Now: June 22, 2015
2:42 pm
"Echo's pregnant"
Clarke was pretty sure someone had punched her in the stomach. It was like her whole world had just paused and she was having some type of out of body experience where she couldn't hear what anyone was saying to her. Everything was just a blur.
Pregnant. She was pregnant. The picture began to form in her head. Bellamy out in the yard on a warm summer day with burgers and hot dogs on the grill, laughter coming from the pool as a child jumped out and ran towards him. He screamed daddy and ran towards him Bellamy picking him up laughing in reciprocation.
'Daddy come swim with me and mommy!' The child squealed looking up him. He had the same brown eyes, tanned skin, and curly brown hair of his father.
Then she came into the picture.
'Daddy's making dinner'.
Her deep brown eyes looked back at him with a smile. They were a little family, the three of them.
And Clarke was on the outside. Now watching an image that she had deep down wanted herself to be a part of for so many years, even before she had realized herself that that was what she had truly wanted.
And now it was gone.
She felt herself trip back slightly and caught her hand on the wall. It brought her back to reality.
"Clarke" Bellamy said reaching out to catch her but she pulled away keeping one hand on the wall. He looked hurt but she couldn't worry about that at the moment. It was like she felt numb to everything.
She had never been that girl, that girl to let another person have the ability to crush her whole world. Finn had hurt her, sure, but she had been able to pick up the pieces. She had got a best friend out of that situation. When her ex-girlfriend Lexa had told her after graduation that she was moving to Washington to work in the government and felt they should break up, because love was weakness in the political world, Clarke was shocked. She had thought she meant more to her than that. And yet it had been so easy for Lexa to let go.
But still she was able to move on.
This felt different. She knew she could pick up the pieces. She was strong and she always would be. But still she somehow knew that picking up the pieces from Bellamy Blake was going to be ten times harder than anyone else.
Bellamy wasn't someone who was ever going to leave her life the way Finn and Lexa had. There was never a time he hadn't been in her life. And she didn't want him to leave it, even if that meant they were never more than friends.
"Clarke let's go already" Octavia came into the room with Raven hot on her tail. Clarke remembered they had been waiting for her upstairs. The two had obviously grown impatient.
"I hope this place has some good onion rings I'm starv…" Raven looked up from her phone noticing the silent tension that had encompassed the room. She looked over at Clarke and noticing her reaction quickly hurried over putting her arm around her. "Hey what's wrong?"
Clarke shook her head weakly "Nothing everything's fine. Bellamy just went to get my sketchbook." She reached her hand out, silently asking him for the book, but he didn't budge.
"Clarke, can we please go somewhere to talk about this?" His eyes were pleading but she did her best to look anywhere else. "This isn't how I wanted you to find out…" He shot a look over at Miller who just gave him his own glare back as if challenging him to fight him on this.
"There's nothing to talk about. Echo's pregnant. That's great." She forced a fake smile but she was an artist not an actor. He could see right through it.
"Wait what?!" Raven shot a look towards Bellamy then back towards Octavia who didn't look surprised. Instead she was biting her lip and staring at the ground.
Bellamy ignored them both. "Clarke please…"
"No I am very happy for you." She was nodding her head a little too much. "But Octavia and Raven came down here to hurry me up so we should go." She let out a half laugh. She's pretty sure the Oscar people would be horrified with her acting right now.
She could feel Octavia and Raven staring at the back of her head but she didn't want to face them. Any of them. She knew their faces would be full of pity. She didn't want pity.
"We should go" She nodded her head more slowly this time and Bellamy seemed to let it go.
Octavia and Raven followed behind her in silence back up to the room. None of them said anything as Clarke sat down on the bed.
She didn't cry. She didn't feel the need to. She felt sad. Slightly broken. But crying wasn't going to solve anything. It wouldn't change the fact that her story wasn't going to end with her and Bellamy.
And that was okay. Really it was.
But it still broke her heart.
She laid down and Raven hopped up on the bed. They didn't need to use words to communicate. Clarke moved her head over to her best friend's stomach and Raven ran her hands through Clarke's hair. Octavia followed lying her own head on Clarke's legs.
It was like they understood she needed to just sit there and be. Just to soak in the information and process her own feelings.
None of them said anything. But it was kind of perfect that way.
…
Twenty minutes had passed before Raven declared that the bar was off and she had a new idea in mind. She told them all to change into something more comfortable and that they didn't mind getting dirty. Most of Clarke's clothes had a paint stain somewhere so it wasn't hard to find something.
She changed out of the dress into a pair of faded jean shorts and a dark blue tee. She felt relieved that the other two were no longer forcing her to wear anything that required heels. She didn't have the energy at this point.
She didn't say anything to Octavia about Echo's pregnancy. She understood why she hadn't told her. It wasn't her place to and she wasn't going to hold it against her.
In fact none of them brought up Echo, Bellamy, or what had gone down in the kitchen. She figured both girls were waiting for her to say something first but she really didn't want to. Talking about it wasn't going to make it better. And at this point she had really no desire to have a vent session that would just result in tears and overeating.
"Are you going to tell us where we are going?" Octavia asked curiously.
Raven shook her head. "Nope it's a surprise. And kinda a long drive but you guys will get over it. Actually pack a bag because we won't be back tonight."
Clarke frowned "What do you mean we won't be back? Raven we're here for a wedding in which Octavia is a bridesmaid. She has to be back here for…stuff…"
"That stuff tomorrow is final preparations at the reception hall. Plus Echo's parents are coming in from North Carolina tomorrow. So she'll need us all around." Octavia clarified.
Raven rolled her eyes. "Well leave early. It'll just be easier not to drive back tonight. Now let's go." She put her hair up in her infamous ponytail before putting her hands on her hips. "See I'm ready. Takes five minutes."
"Sorry I had to chisel off the pound of makeup you put on my face." Clarke said sarcastically getting another eye roll in return.
It took another ten minutes for them to get ready because Octavia insisted that she had to put new make up on that matched her more casual outfit. Raven stood glaring and tapping her foot repeatedly with her hands on her hips. They hadn't known each other more than a few days but already Raven was comfortable enough around Octavia to lose any filter she may have had.
Nobody talked during the drive. Raven filled up the car with old 90s music off Pandora and the only sounds from their voices were to the lyrics of the words. Clarke was relieved with the lack of chatter. She was still processing the day she had just had and she still wasn't in the mood to really talk about it. Closing her eyes and taking in the sounds of the spice girls and the backstreet boys was much more calming than anything else at that moment.
It was about a half hour in of driving that Clarke realized Raven was driving back to Boston.
"Why are we going home?" Clarke asked breaking the communication silence that had filled the car.
"We aren't, well not exactly. We're going to Boston but we're not going to our apartment. I have another idea. Don't worry it'll be fun." She smiled softly at her friend "Trust me it's not going to be some hectic party or anything, I know what you need when you're upset".
Clarke turned back towards the window hoping that was true. It wasn't that she wasn't a party person it's just that parties tended to be a bad mix with her when she was upset. In one of the first nights after the Finn break up she had gone to one and had a few too many drinks. Let's just say she ended up on the porch of a stranger's house crying to someone she didn't know about how much she hated Finn and more specifically hated his hair.
She wasn't exactly sure where the last part had come from.
"I've never been to Boston!" Octavia squealed from the back seat. "Are we going to go shopping?!"
Clarke bit her lip in thought. Shopping was also probably not a good idea. Her feeling emotional plus a credit card would likely end up with her in massive debt and another cat.
"You'll see" Raven replied but Clarke sincerely hoped she was smart enough not to take them down the shopping route.
They drove on for a little over an hour when Clarke noticed Raven getting off an exit right outside of the city. That's when it clicked.
"We're going to your childhood home?"
Raven gave a small smirk "The place has been abandoned ever since my mom ran off to god knows where years ago. It's completely vacant so I figured it would be the perfect place to have a small get together."
Clarke sighed "You promised no parties!"
"Two extra people do not make it a party Clarke" Raven waved her off.
It wasn't long before they reached Raven's childhood home. Clarke had only been there once before. When her and Raven had started to become close, Raven had taken her here to see where she had grown up. They had sat in the car as Raven explained that she had never known her father and her mother had had a lot of issues during Raven's childhood. When Raven was in high school there had been a couple times her mother took off for a couple weeks at a time so it didn't surprise her when she had disappeared completely after Raven moved out.
The boy next door Finn had always brought her over food and other necessities. They kept it their little secret. Raven was worried if Finn told his parents what was going on they would call child services and Raven would end up in the system.
Still he had helped her survive back then. Raven had said she wasn't sure when it was that he had changed into someone she no longer recognized. Maybe when he left for college and his parent's moved into a better town after his dad got a job making more money. Maybe when he became convinced that he was somehow better than everyone else because he had done this incredible thing as a child.
Either way he changed.
They pulled up into the rundown house. Clarke immediately recognized Monty's car and smiled to herself. Maybe two extra people wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"Welcome to my humble ex-home" Raven said as she closed the door shut from her car. "I ask that you refrain from photographs of the outside as this is trespassing and I do not want anyone to know we are here and get us arrested."
Clarke gave a small laugh. "Okay so what are we doing?"
"Ah I'm glad you asked Griffin" Raven smirked. "Follow me and we will be entering my old garage."
Clarke played along as she and Octavia followed behind into the detached garage. Immediately upon entering she noticed two things, one Jasper and Monty and two the garage was completely white.
"Wow brightness alert" Octavia commented surprised forgetting to acknowledge the two other people in the room.
"Yeah well my mother was convinced she was going to open her own hair salon in here one year so she painted the place all white. Her plan tanked but she kept it like this." Raven said with a shrug.
Clarke just smiled at the two other boys in the room. She had only been gone a couple of days but she missed their antics. She rushed over wrapping one arm around each of them pulling them into a group hug.
"You don't have to talk about any of it but we're here for you Clarke" Monty whispered into her ear. She figured Raven must have texted them about everything with Bellamy and Echo while planning this outing. It didn't bother her. She'd rather Raven told them than to go through the whole saga herself.
She just nodded "Thanks guys."
"Also you're cat's fine. Slightly pink but fine." Jasper said with a smirk.
Clarke rolled her eyes. She knew when Raven had said she left the feline with those two something would go wrong.
"Now to the fun!" Raven said pulling out about six jugs of different colored paint. "Monty, thank you for getting these. Jasper, did you order the pizza?"
"Yup to the address next door so we don't get caught."
"Splendid" Raven said pulling out some brushes along with it. "Now Clarke Griffin this is your oasis. You've had a rough day so we're ordering lots of pizza and a side of fries because those are essential. We also have music. Disney music because we need happy upbeat songs we can all sing badly too. And we have six huge jugs of paint that we are going to use to ruin these walls to your heart's desire."
Clarke smiled widely. Raven knew her perfectly. The one thing that always made Clarke feel better was painting. And Raven Reyes had given her a whole garage as her canvas and the company of her best friends.
For the first time in a long time she felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
…
Octavia had drawn almost a dozen flowers on the wall. Jasper had attempted to paint a portrait of Clarke's cat that he had apparently dyed pink. It looked more like a giant pink blob in Clarke's opinion. Monty refused to use any color other than green because "symbolism" and Raven had just painted RAVEN RULES in giant bubble letters across one of the walls.
Clarke on the other had had taken to drawing a whole scene. It was of an edge of a mountain where the trees and various plants that created the maze that was a forest had opened up into a large clearing. In the clearing she had drawn a girl. You could only see the back of her but she was looking up into the night sky which was filled with an array of stars. The solitude of the world bringing the girl peace.
"I'm writing Monty loves Harper over here." Jasper snickered to Octavia. She had become fast friends with both of the boys and seemed to fit in easily with their small group of friends.
"I DO NOT LOVE HER!" Monty shouted breaking his usual quiet demeanor.
Jasper rolled his eyes "Right that's why we always have to go to the coffee shop at the same time every Tuesday because you know she's working." He looked over at Octavia "Then he tries to flirt for about five minutes. It's adorable."
"I hate you" Monty muttered stuffing a slice of pizza into his face.
"And I hate coffee" Jasper said pointedly turning back to continue on his masterpiece.
Raven walked over to where Clarke had been looking and stared at the work. She didn't say anything just continued to hum along to circle of life coming from her IPod.
"You can't see the stars in the city" Clarke said breaking Raven's humming "I miss the stars".
"The stars aren't all you miss by living in the city" Raven commented looking at her best friend. She hadn't pushed her to talk but Clarke knew she wanted her to. That she thought it would help.
Clarke didn't want to talk.
She closed her eyes and let the music around her soak in. Maybe they could do something else. She looked at Raven and smiled singing "It's the circle, the circle of life".
Jasper joined in and before they knew it their art session had turned into a singing one. They all laughed as each one would take turns doing a solo and trying to hit notes that were clearly out of their range. Raven and Octavia did a complete duet to "Do You Want to Build a Snowman"? They all cracked up and Clarke couldn't wipe the smile off her own face. It was like everything that had happened was far away and her mind was only focused on the present and her friends.
That was until the song changed to Beauty and the Beast.
Aware instantly Octavia turned towards Clarke and watched her face fall. It was just a song, it shouldn't mean anything.
Yet somehow it did.
And just as quickly her whole defensive shield fell down and she finally started to cry.