone over her schedule and couldn't even recall what class that was, but at the end of the hallway, she spotted Raven, who immediately came scampering towards her excitedly.
"Well, look who finally came out of hibernation," her friend said. "God, I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."
Maybe it felt like that to her, but personally, Clarke would have loved to hibernate for a few more days. That just would have made people start to talk about her and gossip, though. "Nice outfit," she said, noting her friend's bold choice to wear black jeans and a red midriff that would probably get her dress-coded by the end of the day.
"Thanks," Raven said. She looked Clarke up and down and said, "You, too."
Clarke looked down at her clothes again, disappointed that even a crappy outfit hadn't been enough to deter a loser like Dax. Without Bellamy around, what were the guys gonna act like towards her? They probably thought she was easy now, and there would be no one in those football locker rooms to tell them that she was off limits.
"God, it feels weird not having Zeke here," Raven said, scoping out the halls.
"Yeah," Clarke agreed. But it wasn't Zeke she was missing. She looked back at Bellamy's old locker again, remembering the way she used to decorate it on game day for him. And sometimes he'd sneak up to her at her locker, slip his arms around her waist, and give her cheek a big kiss.
Not anymore, though. That was last year.
...
School hallways looked so different when they were abandoned. Just silent, no activity. The whole school building, in fact, was eerily quiet during the summer. But in a few more months, it would start back up again, and then those halls would be full of feelings and gossip and drama.
Clarke headed back outside, hoping for the students' sake that none of their drama was as heavy as hers had been.
...
"Ta-da!" Clarke exclaimed as Bellamy pulled his gift out of the oversized sack she'd given him.
"It's a jacket," he said, trying to act more excited about it than he actually was. He smiled, holding it up, not sure what had possessed her to get him this for Father's Day.
"Not just any jacket," she told him, pulling open the sides. "See, it has room for diapers and toys and bottles and stuff.
"Oh, yeah." It made sense now, he supposed, but still . . . did she really expect him to walk around with diapers inside his jacket? Poor Clarke just wasn't the best when it came to finding gifts for him. He still had a poker set from Christmas that he'd never even played. But it was a good attempt, and he didn't want her to feel bad, so he said, "This is awesome, babe. Where'd you find this?"
"Online," she answered. "I figured you'd love not having to carry a diaper bag around."
"Yeah." Didn't mean he wanted to wear all the baby supplies, though. "I can just load myself up like a little pack mule." He decided he'd wear it over to his mom's or her mom's house, but probably nowhere else. "My dad jacket," he said, leaning forward so he could put it on. "Thank you. That's nice."
She smirked and said, "That's not all, though."
"It's not?" He wasn't sure how much longer he could feign excitement over gifts like this.
"Nope. Your daughter got you a gift, too," she said, ducking into the laundry room.
"Oh, she did, did she?" He looked over at his Avery, whom they'd propped up with pillows on the corner of the couch, and she looked back at him with wide eyes.
"Yep. She went shopping with me and everything." When Clarke re-emerged from the laundry room, she had a smaller gift sack in her hand this time, stuffed with tissue paper.
"What'd you get me?" he said to Avery. "You don't have to get me anything." Her mere existence was enough. Clarke's, too.
"Happy Father's Day," Clarke said, setting the lightweight sack down on his lap.
He hesitated as he was about to reach into it, and admitted, "I feel bad."
She frowned, confused. "Why?"
"Well, I feel like we just blew right past Mother's Day 'cause we were so tired and stressed," he explained. "I know she was just a couple days, old, but it was your first Mother's Day. I should've gone all out for it." What had he even gotten her, a card? That was pathetic.
"Don't worry about it," she said. "Just open your present."
He still felt kind of guilty, but there was nothing he could do now but do better next year. "Wonder what it could be," he said sarcastically as he reached in and felt a thin book. When he pulled it out, he saw a familiar cartoon of two animal-looking characters on the front and read the title. "Just Me and My Dad." He remembered reading some books like that with his mom when he was really little. Never dad-centric ones, though. Obviously. "Well, thanks, Avery," he said. "Now I got somethin' else to read to you." He flipped through the pages, sort of stoked by the thought of how many times he was going to read that book, and all her books, really. Probably so many times that he'd have them all memorized and eventually be able to tell the story without even looking at the pages. "I'm gonna make sure she's good at reading," he vowed, not wanting her to encounter any of the same difficulties he had. "We're gonna read every night. You know, once she's a little older."
Clarke smiled and sat down beside him, scooting in close. "You're such a good dad," she told him.
"Tryin' to be." It wasn't like there was a guidebook or anything for either one of them. They both just had to figure it out as they went. "Thanks for this stuff, Clarke," he told her. The book was kind of awesome. The jacket, on the other hand . . . still pretty ridiculous with all its storage and hidden compartments, but it was the thought that counted.
"You're welcome," she said.
He reached over and grabbed Avery, lifting her with one arm, snuggling her close to his stomach. "You know, I never really did anything for Father's Day before," he said, marveling at the newness of everything. "This is the first time." Truth be told, he hadn't even remembered when he'd woken up that it was Father's Day. It was just a date that had never really meant anything to him before. Until now.
"Do you ever wonder about your dad?" Clarke asked him. "Like who he is, where he is?"
"Sometimes," he admitted. He didn't really like admitting that, though, because it almost made him feel like he was betraying his mom, who'd done so much for him growing up, who'd always been there for him. And knowing that he sometimes thought about his dad made him worry about the little girl in his arms doing the same someday. "Do you think Avery's gonna wonder about Finn?" he asked her.
Clarke answered quickly. Very quickly. "No. Because she has you."
That sounded great in theory, but he felt like it was inevitable that there were going to be conversations down the line, questions that they had to answer for her whether they wanted to or not. "Come here," he said, wrapping his arm around his fiancée's shoulders. He pulled her in close enough to kiss the top of her head, and everything just felt so right and so good with Avery in one arm, Clarke in the other, that he was able to push his concerns aside. His whole world was sitting right there on that couch with him on the first Father's Day he'd ever celebrated, and he wanted to just be in the moment and soak it all in.
...
Once Clarke had done all her research and finally found a baby sunscreen she trusted, she decided to start taking Avery outside more. There was a nice park close to the elementary school that she'd never had any reason to go to before, but since it had sandboxes and playground equipment, she figured she'd end up spending a lot of time there over the years, and she might as well get used to it.
Of course, Avery was too little to do anything more than just sit in her stroller and take in all the activity. Clarke really wondered what everything looked like through her eyes. It had to be so new and so . . . wondrous. Every little thing she saw and heard and felt taught her something new about the world around her, and that was pretty incredible. She didn't doze off while they were there. Her eyes were open and curious the whole time.
Clarke sat on a bench with the stroller beside her, watching what her little girl seemed to be watching: a boy playing in the sandbox, building some kind of misshapen sandcastle. He was totally focused on what he was doing, and Avery was totally focused on him. "Someday you'll be old enough to play like that," Clarke told her. "Doesn't that look fun?"
Avery started to squirm a bit, and her face scrunched up. She didn't start crying, though. Just a little fidgeting. When Clarke looked back out at the sandbox boy, she noticed him eating something. It was probably just wet sand, but since it was darker in color . . . well, it was hard telling just what was in a public sandbox. "Oh, that's not so fun, though," she said, cringing. Where was the mother? Surely she had to be noticing that he was eating something he shouldn't. Clarke looked around, starting to worry that the boy was there on his own. But eventually, a tall brunette in desperate need of a bra and shorts that didn't show her thong wandered up to the sidewalk and called out to him.
"Brodie!" she yelled. "What the hell are you doin'?"
Clarke recognized that voice, just barely, because she'd heard it at Eligius. Usually in between rounds of drinks. That was Roma yelling at her son, Bellamy's sort of ex. Did the girl he'd lost his virginity to count as an ex?
Roma whipped out a cigarette and a lighter and began puffing away, all the while grumbling about her son. Horrible things like calling him a "pain in the ass" and a "little shit."
"Time to go," Clarke decided getting up in an attempt to swiftly push Avery's stroller out of there. No need to be around secondhand stinkiness or that kind of emotionally abusive parenting. She didn't expect Roma to notice her leaving or pay any attention to her at all, so she was very surprised when she heard the woman yelling after her.
"What, you think you're too good to be around me?"
She could have just kept going, and she probably should have, but the question caught her so off guard that she felt like she had to stop and turn around. "Excuse me?"
Roma blew a cloud of smoke out into the air and started to come towards her. "I said, do you think you're too good to be around me?"
Clarke made a face. "What? No." Why was this chick acting so upset? She hadn't even said anything to her.
"Then why're you leavin'?"
Clarke bent down, putting her hand over her daughter's face just in case any of the smoke drifted her way. "I just don't want my baby to be around smoke. That's all."
Roma stopped moving closer, threw her cigarette down, and put it out with her shoe. Then she closed the gap in between them even further, practically glared down at Clarke, and seethed, "Are you a good mom?"
What the hell was this? Clarke could feel the hostility coming off of the other woman in waves. "Yes," she answered, standing up confidently.
Roma shot an unpleasant glance at Avery and asked, "So she hasn't started driving you crazy yet?"
Clarke was actually so offended by that question that she had half the mind to launch into a tirade that included every profanity known to mankind. But Roma was a mom, too, a mom whose son wasn't all that far away. And unlike Avery, he was old enough to be freaked out by the sounds of fighting. "Goodbye, Roma," she said, hoping to put a quick end to the conversation. She turned back around, once again heading on her way, but this time, Roma followed her.
"Probably helps that you have Bellamy."
Clarke rolled her eyes, annoyed that she wouldn't shut up. "Shouldn't you be keeping an eye on your son?" she snapped.
"Ah, he's fine," Roma said dismissively.
Real hands-on parenting, Clarke thought sarcastically. But she kept her mouth shut, because she figured the best way to get Roma to go away was to not engage so much.
"Practically raising him by myself, you know. No help from anyone," Roma bragged. Then she grunted and said, "But of course a pretty princess like you gets a knight in shining armor to come to her rescue. Not that you deserve him."
Clarke gripped the handles of Avery's strolling so tightly, she saw her own knuckles turn white. Dammit, as much as she told herself not to give in and give Roma what she wanted, which was clearly just a reaction, but not standing up for herself didn't feel right. Once again, she stopped walking, and this time, she whirled back around and spoke louder. "You got a problem with me?"
"No," Roma replied. "I'm just pissed." She slurred that last word.
"Pissed and drunk," Clarke muttered. God, she could even smell the alcohol on her breath now that she was closer.
Roma either didn't hear that or just ignored it, because she kept on going. "It pisses me off that you can do what you did, and you still get this dream life with your dream guy. And what do I get? Jack shit, that's what."
"You don't know anything about me or my life," Clarke growled. Sure, maybe she'd had more opportunities and good things than Roma had, but it didn't mean she'd gone twenty-two years with no hardship whatsoever.
"Sure I do," Roma claimed. "Rich parents. Fancy house. Fairytale. Until you had that pesky abortion, of course."
Clarke tried not to tense up, but she did. Just a little bit. And Roma probably noticed.
"But that doesn't seem to matter, because Bellamy just forgave you." Roma laughed angrily. "And now you guys are back to livin' the dream."
As much as she would have loved to have a quick, snappy comeback for that, Clarke just didn't. This whole confrontation had thrown her for a loop. She hadn't come to the park expecting something like this. She'd expected to just have a nice mother/daughter day with Avery. And now that felt ruined. "You know what? Just stay away from me," Clarke told Roma, making sure there was a warning tone to her voice and not a quiver. This time, when she turned to walk away, she kept walking, and Roma didn't call after her or make any attempt to follow.
Good.
...
"Can you believe that?" Clarke ranted. She took a big gulp of the glass of water her mom had given her, wishing it was something like wine. Or a shot. She really could have used something to take the edge off, because she was definitely on edge after the Roma fiasco. "I mean, for someone to have the audacity to come up to me and say stuff like that . . ."
Her mom sat down next to her at the counter, holding her sleeping granddaughter in her arms. "I'm sorry, honey," she said. "People can be so thoughtless and cruel. But it sounds like you handled it well."
Clarke sighed, wishing she could have done or said something more to stand up for herself. "I stayed calm, but it still kind of rattled me," she confessed. How easy it would have been to just be one of those people who didn't care what anyone else thought of her. But she had done things, things people had strong opinions on, and unfortunately, it was public knowledge. "It's just, I barely even know the girl, and she still had so much animosity towards me," she said. "It was weird."
"Well, she's probably just jealous," her mom wagered. "What's her name again?"
"Roma." Clarke rolled her eyes, because now, just that name left a bitter taste in her mouth. She'd never had much of an opinion on the girl before.
"And you went to high school with her?"
"No, but Bellamy did. They kinda . . ." She trailed off, not sure how much info Bellamy would want her to divulge, and left it at, "Well, you know."
Her mom's eyebrows arched, and she nodded slowly. "Oh."
"Yeah." Clarke had to chalk that one up to Bellamy having poor, perverted ninth grade judgment at the time, because there was no way he'd had a crush on her or anything like that.
"Well, then she's definitely jealous," her mom said.
"I don't know." That may have been part of it, but it seemed like it ran deeper. "She seemed really angry. Resentful. I don't think her life's turned out the way she wanted it to." Had she not acted like such a raging bitch today, Clarke actually would have felt sorry for her.
"Then maybe she's just taking things out on you," her mom said. "It's probably not even personal after all. You can't let it get to you."
"I know." Clarke looked down at the bottom of her now empty glass, mumbling, "But it does." If Roma had come at her about anything else, like her appearance or something shallow like that, she would have been able to just let it roll off her shoulders. But she'd brought up something so personal, something that was going to linger with her forever, and that did affect her. It probably always would. "I mean, I know the past can't just be swept under a rug; I don't expect that," she said. "But that doesn't mean it's anyone else's business. And—and is this what it's gonna be like when I chaperone field trips someday and go to PTO meetings? 'cause I'm gonna be on the PTO. Or PTA. Whatever they call it. I already decided."
Her mom smiled at her a bit.
"Are people gonna be side-eyeing me and gossiping about me then?" Clarke wondered, really hoping that things would change. "And is Avery gonna have to deal with the fallout?" She sniffled, willing herself not to cry, even though she felt like it. "That's what worries me most. Like, if she wants to have a big birthday party someday and invite all the girls in school, what if some parents forbid their kids from coming, just because they don't like me? Just because they've passed judgment on me."
"Oh, honey, I don't think that'll happen," her mom assured her.
"It could, though." Just the thought of her little girl paying the price for any of this, even if it was just something like a birthday party . . . it broke her heart.
"Don't worry about it," her mom said softly. "Just focus on the good things."
That was what Clarke kept trying to do, because really, there were so many good things. And one of the best things was sleeping in her grandmother's arms. The other one was at football practice.
"What about you?" she asked her mom. "Has anyone at work asked you about it?"
"No," her mother said. "But I'm sure there's been talk. That's what people do, after all. They talk."
A lot, Clarke thought sullenly. Especially in smaller towns.
"It doesn't matter what they think, though," her mom reminded her. "That's what I keep telling myself. I'm happy, and you're happy. We're both engaged, and we have the most amazing new addition to our family."
Clarke looked down at Avery, with her thin little wisps of blonde hair and her barely visible eyelashes. She looked so peaceful and content, because for now, none of this other stuff affected her. It didn't confuse her the way it someday might. And it didn't upset her, because she didn't understand it yet.
"You're right," Clarke said, focusing on her little girl. "It doesn't matter."
