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.
The past twelve years were filled with just the two of them. They read books and spoke about them without worry of upsetting another. They went downtown to the old theatre and watched black and white movies while stuffing their faces with popcorn. They listened to jazz music and pretended to be dancers from the roaring twenties.
But now Wells had a girlfriend. A girlfriend he had failed to mention until the day before she came home.
She wasn't jealous until she sat across from the two and watched the way Wells Jaha looked at Harper Jenkins like she was the most magnificent thing in the world. His eyes lit up when she laughed and his smiled formed a shape she never saw before when he locked eyes with the girl beside him.
She couldn't take her eyes off the two of them. She couldn't shake the wave of envy and the feeling of loss.
She learned that Wells met Harper in their psychology class this past spring semester. In his own words, "She looked at me and I went mental." She didn't understand it but Harper laughed and laughed while Wells once again got the weird look on his face.
She wasn't used to being on the outside when it came to Wells Jaha. She was entirely sure what she was expecting to begin with. Wells went to the University of North Carolina while she went to Yale. The six hundred some miles seemed like nothing at first. They sent texts and videos and Skyped every weekend.
She should have noticed something was wrong when all of that slowly stopped in March but she was too busy herself to even notice the day of the week.
"So, Clarke." She turned her head toward the smiling brunette. The smiling was making her feel sick to her stomach. "Anything juicy you have about this one?"
She cast her eyes onto her best friend who's eyes grew wide. She had plenty of information on Wells. She watched him throw up in sixth grade because Todd Travers put applesauce in chocolate milk. Well, she threw up too but that wasn't the point. She witnessed him pee his pants in ninth grade because of an SNL skit. She knew what his first concert was. She knew he hated guitar over the piano. She knew his favourite book was Atlas Shrugged.
However, she didn't know he was changing his major to psychology until twenty minutes ago. She didn't know he started to attend slam poetry readings and she surely didn't know he drank. A lot apparently.
She knew everything about the old Wells. She didn't know a single thing about the new, college Wells.
So when Harper looked at her with wide green eyes, she shrugged and threw a fry in Wells direction. "I'm sure you know everything."
"Come on, there has to be something."
She widened her eyes again and gave Wells a look that he only mirrored. At least he knew her despite the fact she felt like he was growing more and more apart from her as the minutes ticked by.
She turned her eyes back toward Harper. "He hates hiking." She almost smiled at the memory.
Harper made a strange face before glancing at Wells. Wells turned his attention back toward her and sat up. "I wouldn't say hate, Clarke. I like hiking just fine." He glanced toward Harper before continuing. "Harper took me hiking for spring break in Hocking Hills. It was great. You would have loved it."
She wasn't sure if she kept her face neutral but she must have because the pair before her was smiling widely back at each other in remembrance or ignoring her completely.
Wells hated hiking. He hated it all the times she begged and begged him to do it.
She faked a grin and nodded her head anyway.
...
If she had to hear Habits by Tove Lo one more time, she was going to pass out. She held tightly to her red cup as she watched Harper and Wells dance together in someone's living room.
She rolled her eyes. After an uncomfortable dinner, Harper had insisted they go to a party right down the road. She wanted to argue that "right down the road" ended up being a twenty-some minute drive to the other side of town. She turned her head and walked back into the less crowded kitchen. The heat was sticking to her skin and causing her red cardigan to cling to her.
She picked up a clear jar up from the counter and brought it toward her nose. The smell even caused her insides to burn.
"I wouldn't touch the stuff if I were you." She turned her head to watch a brunette walk into the kitchen. The green-eyed girl smirked as she took a sip from her own beer. "Monty makes the strongest Moonshine within a fifty-mile radius."
She tried to find in her brain where she met the girl before. She looked familiar. From her sleek cheekbones to her freckled covered nose all the way to her stance.
"I'm Octavia by the way."
She took the outstretched hand in her own and shook it quickly. "Clarke."
The brunette nodded with a grin. "Like the explorer?"
She found herself grinning a bit despite the initial annoyance. She cast her glance back toward the living room. Wells and Harper were swaying and kissing.
"Ex-boyfriend?"
She turned her head back toward Octavia who was opening another beer. She glanced down at the water cup in her hands and thought about her past choices. She never drank. She never really saw the point. Wells did tell her to at least carry around a red solo cup. She wasn't sure why she did what he wanted when he barely talked to her besides the few minutes at the restaurant.
He didn't ask about Yale. He didn't ask if she was lonely and sad. He didn't ask anything.
She turned her attention back toward Octavia. "Oh, no." She clutched the cup. "We're best friends."
Octavia made a face. "If that's your story."
"It is." It annoyed her that everyone implied that their friendship was more than what it was. She turned the conversation away from her. This was the first person she was actually talking to in the past half-hour. "So, do you live around here?"
Octavia nodded as she took another sip of her beer. "Three blocks down. I'm guessing you're not." She made a face and Octavia laughed. "It's not a bad thing. The cardigan gave you away."
She glanced at her red cardigan and her khaki capris to Octavia's mid-thigh black skirt and the skintight tank top. She felt nervous. She felt like the room was closing in around her. She didn't belong here.
She didn't do parties like this. She stayed alone in her room with a book and her pastels.
She dropped her cup onto the counter and mumbled something to Octavia as she walked past the mass amounts of bodies in the living room. She didn't bother asking Wells to leave because Wells liked hiking and she didn't know.
She shook her head as she headed onto the front lawn. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong here. She – was falling onto the ground. She closed her eyes and prepared for the impact but there wasn't any. She opened her eyes and was slowly tilted upright by a strong pair of arms and a dark set of brown eyes.
Bellamy.
She didn't think she would ever see him again. But here she was two days later staring right at him.
He was still clutching a part of her cardigan and staring at her in a weird way. Like he almost can't believe she's there either.
His skin looks darker like he spent the entire day in the sun. He's wearing a navy blue shirt and a pair of dark jeans. He looks so much more comfortable than he did in the tux back at The Ark. His hair is more dishevelled. It suits him. It all suits him.
He drops her arm like he's been burnt. "You're on the wrong side of town, princess."
She glares at the same nickname he used before. He isn't smirking at her but he is. It doesn't make sense and causes her brain to grow fuzzy despite her sober state. Her eyes narrow. "Who are you to tell me where I can and can't be?"
He shakes his head with a weird look in his eyes. "A girl like you shouldn't be in a place like this."
The words tossed and turned in her head. She was sick and tired of people asking and telling her how she should and shouldn't feel. She was sick of Finn Collins texting her every day that they needed to talk. She was sick of the comments her mother made about what she did and didn't do. She was sick of the fact that her best friend Wells Jaha has yet to notice she left the party.
She huffed under her breath and stuffed her hands into her cardigan as she walked around Bellamy. She didn't need another person adding to the list.
She made it five feet before she felt a tug on the back of her cardigan.
"What do you think you're doing?"
She made a face. "You said I shouldn't be a place like this." She gestured around before pointing forward. "So I'm leaving." She turned back around only to get pulled back.
"You're not seriously walking are you?"
She glanced at his brown eyes once more. His eyebrows were drawn together, not exactly in concern but not nothing either. "Trying to." She crossed her arms and watched his face drop whatever emotion it was too straight annoyance.
"Where's your boyfriend?" She glared. "Okay, did you not drive?" She glared harder. He cursed again and shook his head. He reached for her arm and pulled her by the cardigan.
"What do you think you're doing!"
He huffed and stopped her in front of a beat-up Buick. "What does it look like, princess? Get in." He swore again before making his way toward the driver's side. He opened his door and rolled his eyes when he saw she hadn't moved. "Today."
"I don't even know you."
The look he had on his face the other night returned. Every feature hardened and his jaw moved in irritation. "It's safer in this car than wherever you think you're walking to."
She chewed on her lip. She noticed he didn't defend himself or claim to be a nice guy. But he was being a nice guy. She nodded and opened up the passenger door before quickly climbing in.
She watched him as he quickly sat down and put the key into the ignition. If she wasn't staring so intently at him she would have missed the look of embarrassment that washed upon his face when his car took an extra second to start up. Music started to blare into her ears.
"Where do you live?"
She dramatically yelled her address over the music and he nodded his head in understanding. She tucked her hands under her thighs and listened to him tap against the wheel. She wasn't sure what to say to him. She was feeling a lot of things that didn't make sense to her. She felt anger, gratefulness, stress, freedom and soothing all at once. It was a strange feeling to have. One she wasn't even sure she wanted.
Her iPhone vibrated in her pocket. She frowned when she saw the text wasn't from Wells. She sighed and looked back out the window.
After nine loud songs that she never even heard of, Bellamy pulled up in front of her house. She glanced at the house and the bright red door. Bellamy was silent. She turned her head and looked at this stranger up close.
"Nice house."
She nodded and unbuckled her seat belt. "Thanks." She reached for the door handle but paused. She swallowed her pride and let out a breath. "Thank you for driving me. It -." She looked down at her lap before looking back up at his emotionless face. "Just thank you, Bellamy."
He nodded and looked away. She got out of the car without another word.
She heard him drive away after she shut the front door behind her.