Anti-partying
“FUCK” Clarke quickly moved her violin away from her face as her E string broke with a loud snap. She took a look at her index finger, it was swollen, but luckily she wasn’t bleeding, which meant she could go on playing, and she needed to study. She had an audition that very week, and it was not a big deal. It was a huge deal. She would either play her best performance of Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor or she might as well pack and leave the city. Her parents had made it pretty clear to her, she would either be the best violinist or she wouldn’t be one at all. Clarke took a deep breath and began searching for another string.
“Dude, that’s the third one you’ve broken this week. You should take it easier.” Raven sounded worried, and she had pretty good reasons to be. Clarke had barely left her room in the past ten days or so, relentlessly studying for her audition. She had even refused to go to another party at Monty’s, which was quite alarming considering Clarke had pretty much almost killed him one time he’d forgotten to invite her. Raven was almost a hundred percent sure that Clarke hadn’t showered in a day or two until she’d reminded her to, and she hadn’t been eating as she usually did (not that eating every two hours was a healthy habit, but she’d drastically changed her diet to almost continuously eating chocolate)
Clarke’s bedroom was messy as ever, yet she somehow managed to find an unused string, which of course was in the most bizarre place, under her pillow. Raven stared incredulously as Clarke tuned the high-pitched note, her hands tentatively moving the peg, carefully trying to not increase the number of strings she’d broken in those previous days.
“Rae, you know I can’t screw up that audition, if I do, I’m out. No more New York, no more Juilliard and no more violin.” she finally found the note and checked that the rest of the strings were still properly tuned.
Raven softly put her hand on Clarke’s right shoulder “Let’s go for a walk or something, though. Half an hour won’t make a difference”
Clarke sighed and raised both her eyebrows, starting to play the cadenza from the first movement “That’s easy for you to say, miss Tchaikovsky competition finalist”
“Clarke, you’re going to hurt yourself, you’ve been playing for four hours straight” Raven’s tone made clear she wouldn’t take a no for an answer. Clarke hesitantly stopped playing and left her violin on her bed, then loosened her bow and left it next to it.
“Half an hour, Rae. And I don’t do anything straight” she half-smiled and started walking towards the door, Raven rolled her eyes at the joke and pointed at Clarke’s closet.
“Clarke, grab a damn coat, it’s November and we’re not in Ohio.”
Clarke scoffed “I’m from Wisconsin.”
“Whatever.”
“And it’s colder than here.”
“Let’s go. Now.”
————————————————————————————-
Lexa felt a slow, steady breathing besides her, and the reverberance of the other girls’ chest when she moved was, she supposed, some sort of grunting sound. Lexa tried to open her eyes, her head felt heavy, her mouth was dry, and she felt like she’d been beaten up. The other girl brought her closer and Lexa leaned into her, wondering if she remembered everything about the previous night, although she was sure Octavia had dragged her to Monty’s house telling her that Veronica had dumped her boyfriend during the two weeks since the last party she’d been to. Who was she kidding, that girl was the straightest heterosexual on Earth. She knew it was hopeless to like her, and, truth be told, she’d gone to the party because, no matter how much she generally despised them, she’d had fun at Monty’s, and was willing to give it another try.
She sighed and slowly began to stretch her limbs, the other girl let go of her, turning around to lie face down and drooling on the pillow. Lexa narrowed her eyes, that was her pillow. She lied back down on bed, took a strand of the other girl’s hair and began tickling her nose with it, causing her to snort and sneeze before trying to push Lexa away.
“Come on” she whispered on the girl’s ear “you do not want me to tickle you”
The girl didn't move, so Lexa started moving her hands towards her belly, but before she could begin tickling her, Octavia quickly turned around, almost throwing Lexa off the bed
“Don’t you dare, Alexandria.”
Lexa mischievously smiled “Stop me”
Lexa jumped in bed, trying to get access to O’s belly while the other girl kept trying to avoid her without moving too much due to her sleepiness, both of them giggling when Lexa finally managed to mercilessly tickle her. After a few minutes of rolling and wrestling, they both were gasping for air, both lying half on the bed, half on each other. Lexa turned around to realize Octavia had been staring at her for quite a while. She looked into the other girl's eyes, unable to decipher what was going on in her mind. This had been happening to her for the past few months and was bothering her, since she and O had always been able to understand each other no matter what. Their foreheads were resting against each other, and they remained like that for another few minutes before Lexa abruptly sat up in bed.
“I should take a shower”
Octavia took the pillow and dropped it on her own face, grunting
*Yeah, you should* she quickly signed
“O.” she didn’t answer “Octavia, is there something wrong?”
*I’m just tired*
Lexa nodded and grabbed a towel before entering the bathroom. She should seriously start figuring out what was bothering Octavia.
—————————————————————————————
An hour and a half had gone by since they’d left the house, and Clarke was really appreciating the break. She and Raven had been sitting on a bench on Central Park for the past half hour, talking about basically anything but music. Raven had found out that Clarke’s family did indeed have a good economical position, but they’d never been supportive of her career, and when she finally convinced them to let her pursue what had always been her greatest dream, they’d put her several conditions, each one harsher than the previous one. While being in New York, Clarke had to work two part-time jobs to pay for everything that, according to her parents, was not a necessary expense, which included violin strings, rosin, sheet music books, and basically everything that wasn’t food or water, since she’d obtained a scholarship for her accommodation. Raven, on the other hand, while very reluctant to speak too much about her family had told her that, although they barely had money, they’d been saving for years to pay for her studies, getting the money from the several competitions she’d won and the jobs she’d got both in summer and during the year.
When Clarke had asked her why she didn’t talk about her family too often, Raven’s response couldn’t have been more cryptical
“It’s a long story, and it’s not a nice one.” she began biting her nails as she did whenever she was uncomfortable with something
“Rae, you know you can trust me, right?”
Raven shyly nodded
“I mean, we don’t have to talk about it now, or ever if you don’t want to. But if you ever need someone to speak to, I’m here for you, okay?”
Raven smiled “Yeah, I know”
Clarke smiled back and decided to lighten the mood “So…moving on to more important matters…the girl from the other day?”
Raven giggled and rolled her eyes “I saw her and Lincoln last week at Monty’s, we all spoke and it was pretty nice, I mean, like, there might be a chance she’d like me, but I don’t know, Clarke…I shouldn’t be thinking about getting involved with anyone right now”
Clarke sighed “Please, Rae, talk to her, not for you, but for me”
Raven raised an eyebrow “Whaaaat?”
“You’re scary when you play Shostakovich. But you’re scarier playing Khachaturian.” Clarke stood up while Raven laughed, then she looked at her watch “Shit, Rae, I told you half an hour!”
Raven rolled her eyes, study-obsessed Clarke was back.