Goddamn Tragedy

II

She stared at the blank canvas before her with a small smile on her face. Being at Yale the past year had been hectic. Between Organic Chemistry and Calculus, she had no time for sleeping, let along doing things she actually liked.

A passion of hers was using pastels and charcoal. She mostly sketched out landscapes of places she had seen or places that occurred in her dreams. Images of foreign lands and mystical places often filled her subconscious.

However, her mind wasn't functioning. She wasn't sure if it was the lack of sleep from the finals week of hell or if her mind was running rapidly because of her previous evening.

She dropped the lavender coloured pastel as she heard her iPhone chime from beside her. With a slight frown, she reached over and scanned the message from none other than Finn Collins. The message was simple but she knew what it was implementing.

He had been in love with her forever, even her best friend Wells joked about it.

Sure she cared for Finn but she never really saw anything beyond friendship. She didn't have time for a relationship especially with one with someone as complicated as Finn Collins. Sure, she enjoyed his outgoing nature and free spirit but something always made her uncomfortable about him. Maybe the worst part was the fact he had told her he was in love with her when he had a girlfriend.

She cringed.

She tossed aside her iPhone and sadly put away her pastels with another frown, her inspiration dwindling down by the second.

She moved toward her bed and flopped down onto her stomach. As she thought about last night and all the questions she was asked and all the stares she got, her throat closed up. Her anxiety grew and her pulse rushed.

However, her mind then moved toward the man she stumbled upon. His tanned skin and his freckled nose caused her to feel something strange in the pit of her stomach.

She wasn't sure she had ever noticed him before. In fact, she was certain she hadn't because there was no way she would have laid eyes on him and turned the other way. It couldn't be possible it couldn't – she groaned into her pillow.

"Clarke, why are you still in bed?"

She quickly turned her body around and sat up. "I'm not. I was just -." She paused and shrugged lamely.

Her mother was someone who caused men to stop and stare on the street. She never knew what that was like. Sure, boys liked her (she still cringed at the thought of Finn) but no one ever made a big deal about her before. No one ever stopped because she was so beautiful it caused them to stop functioning properly.

She watched her mother hang up the dress she had worn to The Ark on the back of her closet door. She sighed and waited.

"So, how was it?"

If there was anyone who supported her and Finn Collins it was her mother. The woman was basically a walking poster for it.

She never wanted to hurt her mother or upset her, even though her mother caused her to sometimes pull the hair from her scalp. So, she swallowed her true response and put on a smile. "It was nice."

Her mother smiled and took a seat a few inches before her on the bed. Her mother wasted no time asking about food, people and how her night ended. And though she left the real parts out, how she felt like screaming and how she barely touched her plate, watching her mom smile was enough.

She kept the image of brown eyes and freckles to herself.

...

Wells was an old soul. Just like her.