AN: Happy Sunday, everyone! As you probably have expected, this chapter is a pretty heavy one, so get ready. Thank you to everyone who continues to review on this, and thanks for all of the favorites and follows. I appreciate each and every one of them, and I hope you guys know that you are the best! Enjoy!
Clarke descended the staircase to find many pairs of expectant eyes trained on hers. Everyone was standing stone still, and it looked as if they hadn't moved since the moment Clarke had left them. She briefly wondered if they had said anything to Tom and Linda as they made their way out the door. She thought that they probably had not, instead simply waiting for the blonde to emerge from her room. She didn't know what to tell them though, didn't even know how to begin to explain what had happened upstairs, so she wandered into the living room without a word, simply leaning against the doorframe. Now that it was over, the shock of what she had witnessed was starting to hit her hard, and she didn't think that she could speak, even if she wanted to.
"Well?" Abby finally prompted after several seconds had gone by in silence. "Do we need to call the police?"
"No," Clarke answered immediately. "Please don't."
"Honey, if these people are abusing their child, then we need to notify the authorities," Abby argued. "We can't allow her to be sent home to them again if they're going to hurt her."
"They won't. When I went up there, her stepfather was beating her." Clarke closed her eyes against the gasps before continuing. "I caught it on video, and I told him that if I ever caught him near her again, I would call the police. I can assure you that they won't touch her. They're both cowards." Clarke felt tears of anger welling up in her eyes, and she turned back to Abby, trying to explain the situation. "We can't call the police because they'll want to put Lexa into the system, and we can't let that happen. I can't let that happen. She has been through so much already, and she doesn't need that, on top of everything else."
"Okay, Clarke. If you're sure." The blonde was surprised that her mother had ceased her argument, and she knew that she must look pretty upset if Abby had given in so easily. She reached up to wipe her cheeks and was not surprised to find them wet.
"I am." Clarke nodded, trying to sound sure of herself, despite her tear-streaked cheeks.
Octavia stepped forward to get a closer look at the blonde. "Are you okay, Clarke?"
The question came as a surprise. Clarke had been so caught up in thoughts of Lexa that she hadn't even once stopped to think about herself. She knew immediately what the answer was though. She wanted to scream and cry at the same time because she had never wanted for Lexa to be hurt again. She had most certainly never wanted to see it. There was something about watching her roommate being beaten right before her very eyes that made the situation even worse than it had seemed when she was simply hearing about it. She couldn't help the nagging feeling that she had failed Lexa as a girlfriend. She hadn't been able to keep her safe.
Clarke shook her head in answer to Octavia's question, knowing that everyone had already seen the answer streaking from her eyes. "I just need some time to process what I saw," Clarke said. "I'll be okay soon."
Anya then spoke the question that Clarke was sure was on everybody's mind. "Will Lexa?"
"I don't know."
Once Abby had gotten Clarke calmed down to a considerable degree, she left her daughter downstairs with her friends while she went upstairs to use the restroom. Or rather, that's what she said that she would be doing. Instead, she was searching for Clarke's room, longing to check on the poor girl that was inside. She spotted the room easily because it was the only one with a closed door, and she knocked softly against the wood.
"Go away, Clarke," said a voice from inside.
Abby opened the door anyway, walking in to find Lexa curled up on her bed with a devastated look in her eyes.
"It's just me." Abby announced herself. "Are you alright, Lexa?"
Green eyes wandered over to meet Abby's. "I don't know."
Abby sat down on the edge of Lexa's bed, raking her fingers through brown curls the way that she always did for Clarke when she was sick, and Lexa sighed, leaning into her touch.
"Could you sit up for me so that I can look you over?" Abby asked. "I want to make sure that you're okay physically."
Lexa slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position, looking to Abby with a blank stare in her eyes. The older woman gestured to the bruise on Lexa's cheek. "Did you put ice on that?"
The girl hesitated for a moment before shaking her head. "I wanted it to bruise."
Green eyes instantly widened, as if she hadn't meant to say that, and Abby wished that doctors could take away emotional pain, too. She wanted to question Lexa about the statement that she had made, but she restrained herself, knowing that it was not her place to ask.
"Were you hurt anywhere else?" she asked instead.
"My stomach, and I suppose my back when he threw me against the wall."
"Can you take your shirt off, please?"
Lexa simply nodded, and Abby was glad that this did not seem to humiliate the girl. Abby's gaze was drawn directly to the large bruise that was forming on Lexa's stomach, and she immediately moved to inspect it further, poking and prodding a bit to make sure no internal damage had been done. Then, she moved around to assess Lexa's spine, although had any real damage been done to it, Lexa most likely would have known immediately.
When Abby moved back, Lexa pulled her shirt back over her head, and the woman nodded to her daughter's girlfriend. "It looks like you're fine, in the physical sense of the word. Aside from your bruises, no harm has been done."
"Thank you," Lexa said quietly.
"You're welcome."
Abby knew that this was her cue to leave, but she needed to make sure that she was doing the right thing by listening to her daughter. She did not agree with her daughter's insistence that they refrain from calling the police, that they do nothing, and she had half a mind to do it anyway. She knew that it wasn't up to either of them though. Lexa was the one whose life would be directly affected by the outcome, so she was the one who needed to make the decision.
"Lexa, I think that we need to notify the police about what happened earlier," Abby informed her. "Your parents shouldn't be allowed to get away with what they did to you."
Tears began to form in the corners of green eyes. "You can't. Please tell me you haven't."
"I haven't," Abby reassured, "but I think that someone should. These people can't get to simply go on leading their lives when they have beaten their daughter on I don't even know how many occasions."
"Abby, we can't. Their punishment is not being able to force me to live with them. I don't want to have to be questioned and have to go to court, and I don't want to live in the system. I need to stay here, and I'm not going to let my parents take yet another thing away from me. Just let them go home and drink themselves to death."
The older woman could hear the bitterness in Lexa's voice, but she could also hear the fear and desperation, and she wondered if she could simply give in to what this young girl wanted. She wanted so badly to turn in this video that Clarke supposedly had, to see justice served to these people, but she also didn't want to do anything that would make Lexa uncomfortable. Abby had a set of morals though and did not know if she could live with herself if she let these people escape. She also knew that Lexa did not need any more stress right now. Abby decided to concede, telling herself that it was only for the time being.
"Please," Lexa begged after a few moments of silence.
"Alright." Abby watched Lexa's shoulders slump in relief. "But if they ever come near you again…"
Lexa nodded in agreement. "I know."
The two of them sat in silence for a few more moments, and then Abby gently squeezed Lexa's knee before standing from the bed, knowing that the younger girl needed some time alone after the events of the day. She hoped that the brunette would recover quickly, but she knew that her daughter was going to have a rough couple of days ahead of her.
The rest of Family Visiting Day seemed to drag on for Clarke, the lighthearted mood from earlier completely gone. She still wanted to be with her mother, but she wanted to be with Lexa even more, and she wondered if it made her a bad person for feeling relieved when her mother finally left.
Hoping to spend some time alone with Lexa, Clarke pushed open the door to her room, only to find that Lexa was already lying in bed, curled into a ball and facing away from her. This became the first night in a long time that Lexa insisted that they sleep in separate beds, and Clarke hated the new development. She didn't think that she even could sleep after spending every night tangled up with her girlfriend, but she didn't argue, understanding exactly why Lexa might feel that she needed some space.
That night brought hours of tossing and turning, of gentle tears running down a blond girl's nose and spattering onto the pillowcase below, of longing for a body that was lying so close, but yet so far away. Blissful sleep finally enveloped Clarke at four in the morning, but she was woken three hours later by the sound of someone screaming. Clarke jumped out of bed in an instant, hurrying over to the thrashing girl in the other bed.
"Lexa," she said softly, gently shaking her roommate's shoulder. "Wake up, Lexa. It's just a dream."
"No, please stop!" Lexa hit Clarke in the face with a flailing limb, eyes still closed.
"Ow, Lexa," Clarke said, but she didn't dare try to restrain the brunette, knowing that would most likely only make things worse.
She began to shake Lexa harder, and green eyes flew open at the contact, settling onto Clarke's own with pure terror. "It's just me. Just Clarke."
"Clarke," Lexa breathed out in relief.
The blonde nodded, and before she knew it, Lexa was shaking, gasping for breath as she brought a hand up to claw at her throat. "Clarke, please," she choked out.
Clarke quickly sprang to action, grabbing a brown paper bag from the drawer of Lexa's vanity and handing it over to her. Grateful fingers immediately curled around it, and Lexa brought the bag up to her mouth, taking deep breaths into it. Clarke didn't hesitate to run her fingers through Lexa's long brown locks of hair, doing exactly what she had done the first time they had been through this, keeping blue eyes trained on green, like Anya had instructed.
Two sets of shoulders began to slump in relief as Lexa began to calm down, and Clarke knew what was coming next before she even saw it. A quiver of pink lips and tears springing into green eyes. Clarke instantly enveloped Lexa in her arms as the brunette's tears began to flow down her cheeks, rubbing soothing circles into her roommate's back while the poor girl shook like a leaf against her. Clarke clutched Lexa even tighter, wishing that she could shield the other girl from the horrors that she had faced, wishing that she could take Lexa's pain away from her and make it her own.
Clarke couldn't even begin to imagine what it must feel like to go through one of these brutal attacks, to have your throat close you off form the one thing that you needed the most, even if only for a few seconds. She hoped she never had to find out.
When Lexa's frantic sobs had finally turned to quiet sniffles, Clarke spoke softly in her ear. "Did you take your medication last night?"
"I did," Lexa insisted. "I promise."
This was the answer that Clarke had been fearing. She could help Lexa remember to take her medication, but she couldn't do anything to stop nightmares that had now become unpreventable. She felt a tear slide from her own eye at the new knowledge, and Lexa shifted slightly when it dropped into her brunette hair. Mentally scolding herself, the blonde refused to allow another one to fall, knowing that she needed to be strong for Lexa right now. The side of Lexa's face that was visible showed the huge bruise that was now marring her cheek, and Clarke couldn't help brushing her fingers lightly over it. Lexa softly kissed her neck in response, and Clarke placed a kiss over the bruise, imagining for a moment that her lips would be able to heal the mark, and with it, the memories of what had happened the previous day.
After several long minutes, Lexa pushed herself out of Clarke's arms and stood up. Cool air hit the now-vacant spot against Clarke's chest, and she had to stop herself from reaching out to pull Lexa right back down into her lap. She knew it was silly, but she wanted to hold Lexa for the rest of the day. For the rest of their lives.
Instead of voicing these desires allowed, Clarke simply watched as Lexa walked over to her wardrobe. "Are you okay now?"
"I am ready to go to school now, if that's what you're asking." Lexa avoided the question, and that told Clarke all that she needed to know.
Clarke's lips turned down in a frown. "No breakfast?"
"Not today." Lexa tried for a small smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. "I'm not feeling very hungry after that."
"Okay," Clarke simply said, not wanting to push any further. "I guess I'll see you at lunch then."
"Yeah."
Her voice sounded empty, only an echo of the sound that Clarke had come to know so well.
Clarke did not see Lexa at lunch. She waited and waited in their spot under the bleachers, but the brunette never arrived. She briefly wondered where Lexa might be having lunch today, but she knew that it didn't matter. If Lexa needed time to herself right now, that was perfectly understandable after what had happened. Still, Clarke couldn't help but miss her.
She saw Lexa everywhere she looked. Holding her hand as they ate their lunches. Combing blond hair back with gentle fingers. Wearing the biggest grin that Clarke had ever seen as she pulled the blonde out onto the field to lie beside her in the grass. Everywhere she looked, Lexa was smiling back at her, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw Lexa's hollow look from this morning, all of the life sapped out of her.
More than anything else, Clarke wished that there was some way that she could help Lexa be okay again. The brunette had been doing so well before Family Visiting Day, and Clarke wished that she could go back in time and prevent Lexa from ever going back to the house alone. She knew that she couldn't have possibly known that Lexa's actual parents were going to show up, but she should have been more careful on that one day. She should never have let Lexa out of her sight. She didn't know if she could ever forgive herself for it.
Classes dragged by, and Clarke did not think that the teachers had ever talked about subject material that was so boring. She knew though that it was only boring in comparison with what was going on with Lexa right now, and the blonde wanted nothing more than to reach the freeing sound of that last bell. When the dings sprinkled from the speaker, Clarke leapt from her seat and rushed back to the house as if she were being chased by a stampede of wildebeests.
She flung open the door, but Lexa wasn't there, and the brunette never showed up, even after an hour had gone by. Clarke alternated between doing her homework and pacing the room, worried about her girlfriend. She knew that she would most likely find Lexa upstairs in the attic, but she didn't dare disturb the other girl. Lexa more than deserved a day to herself if she needed it, and Clarke knew that she had to give that to her, even if she didn't like it.
One day turned into one week.
Every day, Clarke waited beneath the bleachers, to no avail, and every afternoon, Clarke waited in her room to see Lexa. It never happened. The brunette seemed to have found a new lunch area, which Clarke was not aware of, and she stayed out every night until she was sure that Clarke had fallen asleep. She never showed up to dinner.
At the end of the week of waiting, Clarke eventually decided to go up to the attic to talk to her girlfriend once and for all. She could feel the anxiety buzzing within her as she walked up the stairs, completely unsure as to how Lexa would respond. She pushed open the door, planning to beg Lexa to come back to the room with her, but she found no one inside. Dying sunlight filtered through the small window, illuminating the dust particles that were suspended in the air. It seemed that the dust was Clarke's only company tonight. When her gaze fell upon the table that she and Lexa had accidentally knocked into on their first night up here, she had to look away, suddenly wanting to get out of there as fast as she could. She knew that there was only one place left to look, so she walked quickly down the hallway and knocked on Anya's door.
"Hey, what's going on?" Anya asked upon answering.
"Have you seen Lexa?" Clarke jumped right to the chase.
"No," Anya said slowly. "She hasn't been in her room?"
"I thought she was in the attic," Clarke said, "but she's not."
"She's taking this really hard, isn't she?" Anya gave the blonde a sympathetic frown. "I know it hurts right now, Clarke, but I promise you that Lexa will come around soon, especially now that her mom and stepdad are finally out of her life for good."
"Yeah." Clarke nodded. "You're right."
She went back to her room that night with higher spirits, but it didn't get any better. The only contact that the blonde had with Lexa was when the brunette would wake up from a nightmare in a cold sweat, as she did every morning now, and Clarke would help her get her breathing under control. A few mornings later, after Lexa had calmed down, Clarke asked, "Can we talk? Like really talk."
"I can't, Clarke," was Lexa's response. "I just need a little bit more time."
One week turned into one month.
Slowly but surely, Clarke stopped trying. She stopped waiting under the bleachers every day, instead going back to sit in the courtyard with her friends. It felt even lonelier with people around her than it did while she waited by herself. She stopped looking for her roommate after school, finally accepting the fact that the brunette simply did not wish to be found. Clarke couldn't help but remember a time, what felt like so long ago, when Lexa had gone under the bleachers to hide when she was upset, a time when she had wanted nothing more than to be found. But that was a different time and a different Lexa.
She continued to be there for Lexa each morning, taking solace in the one moment throughout the day that Lexa allowed herself to be held, allowed Clarke to kiss her, even if it was only on the cheek. Clarke didn't try to talk anymore though, knowing that her girlfriend wouldn't talk before she was ready If she could even still call Lexa her girlfriend anymore. She wasn't sure what she was to the brunette these days, but she was sure that she didn't want to find out.
Anya did prove to be right though. Lexa came around in time, but she never came around with Clarke. The blonde was left to watch from a distance as Lexa started opening up to everyone again, seemingly getting better on her own this time. Clarke hated to admit it, but she thought that Lexa might be even happier now than the blonde had ever seen her.
She began talking to Anya and Emori again first, and the three of them walked around the school like Clarke imagined they might have before Costia had died. The bright smiles that often painted the three girls' faces hurt Clarke in a way that she couldn't describe. It hurt even more when Clarke went downstairs to see Lexa going out for ice cream with Octavia and Raven. She didn't know where they had found her roommate, but the fact that the other girl would rather hang out with Clarke's friends than the blonde herself made tears form in Clarke's eyes. She ran back up the stairs so that no one could see, burying her face into her pillow before allowing them to fall.
Clarke waited as Lexa began talking to everyone again, hoping that she would be next, but she wasn't. Clarke hadn't talked to Lexa in a month now, apart from in her nightmare-induced haze. Everywhere she went, green eyes avoided a blue gaze, and Clarke began to feel like Lexa was pretending that she no longer existed. She wished she could pretend the same about the brunette. She wished that she could forget about Lexa as easily as the other girl seemed to forget about her.
Hurt exploded through Clarke's chest every moment of every day, and she now felt like she was the one being beaten mercilessly, over and over again. She couldn't even look at Lexa anymore without tears springing up in her eyes. While Lexa was getting better, Clarke was getting worse. She was drawing further and further into herself, and suddenly it felt like she was the one who was pushing everyone away. She tried to be happy for her friends' sakes, but she missed Lexa too much to even try. She had gotten used to spending basically all of her time with her roommate, and she honestly hadn't even thought about what it might be like to lose the brunette that she had come to love so much. It was hard for her to talk to anyone these days because all that she could think of were the ways in which they were not Lexa, in which Lexa was better, and that only made her more miserable.
She didn't miss the worried looks that Octavia and Lincoln gave her, nor the concerned looks that Bellamy and Raven shared over her head when they thought that she couldn't see. She knew that she was upsetting her friends, but she was starting to care less and less. A permanent lump had risen up in Clarke's throat, making it hard to swallow and hard to eat at all times, even when she had previously thought herself to be hungry. Even worse than that was the burning ache that had taken up residence in her chest, like a giant hole had opened up there. Everything found a way to remind Clarke of Lexa, and she felt like she was crying more often than not. Lexa was right there, right in front of her, every day at school, and yet, Clarke felt like she had already lost her girlfriend in the same way that she had lost her father. Clarke knew that the empty girl was gone and that the girl she loved was back, so she wondered why it was that Lexa couldn't stand the sight of her. She wondered what she had done wrong.
Lexa bolted upright in bed, trying to fight her way out of her stepfather's grasp. She hit and kicked at him, in the hopes that he would fall away, but he kept a firm grip on her shoulder. She did not give up though. She was not leaving this school, and she didn't care if she had to kill him to get him to see that. She fleetingly wondered why the room had suddenly gone dark before his fingers began closing around her throat. She was about to scream in the hopes that someone, anyone, would hear her when a voice reached her ears that clearly did not belong to her stepfather.
"Calm down, Lexa. It's just me."
"Clarke." Lexa focused on Clarke's comforting blue eyes. She was here in her room with Clarke, and her stepdad was never coming back. She was never going to see him again.
Terror bubbled up inside of her at the familiar feeling of her throat closing up. Her eyes widened as she began gasping for breath, fixing her panicked green eyes on Clarke. Even though she was going through this every morning now, that didn't make it any less scary for her. Every time that she felt her throat close up, she was scared to death that this would be the time that it wouldn't open up again, leaving her to suffocate to death.
Lexa tried desperately to pull air into her lungs to no avail, and she readily accepted the bag that Clarke held out to her. Putting it to her mouth, she felt air enter her lungs again, and she took deep gulps of it, as if it were the sweetest thing that she had ever tasted before in her life. Calming blue eyes grounded her as they never broke from hers, and Lexa practically purred when Clarke began stroking her hair, leaning into the feeling and never wanting it to stop.
Once Lexa had finally gotten her breathing under control, she put the bag aside, and the familiar pinpricks of tears rose to her eyes. She let them fall with a choked sob, and Clarke immediately pulled Lexa into her arms, rubbing her back with one hand while keeping the other in her hair. Lexa buried her face in Clarke's neck as she let out all of her sorrows and frustrations before the day began. She knew that Clarke probably thought her pathetic for crying after every single nightmare, but it was such a frightening ordeal for her. Lexa suspected though that her tears also had to do with the simple fact that she wanted to be held by Clarke. It was way harder than she let on to avoid the blonde during the day. In fact, it was probably the hardest thing that she had ever done.
Every day, she walked around in a searing pain, feeling as if her heart had fallen right out of her chest, and a gaping chasm had taken its place, a chasm that sucked all of the energy right out of her. She had to allow herself this one moment of weakness every morning, needed to sink into Clarke's warmth so that she could feel some semblance of the home that she used to have there. She knew that it wasn't fair to Clarke, that it probably gave her some sort of false hope that their relationship might someday rekindle itself, but she couldn't help it.
Once Lexa's tears had finally stopped, Clarke pressed a gentle kiss to the place where Lexa's bruise had once been, even though it had long since faded. This was something that she had taken to doing every morning, and while Lexa didn't understand it, she loved it. Then, the moment was over, and Clarke released her hold on Lexa, dumping her unceremoniously onto the ground and drifting out of the room without a word to join the others downstairs as breakfast.
Lexa had to swallow back a fresh wave of tears as the door shut behind the blonde, pain blossoming up inside of her at the fact that Clarke wasn't fighting for their relationship anymore. She was simply letting her go. Lexa knew in her heart that she had pushed her roommate to this point, but that didn't make it any easier to accept. She knew that she would love Clarke until the day she died, but there was no way that she could continue to hold Clarke back. The blonde would come to thank her someday for what she was doing, even if it only seemed to be hurting both of them now.
She couldn't allow Clarke to constantly have to worry about her and take care of her. The blonde deserved to live her own life with a normal boy or girl who could love her right. Lexa knew that her stepdad was right about one thing. She was worthless, and there was no way that Clarke deserved to spend the rest of her life with someone as damaged and screwed-up as Lexa knew herself to be. Lexa wished that she could have talked this over with Clarke, but she knew that there was no way that the blonde would willingly give her up, especially after what had happened. So Lexa took it upon herself to avoid her roommate at all costs, living only on the mantra that she was doing the right thing.
That afternoon, after eating a quick lunch, Lexa met up with Jasper and Monty outside of the literature classroom. The brunette was relieved to have someone to spend time with during lunch today rather than having to spend the full period by herself. She had been trying to surround herself with other people as much as she could lately because she couldn't bear being alone with her thoughts anymore.
Lexa actually felt excitement coursing through her veins today because she, Jasper, and Monty had the prank of the century planned. Yesterday, Mrs. Tawney had given the three of them detention for talking during class, and they were intent on making sure that she paid for what she had done. Lexa found that the idea of pulling a prank again, after over a year, helped to keep her mind off of Clarke.
"You guys got everything?" Lexa asked upon arrival.
Jasper held up a slice of chocolate cake and Monty a superglue gun like weapons that they were proudly brandishing on their way to a war. Lexa held up the green water balloon that was in her own hand, as if she were a child who had gotten hold of something that she wasn't supposed to have. "Then, let's do this."
The three of them entered the unoccupied classroom and immediately got to work, knowing that they had less than ten minutes left to get everything ready. Lexa did not think that they would need half that time as she headed immediately for Mrs. Tawney's desk chair, meticulously placing her water balloon right in the center. She did not want it to roll off should the chair be moved. While she did this, Monty carefully squirted super glue to the bottom of the computer mouse before firmly pressing it down against the desk. Jasper stood over by the podium, breaking up his cake into four pieces and smearing it across several different pages throughout the teacher's textbook. Lexa and Monty watched as he slammed it shut with a triumphant grin. The brunette girl looked up at the clock. Only three minutes had gone by since she had met up with them. They were doing perfect.
Lexa felt herself lightening up significantly from her dreary mood of this morning, and laughter poured past her lips as she surveyed the room and thought about what they had done. "This is going to be hilarious."
"I can't wait to see the look on her face." Jasper chuckled with a huge grin. "Serves her right for giving us all detention."
"It'll be even better when we can't possibly take the fall for it." Monty raised the glue gun that was still in his hand. "Time for the second part of our plan."
The three of them waited until the hallway was clear before emerging from the classroom and hurrying off down the hall. After turning the corner, Lexa stopped in front of a locker on the right side of the hall, expertly entering the combination and pulling the lock away. This particular locker belonged to Ontari, a girl from Azgeda House who thought that she was the coolest girl in the school. She had taken on a sort of bad reputation though lately, as she had become the sole scapegoat for Jasper and Monty when they played their pranks. After school yesterday, Lexa had been tasked with finding out the combination to her locker, and she did so easily, Ontari not even aware that she was being watched.
Monty slid the glue gun into the backpack that hung inside, and Jasper smeared some of the cake that still covered his fingers near the zipper, making it look as if Ontari had accidentally smudged it while zipping it shut. They arranged the backpack on its hook exactly how they had found it before shutting the locker door right as the bell rang, signifying that lunch was over.
"We made it!" Lexa exclaimed with glee-filled eyes. "Nice work, guys."
She held out her hand for Monty to high-five, and he looked as happy as her when he slapped his hand against hers. She then turned to Jasper who looked at his own hands with an apologetic look. "I should probably go get my hands washed up before class."
Lexa and Monty both nodded to him, and he darted off down the hallway, ducking into the men's room before anyone could see his hands.
"Come on." Monty grabbed Lexa's arm and began tugging her down the hallway. "Let's get away from Ontari's locker."
"This is gonna be epic," Lexa said with an impish grin.
"It's great to have you back, Lexa," Monty said sincerely. "Don't get me wrong, I love pulling pranks with Jasper, but you always did have better ideas than the two of us could ever come up with."
Lexa nodded gratefully at his words, smiling a little wider, and she felt like another one of her broken pieces had snapped back into place. She almost felt completely whole again. She tried her best not to think of the one piece that was still missing.
Jasper slid into his seat beside Monty, and Lexa and the two boys tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as Mrs. Tawney walked into the classroom. Each of them were so good that they didn't even crack a smile, wearing the same bored expressions of the students around them. Jasper and Monty were so used to this that it was not possible for them to slip up anymore, like they might have done when they were just starting out with their pranks. And Lexa…well, Lexa might as well be a professional actress by this point, finding it easy to push down her excitement and amusement into the half-asleep expression that she wore on most normal days.
"Alright, everyone, let's open our books to that short story that I asked you to read for today. I'm assuming that everyone has read it." The teacher stopped in front of the podium and opened up her own textbook, gasping when she saw the mess that was inside.
She turned an annoyed gaze onto the class. "Who is responsible for this?"
"Well?" She glared out at the class when no one responded, holding the book up so that they could see. "Vandalization of school property will not be tolerated. You know the rules." Still no one broke the silence, and Mrs. Tawney threw the book down onto the podium with a huff. "Okay, smart asses, I'll just pull the story up on the projector then."
Lexa smiled internally as Mrs. Tawney did exactly what she and her friends wanted her to do, pulling out the desk chair and plopping down without even noticing the water balloon. Until it splattered all over her tan slacks. It was hard not to snicker when she sprang up in surprise, turning a slightly shocked gaze out over the class. "Who is doing this?"
After a few moments of silence, Mrs. Tawney's eyes got a harsh glint to them. "Whoever is doing this better fess up now."
No one did, of course, because no one knew anything about what was happening, save for the three pranksters, except that they themselves did not have any part in it. Lexa could tell by the fearful looks on some of their faces that they were silently hoping that whoever did it would be caught.
Upon receiving no response for several more seconds, Mrs. Tawney growled in annoyance and sat down in her desk chair. She turned on the computer and the overhead projector, and then she tried to move the mouse, to no avail, of course, for it was superglued to the desk. The teacher gritted her teeth, and Lexa could see that she was practically fuming as she came around to stand in front of her desk, her face twisted with outrage.
"Who is trying to mess with today's lesson?" she asked for the third time. "I suggest you come forward now before I am forced to give the entire class a detention."
All of the students were scared into silence, and Lexa gave it a good five seconds before she gasped aloud, drawing her teacher's attention right to her. "What is it, Ms. Woods?"
Lexa pointed to Ontari's backpack, raising her voice in fake shock. "Ontari has chocolate on her bag."
"Is that so, Ms. Snow?" Mrs. Tawney walked down the aisle and plucked the bag off the ground to get a better look.
"That doesn't prove anything," Ontari argued with a hostile glint in her eyes. "Who even knows how long that's been there?"
The Azgeda girl's protests fell upon deaf ears, and Mrs. Tawney gave a hum of conviction when she opened the bag and peered inside. "Then, how do you explain this?" She held up the glue gun for the girl to see.
Ontari's eyes widened. "I don't know how that got there. It's not even mine."
"Right. To the principal's office, Ms. Snow. No arguments. I suppose you'll be getting a suspension for this."
Ontari looked up helplessly before sighing in defeat as she got up to walk out of the classroom. She turned back at the door to glare at Lexa and her friends, letting them know that she knew exactly what they had done, and then she was gone. Lexa was quite satisfied, knowing that even if Ontari tried to pin the blame on them, the principal would never believe her. Lexa turned an expressionless gaze back to the front of the room as Mrs. Tawney tried to give the day's lesson as best as she could.
When the bell rang, Jasper, Monty, and Lexa sprang out of their seats, waiting until they had walked a few paces from the classroom before bursting into laughter. After having to wait around forty minutes, the event seemed even funnier to them now than it had at the time, and they clung to one another to keep from falling over as their raucous laughter surged through their bodies.
"That look on Ontari's face when she left the classroom," Jasper got out through his laughter. "Pinning the blame on her gets better and better every time."
"And the look on Mrs. Tawney's face when she first opened that textbook." Lexa clutched at her sides. "She was speechless."
"Don't forget the water balloon," Monty added. "She had to give the lesson looking like she'd peed her pants."
"That's what happens when you give us detention." Lexa held her chin up.
"You think we got her back then?" Jasper asked.
"Oh, definitely." Lexa nodded. "And we got Ontari as a bonus."
Another fit of laughter rippled through the three of them, and Lexa felt truly happy. Happier than she remembered feeling for quite some time now. She knew that she had Jasper and Monty to thank for that, and she was glad that their prank had gone off without a hitch, providing her with a satisfying rush and just the right amount of humor. She had missed joining in on their pranks, and she couldn't help but wish that Mr. Kane hadn't banned them from pranking the members of their own house. She would love to pull a prank on Anya and Emori sometime, if she could.
Lexa's grin stretched from ear to ear, and she couldn't remember the last time that she had smiled this wide. As fate would have it, when she lifted her head up, she was met with a pair of sorrow-filled blue eyes gazing at her from the other end of the hall. Her smile instantly fell away, leaving no trace behind that it had ever even been there at all.