Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me.”
What happens with a love like that -
It lights the whole sky.
The light in Finn’s office stops you dead on your way to your mom’s workroom. You catch two or three shadows moving around inside and without a single thought, you rush in, nearly walking throw the hardwood door if you had too.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” You thunderously yell to no one in particular but the men dusting and cleaning the webbed abandoned office, stops stale cold.
The ice in your eyes, the grit in your teeth and the emblaze in your footings steels them. And before you can inquire anymore, amidst one too many overlapping fumbling replies you hear a lumpy “Chancellor Griffin told us to, Ma’am.”
You look past them and over the cloth laden chair of his.
With another word, you are out of the door.
“A new CFO will be joining us tomorrow, Clarke.”
Your mother isn’t telling, nor is she asking you. She’s informing you.
The steeled firmness of her tone crumbles you inside though. She’s just informing you. The decision has already been made.
“The board directors called in a meeting and – despite the circumstances, I voted in.”
The if – maybe – whatif all now barreled under the cumbered weight of permanency. She’s just informing you because Abby Griffin is your mother later – first and primarily she’s Chancellor Griffin, CEO of the Ark Industries.
Or whatever’s left it.
“Miss Woods is exemplary in her work and Ark Industries will be only gaining from her.” Your mother stands, hands folded across her chest, brown eyes peering up at you. You just stand there, salty orbs stuck on that frame on your mom’s desk.
The one with you and mom and dad.
On the beach.
You snivel in your own tears. By the time you look up, it’s odd to see a mirror reflection of yours on hers.
“It’s been 10 months, darling.”
You open your mouth and close. Again. Several times until you can form a sentence.
“So that’s it then?” The silence gives you the hard affirmative that inches the spacious office into a tiny cubicle on your throat.
“The Ark is dying Clarke. Please.” Ark Industries has been your father’s life, his sweat and hard work. It was Jake’s and as a by product, it became your mother’s dream too. Even when your father wasn’t here anymore.
But her request, even then, even after everything falls short to the ghost smile of Finn’s.
You are not even out of her office door that you are chocking in your sobs. Back against the wall, dazzled hair and red eyes buried in the coven of your legs.
She comes to your life with thunder in her soul. And fire on her skin.
And the moment, the serene emerald irises of hers dashed watercolors on sky hues of your blues, you knew, your earth has been tilted from the coma induced dormancy.
She juggles three boxes in her hands, along with a big fancy looking vase and back pack slung over her shoulders as she walks past you to a small cubicle, like every working Joe, but a little big small workplace with a door, just outside the Industrial Design Office – your office - and places them with a thud.
You hear a fitting cough and you are suddenly jotted out of your trance. Of hers.
The lump in your throat settles under her transparent gaze on you. “Weren’t you supposed to be settling in - ” You can’t even say his name yet. There’s this line.
This constraint.
Still.
“Mr. Collins’s office?” She fills for you. The too long gaze of hers are the tail signs that she too knows who exactly Finn Collins is to you. That he has now become a silhouette that walks in shadows of photographs leaving behind darkness.
It’s an involuntary reflex that your fist clenches shut at the probable assault of another wave of sympathy.
Her keen eyes shows she had seen the fluctuation in your demeanor.
“Well, I’m all about eco-friendly office gossip. Plus, the view is too fine from here to miss out.” She gives a lope sided smile instead. Affable eyes sparkling.
The irate rosette that liquidates on your cheeks almost seems like a foreign concept you, now. But the fluster of gold flecks in those eyes of an Alexandria Woods certainly has you at a halt.
There’s no goodbye between you as she turns on her heels but there’s that timid nod and a slight downward tilt of her head as if she’s bowing out.
And you.
You see an enigma burning out in her steps.
She’s the silent brooding type.
You deduce it from the way she rolls up the sleeves of her crisped shirt, dexterous fingers twirling the snow globe on her desk. And silver tongue cutting bank officers eyes faster than a blade. Incompetent fools, she all but shrieks demanding files by the end of the evening or they would be clearing off their desks instead. She threatens.
Commander. That becomes her nick name in a small passage of days. Commander of razor sharped words.
It suits, you think. Commander. That one, with the iron fist and the gentlest hearts too.
You believe she doesn’t think anyone knows it. But oh god, you know.
You have seen.
In those days when even not being in part of her curriculum, in some odd hour of a midway she would pay a visit to those Ark factories where in hindsight you would catch her encouraging the workers whom still your company can afford to pay.
In hushed words she often corresponds with the workers union leader, patting fiery brunette a Nyko Brown’s back for inspiring his people or even whilst passing some corner you even notice the over sweetened donuts she slips onto your head engineer and that almost friend Rae - Raven Reyes desk for staying late too many nights.
You believe she doesn’t think you know it.
The little things.
But you do.
You taste it on every drop of that caffeine that she places on your desk every morning.
Its aftertaste acidic yet delish.
1 universe. 8 planets. 204 countries. 809 islands.
7 seas.
Out of all the space.
You still had met her.
So, being friends with her was – it was never in your hands. It was inevitable.
The ring sits dredged, on the top of your top drawer. You stare at it, the platinum lining and rub it on your pajamas to feed off any dust. It feels heavy on your palm, too many memories that weaken your strength.
You don’t know what to do with it. You wanted to throw it away the second when you learnt that Finn – Finn was no longer coming home. But you can’t. The red strings of his bodice and that affectionately yellow I love you, Future Mrs. Clarke Griffin Collins embodied in you.
You leave those thoughts at bay for another day. Not today.
Just another day.
You open the knob and slip the ring in the drawer.
Charles Pike doesn’t see your distinct degree cum laude from Yale. He doesn’t see the COO designation against your name. He doesn’t.
He doesn’t see past your blonde hair and blue eyes. He doesn’t see past your aged digits. 27.
He sees you. Just as a battered soul, and a crying girl, too young to yield out a command, still reeling amongst emotions of love and lose.
Warm tears nears to threaten to spill against your guts as Pike breezes past your notes again.
“Idealistic words won’t pay the bank its due.” He spits. And he begins his own monologue conversation about the future of Jake’s company. And how atrociously bleak it seemed.
“Ark Industries is not going to be shut down. Nor shall will we be going to accept any kind of deal from the Frost Companies. They are going to tear this company apart before even dawn breaks.” She clenches out charcoaled ebony out in waves. “Our lawyers are already clearing up the industries’ dues, setting up court dates and such. All loans will be paid back.”
You know she knows. Rome too wasn’t built in a day. Nor can so easily can this company be saved in a sea of debts.
But the way she stands on her ground. Her belief.
It’s reminds you of your father.
The sculptured set of her jaw. The passion fueling her veins. Courses rigorously, crisping out shuts Charles Pike who he watches with disdain.
And you only admire with awe.
“You’ll be drowning in your own taxes by then. Not to mention the fucking vultures of the city banks.” Venom spits out his filth tongue.
“Then we will go down in flames than give up my father’s company to those corporate raiders.” Bitterness curls in your powerful punch. The tensed grip on the desk reflects the pale whiteness of your knuckles as Pike reels back further in his seat.
You stare him down. A small victory.
The disappointment that you are on the verge of losing everything doesn’t subside though.
It doesn’t. But it grows out.
The press of her hand on the fringes of your spine is barely there.
But it’s there.
It’s soothing your demons.
“The vote is unanimous, Mr. Pike.” The air of finality spreads like a forest fire from her breathe. “And next time, you come strutting here without an appointment without any disregards for anyone’s position in a board meeting, I’ll have your arse thrown to jail, banker.”
“Miss Woods. That’s enough.” Abby shuns the CFO shut, turning to Charles. Sternly, “Mr. Pike. The security will see you out.”
There’s a flash of derision and fear in Pike’s eyes as he surveys her face. He grasps the briefcase in his hand and nods on his way out, a forced astringent respect embodying him.
“CFO Woods” he parrots. “COO Griffin.”
“I could have handled it myself.” You snap in an empty conference room. The unperturbedness in her mien shuttles just a bit too. Cloudiness of emotions cowers in her voice, when she says a distant, soft “I know.” Even against your back faced at her, you feel her bridge closer.
Closer.
But still miles afar.
“But you let your emotions guide you. And in the business world, you know that’s your ticket out. It was a rookie mistake and men like Pike, they thrive on that.” There’s no bitterness in her tone as she reprimands you.
There’s no sugarcoating your faults either. You nearly smile.
Another blatant reminder.
How she’s not Finn.
Suddenly, that clothed touch of hers, burns through the fibres.
She’s lightyears apart from him. Another mystery you etch to unravel.
You turn around and pull on your bag and looking anywhere but her eyes, you escape through the ajar doors. Only to step into Finn’s office.
Like so many moons before.
You always had loved the view. Eastward to the Chicago District Park. You loved that first virgin splash of yellow breaking through the dawned cloud splattering benevolently against the marbles floor.
You did.
But you also never got used to this.
No matter the zillion times.
That tired beauty of the night sky. With little diamonds on them, breaking galaxies in front of your eyes. Making you and the night sky a little less lonely.
Your heart doesn’t seem to get the memo though.
You reckon it’s lost somewhere.
Somewhere in between, from the passage through the dark Sauron area of your heart and up and about to the distant lobes of your brain as “your proverbial heart” spends too many valuable times pondering diligently about her.
Your heart doesn’t get the memo indeed.
Those coffee runs that she makes turns to extended morning talks.
Late breakfast and skipped meals of yours makeshift to brunches.
Overtime office works and hurried presentations turns to early dinners and too many take out boxes.
You don’t even realize it.
The transience, the dawn of a new era somewhere in you. You don’t, maybe, but even if you do, you don’t acknowledge it. You try not to. Against her rum colgoned aroma.
Against her chiseled warmth.
Or that darkness that pragmatically settles in her orbs when you are near her.
You don’t.
And neither does she.
The platonic-ism shivers you. But she never says anything. Not even when you sit a bit too close to her.
Or the way you accidentally push that strand of hair behind her little ears.
Or when you wait, at that café when she runs late from her meetings.
She doesn’t.
And you are ..
You are content, if not happy.
You skirt past the brown rusted leaves in your black attire under the wintry light of the cemetery. There’s no weather, no cloud, no wind today.
You kneel in front of the tombstone.
Finn Collins
1986-2015
May we meet again.
It’s been a year.
“I wish you were here. I wish.” You choke out. You wanted to say so so many things but they are all numbed under the weight of those five words. You don’t want to cry under the open skies. You don’t want to cry certainly not after catching the frosty eyes of Raven Reyes.
You get up and without much ado you head over to your car, barely seeing the shadowed figure following your steps and that nerve wrecking melancholy that wretches apart her soul.
“Forgive me, Finn Collins.”
Alexandria Woods cries as she places a single white rose on his stone.
You don’t know why. But against the comfort of your home and your big, big office you find yourself nestled in one armchair of hers.
Pouring another glass of whiskey neat for you.
And arms crossed she stands.
“Did you know, he – Finn – he died instantly behind the wheels on impact with another car? It was an accident, I don’t know, that’s what the police told us anyway, both cars spiraling out of control on the watered streets. They said that the driver of the other car had simply dropped him off in some hospital and had left instantly. Just like that and the rest was dealt by the driver’s lawyers. That fucking driver didn’t have the spine to face us.” You cough at the burn of poison.
You take a swipe and gulp the rest, snuffling. “He left his gaping hole in me and everyone here and – I don’t – know – I don’t know what to do, Lexa. He left and everything fell apart.”
The sobs break in your eyes against her arms that you hold. “Dad’s gone. Finn’s gone. And this company is the only thing that still breathes them and now this will be gone to and I – I -”
Her arms coddles you closer until. Until you submerge you broken self under her tight embrace. Hands stringing past your messy buns, molding you into her cocoon. The heaviness of your heart lets her in, confides in her.
“I miss him – them, so much.” Your cracked voice doesn’t make past the benevolent warm of her breathe to yours. It doesn’t.
“I’m sorry.”
Her brokenness resonates like yours.
But her suppressed pain reaches you nonetheless, even in your drunkard haze. Even if you don’t remember it in the morning.
She’s the only one who burns the midnight’s candle, under spent eyelashes as she goes through the taxes. It’s been just 4 months and she’s already freed your company nearly off her taxes buried at its roots.
She’s that magnificent.
From the door, you watch her finger at her collar loosening her tie. Fingers running dauntlessly through her wild unbraided mane as she props her head against her elbow.
She’s the type of woman you go to war beside.
You enter with a light knock, your long stringed bag trailing behind you.
“The work’s not going to run away from you, and if I recall correctly, the sponsors won’t be coming till next week, right?”
“Shouldn’t you know that better than me, Miss Griffin?” She inches upward her glasses and types some more on her keyboard, bright broadcasted eyes swinging up and down the screen.
She looks so very cute.
“It’s after office hours, Alexandria.” You roll your eyes smilingly.
“That it is, Klark.”
Her tongued tango of your name turned your insides, enrooting something docile and calm. Like always.
“I have reservations at that Chinese place, Grounders around 8.” You pull on your coat, plating the bobbed of your unsettled hair. You don’t see the hurt, the near fall of her face at your plans.
In a tight lipped smile, she arranges her discarded papers. “Then you should leave now if you don’t want to be late to your evening activity, I check with the main security and close up, ok?”
“But – what?”
“I’ll catch a cab home, so don’t worry.” She nods. She phones in the security and starts moving about with the keys.
“I made reservations for us. You and me.” You stand up in heeled shoes. A pinkish hue marring your ears. “You said you wanted to go there for a while and you told me it was hard to get reservations and I knew a guy – who knew a guy and – I – I just thought it’s the least I could do for you-”
The moments sways. It takes a tad bit too long for realization to dawn on her.
You fiddle with the feet. Teeth biting the lower lips, trying to calm the crestfallen eclipse inside you.
“I can always cancel it.”
Gets overshadowed by her whispered her blushed I would love too.
You are not completely sure. But there’s a pygmy shift in the dynamic you share with her hereafter. How every talk with her, no matter how insignificant like a hi or a bye ends in small touch of skin to skin. Or maybe a fleeting light press of your lips on her cheeks or onyx gazes blindingly shared under ignorant eyes.
But it’s there, brewing under intense venereal pressure.
It’s odd how you let it happen again and again and she doesn’t help when she doesn’t stop either.
It’s enchanting.
“I miss the old days.” I miss you, Raven says too loud too silently to you.
Raven props up in the empty bar seat, the hem of her black dress callously sprawled on the floor. The glass of her martini still filled, still untouched.
“Me too.” You feel light headed at your acceptance. “It’s been a while since we talked.” You swipe your tongue over your lips, eyes swaying from one elite to another at the gala, searching for her. “What made you – come here?”
“She’s talking with Jaha over there.” Rae chuckles at your fluster attitude, pointing over to a certain sea of people behind you.
The she whom you have only known for 5 months now.
“Raven, I -”
“Finn was the only family I knew. And he was gone and you didn’t even call me. I thought I had been wrong in trusting you all this time. Shitty childhood kinda has trust issue drawbacks, what can I say.” She smiles at her own sarcastic tone. “I know you are sorry. I’m sorry too, Clarke.”
“Your makeup’s going to smudge, Princess.” Raven says in her coarse voice, the hug freeing you of your chains inside.
“What made you talk -”
“Lexa and I, we – we might not be friends. But we talk. About here and there and about you. I didn’t tell her anything – about our history. She just understood and I guess, she told me in not too many words, to get my head out of ass.” She nods frantically, small smiles spilling over. “She’s a good person.”
“She is.” You embrace her. “I missed you so much, Rae.”
You feel her shiver down her spine. “Me too, Clarkey. Me too.”
“It suits you.” She whispers. Hands coyly plastered against the curve your hips. Your own runs up, south of her bod till you reach the velvet skinned cream underneath your palms. “Smiling.” She whispers again. The heated vanilla ruptures your nostrils with tanginess.
The contours of your light pink lips stretch as you shudder against her shoulder blades.
“It still hurts though.”
“Because it matters.” The orchestra slows down the vibrancy into piano beats. Rhythmic. Lulling.
“I do not know much about this insanity called love. It’s a war. It’s a messy massacre. But I do know, its beauty is unyielding. It’s pain pleasurable.”
“But is that pain worth it in the end?”
The moment is slow. You shut your eyes when she pirouettes you in precision, as you gyrate around only to clasp onto her.
You open, your blue spherule meeting the pulpy viridescent.
“Shouldn’t life be more than just surviving?” She says. “Don’t we deserve better than that?”
The question stops you.
Life should be more than just surviving, my little princess.
The memory is old. Vignette.
But the words are intact.
So are your father’s echoes.
“I don’t know.” You say.
But you want to believe her.
For she makes you believe in yourself.
But your irises foretell a whole new story. You take an inconspicuously long deep breath at the negligible distance. Another flop in the stomach. You want to pull away. You should pull back from the hypnotized aura she has dragged you in. But.
In this minty moment, she sighs, poetically coloring your name, whispering it out slowly prolonging each letter to savor the aftertaste.
“Klark.”
You senses are seduced, when her hand rests before you ear and caresses your cheeks and the other runs lengthening long along your spine, - you hear the fastening of her heart, in symphony and against the race of time. You inch closer.
Her hand is still tight around your waist when she stops you.
“Klark. Klark.” She calls until you are out of your myriad haze. “You’ll regret it in the morning and we – we shouldn’t.” In a clipped voice she says. Deflated. And devoid of any emotion. “We should head home, it’s getting late.”
She pulls her hand off you and you move to seek her eyes. You have to know. You have to know, if they are also as insensate as her words. Against the gasoline she burns in your blood.
But she doesn’t turn.
And in a room full of people, you don’t think you have ever been this alone.
In the morning that comes, those few tangible moments, that almost kiss is locked away for her eyes.
Sealed away from your lips.
You don’t tell her how long you stayed up at night and thought. Thought against the torrents of your conscience. A part that slurred to let him go. A part domineering to consume her in.
Because, you wanted it. Needed it.
Wanted her. Needed her.
But you don’t tell her anything that. Because, she was right. You would have regretted it in the morning, under the resounding hollowness of the new morning.
Even though it would be a regret you would happily make again.
She doesn’t ask about it either. She still smiles the same. Fierce and unfathomable as ever. Her eyes like that clear lake in a secluded dark forest. But in some slow moments of the office, when you see her moving the chopsticks of her noodles like a vagabond, you watch her eyes, her window to her soul.
Those eyes.
Washed out green as if they had cried too many times.
She doesn’t tell you why.
You don’t ask even it makes your heart ache.
You don’t. Instead, you give her that easy silence that she gifted you.
“We need an investor. A major one.”
Your hands shoot up to your forehead as you massage the cleft ends rubbing tiring circles to balm your sinusoid pain. Even saying those words irks you. Because those words bring a legitimate follow up question who will invest in a company that has been already shackled at its roots.
It was in the papers for months.
How the constructed materials provided by the Ark Industries had been off such beggarly penurious caliber that the constructed towers couldn’t say rooted for a day.
Casualties were more than 20.
The matter was investigated, and the Ark was drilled under hawk eyes for justice, to redeem the lost souls. Construction manager Emerson was arrested of course, being bribed by your age old competitor Mount Weather. But the damage to your pride was done. That quenching black tar had already been scratched deep and low into everyone’s minds.
People lost faith. That Jake Griffin took years to build. Erased and gone like a sandcastle against that unanticipated tide.
And that fire that ebbed two of your manufacturing factories one awful night left them in nothing but raw ashes.
The fate of Ark Industries was sealed.
Jake Griffin died of an unprecedented heart attack.
If a plastered immobile heart of the Happy Prince can break in two, why can’t a human’s heart?
Dreams are fragile as glass after all.
“I had the Jaha and Sons Corp in mind -” Abby hesitates “ but – I honestly don’t know. Thelonious is an old friend of Jake’s but I don’t know if – if it’s enough to invest. Even if we make them the major shareholders. Even if we show them we bear no more faultiness.” Abby clapped her hand, pressing them tightly against her lips. Worry was becoming her go-to emotion. “Maybe I’ll call him up for a meeting.”
Your mother looks at you for an approval or a nod or anything. Anything other than just a grate stare. But you find yourself looking up to Lexa who has yet to say anything. Cross legged she seats, palm thumbed in a fist staring at the nothingness of the tanned wall.
“Lexa?” You call again. And it’s only when you stir her by the shoulder that she wakes from her mirage. She jolts and finally looks back at the questioning raise of your mother.
“What do you think about the meeting with the Jahas?” She repeats her question frowningly.
Lexa sits straightened in her chair, emptiness in her eyes. “It’s worth a try.”
It’s clocking onto six months of knowing her.
And a week more of untenanted tongue-tiedness.
In little ways she shields you. It hurts more than you can ever put in words.
“What is going on with you?” You whispered yell holding her by the wrist in chance she manages to slip away. She looks aghast though.
“I’m fine.” She faux smiles. The smile is too good to ward off except.
Except the little raindrops that you see have avalanche breaking in that hue of life instilled in her eyes.
“Just stressed.” She continues in a lying web of a smile. “The meeting with the Jahas didn’t work. At all. And I can’t figure a way out, I - ”
“I know you are working hard, but you are lying.”
You don’t understand the moisture in your eyes. You don’t realize it until you meet the drench in her eyes.
“You are lying because I can see you are hurting.” You contract out. “You are hurting and it’s hurting me.”
It’s odd how you understand the irony of love then.
The irony of bleeding without a cut.
A shadow passes over her face at your almost confession. Her eyes turning dark like that a nearing sunset in a forest, last rays etched on the foliage. You watch move steps back until her back presses against the hardwood of her desk.
She bites her inner cheeks, wet tongue swiping over chafe full lips. It’s stupid, how right then and there, without a thought you want to kiss her with that curious childish delight.
“I’m sorry.” She earnestly replied encaging you in her arms. She shudders though against you skin. “I’m working on something and I just have to see it through. I’ll tell you all as soon as it’s over.” Its not a promise but coming out her mouth and into the crook of your neck, it so feels like one.
For the time, you let it go.
Lexa never talked about family. Not really.
There was that explicit grey lined wilt in those orbs that floodlighted out. Every time she reminisced.
You never wanted to see agony knocking in those eyes that besotted dawn to you.
So you never asked.
“The Forresters, they raised me as their own. Lincoln, Anya – they are -” Lexa told you sincerely. “They are family, Klark.” Like second nature, she took a stuffed hand out of her jeans pocket and thumbed the crust of cheesecake off your lips, mouth curling upwards to say some more. “Their parents, uncle Gustus and aunt Indra, they are off few words but they are good persons -”
She hadn’t notice your embellished ruddiness until she backtracked at her unconscious action. Right then and there, you had felt heat vibrating in attractive rosiness under her shy lashes.
“I- well, I – was saying –“ You watched the prim and proper commander stutter in adorableness.
“You were talking about Indra and Gustus, I believe.” You had filled in. “I want to hear the rest.”
She heaves before you.
And she talks and talks, as spring settles in light and evergreen in your heart.
Anya Forrester of the infamously opulent Forrester Hotel Chains stands ramrod in a sleek black dress and high cheekbones, black stilettos with too big an ego. You don’t find critique in her eyes as she surveys every notch – just plain shark gaze. And that stellate tongue she twists when someone asks her a question.
Except her.
Your mother gives her utmost in the presentation, leaving no stone untouched and Anya just eyes her under the presentation lights. She sits, matching shoulders with her, whispering too stifled thoughts. You only see her nod in the shadows, only see Anya lean a bit too close to her and if there’s a suppressed thin laugh, but a laugh nonetheless, somewhere from the back of her throat, you try your best to overlook it.
But you can’t.
Your eyes still find Anya’s.
Even then.
Even when you know there’s nothing going on between the two of you.
Still even then.
You peel your eyes of the blue printed design on your desk to her at the intrusion.
“She only has heart eyes for you, Clarke. You know that right?” Raven sips from her mug. You adrift your eyes and move them anywhere but her, cursing the spaciousness of your office.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” You bite the crimson blossom on your heated cheeks, your memory lapsing to that first time when she had interrogated you the same way about Finn.
But despite him, despite everything, he couldn’t keep the world at bay from her like she did.
The congenial tragedy.
You say. “It’s – just, Lexa told me she and Anya are old friends. One of her closest friends even.”
“But?” Raven closes in, squeezing your arm.
“The way Anya looks at her, Raven. As if she’s in -” You nearly grasp out, before thinking better off it. “It doesn’t matter either way, but – it sounds so stupid. But what if I want something – something more from her. Raven -”
“Clarke.” She thuds her hand on your desk, silencing you. “I don’t know what’s this Forrester’s business is here but I do know is – its ok. To love again.”
“Raven, it’s not -”
“Clarke. I was the one who gave you the don’t you dare hurt my best friend speech, remember? So trust me, when I know even if you don’t see it yourself. Just talk to her.”
You choke in a voice laced in unshed tears.
“Raven, Finn -”
Raven nods her head, the small smile nostalgic against her cheeks. “Finn would have killed you if he knew you were going to watch life go by from the sidelines.”
It’s the first time Raven says his name without breaking down. Instead, there’s a smile that soothes her face, like she’s carrying Finn like a happy memory.
The conference rooms desolates so sooner the meeting ends. All papers signed and filed.
The deed was done and sealed in stone. Everything remaining the same. The only difference was a meagre change in the hands of power, as your mother with an easy smile bowed out of her CEO position handing it to Anya’s realm.
Other than that, everything remained the same.
People shuffled out in queue and you were about to join your mother out when a hand stops you.
“We need to talk.” She says. The sheer urgency in her voice catches you off handedly, “How about we can lunch together? At Grounders?” You suggest, “I need to talk to you about something too.”
But she nods in a negative, much to your frown and concern and as if on cue when the door of the room shuts down, does she breathe heftily in the air.
It’s vigorously staggered as if her lunged has been clogged.
It goosebumps your skin.
“What is it?” You mutter.
“Your company doesn’t need me anymore.” She inhales harshly. And all you hear is an awful red siren blaring you don’t need me anymore. “Anya sees potential in The Ark. And she’s a wonderful businessman. You couldn’t be in finer hands even if you had asked.”
“What – what are you – “
You are not through with your passage of thoughts when her next words meet like shards on your heart.
The seconds are agonizingly slow as you watch her open her file and place a pamphlet of printed words in front of you.
“My resignation, Miss Griffin.”
Unholy thoughts scourged pandemonium through you but you couldn’t hold onto a single one. Murky grew your eyes as deaf pain of your heart slipped.
“I don’t understand.” You clatter out. “Help me understand. Please. Did something happen? Something must have happened. What happened – tell me – tell me and I’ll make it right. Please.”
In gauzy steps she stood up. And so did you.
“Your company doesn’t need me anymore and I would like to leave at your pardon.” You gasped roughly at her hand, pulling her close so you could see those askew eyes of her running all around the room. Her words solemnly tarnishing your insides from within.
You were enflamed. In your want. And in her goodbye.
“What if I told I told you I want you? What if I ask you to stay here for me because I need you? Not because of this company?”
“Please, Klark.” She begs, struggling to ward off the dampness, her eyes still jumping from yours. “Please.”
“But I do. Against my sanity, I do. God Almighty knows how much I do and I -”
“No, you don’t.” The polar frigidness numbed you. “You don’t.”
Brick by brick her walls come tumbling down. Head bowed, raw pearl shaped tears rolled down from those luminous wide eyes. “I was the driver.”
Conundrums of silence followed in death steps.
“It had been raining. I was about to make a sharp turn when a girl comes out of nowhere. To avoid her, -“Her defenses wash away in salty tears, “- I turned the wheel around only to get hit into Finn’s car. I took him to the hospital as soon as I could but I – didn’t – couldn’t - stay.”
Your sobs stifled at the rawness of the flesh wound on you. the heavy waters that clung tersely finally fell when you closed your eyes.
“Klark. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The small green globes that cracked in her eyes almost made you see the hole in her heart.
The months of guilt that she had cradled softly in her arms.
But its so hard to find that fine line.
That fine line between holding on and letting go.
“Get. Out.” You somehow weasel the words, before your voice gives out.
There’s a pause.
And a blink.
She’s gone in the wind.
Finn sneaks out of your eye and rolls down your cheek.
Your mother places her resignation letter on your table. You don’t have to wait for her to say anything, just the crack in her lips and the motionless lump in her throat is enough.
It’s more than enough.
You try not to notice that empty small office in the corner. The stacked up files and her boxed out goods. You try not to but somehow it blares blinding in your eyes. Hazing out everything, chin up and standing tall amidst everyone.
Even standing atop Finn’s office.
Her walk was like a shot of whiskey. Neat and on purpose.
You smile downing the alcohol, rejoicing the burn.
A day turns two.
Two slows and slows and halts at three.
Three remains stuck to four.
Four icebergs into five.
5 days.
And you dream about her.
Her smile.
And the stars see carries in her pockets.
For those parents she lost.
For Finn who died.
And a galaxy for you.
The same one, you drew on the back of her hand.
How is she? You want to say.
But at the nick time, your mind catches shut your pumped heartbeats.
Instead a “Why?”
You are a bit unsteady on feet as you barge into Anya’s room. You don’t care about her being the CEO. All you want is a balm. Because your eyes ache, your eyes ache. And so does your heart.
Everything aches.
“Why here? Why now? Why her?” you tremble.
The softness Anya presents, you are not ready for it. Doe eyes reflecting the warmth of the sun as they hold you up against the chair.
“It was your name that beaded out Finn Collins bloodied lips every single time. Lexa had too big a heart. Too bloody big yet too reticent for her own good. It gutted her conscience alive knowing she had taken someone’s life even though at no fault of hers.” Anya muses with too fond a smile. “Too fucking big that made me fall for her. Too fucking big that’s going to ruin her someday.”
“Is that why you took in our company? Because she asked?” Even in drunkard wobbliness you can’t distinguish that tint of jealousy in your mouth.
It’s almost an empty laugh she shares. “No, she didn’t. She never asks for anything. Not even a request. So when she merely asked for an audience with your company, how could I ever deny her of that? As it turns out, it was all of you that proved your worth.”
“Does she know?” About your love for her, was left out in the open.
“Not in so many words, no.” Anya palms her hand on top of her laptop. “It doesn’t matter anyway. What matters is who she loves.”
Her eyes linger until they rest on you.
They hold small tincture of unrequited love, but above all they bear empathy and a good strong heart.
You don’t answer. You don’t do anything. Except you stay and linger in her office.
How is she? That question plays an accordion in your ribs.
Again and again.
But you click your teeth shut. Not your eyes though.
“She misses you too, Clarke Griffin.”
This time when you turn back, you don’t stop. You don’t stop until, you are in that small office of hers.
A place to rest your bones.
You ended up going to lunch at the end of the street at some diner with Raven, even though at every point you wanted to cross the street to that small café.
You don’t.
But it stays with you every second you are forking with your food on the plate. Syrup clinging waffles and a tablespoon of her smile.
If Raven sees the oddity in your behavior she over looks, instead munching on her burrito.
It’s been a week. The timescale gloats on your face each time, every time the elevator stops on the fourth floor. You are back 15 minutes early from your lunch break already and in fast steps you are already heading towards your office. Too fast past her office.
But you find yourself slowing your pace. And coming to a halt when only whitewashed walls gape at you.
Nothing else.
No boxes. No piles of books. Not even that stupid ugly vase. Nothing. You twirl the knob and you enter, the heels of your shoes becoming to heavy to move. You need to see closer to believe because you are sure when you had been here earlier today, they were here.
But now there’s nothing.
She’s really gone.
The heaviness of permanency of that realization nails in you thunderously.
You had couldn’t believe her when she had told you.
You had tried to hate her too.
And when you couldn’t, you tried to be indifferent to her everything.
Everything including those claw marks she carved in you without a touch.
When that failed, you let your anger take you away. Anger of what could have beens and what ifs. Anger of why him and she could have told me.
Anger of having your heart on her sleeve.
But amidst all, against all and everyone. Against you. It’s your love for her that bends your knee in the battlefield to yield down to her.
Now, only the sky keeps falling falling falling. Just like your tears. Never stopping, only falling falling falling.
You turn and just like that, you clutch onto Raven’s shirt, nails digging into her shirt. Silver lined tears rimming down the corrupted seals of your heart and lips. Raven’s heart broke a little every time, you sniffled against her.
It was like seeing you break over Finn all over again.
Honestly, Raven didn’t know how she felt when you told her it was Lexa. Just that. But instantly, she knew and still she didn’t know how she felt.
She just ended Finn’s chapter in her life with a I’m sorry and a may we meet again. That’s all she could have offered.
“I’m sorry.” Raven offered against the contours of your hair.
Chicago has already submerged herself under the evening beams, you are packing up your things. It’s another late night for you. Another night of her and those words you never said.
You are locking up the doors, when someone – apparently Anya is knocking on your shoulder blade. Without any warning, she thrusts her cell in your hand, gesturing you to speak. It’s when you put your eye on the receive, you hear that Klark.
You pacify right there.
“Klark?”
“Klark?”
It had been 9 days.
“Klark?” You hear her velvet voice slurring and tangoing your name. Beautifully. It’s killing you.
“You are drunk.” You try your best to acidify your tone, but it comes out as a whimper.
“I am.” She says and you hug the phone a little closer.
There’s a pause.
“Klark.” She says as if she’s breathing,
“Don’t say my name like that, please.” You squeeze out, eyes shut, pleading.
“Like what?”
“Like you are in love with me.”
Static greets you for the first few seconds, and even then. Even then, even through these static radio waves you can feel her stretch her lips to smile, only wetting them more instead.
“But I’m.” You almost smile at her drunkard resolution into the phone.
“I’m so very much in love with you, Klark Griffin.” You only breathe out all your sorrows, pressing against the onset of the door. You let those words, sink you in. Drench you in. Inebriate you.
“I’m leaving for New York tonight.” Your eyes clench shut, you bite your lips no not lay out a sound. “And I couldn’t leave. Not again at least. Without – without saying a goodbye. And to tell you that – that how sorry I’m for hurting you. I am sorry. More than you’ll ever know.”
She doesn’t say anything more.
Neither do you.
You cry in the easy silence that she makes for you.
You cry in that leap of faith she makes you want to take.
“Lexa?”
“Klark?”
This time you do.
“Lexa – I wanted to tell you that I -” The knot unfurls in you.
“Klarke?”
She calls.
“I’m here, Lexa. I -”
Before you can say anymore, there’s a loud crash that rings into your ears.
You call her name multitude off times.
But this time only unwarranted static and the running of high clad legs and a terror stricken Anya’s face greets you.
She was drunk.
She was talking to her phone, too close to the road.
I’m sorry still, ma’am.
The officer nods gesturing the tip of her hat before excusing himself out.
And you sit in the waiting room and wait.
A third time in your life.
Head trauma.
Dislocated shoulder.
2 broken ribs.
A broken left leg.
We were fast to shut down the internal bleeding in her head.
The operation was a success.
She’s unconscious now and now we wait.
The doctor shakes hands with the Forresters and you.
You are not too quick to hope but you sit up straighter, the periphery of your lips turning up just a bit. In sleep deprived eyes, you stare at her hospital room.
And you wait some more.
“Clarke - ”
“Mom. No.” You nod rigorously. “No.”
The next words die on your mother’s lips.
“I need to see she’s ok. That’s she’s breathing, that she’s going to live. I need to see her and then I’ll go home and rest.”
You can almost feel judgement in her eyes and it makes you grit.
“Clarke -”
“It wasn’t her fault.” You hush out angrily. You feel the slouch in your legs and the frustration at the moment growing.
“I’m gonna get some coffee.”
Without a reply, you are off.
She wakes up on the second day. It’s a touch and go. She wakes up in dreamy eyes, they are unsettling and they roam around the white chloroformed room until they settle on you.
You trail your fingers against the steep jawline, brushing the dew wetness underneath her lashes.
You catch that latent smile of hers but you don’t stop mapping her face with your fingers, completely and utterly avoiding the relief that escapes your eyes.
You sigh happily.
She moves her hand to remove her mask, you stop her.
“Sleep.” You say.
You both have tomorrow.
And every day after that.
She closes her eyes and sleeps for the remainder of the day.
She dreams of you beyond her conscious realm.
And you, of her in open eyes.
Lincoln is already getting up when you are entering her room. He solemnly smiles at her, nudging her head like a puffing puppy. There’s a small wave from his end for you as he walks past and out.
Your hands trembles along the bouquet you hold. A mesh of arbutus – pink carnations – chrysanthemum.
She has that rosy shy look that young women often wore when she looked at the flowers, slightly pursued bosomy lips mingled with a smile ready to be tempted out as she sought you closer.
Her eyes shone almost like they were both green and yellow at the same time, with blue creeping in around the edges as if it were trying to take over. She blinked at you, her blustery mane loosened in a ponytail, left shoulder slouched and a little too many cuts over her face.
And the beauty was momentarily covered by the shield of her eyelashes, naturally long and soft looking – feminine.
Yours.
You felt your body flush warm under her melty thank you for the flowers. It’s only a breathe later, when you looked at her did you see those heart eyes, that Raven had begrudge-ly dubbed them as, skimming over the havoc of colors beside until they fell on you.
She looked at you as if moon and the stars had shone out of you.
And you got lost.
Everyone word you wanted to say to her flew out of your head.
It was only fidelity and a forever you saw.
“I’m in love with you too.” You exhaled into her mouth as you slammed your lips to hers knocking the wind right off her lungs. She hardly had any time to reach before you pressed you tongue to the seam of her lips, at the grant of her access, delved into her mouth. It was a sloppy kiss in all its grandeur but by god, did it lighten your insides.
Her kiss told you everything she never said.
Arms encased you slithering around your neck, pulled you to her unhurt side arching against her chest, you moaned into her body heat.
A slight burn left your throat as you pulled yourself only inches away from her lips, at the deprivation of air before brushing your lips against her chastely.
“I love you too, Klark Griffin.” Her swollen lips spelt you. for the umpteenth time that day, the universe halted.
To you.
She was effortless.
Blue.
Eternity.