Chapter 15: Delicate
"I think I deserve something beautiful."
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
Lexa feels pain all over her body; her head throbs, her throat is dry and it's as if she couldn't feel any of her limbs. She slowly opens her eyes and adjusts to the darkness of the room. The sheets don't smell familiar, the ceiling does not look familiar and the bed she's sleeping on feels harder than her own. After much musing, it dawns at her, she's in Bangkok and she's sleeping on Anya's Murphy bed between the kitchen and the living room. However, what panics her is the moment when she takes in that she could not feel any of her limbs. Hopefully thinking that she has not succumbed into a heart attack and is now astral projecting away from her body, she wiggles her toes. She feels her toes so she turns over and notices that there's a bit of weight over her chest behind the blanket wrapped around her. Again, hoping that she's not under any sleep state misperception, which has already happened several times whenever she gets stressed, wherein she would often find herself in a dream within a dream state, she wiggles her toes once more. Only to recognize a slim arm draped just right over her chest and a sea of blond hair flowing near her face. Beneath the stench of liquor and cigarette smoke Lexa could still make out the minty notes of Clarke's shampoo. Not to be much of a creep but Lexa has shared a hotel room with Clarke and she has been acquainted with this familiar scent for some time now.
As Lexa tosses over slowly as not to wake Clarke, Lexa ponders upon the happenings of the past evening. Her blurry memory carefully recounts moving from one bar to another. The various bars that they've been to closed down at different hours, so they had to move to another one which closed up on a later hour and then another one and another one where they finally ended up until the wee hours in the morning. Lexa recalls having too much to drink until she simply reclined on Clarke's shoulder as she and Raven droned on and on about various life experiences that they had with Anya merely listening in her own gratifying silence. Lexa can still recall some of the stories; such as the one when Clarke set fire to her high school's art studio, the one when Raven got food poisoning from eating too much street food, the one when Anya had a random hookup and her wallet was stolen and the one when Raven and Anya took a shower with a bunch of elephants in a lake when they first visited Chiang Mai. It was an eventful night, if only she could stay in that memory forever. But whatever happens, this is trip that she'll truly treasure, Lexa tells herself.
Clarke stirs in her sleep, snuggling further into Lexa. Suddenly, Lexa forgets about how parched her throat is, forgets about her slight headache and the numbness of her limbs. She recounts how she has ended up sharing a bed with Clarke.
They arrived in Anya's loft trying to shush each other as they walked from the elevator lobby towards the unit, Raven still telling jokes. As they enter Raven walks in a beeline towards the toilet, complaining about how she was holding it for the last hour. Anya unceremoniously leads Lexa and Clarke to the made Murphy bed located between the wall of the kitchen and the living room.
"Will this be okay, Clarke? Lexa can probably take the couch at the living room, I'll go get more blankets" Anya directs towards the bed.
"This is more than enough, An" Clarke bounces her drunken butt on the bed "Actually, Lexa and I can share!" Clarke declares.
Lexa's eyes widen, sure she has shared a hotel room with Clarke but they had separate beds at that time. Also, her attraction towards Clarke has been sinking in slowly, probably; being in a drunken state is not the best time to share a bed with Clarke.
"Alright, then, less work for me" Anya chants, winking at Lexa, as she slowly exits leaving Clarke and Lexa to their own accord.
"It's okay Clarke, the couch looks comfortable enough" Lexa tries to escape her predicament.
"Nonsense!" Clarke suddenly stands in a jolt and grabs Lexa with both hands pushing her towards the bed.
If they were in a lesser drunken state or perhaps not trapped in an open plan space with their friends just a loft level above from where there were, Lexa would find this scene to be a bit tempting so to speak. However, she's one to take advantage and they are not in any sound condition.
"Okay, okay, which side would you want?" Lexa manages to recover from her lying down position to remove her shoes.
"I'll take the right side!" With that Clarke tosses her sandals aside, quickly ruffles through her backpack for a lose sleeping shirt and slides off from her dress to her shirt without even giving Lexa any warning.
Bashfully, Lexa turns away but she can no longer erase the vision of Clarke's body in her sports bra and tanga underwear. Lexa busies herself in collecting her own sleepwear as she rushed towards the toilet near the kitchen to change.
Lexa walked back to where she left Clarke to remind her to brush her teeth before she falls asleep. But she has already arrived to a soundly sleeping Clarke locked in a fetal position hogging three-quarters of the bed space. Lexa was so amused at the sight before her that she just tossed a blanket over Clarke's sleeping figure turned off the lights and carefully slid herself to fit in the meager space beside her.
Lexa mentally scolds herself for being quite useless earlier. She could easily move to the couch once Clarke has fallen asleep. But she could get a bad stiffed neck or something and nobody wants that or well, she could admit that she wants to be in this position to begin with. Does she? She realizes that she's still wearing her wrist watch so she checks on the time with its small glowing feature, it's only 5 o'clock in the morning, and about thirty minutes has passed until they decided to go home to Anya's loft. The sun will be rising in a few hours, so Lexa decides to go back to sleep.
Clarke wakes up to the comfort of some softness; she slowly opens her eyes and reevaluates her position. The pillow is soft but that's not it. The blanket around her torso seems fluffy but that's not it either. To her horror, Clarke finally realizes where the sensation came from. She adjusted her gaze to where her arm is extended, she recognized the person's back. Coiling brown hair, soft skin, and a serpent eagle tattoo on her nape; it's Lexa. Lexa had her back against Clarke and Clarke was spooning Lexa with her left arm and she realized where the soft sensation was coming from. Clarke was very much cupping Lexa's left boob! To her shock, Clarke was conscious enough to slowly remove her hold and not wake Lexa. Realizing what she had accidentally done—or was it intentional? Clarke questions herself, but recounts no memory of any other malicious physical interaction with Lexa. She examines their state and appreciates that they are both fully clothed.
Clarke carefully removes herself from the bed and once she was on an upright position, her headache starts to sink it. Everything around her seems to move; she slowly lifts herself from the bed and scolds herself internally as she does because she almost trips on the coffee table near the bed. Realizing that it was moved there intentionally, she spots a note in a messy scribble.
"Hey weirdos,
Since it's a Tuesday we had to leave for work. You were very cozy so we did not bother to wakr you. We left a set of spare keys and a keycard by the dining table and a goodie bag for both of you. Enjoy your vacation! Anya says sorry that we can't tour you around for now. See ya later!
xoxo,
Raven"
Clarke mentally scolds herself, of course, Anya and Raven might have probably seen them in that uncompromising position, but perhaps she'll worry about that later. She can probably handle some teasing. Clarke sets the note back to the coffee table and heads for the dining table. She spots a few more notes in neon pink and reads them individually.
"If you need food and water just grab anything from the fridge, the coffee make works, it just looks old. There's also some aspirin at the cabinet above the sink."
"The grocery across the building sells cheap sushi."
"Don't drink from the tap."
Clarke realizes that all these tiny notes are probably some of Raven's scattered thoughts in the morning. Finally, she stumbles upon a pile of documents on top of the dining table with a note that read:
"We drew a map; actually, we stole this from one of the hipster hostels. Here's a detailed itinerary of how you can plan your walking tours around Bangkok. There are temples, museums, stores, restaurants and sites to visit. This should cover your daytime plans; we'll take care of the evening festivities, xoxo."
On top of the pile, Clarke unfolds a poster-sized map with written notes on how to commute or walk from one place to another. The train stations are also marked on the map. Beneath it, Clarke found a notepad containing a list of must visit sites and restaurants in different districts in Bangkok. Also, attached to the package are brochures and magazine clippings of other things to do while in Bangkok. Clarke was deeply amused by how thorough Anya and Raven were. She has noticed that all the notes were written by Raven but Anya had probably thought of this detailed itinerary. Finally, having a friend over, she must be very excited to share the richness of the culture of the city where she's spending years of her adult life in.
Clarke looks up the wall clock by the kitchen counter and sees that's its only 7 o'clock in the morning. Clarke does not usually get very bad hangovers especially if she drinks moderately given her past tolerance with alcohol, she keeps telling herself, and that she just needs it to fall asleep. But probably, she should get over that addiction soon, slowly and carefully. She treads back to the makeshift bed space to rouse the still sleeping Lexa. But before she pats her on the shoulder, she realized that Lexa has somehow moved and the softness of the morning light illuminates the corners of her face. For a long time, Clarke has never seen anything so entrancing and gentle, she wonders if she could find a way to capture this moment. So, tolerating her mild headache, she searches for her small drawing pad and pencil from her bag and starts sketching.
Clarke was nearly done with her work when Lexa finally start to stir from her sleep.
Sleepy brilliant green eyes stared right back at her."Hey, Lex" Clarke finally put down her pencil.
Lexa was awoken by the soft scratching sound of pencil on paper. When she opened her eyes, she realized that Clarke was seated on an armchair across her, her blond lock glowing as the sunlight hit her. "Good morning, Clarke."
"Anya and Raven left some messages or should I say instructions?" Clarke immediately said disregarding her previous activity as she moved to put away her sketch book.
"Were you drawing me?" Lexa asked innocently.
"Probably" Clarke answered. "The morning light was nice."
"So, that's all you're gonna say?" Lexa inquired some more.
"The light was nice, you were a good subject, and so I went for it" Clarke was grasping for words now.
"Can I see it?" Lexa teased.
"It's not yet done" was Clarke's only excuse.
"I've seen you sketch, you always finish your drawings" Lexa continued. "And after all that happened last night or rather this morning, you still manage to keep things from me? I don't put out for nothing, Clarke." Lexa gave Clarke a knowing look. Actually, she knew what was happening that morning and yes, she was half asleep when Clarke realized that she was groping her, but she pretended to be asleep for Clarke's sake.
"What do you mean?" Slowly, it dawned on Clarke, Lexa had probably felt her grope her boob and Anya and Raven saw them in that position. Wide-eyed, Clarke exclaimed, "Oh my God, Lexa! I'msorryIdidn'tmeanImovedawaywhenIrealized…" Clarke was catching her breath.
Realizing that Clarke was having a mini panic attack from Lexa's teasing, Lexa jumped to Clarke's side to calm her.
"Hey, hey, it's fine, I'm only teasing, I know you didn't mean it" Lexa assured her in a composed tone.
"I'm really sorry, Lex. It's not an excuse that I was drunk, I hope you didn't feel that I took advantage. Ever since my friends at college found out that I was bi they would often joke around about it during sleepovers…" In her panic Clarke droned into a monologue and Lexa suddenly picked up that small detail.
"You're bisexual?" Lexa quipped.
"I've been with men mostly but there were some moments with women."
"Sure."
"Does that change anything between us?" Clarke asks, too afraid of offending Lexa.
"Everything, I think." Lexa thinks to herself.
"We're cool!" Lexa jolted back in reality. "As long as you show me that drawing, we'll forget about that groping incident." Lexa decides to joke to slice the thick air between them.
"Alright, then" Clarke manages to say to avoid further awkwardness. "But we have to go over Anya and Raven's itinerary and notes after" Clarke warns as they both head towards the kitchen to prepare for their day on a much lighter note.