The Past
Lexa awakened the next morning to someone draped across her body.
She smiled contentedly and closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of the blondes arms tightening around her waist.
She felt warm lips begin kissing a path from her neck up to her jaw, and she couldn’t help the blissful moan that came out of her mouth.
Lips continued to travel across her face and she opened her eyes to plant a kiss on Clarke’s perfect mouth.
When brown eyes came into focus, however, she noticeably jumped back, realizing she was looking into the eyes of her girlfriend.
She tried to shake off the surprised look she was more than likely sporting, but Costia had already noticed.
“Mmm you okay baby?” She asked sleepily and unfazed.
“What? Ya! Sorry, I just thought I was gonna sneeze for a second. How do you feel this morning?”
Costia groaned as she snuggled closer to Lexa.
“Ugh remind me to never drink that much again.”
Lexa barely held back an annoyed laugh as she replied,
“I do. Every week.”
Costia chuckled, missing the sarcastic tone to Lexa’s voice.
“Well ya you say it, but you never actually make sure I don’t do it.” She began tracing circles on Lexa’s toned stomach.
“I’ve tried Cos. You just never seem to hear me. You do this every weekend.”
She could feel Costia tense, before replying,
“Mmm I don’t wanna argue about it right now lets just keep cuddling a little longer.”
Lexa rolled her eyes. Of course she didn’t want to argue about it right now. Because she was in the wrong here, not Lexa. She would just brush it under the rug like always.
Lexa decided to let it go however, because after what she almost did last night on the balcony, she was feeling a little guilty herself and figured that discussing each other’s flaws was not the best idea right now.
Instead she tried going a different route.
“Hey, you wanna go do something fun today? We could go on an adventure somewhere cool we’ve never been.” She could almost hear Costia weighing her options before she quickly replied,
“As fun as that sounds I was sort hoping today could be just a relaxing day. We can lay in bed and watch netflix and recover from last night a little bit. It’ll be way better I promise.”
Lexa stopped Costias wandering hands with her own.
“We always do that though. Don’t you want to go do something for once? Get out of my apartment for a while?” Lexa made sure to enunciate ‘my’ apartment because although Costia was there almost every day, she had never actually asked her to move in.
Costia huffed in annoyance before replying,
“Lexa i’m telling you I don’t want to go out today can you just respect that? Im tired and I just want to lay in bed and nap!”
Lexa nodded and frustratingly threw off her covers and got out of bed to get dressed.
“What are you doing?” Costia asked confused.
“I’m leaving.” Lexa shrugged her shoulders innocently.
Costia looked at her perplexed.
“Umm why?”
Lexa started pulling on clothes as she answered.
“Because I want to go do something and I’m sick of laying around all day every weekend because you never seem to learn your limits.” She knew she was being harsh but honestly at this point she didn’t care. She was so over doting on Costia’s every need and she wouldn’t allow herself to be held back any longer.
She could hear Costia yelling something back to her but she tuned it out and quickly left her apartment, not noticing the perplexed look on Anya’s face.
It wasn’t until she was riding down the elevator that she realized she didn’t actually have any plans for what she was going to do today.
Immediately however, blue eyes popped into her mind and she reached in her back pocket for her phone.
As soon as Clarke answered her heart starting picking up speed.
“Hello?”
“Hey Clarke it’s Lexa! This is super random but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to do something today. Like grab a coffee or something?” Lexa could hear her voice raising an octave with every word she uttered and her cheeks burned red. What was it about this girl that made her so nervous? She was never like this. She used to be so charming and smooth. She was definitely losing her touch.
Clarke hesitated a moment before answering.
“Lexa I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. After last night I just don’t know if we should be hanging out just us two. I don’t think your girlfriend would appreciate that.”
Lexa frowned at Clarkes emphasis of the word girlfriend, but she wasn’t giving up that easy.
“C’mon Clarke it’s just coffee. Please? If you don’t go with me I’ll be forced to go all by myself and ponder my thoughts and just be so so lonely all day and everyone will feel so bad for me that a stranger will invite me to hangout with them and i’ll be so lonely that i’ll say yes and then they will probably murder me..........so basically my life is in your hands right now.”
Clarke couldn’t help but laugh at that. She just couldn’t resist this girls charm.
“Okay okay fine we can get coffee. But only because I don’t want my new friends Anya and Lincoln to be mad at me if I get you killed.”
She could hear Lexa smiling through the phone as she replied,
“Well perfect! Then how about we meet at Dropship Cafe. It’s right down the street from campus.”
Clarke happily obliged.
“Okay, see you soon, you friendless wonder.”
Lexa just laughed in response and started on her way.
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They had been talking and sipping their coffees for about an hour when they both realized that they were starving. They decided to order some food and settle into their booth for what would probably be another hour at the Dropship. Neither girl minded that they were wasting the day away in the cafe anyhow because they were having fun just getting to know one another.
They were in the middle of eating when Lexa decided to ask the question that had been on her mind since the day she met the blonde.
“So Clarke, do you have a girlfriend waiting for you back at your old school? Or boyfriend maybe, idk?” She smiled and tried to sound casual even though she felt anything but calm.
Clarke immediately responded.
“No, actually I don’t. Since most of the students were training in medicine, nobody really had time to be in a relationship.”
Lexa nodded casually, trying to hide her sigh of relief. It’s not like she could do anything about it anyway, and it was selfish to hope Clarke was not madly in love with someone, but regardless she was glad to hear the answer.
Clarke nudged Lexas shoulder before cheekily adding, “I mean, that’s not to say I didn’t still enjoy myself with certain people from time to time.” She laughed at the way Lexa’s pupils dilated a little.
Lexa was quick to recover however and shot back at Clarke with a smirk,
“Ya I know what you mean. If I had to go to school with a bunch of stuffy doctors, I would be sexually frustrated too.”
Clarke barked out a laugh before placing her hand over her heart like she was hurt.
“Low blow miss ‘I used to sleep with more girls than I could count’! Who was the real sexually frustrated one huh?”
Lexa just laughed and replied, “Alright touche. You got me there. But I will have you know that people at this school have a tendency to exaggerate the truth a bit. I mean, i’m sure I could count how many girls it was if I really tried hard. ” Lexa smirked triumphantly and Clarke just stuck her tongue out at Lexa disapprovingly.
There was a moment of silence before Clarke spoke up again.
“Do you wanna go do something fun?”
Lexa smiled and quirked her eyebrow.
“Okay. What did you have in mind miss adventure?”
Clarke grinned before grabbing Lexas hand and pulling her to her feet. Before she knew what was happening, Clarke threw a twenty on the table and whisked her out the door.
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Clarke had been dragging Lexa along for about ten minutes and she still hadn’t told her where they were going. As they got deeper into the city though, Lexa could no longer contain her curiosity.
“Clarke, just tell me where you’re taking me!” She asked with a smile.
Clarke just shook her head and wagged her finger at Lexa.
“No no no. It’s a surprise I can’t ruin it!”
Lexa chuckled, knowing full well that it didn’t matter where Clarke was taking her. She was happy just being in the blondes company.
When they stopped in front of a rundown, abandoned looking apartment, however, Lexa turned to Clarke in confusion.
“Um Clarke, did you just bring me along to go ghost hunting with you or are you planning on dragging me in there to murder me?”
Clarke looked at Lexa and smirked.
“If I was planning on murdering you I would have done it somewhere closer and saved myself the walk.”
Lexa playfully swatted her arm before Clarke grabbed her hand and once again began dragging her up the steps to the front door.
“Hmm do you have a thing for mice or something Clarke, what is this?” Lexa asked wearily.
Clarke ignored her and started rummaging through the potted plants for the key.
When she got the door open and pulled Lexa inside she was buzzing with excitement and nervousness. She never really showed people this place. Her hideaway where she could escape life for a little while when things got to much and it seemed like the world was crashing down around her.
She didn’t know why she was showing it to Lexa of all people. Someone she had just met a week ago, but something about her just felt different. She trusted the girl and knew on some level that she and Lexa shared a common way of thinking.
Lexa stepped through the threshold and was stunned at what she saw.
She was expecting a decrepit old house. Maybe a home in the middle of a renovation or something.
But what she was not expecting was to walk into this house and be transported to a completely different world. She was awestruck.
The inside of the house had been totally gutted, leaving only the four empty walls and creating one big room. Every single inch of the inside had been painted to look like outer space. The floors, the walls, the ceilings. They were all covered in galaxies and planets and constellations and everything that made it so distinctly space. There had to have been over a million hand painted stars blanketing the entirety of the dark space. It was beautiful.
Lexa was speechless. She had never seen anything like this. It was the most realistic and stunning thing she had ever seen. It was as if someone had gone out and collected the stars and galaxies and put it in a jar and then poured it out on the inside of this rundown looking home.
Lexa concluded that whoever had painted this was an absolute genius.
She slowly walked around the entire room looking at every thing in detail before turning to Clarke with a raised brow.
Clarke just smiled and lifted her shoulder in a shrug before replying, “This is my secret hiding spot. You can’t tell anyone.”
Lexa smiled at Clarke before she crossed he heart in promise, similar to how Clarke had done the previous night, and continued walking a path around the room.
“Clarke this place is amazing. How did you find it?”
Clarke shrugged again before replying, “Well when I was about 10 a good family friend of ours bought this place so he could renovate it and rent it out, but he passed away before he could start fixing it up and for some reason he left it to us. My dad never had the heart to sell it to someone else so he decided he would keep it without telling my mom, and it would be our secret little place to escape to.”
Lexa smiled at Clarke sadly before she continued.
“When I got older I got really into painting and my dad was always really fascinated by space so he decided that every time we felt sad or mad or frustrated we would drive out here with our paint, our brushes and photos from an old NASA magazine and we would paint until we forgot why we were upset in the first place.” She smiled fondly at the memories.
Lexa’s head whipped around and she looked at Clarke with surprise.
“Wait Clarke you painted this?”
Clarke nodded nonchalantly.
“Clarke what the hell? You told me you were studying art but you didn’t tell me you were a god damn modern day Picasso. This is incredible!”
Clarke smiled sheepishly, her cheeks turning a bit red.
“Thanks. It was always just a fun distraction. I could come here and get totally lost in it.”
Lexa looked at Clarke like she was a work of art herself, and Clarke couldn’t help the way her heart started beating faster.
She was so screwed.
She shook the thought away as she walked over and grabbed a blanket that had been folded up in the corner. She laid it out in the middle of the room and motioned for Lexa to come sit beside her on it.
When they both laid back and looked up at the ceiling, Lexa could have sworn she was really floating amongst the stars. All at once it made her feel incredibly small and very much at peace. She understood why Clarke came here as an escape.
She glanced over at the blonde, who was staring up at the endless space she had created, once again not knowing how beautiful she looked.
Lexa turned back to the ceiling before she asked, “So how long did it take you to do all this?”
Clarke scrunched up her nose in thought.
“Well we started when I was about 11 and we got about halfway through by the time I was in high school. After my dad died though I basically finished the rest of it within a few months.”
Lexa raised her eyebrows in surprise, knowing how long that must have taken.
“Sometimes I would drive here in the middle of the night and paint until someone called looking for me. I wouldn’t even realize that I had been working on it for almost a whole day. Time just seemed to stop when I was here. Everything did. I never even wanted to make the outside of the house look nicer because it didn’t even matter to me. I liked that something could look so worn down and broken on the outside, but be so different on the inside.”
Lexa nodded understandingly.
The way Clarke talked about this place, made it clear how much it meant to her. She became so passionate and animated when she talked about her different memories here, and Lexa just let her go on, feeling very grateful that Clarke trusted her enough to show her something so important.
Lexa thought right then and there that Clarke talking about her secret hiding place was probably the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
She was so screwed.
They had been talking and telling stories for about 30 minutes before Clarke sat up and looked down at Lexa with a frown.
“I feel like you know my entire life story and I hardly know anything about you Lexa.”
Lexa smirked before replying.
“Ya my plan is working. I’m trying to be sulky and mysterious.”
Clarke let out a laugh at that.
“Well too late Woods we’re already friends. You’re stuck with me. Plus I already know you’re a big softy.” Clarke teased.
Right when Lexa opened her mouth to say something, she was interrupted by her cell phone ringing.
She sighed as she looked down and saw that it was Costia calling, snapping her back to reality yet again.
She shook her head slightly before sending it to voicemail, knowing full well that she would have to explain herself later. She didn’t care.
Clarke looked at her curiously, knowing she should stay out of it, but curiosity made her open her mouth anyway.
“Lexa, if i’m overstepping in some way tell me, but i’m just curious....why, I mean how come you..” She hesitated, not knowing how to approach this topic.
Lexa however smiled knowingly before jumping in.
“Why am I still with Costia when things are clearly not going well? You don’t have to have to feel weird about asking, anyone with eyes can see that.”
Clarke looked at her sympathetically before responding, “Well you guys do seem very... different. But what do I know, I just joined this group. I don’t have room to talk.”
Lexa smiled sadly again before deciding that Clarke deserved the truth.
“Ya I don’t know why it’s so hard for her to just be nicer to people. She didn’t used to be like that when we first met. So territorial and controlling I mean. She was definitely never an angel but at least we could go an hour without arguing. I just don’t know how things got so messed up.”
Clarke nodded understandingly, similar to how Lexa had done with her earlier, before gently asking,
“So how come you guys stay together? I mean why not end it before things get ugly?”
Lexa sighed before continuing.
“Well I didn’t tell you this earlier but when I was in high school my dad died too and-”
She was promptly cut off by Clarke grabbing her arm in a panic.
“Oh my god Lexa i’m so sorry I had no idea! All these times i’ve been going on and on about my dad and I never even thought to ask if-”
She too was cut off by Lexa grabbing her arm reassuringly. She smiled as she continued.
“Clarke don’t feel bad I purposely never brought it up. Really it’s no big deal i’m okay now, it’s been a long time.”
Clarke nodded, still feeling guilty but let the brunette go on.
“So growing up I was never close to my mom at all but me and my dad were attached at the hip. He always took my side and I felt like I could never do wrong by him. But when I got to high school I guess I sort of started acting out more. Nothing bad, I just started hooking up with people a lot and I sort of got a reputation as a womanizer. I didn’t really think anything of it but I guess my dad started hearing talk about how I would string people along and then quit on them when things got tough.”
Clarke nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“A little before he died I started dating this girl from school-and I use the word dating lightly- but anyway we weren’t a good fit and it wasn’t serious, so I broke up with her after a couple months, not really thinking she would be so upset but I guess it destroyed her. My dad heard some story from someone about how I completely broke this girls heart and was cold hearted and had no empathy, and I guess my dad had finally had enough and just snapped at me. It was the only big fight I ever remember having with him and I had never seen him so unhappy with me. He went on and on about how he didn’t like who I was becoming and it was disappointing to hear that I treated people with such flippancy. He told me that I was quitting everything I started and didn’t ever see anything through and that I would never get anywhere in life if I couldn’t stop running away when things got hard. It was a bad fight but in retrospect I know he just wanted me to stop acting like a child. But damn the way he talked about this broken hearted girl made me feel like I was a terrible person. I felt awful after that and vowed to never make someone feel that way again. But before I got the chance to make it right my dad, he was killed in a car accident.”
Clarke put her hand on Lexas knee for support, but the brunette was the picture of stoicism. Almost like she had to just get through the story without actually feeling anything. Clarke let her go on.
“So then after that happened, I couldn’t even look at myself I was so disgusted with how I had acted. I pulled away from everything and shut out everyone that cared for me. Anya was the only one who could get me to talk. And then I guess when I got to college I figured fuck it, I might as well act how everyone’s expecting me to. So thats when my real womanizer days came out.” Lexa almost smiled at that part. Almost.
“I had been basically screwing my way through Boston just to prove to myself that I didn’t deserve anything more because all I do is disappoint people. And then Costia came along and It’s not necessarily like she changed me or made me feel love again, I think I was just sick of doing what I was doing. So I agreed to take her out and before I knew it I was in a full on relationship with her. Every time I questioned if that was what I really wanted, I thought back to what my dad said about me and I felt selfish all over again. Every time Costia would tell me she loved me or talked about how much I meant to her I could practically hear my dad begging me not to break her heart. I’m just so damn scared of what he would think of me if I did it again.” Lexas shoulders slumped significantly.
Clarke took this opportunity to speak up.
“Lexa, I am so sorry that you had to go through that, but your dad loved you no matter what, you must’ve known that. And just because life had such shitty timing, doesn’t mean you have to punish yourself forever. Not everybody is going react the same way as the girl in high school did. You can’t make yourself miserable just so someone else doesn’t get hurt, that’s ridiculous.”
Lexa sighed for the umpteenth time.
“In retrospect I know you’re right, but I can’t get myself to actually do anything about it. Every time I try to I picture the look on his face when he was telling me to grow up and see things through. And I know he didn’t really know the whole story and people probably made it sound worse than it was but Clarke, you should’ve seen his eyes. He was so disappointed.”
Clarke didn’t really know what to say. The selfish part of her wanted to tell Lexa that surely her father wouldn’t have wanted her to stay with someone just because she didn’t want to hurt anyone and it was ridiculous for her to stay with Costia when she and Lexa together could be so much better. But the rational part of her knew that Lexa just needed a friend right now and dammit, a friend was what Clarke would be.
She pulled Lexa into a hug and they both just stayed put for several moments.
When they pulled away they didn’t say anything else, but rather straightened up and nodded at each other. A mutual understanding that they both had gone through a lot and would do their part to help the other heal. They shared a bond that their other friends couldn’t understand, and in that moment they both knew that their new friendship was something special.
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Later on, as they walked back to campus, feeling emotionally exhausted but no longer alone, Lexa felt something in their friendship shift.
She knew that Clarke probably felt it too but neither girl commented on it. It was refreshing not to have to explain every train of thought and instead, just exist in a moment.
Their was a peaceful silence between them and Lexa couldn’t help but feel that this blonde haired, blued eyed new girl was going to mean much more to her than she ever once thought.
Her heart smiled in relief. Change was coming.