AN: Hello, Clexakru! Sorry it took me a week to get this out there again, but school is really starting to pick up for me now, and so I might have to just do weekly updates from now on. I promise that I will update at least once a week though. That being said, I will be able to update twice this week, but after that, I will probably have to go down to updating once a week. Anyways, thank you all for reading and supporting this story with all of the favorites, follows, and reviews, and I hope you all enjoy the new chapter!
About a week later, Clarke pulled open her wardrobe, only to find that she had no more clean uniform shirts to wear. She mentally face-palmed herself when she realized that she had forgotten to take her shirts down to the laundry room the previous night to be washed. In her defense, she had been very busy last night, although some people might think that the school shirt issue was more important. She realized now that it was a pretty big issue, but last night, she hadn't ever been able to remember that her shirts needed a wash.
Ever since she and Lexa had slept together last Saturday, they had been jumping each other's bones every chance that they got. Clarke found that it was extremely hard to keep her hands off of her roommate now that she had gotten a taste (quite literally) of the brunette girl. She knew that they needed to stop, and she was honestly surprised that the other girls on their floor hadn't heard them, but it was just so hard to keep her hands to herself anymore when she and Lexa were alone.
Clarke shook herself out of her thoughts, flushing in embarrassment when she realized that she had been practically drooling at the thought of sleeping with Lexa. She would have thought that she would have gotten tired of the activity after doing it so much because she always had in the past, but for some reason, this time was different.
Clarke shut the door to her wardrobe in mild frustration, wondering how she was going to get to school today without wearing her uniform. She wished that she had a simple plain white button-down shirt. That way, the teachers probably wouldn't even realize that it was missing the Polis logo, but she knew that she had nothing that even resembled the Polis uniform shirts.
The blonde wandered over to her roommate's wardrobe with hopeful eyes, praying to anyone that might be listening that the other girl might have a spare shirt. When she opened the doors, her eyes landed on, not just one, but two spare uniform shirts hanging on the rack in front of her, and she sighed in relief. As she pulled one of the shirts off of its hanger, she hoped that Lexa would not mind that she had borrowed it. Clarke honestly thought about asking her, but the brunette had just stepped into the shower, and Clarke didn't want to have to wait for her to get out.
Clarke pulled the shirt on, but she had some difficulty buttoning it up in the chest area, and she blushed at the fact that her chest was so much bigger than her girlfriend's. For a moment, she almost thought that she was back to square one with her shirt problem, but with some maneuvering of certain body parts, she got it to button up nicely, even though it was a tight fit. She let out a relieved breath, slipping on her skirt and then grabbing her green and blue tie to fasten it around her neck. She fastened two locks of her hair behind her head in her usual hairstyle before heading out the door to go grab breakfast before school. When she got out into the hallway, she noticed Raven clearly waiting to get inside the bathroom.
"Lexa just got in the shower. You'll probably have to wait a good ten or fifteen minutes before she's done," Clarke spoke up from behind her.
Raven glared at the door. "I need to pee. What the hell is she in the shower for? We normally all take showers at night."
Clarke blushed at the thought of why Lexa was in the shower. She and Clarke had been waking up extra early in the mornings this week to take showers before the other girls were awake, and while Clarke had still done that this morning, Lexa had slept in.
Clarke just shook her head at her friend in a semi-apologetic manner. "Just pee real quick before we go."
At that moment, Octavia stepped out of her room, eyes widening a bit when they landed on the blonde. "Whoa, Clarke, what happened?"
Clarke looked at her friend in confusion, wondering what on earth could possibly be wrong. "What do you mean?"
Raven abandoned her staring match with the door and turned her full attention to the blonde, eyes widening just as Octavia's had done before her features settled into an amused smile. "Did you get plastic surgery or something?"
Clarke cocked her head to the side in confusion, wondering what on earth her friends were talking about. She didn't think that she looked any different today than she ever did, and she tried to think of what it was that they could be seeing. She briefly wondered if maybe her lips were really swollen from making out with Lexa that morning, but that had been almost over an hour ago. Then, she followed Raven's gaze to her chest, and she realized just what it was that her friends were noticing.
"Oh. No. This is Lexa's. I forgot to bring my shirts down to the laundry room yesterday, so I'm borrowing hers," Clarke was quick to explain. She looked back down at her chest again, realizing that the tight shirt really brought out the actual size of her breasts, and she looked away in embarrassment, cheeks tinging a faint shade of pink. "Is it that bad?"
"I know that Raven can be a drama queen sometimes, and she tends to exaggerate, but take it from me, Clarke, you look like you're about to bust out of that thing," Octavia told her, and Clarke frowned when she noticed that her friend was basically talking to her breasts.
"Well, stop looking at it." Clarke crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously.
Octavia looked like she was trying really hard not to laugh, and Clarke scowled when the brunette allowed a chuckle to escape. "I'm trying, but it's hard not to, Clarke. It's like your boobs are right up in my face."
"Well, what do you want me to do?" Clarke asked in exasperation. "I can't just not go to school, and I don't have any other shirts that even remotely resemble our Polis one."
"Borrow a shirt from someone who doesn't have the smallest breasts on campus," Octavia said, unable to stop herself from laughing.
Clarke just barely bit back a retort at that one, trying her hardest not to defend Lexa's breasts, which would certainly raise suspicion about the two of them dating. She really did love Lexa's breasts though, just like she loved every other part of Lexa, and she tried to bring her mind back to the conversation at hand before it went too far into the gutter. "Oh, really? And do you have any clean shirts for me to borrow?"
Both girls shook their heads, and Clarke just huffed. "That's what I thought. I was lucky that Lexa even had any spare shirts at all. I'll just have to live with it for today."
"You could put on a sweater," Raven suggested, trying her best to maintain a more serious tone.
"But it's so hot outside," Clarke whined, even though she had to admit that her friend had come up with a good idea.
"Look, it's either you wear a sweater, or every single person that you talk to will just be talking to your breasts all day. I mean, it's your choice, but what if you do bust out like Octavia said? I think you'd be glad to have the sweater if that happens," Raven said with the hint of a smile on her lips.
Clarke just rolled her eyes at the other girl in annoyance. "I'm not going to tear Lexa's shirt. You guys are being ridiculous. But I will get that sweater."
Clarke walked back into her room and opened her wardrobe to grab a sweater as Octavia and Raven finally let their laughs out behind her. She wanted to point out that she could still hear them, but she refrained from doing so as she pulled her gray sweater over her head. While it had been getting cooler outside lately, this week had been uncharacteristically hot, and Clarke wondered why that had to be the week that she had forgotten to do her laundry.
When she got back to where her friends were standing, seemingly waiting to go downstairs to breakfast with her, Clarke tried her best not to shoot an annoyed glare in their direction. "Better?"
"Much." Raven chuckled, and Clarke just rolled her eyes, pushing past her friends to go downstairs to eat. Clarke tried to shed her feelings of utter humiliation as she went downstairs to find out what Indra had decided to make for them that morning.
Later that day, Clarke found herself eating under the bleachers with Lexa. She was so glad that the two of them had continued this ritual because, while she would have rather just sat in the cafeteria, she didn't think she could take the stifling heat of sitting in the courtyard while she was wearing her sweater. She was thankful for the breeze that was blowing through the shady setting that she was in at the moment. She and Lexa had already finished their food, and now, Clarke was just resting her head against her roommate's shoulder. They weren't talking, choosing to just sit in comfortable silence, and Clarke rather enjoyed times like this. She could feel herself starting to fall asleep when Lexa suddenly stood up, pulling Clarke up with her and out towards the field.
Clarke could not keep a laugh from escaping her lips as she followed her girlfriend. "Where are we going?"
Lexa sprawled out on her back in the middle of the grass. "To lay in the field."
Clarke lied down next to Lexa and looked up at the cloudless blue sky, watching as birds circled high above. She was completely lost in the vast blue dome above her when she felt a hand link with hers, and she looked over at her roommate in surprise. Lexa was staring up at the sky with a wide smile on her face, all of her teeth showing, and Clarke wondered what had made her girlfriend so happy. Whatever had caused it, Clarke thought that Lexa's smile must be contagious because she found that she could not keep a smile from creeping onto her own face as well. Clarke almost didn't even mind how hot she was feeling right now in her sweater at the sight of Lexa's great mood. The brunette was happier than Clarke had ever seen her, and she wondered why it was that Lexa was insisting on holding her hand out in the open like this where anyone could walk by and see them.
"You know that people might see us holding hands, right?" Clarke asked.
"I don't care," Lexa said easily, still smiling. "I want to tell them anyway."
Clarke rolled over onto her side so that she could face the brunette, wondering if she had actually heard correctly. "Wait a second, Lexa. You were always the one who was so adamant about keeping this a secret before. What changed?
Lexa turned her head to look at Clarke with sincere green eyes. "I just don't want to keep it a secret anymore. Besides, I know that you don't like having to hide it."
Clarke's lips immediately pulled down into a frown, hoping that her roommate wasn't feeling any pressure because of her. "Lex, don't do something that you're not ready for because of me. Yes, I would love to tell people that we are together, but I will have no problem waiting for you to be ready. I would never, ever want to make you uncomfortable."
"It's not just because of you," Lexa admitted. "I talked to Anya last week, and she told me that she didn't expect me to be the same person that I was before I lost Costia just because I'm getting better now. I didn't even tell her that I was afraid people might think that. She just knew somehow, and I guess that I forgot that I can trust her. I think I can trust all of them, Clarke, and I would love to share with them all that we are dating."
"What's got you in such a good mood today?" Clarke could not stop herself from asking. "You're all smiley. It's cute."
Lexa just smiled wider at this statement. "I'm glad that you find me to be cute, Clarke, because my great mood is simply caused by being able to call you my girlfriend. I love being around you every day, and I especially love what we do every night."
Lexa shot her a wink, and Clarke tried her best not to blush, instead allowing a wide grin to take over her face. "So we're really going to tell them then?"
"Yes. I thought that maybe we could tell them at dinner time," Lexa said. "I love you, Clarke."
"I love you, too, Lex." Clarke's eyes shone with the feeling.
The love in Lexa's eyes at the moment was so prominent that Clarke knew it mirrored the love that she felt in her own heart, and she immediately captured Lexa's lips in a kiss. The brunette rolled onto her side as well as the two made out in the grass, even though Clarke had kind of wanted to roll on top of her, but she supposed that that probably wasn't appropriate at school. Clarke moved her lips against Lexa's, delighting in this feeling that she loved so much, but right when she tried to turn the kiss heated, Lexa pulled away. Clarke shot her a questioning glance, but she could read in Lexa's eyes that she still had more that she wanted to say, and so Clarke focused attentive blue eyes on the brunette.
Lexa didn't break Clarke's gaze. "I don't think that I ever actually apologized for the way that I treated you when you first got here, but I want to. I'm so sorry that I was ever so cruel to you, and I'm sorry for saying that you could never understand because me losing Costia was way worse than you losing your dad. I didn't mean that. You've proven to me countless times that you do understand, and I know now that what I went through was no worse than what you did."
"It's okay, Lexa." Clarke reached out to brush a stray lock of hair behind Lexa's ear, not bothering to remove her hand afterwards. "You don't have to feel guilty about what you've done in the past. You were hurting, and I get that. Besides, while our experiences were similar, I'm sure that they were different in some ways."
"Maybe a little, but there was nothing that made it so different that you wouldn't understand," Lexa told her roommate, and Clarke watched as Lexa seemed to struggle with whether or not to say something else. It looked to Clarke as if she wanted to, but there was something that was holding her back. Clarke had no idea what Lexa could want to say, but whatever it was, she got the sense that it was really important, and the blonde found herself hoping that her girlfriend would actually decide to go through with it. While she would never want Lexa to talk about something before she was ready to, Clarke still wanted Lexa to be able to trust her. With everything.
And it looked as if the brunette was about to do just that.
"The reason that I thought I had it worse off than you did wasn't just because I lost Costia. It was because I lost my parents, too. Kind of. I never knew my dad, and my mom…well…it was clear that she never even wanted me. When you first arrived here, I was bitter that you thought you were doing so well getting over your dad's death when I had never even had a father in the first place."
Clarke could not keep the surprise off of her face at the words that were coming out of Lexa's mouth. The blonde had always thought that there was something off about the way that Lexa never talked much about her family. She had thought that maybe the brunette just didn't get along well with her parents or something, but she had never even imagined that it might be something like this. Here she was, thinking that she had been in such a similar situation to Lexa's just because she had lost her dad, when Lexa had never even been loved by her parents at all. Clarke instantly felt bad, but before she could say anything, Lexa continued speaking.
"My mom was never home most of the time, and when she was, she was usually drunk off her ass. The only interactions we had were when she would yell at me or when she would ask me to do things for her. She didn't care about me at all, and I probably would've died if my neighbors hadn't caught onto what was happening."
Lexa paused here, and Clarke was wondering if she was going to have to ask how they did figure it out when the brunette finally explained it to her. "One day, when I was five years old, I forgot the key to my house, and so I had to go over to one of my neighbors' houses to call my mom. I went across the street because the people that lived there had always seemed the nicest, and when I got there and asked to use the phone, the woman that answered the door started asking me all kinds of personal questions. I really didn't understand what was going on at the time, but I guess my being home alone while I was so young probably aroused her suspicions, and I'm sure that I probably looked really sickly. Anyway, she started asking me all of these questions about my home life, and I had no idea why she was reacting so surprised at the answers that I gave. I thought that it was perfectly normal for my mother not to care about me. She never did, so I didn't know any better."
Tears began to track down Lexa's cheeks as she said this, and Clarke reached out to wipe them away. Her heart shattered for the girl that was in front of her, and she couldn't help but imagine a baby Lexa going through the first few years of her life almost completely alone, thinking that her mother was not supposed to love her. Clarke cupped her roommate's cheeks and brought the other girl's eyes back up from where they had settled on the ground. "Lexa, I had no idea. I am so sorry."
Lexa tried her best to keep more tears from escaping. "Don't be. There's nothing that you could have done."
"No, Lexa. I should never have been so hard on you. When you were acting so horrible at the beginning of the year, I thought it was just because you had lost Costia, and I thought I understood. I had been in a similar situation, and I just wanted to help you because I knew that it was possible to get over something like that, but if I had known—"
"Clarke, please stop. Yes, my childhood was unfair, but it didn't give me any more of a right to mope than Costia's death did. Nothing gives someone the right to treat people as badly as I had been. Besides, I was miserable, and we both know that I would never have listened to you if you had been any easier on me." Lexa gave Clarke a lopsided smile with watery green eyes.
"Can I ask what happened next? Did you grow up in the system?" Clarke asked quietly, afraid to hear the answer.
"No. My neighbors took me in, and that was when I met Luna. I know I told you that she was a friend from school before, but she was their daughter, and I grew up with her like my sister. They were a great family, and they actually showed love for me, but I still couldn't help but feel left out. I mean, I knew that they only took me in because they felt sorry for me, and once I saw how a family was supposed to act, I began to wish that my own family had been like that. That my father had stuck around, and he and my mother both loved me the way that Luna's parents loved her. That family was so good to me, but I could never fit in with them because I never really belonged there. I know it's stupid." Lexa averted her eyes again.
Clarke was quick to reassure her, massaging Lexa's cheeks with her thumbs. "It's not stupid, Lexa. You deserve a family that loves you."
Lexa did raise her eyes then. "I guess so, but maybe if I—"
Clarke tried not to let her shock show through when she realized that the brunette thought that what had happened to her was her fault, and the blonde could not help it as her face hardened, and she cut her roommate off midsentence. "The way that your mother treated you wasn't your fault, Lexa. There was nothing that you could have done to get her to love you. End of story."
Lexa nodded her head in response, but her eyes were a dead giveaway that she didn't really believe what Clarke had just said. The blonde was about to argue, knowing how important it was to make sure that her roommate did not blame herself, but the other girl chose that exact moment to continue speaking.
"It just gets worse, Clarke," Lexa said, looking ashamed, and Clarke gently wiped away the tears that fell with her statement. The blonde wondered how on earth any of this could get worse, and she wished that her girlfriend wouldn't be ashamed about her past when it was completely out of her control. Clarke understood what it was like to lose someone, but she had grown up in a nice, loving family. She wasn't really sure how to comfort Lexa in the face of this new information, so she simply remained quiet, figuring that the best thing that she could do for Lexa right now was listen.
"When I was twelve years old, my mother just showed up on my neighbors' doorstep, looking for me, and while I was curious back then, I should have been enraged. I always figured that she thought I ran away or that she simply forgot that I existed, but she had known where I was for seven years, and she didn't even care to do anything about it."
Lexa's eyes shone with frustration for a moment, and she closed them briefly to get her emotions back under control. "She seemed different though than the mother that I remembered. She told me that she had changed her ways and that she had gotten married to this really nice man. She said that she wanted me to come home so that we could be a family again. Luna's parents were hesitant to agree, but they eventually let me go because I really wanted to. My mother had basically stood there and promised to give me everything I had ever wanted. How could I not want to go? When I got back home, it looked like my mom wasn't lying. My stepdad seemed like a great man, and my mom wasn't drinking anymore. They were the family that I had always wanted."
Lexa paused with pain-filled eyes, swallowing thickly as she struggled to continue speaking. "For two days. Then, they let me know that it was all an act. My mom had simply gotten tired of not having her slave around the house to do her bidding. I wasn't allowed to see Luna anymore, and my house became like a prison. I was only allowed out of the house to go to school, which they would drive me to and from, and they put bars over my window so that I couldn't escape. I was to do whatever they said, and whenever I messed anything up, my stepfather would beat me." Lexa took a shaky breath, trying to stop more tears from escaping her eyes. Needless to say, it wasn't working.
Clarke could feel the tears pricking at her own eyes at this new revelation. Lexa was right. It had just gotten worse, and it made Clarke sick to think of some man hurting the brunette girl that she loved so much. She hated seeing Lexa in so much pain as she talked about her past, and she wanted nothing more than for it to stop. "You don't have to keep going. I get the idea."
Lexa shook her head. "I want to tell you." No matter how painful it was for both of them, Lexa seemed insistent on getting this story out, and despite everything, Clarke at least liked the fact that Lexa trusted her enough to tell her about all of this.
Clarke had yet to stop rubbing soothing circles on Lexa's tear-streaked cheeks with her thumbs.
Lexa couldn't keep her tears from falling as she told the next part of her story. "Soon, my stepdad started beating me for no reason at all. He hated me so much, and he just liked to see me hurting. My mother did nothing to stop him, and I think she secretly liked watching it, too. I was always covered in bruises, but my stepdad was careful; he only bruised me where it couldn't be seen, and I had to try my best at school not to show my pain. One day, about a year and a half after I had gone back to live with them, my stepfather came home extremely drunk, and he was angrier than I'd ever seen him. He just started beating me senseless, but I didn't try to stop him because he had convinced me that I deserved it. He ended up breaking my arm pretty badly and cracking a few of my ribs. I had to lie to the doctors and say that I fell down the stairs, and he never beat me again after that. I think he was afraid at how close he had come to going to prison. If those doctors wouldn't have believed me, that's where he would have ended up, and he knew it, so he pretty much left me alone after that."
Lexa paused, trying to hold back a sob as best as she could. Clarke wanted to comfort her roommate, but she knew that there was nothing that she could do. The brunette needed to finish her story, and so Clarke allowed her to continue without interruption. "Neither my stepfather nor my mom even tried to help me at all when I was released from the hospital. I could barely move for days, but I had to do everything on my own. Luna's family helped when they could by sneaking into my house to help me when my mom and stepdad were both out, but they couldn't take me back. If they did, they knew that my parents would know exactly where I was and just come to take me away again. They still ended up saving me though because they still had the money that they had saved up to send Luna to boarding school, and they offered to send me instead. Luna was a year older than me, and she had turned down her parents' offer to send her to school here at Polis because she didn't want to leave her home, and so I readily accepted. The next school year, I left the house when no one was home, leaving a note that said that I had run away, and I came here. I haven't seen my mom or stepdad since"
Lexa stopped after this, and Clarke knew that this was the end of the story. This was the past that Lexa had always refused to talk about in depth, and the blonde now saw why she didn't want anyone to know. It broke Clarke's heart more than she could say. She sat up and pulled Lexa into her lap, seeing that the brunette was trying hard not to cry, and the minute Lexa was in Clarke's arms, she collapsed against the blonde, letting her sobs wrack her body. Clarke just allowed her to have a few moments to let all her emotions out. She knew that it must have been hard for the brunette to relive her past in full like this and even harder to actually tell Clarke, and the blonde wished more than anything that Lexa wouldn't be so ashamed of what had happened to her.
"I'm so sorry, Lexa," Clarke murmured into brunette hair once the other girl had settled down. Clarke's voice only raised more and more as she continued speaking. "But I want you to know that the way that they acted was not in any way your fault. There was nothing that you could have done to get them to like you better. You may have done some things that your stepdad used against you to justify his beatings, but every kid makes mistakes. Besides, your stepfather was just a sick man, and even if you had been a perfect little angel, he probably still would have done what he did. Your mom and stepdad are cruel, evil people who deserve to rot in jail for the rest of their lives for what they did to you. You didn't deserve any of it, and they are fools not to love you. Absolute idiots!"
"Thank you, Clarke," Lexa said softly.
She raised her head up to look at her roommate, and she attempted to give her a watery smile, but Clarke wasn't letting her off the hook that easily. She didn't just want the other girl to be appreciative of her words. She wanted her to believe them. "Lexa, what happened to you wasn't your fault. Say it, and mean it."
Lexa averted her eyes from the blonde's, and Clarke saw that she had been right when she had thought that Lexa still blamed herself for what had happened. Clarke was suddenly determined not to allow the other girl to leave this field until she had learned that none of this was her fault. Clarke grabbed Lexa's chin to guide the brunette's eyes back up to hers, but the minute she touched her roommate, Lexa violently flinched away, and Clarke had not missed the hint of fear that had sprung up in the other girl's eyes when she had grabbed her there. She chided herself for just reaching out to touch the brunette like that, no matter how gentle she had been, after what the other girl had just told her. She briefly remembered Lexa having had almost the same reaction when Clarke had tried to do this exact thing weeks ago, although Lexa's eyes had been more guarded back then. At the time, Clarke had just thought that Lexa hadn't wanted to be touched, but she now realized that it was something much more than that. She wondered how many other times she had accidentally triggered a flashback-like response in Lexa while the other girl had had to hide it as best as she could.
Clarke was quick to put her hands in the air to apologize for her actions. "I'm sorry, Lexa. I shouldn't have just grabbed you like that after everything you just told me, but…you know I'd never, ever even dream of hurting you, right?"
Lexa seemed to shake off her discomfort, and she looked less upset upon hearing Clarke's words. "Of course I know that, Clarke. It was just an automatic response for me. Whenever I would avert my eyes while talking to my stepdad, he would grab my chin, albeit more roughly than you did, to force me to look him in the eye. Normally, a beating would follow, so the flinching away has just become habit," Lexa explained simply, and Clarke was surprised when she saw a teasing smirk settle over the brunette's features. "I know that you will not beat me though, Clarke. Or at least, I hope you will not."
Clarke's lips settled into a tiny smile at the sight of her girlfriend joking around again, and she gently guided the other girl's head down to her chest. "I'd never beat you, Lex." Clarke allowed them to simply sit in silence for a few more seconds, knowing that Lexa probably needed this contact right now, before she finally spoke up again. "Does anyone else know about this?"
"I told Anya," Lexa mumbled against Clarke's sweater, "and Costia, of course. I would have told Emori as well, but her personality was always so much more loud and outgoing than the others, and I just really didn't want that many people to know. When I first got here, it was amazing because I had the opportunity to just start over, and I found all these people who really loved me, not just because they felt sorry for me. For the first time in my life, I actually felt like I belonged, and I was happy. It only got better when I fell in love with Costia because it was a feeling I had never felt before, a feeling I wasn't even really convinced existed, and it felt so great to be so strongly tethered to someone I cared about and who cared about me so much. I almost started to forget my old life, like I had left it behind by coming here, which in a way, I had. That's why it hurt so much when I lost Costia. I mean, she was the first person who really loved me throughout my entire life, and then she was just…gone. It made me feel like I didn't deserve to be loved."
Clarke had to resist the urge to bring Lexa's chin up so that green eyes could meet blue. "Lexa, look at me," she said instead.
The brunette pulled back a bit to sit up in Clarke's lap, bringing her eyes up to meet the blonde's, and Clarke winced at the utter sadness that she saw in that deep green forest. "You do deserve to be loved, Lexa. You are the most beautiful, sweet, amazing person I know, and I love you. I will never stop loving you."
Lexa was silent for a moment before swallowing thickly and speaking again in a small voice. "I know it wasn't my fault."
Clarke examined Lexa's eyes with a skeptical look, but she found nothing but honesty in the green depths. "Are you sure?" she asked anyway.
Lexa just nodded. "Sometimes, it's hard to think that it wasn't my fault because my stepdad had me so convinced that it was. I know in my heart though that they were just cruel and that there was nothing I could have done to get them to love me. Sometimes, I just wish there was something I could've done, you know? But you're right about me deserving love. I believed for such a long time that I didn't, but if it was true that I didn't deserve love, then I never would have gotten you."
Clarke leaned forward to press a quick kiss to Lexa's lips, glad that she seemed to be getting through to her roommate. "That's right. None of what happened to you was your fault, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. It was completely out of your control. I will never love you any less because of your past, LW. In fact, it only makes me love you more."
Lexa looked at Clarke with surprised green eyes, almost as if she thought the girl in front of her was too good to be true. "Please don't leave me."
"Never." Clarke was quick to respond. "You're stuck with me until the day I die. Which will be in the far, far future."
Lexa cracked a smile at this, and Clarke smiled back, tucking a lock of brunette hair behind her girlfriend's ear. Then, Lexa leaned down to capture Clarke's lips in hers, and the blonde easily returned it, letting her girlfriend have complete control over the pace of the kiss for once. Lexa kept it slow, showing no intentions of turning it heated, and Clarke was fine with that, content to do whatever the other girl wanted her to in that moment. Neither one of them pulled back until they heard the sound of the bell ringing from the school.
"You okay now?" Clarke asked Lexa softly.
Lexa paused for a moment before answering. "Better."
"I'll take it." Clarke stood up, offering her hand down to help Lexa up as well. "But we will work on making you feel great someday."
Lexa smiled up at her, accepting Clarke's hand as she pulled herself to her feet. "With you, I already do."
Clarke was glad to see her roommate smiling again after what they had just talked about, and the blonde realized that, while it may have been painful for the brunette to relive it, her past wasn't anything new to her and probably didn't affect her on a daily basis anymore. She wouldn't want the blonde to baby her now, just because she knew about it. Clarke knew that she would have to keep this in mind now that Lexa had trusted her with this information.
"If only we didn't have to go to school." Lexa scrunched up her nose as they headed in the direction of the building, hand in hand. Clarke laughed as the brunette began to argue about why they shouldn't be forced to go, and it was almost weird for Clarke to hear Lexa going on as if nothing had just passed between them.
"Lexa," she called, and the brunette turned to look at her. "I'm really glad that you told me all of that stuff."
Lexa simply looked at the blonde for a moment, and Clarke realized that her girlfriend might never have gotten that response before. The corners of Lexa's lips turned up in a small smile. "Me too."