After You

iv. growing up is a shot to the gut

They met at the start of the seventh-grade softball season. Clarke was thirteen, and while therapy had done wonders for her anger management, she was still what her dad often referred to as ‘scrappy’.

She introduced herself to Octavia Blake in a cloud of kicked-up dirt, pushing hands, and accusations.

Octavia played catcher for the opposing team, a small school two towns over with a donkey for a mascot and a softball coach whose last name was literally pronounced ‘butt-kiss’. She had come up grinning like a wolf after Clarke slid into home, cleats slamming into a padded arm as the umpire shouted Octavia’s success in protecting the plate.

And Clarke had been livid.

Even when they ended up shouting and pushing at one another, Octavia’s grin hardly faded, and after the game, she sauntered into the enemy’s dugout without a care. Plopping down onto the players’ bench, she used her shoulder to shove Clarke off the end and onto the ground. When Clarke jumped to her feet, steaming, Octavia just laughed and said, “I like you. Even if you do suck at stealing home.”

The next year, Octavia transferred to Clarke’s school, and much to everyone’s surprise, they became inseparable.

It marked the beginning of a new chapter in Clarke’s life, a busy one, rife with activity and friendship. The last lingering bits of sorrow almost seemed to leak out from her heart, press into her edges, and disappear. She could still feel the stamp beneath her skin, the mark of things she could not change, but it was dull. It didn’t burn the way it used to.

So, she let it go. She pushed forward, and the further and faster she went, the more the past seemed lost to the cloud of dust trailing behind her.

“Why do they have to be so big?” Clarke huffed as she smashed her breasts down with her hands.

“You’re blessed.”

“Cursed,” Clarke countered, grabbing a sports bra from the back of her chair and squeezing into it.

For thirty long seconds, she felt like she couldn’t breathe, like someone had just wrapped her in duct tape and she could do nothing but wheeze and waddle. As always, though, the sensation passed quickly enough, and once the material stretched and loosened a bit around her body, she took a deep, comforting breath.

“Why don’t you just wear a regular bra?”

Clarke turned to the girl stretched across her bed. Long, dark hair twirled around Octavia’s slender fingers as she lay on her stomach, kicking her socked feet back and forth and staring down at her phone.

“Too much cleavage.”

“Embrace the cleavage, Clarke,” Octavia said, popping a piece of gum between her teeth. “You’re fourteen a—”

“Almost fifteen!”

Octavia rolled her eyes. “You’re fourteen and already rocking a c-cup. Some of us still have boobs that are like, 97% nipple.”

“Some of us think 97% percent nipple sounds like 97% heaven.” Clarke flicked through the shirts hanging in her closet, wrinkling her nose at every option. Why couldn’t the right outfit just jump from the closet and shout at her? Pull a Meredith Grey, like pick me, Clarke. Choose me. “Big boobs are annoying.”

“Big boobs are hot.”

“I don’t want to be hot,” Clarke grumbled. “I want to be flat-chested and not have the gross guys in our class staring down my shirt all the time.”

“Welcome to womanhood,” Abby said dryly as she knocked once on the half-open door before sweeping into Clarke’s room with an armful of clean clothes from the laundry room. She dropped the pile onto Clarke’s bed, right on top of Octavia’s back. “And for the record, all breasts are great, even if they are 97% nipple.” She poked Octavia’s side before heading out the door again, calling over her shoulder. “Love yourselves, girls!”

“Thanks for the self-love pep talk, Mrs. G,” Octavia called back, cracking up as she rolled over and started to throw random articles of clothing across the room at Clarke. “Are you going to pick a top or are you just going to stare into your closet all night? Because we’re supposed to be there in like an hour, and Bell just texted me that he’s on the way to pick us up.”

“Stop rushing me. We can’t all be you.” Clarke bent to grab a sock from the floor and wadded it up before chucking it back at Octavia. “You just pop on one of Bellamy’s leather jackets and some old boots, and it’s instant hotness. You don’t even wash your hair half the time.”

Octavia grinned and blew a bubble before popping it and sucking it back into her mouth. “Thought you didn’t wanna be hot?”

“Oh shut up.” Clarke leapt onto the bed, laughing when Octavia grunted and tried to push her off again. Rifling through the clothes still left on the bed, Clarke finally settled on a simple white t-shirt and her favorite faded hoodie to go with her jeans. It was her dad’s and it wasn’t cute in the slightest, a worn-out jungle green that looked more olive than jungle these days, but it was baggy and comfortable and warm and Clarke was over the whole mess of trying to find something cute.

“How’s this?”

“Boring,” Octavia said, “but I guess you’ve got enough personality to make up for it.”

“Why do I like you?”

“Because it’s impossible not to.”

The scent of exhaust was the first to fill her nose as Clarke shuffled along beside Octavia toward the county fair. Bellamy, Octavia’s brother, split the second they slid out of his truck. He was seven years older than Octavia and only agreed to take them to the fair because a girl he liked was supposed to be there; that, and because Octavia had apparently had him wrapped around her little finger since she exited the womb, all adorable and wailing. He slapped a few bills into Octavia’s hand, told her not to talk to strangers, and then ran off to find his would-be fling of the month.

They entered near a ride called The Predator, neon-bright and moving faster than Clarke could keep time with. The heavy beat of a song she didn’t recognize blared from the speakers at the ride’s base and people screamed and laughed from the swooping, rotating compartments. The music thumped in her ears, speckled and punctuated with the sounds of bumper cars slamming together, bells ringing out prize winners, and engines blowing steam into the night air, and Clarke’s heart fell rapidly into the rhythm of it.

The fair hadn’t changed much in the last fourteen years, but somehow, it still managed to excite Clarke. There was something thrilling about the mashed-up smells in the air, the jumbled sounds pumping around and through her, the neon lights blotting out the stars, and the swooping in her stomach; candied apples and hot cider and barbecue worth every penny of the fair’s ungodly prices. It was old news, really, a county tradition she had taken part in for as long as she could remember, but Clarke positively adored it. 

They skipped right by the ticket booth and headed straight for the back of the grounds where the food stands churned out order after order. Further out were the stables and petting zoo but neither was close enough to smell, thankfully. Octavia pulled Clarke by the arm, already listing off everything she wanted to eat, a list which basically consisted of at least one of everything available.

“Oh! And a potato pile. I know you love those.”

Clarke snorted. “Do we even have enough money for all that?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

Laughing, Clarke hurried along behind Octavia until they were just two warm bodies in an already thick crowd of people stuffing their faces.

Spotting their friends was easy enough. The ridiculous pair of goggles perched on Jasper’s head and bobbing through the crowd toward the smoked-meats stand caught Clarke’s eye almost instantly, and she pointed in his direction. As they made their way over, they could hear him bickering with Monty about which condiment was superior, ketchup or mustard.

Monty Green went to East Plains Junior High, about twenty minutes away. He and Jasper met at science camp the summer after fifth grade and had been best friends since. Jasper started bringing him around soon after, the two of them basically bouncing back and forth between each other’s houses, and Clarke didn’t mind. Incredibly smart and kinder than most boys their age, Monty was easy to love. He certainly made Jasper more tolerable.

“Shark!”

Clarke rolled her eyes at the ridiculous nickname and called back, “Casper!”

“It’s about time you got here,” Jasper said, wrapping his arm around Clarke’s shoulders. “Now, serious question. Question to end all questions. Which is better—ketchup or mustard?”

“Ketchup,” Clarke said, and Octavia nodded at her side.

Monty smiled. “See?”

Jerking his arm off of Clarke’s shoulders, Jasper shook his head and curled his lip. “You people disgust me.”

“Ketchup goes with more things.” Monty blew his bangs out of his eyes and laughed. “Mustard is limited.”

“Lies!” Jasper glared. “Mustard goes with everything. I would even put it on pizza!”

Sticking her middle finger in her mouth, Octavia mock-gagged, and Jasper roared with laughter.

Clarke poked his shoulder. “Remember that time you ate cafeteria pizza out of the trashcan for fifty cents?”

“One of my finest moments,” Jasper said, nodding. “Remember that time you ate an earthworm on a dare?”

“Remember that time you climbed up the drain pipe on the side of the cafeteria and broke it?”

Jasper threw his arms in the air. “Broke my leg, too, but Ms. Fuller’s meltdown was totally worth it. Remember that time you filled Brian’s art box with glue because he made fun of you and it hardened so he couldn’t get his supplies out?”

“Remember that t—”

Cutting Clarke off, Octavia groaned and said, “Remember that time I starved to death at the fair because you guys wouldn’t shut up and get in line?”

At her urging, they shuffled around the side of the smoked-meats stand to get in line. As they moved, Jasper put his hand beside his mouth and, as loudly as possible, whispered, “Remember that time we had a fight scene in the sixth-grade play and you accidentally punched me for real?”

Grinning, Clarke put her hand up beside her mouth as well and said, “That wasn’t an accident.”

Octavia and Monty both snickered as Jasper bumped his shoulder against Clarke’s. Pulling his goggles down over his eyes, he said, “I see your true colors, Shark Griffin, and they hurt my eyes!”

“Beauty can be blinding sometimes,” Clarke said, patting his shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”

The line for the giant turkey legs was criminal, stretching out from the booth and around it into the thick shade of the park’s many elm, maple, and dogwood trees. They were nearing the front when Octavia suddenly gasped and jerked Clarke out of the line. She yelled over her shoulder for Jasper and Monty to stay put and then dragged Clarke through heavy foot traffic to the other side of the food lane.

Before Clarke could say anything, Octavia released her to cup her hands around her mouth and shout toward one of the funnel-cake booths.

“Reyes!”

A dark-haired girl in a red bomber jacket with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows turned at the shout, pulled from conversation with the person beside her—a taller girl with dark blonde hair and a ridiculous amount of eye shadow. Her eyes searched the moving crowd, and Clarke knew they had been spotted when the girl’s lips drew into a smile.

“Little O!” She punched Octavia’s arm when they finally reached her. “You’re not so little anymore.”

“It’s only been a year, and you owe me a funnel cake for kicking my ass to the curb.”

“I didn’t kick your ass to the curb, O,” Raven said. “I kicked your brother’s ass to the curb.”

“Could have fooled me.” Octavia shook her head. “You don’t text. You don’t call. I feel so unloved.”

Rolling her eyes, Raven wrapped an arm around Octavia’s shoulders and squeezed her. “I’ve missed your manipulative ways, kid. A funnel cake it is.” She patted the top of Octavia’s head. “So grown up. So tall.”

“I literally haven’t grown a single inch since the last time you saw me.”

“You’re taller.”

“Okay, maybe I’m slightly taller.”

“You’re a giant.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“I can’t believe you’re in high school.”

“I can’t believe you’re in college.”

Clarke stood awkwardly off to the side until Octavia suddenly dragged her into the small huddle.

“This is Clarke,” she said. “She puts up with me. I put up with her. I’ve heard some people call that friendship. It works for us. Clarke, this is Raven. She used to date my brother.”

“Hey.” Raven held out her hand. “How’s it going?”

“It’s good,” Clarke said, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too.” Raven then motioned to the girl beside her. “This is my girlfriend, Anya.”

“Upgrade.” Octavia smiled, she and Clarke giving identical miniature waves. “Nice.”

With a small laugh, Anya asked, “Not a fan of your brother?”

“Eh, he’s my brother,” Octavia said, shrugging. “I love him, but he can be a real ass. I was always Team Reyes.”

Grinning, Raven said, “It’s the best team to be on.”

“Especially when it comes with a free funnel cake,” Clarke chimed, drawing a laugh from the other three.

Raven ushered them forward in the line, telling Octavia about her latest project at the auto-body repair shop she worked for and the classes she was taking at the community college. That was where she met Anya. Calc 1. Two rows over. One seat up.

“Looking like she was plotting murder half the time,” Raven said, and Anya rolled her eyes.

“It was a 7 AM class, which I didn’t even know existed until my adviser handed me my schedule.”

“Oh yeah.” Octavia nodded. “Everyone looks murderous at seven in the morning. Clarke actually had a full-on murder plan for her dad this summer when he woke us up at six to go to the lake. Like, she said it out loud and everything, step by step. I drew the line at feeding his body to the giant catfish at the lake, but only because catfish freak me out; plus, we didn’t have scuba suits or anything and the giant catfish are like all the way at the bottom by the dam.”

“You’re seriously the worst accomplice, O,” Clarke said, shaking her head. “Besides, we took him off the hit list after he grilled those burgers for us anyway.”

“Those burgers were amazing.”

“They really w—”

Clarke choked around her words, their music dying an instant, painful death in the middle of her throat, when a fifth person suddenly joined their small group. All long, lanky limbs and familiar wild hair, the girl slipped into the slim space between Anya and Raven and thrust forward a bag of pink cotton candy and some change. She didn’t even seem to notice Clarke and Octavia.

“They didn’t have blue, so I got pink.”

That voice.

Clarke shuddered. The beat in her chest stuttered and lost its rhythm, suddenly somehow too fast and slow at the same time, and it hurt. The fair’s bright lights warped around her as she forgot to exhale, air trapped tightly inside and pushing at her ribs, and Anya’s voice sounded as if it was coming from a million miles away.

“That’s okay.” Anya took the cotton candy and change. She flicked her hand toward the girl at her side. “Oh, Clarke, Octavia, this is—”

“Lexa.” The name slipped through Clarke’s lips in a strained, staggered exhale, a shaky rush of breath that offered her no relief.

At the sound, Lexa’s head snapped to the side. She shifted so suddenly she nearly stumbled over her own feet, turning to face her, and Clarke watched as recognition widened familiar green eyes and slackened Lexa’s jaw.

“Wait. You two know each other?”

Clarke didn’t answer and neither did Lexa. It was as if they were frozen, unable to move; both simply trying to breathe. She didn’t even know who had asked the question, didn’t care.

Everything seemed to fade around them, the lights and bells and laughter; every image, every sound dwindled to nothing until all Clarke could hear was her own heartbeat pounding in her ears and all she could see was Lexa’s wide, stunned eyes and slightly parted lips.

She held her breath, waited for Lexa to say something, anything; waited for her to shatter the stillness with her lullaby voice.

It shattered, instead, with a small, simple shake of her head, and then Lexa turned quickly on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.

Clarke swayed in place as all her breath left her in a dizzying whoosh. Her heart dropped into her stomach and burned, and she felt her eyes begin to sting with the pain of it. Fingers wrapped around her upper arm, a squeeze she hardly felt.

“Okay, what the hell was that?” Octavia’s voice buzzed at her ear, and Clarke could feel the others’ eyes on her, but she didn’t answer.

Instead, she shook her arm free from Octavia’s grip, and before she could second-guess herself, she took off into the rolling sea of faces.

She was only interested in one.

“Wait!” Clarke bumped from body to body like a pinball as she pushed through the crowd as quickly as possible, eyes glued ahead. She caught a glimpse of Lexa’s hair, of her green-and-black plaid shirt, between the shuffling, shifting fairgoers. “Lexa, wait!”

A moment later, Lexa was gone.

Clarke slowed as she reached the end of the food stands, stared out into the dark stretch of trees and park that led to the petting zoo. Turning swiftly around, she glanced from point to point, at every stand, every green shirt, every flash of brown hair. Nothing. Her heart burned hotter in her gut, hotter and deeper until she felt sick with it.

Pressing her hand over her mouth, Clarke closed her eyes, squeezed them so tightly that it hurt. Everything suddenly felt twisted and flipped, chaotic in the worst way, and Clarke wanted to scream. A moment later, she let out a strangled yelp, eyes snapping open again, when a hand wrapped around her arm and suddenly jerked her to the side.

Stumbling over her own feet, Clarke was pulled just beyond a kettle-corn stand and into the shade of several tall trees. Once there, she felt the grip on her arm slacken and then release. Watched as Lexa stepped back to put space between them again. Clarke expected her to say something. She expected, “Stop following me” or “Leave me alone”. She expected, “Clawke.” She expected, “You told.” She expected accusations and blame and dismissal, and all the ways each and every one would hurt and hurt and hurt.

What she didn’t expect was for Lexa to stay with her. What she didn’t expect was for Lexa to stand, still and silent, and simply stare at her. She didn’t expect to feel so on display, so squashed and flattened and pressed beneath a microscope, but she did. She felt Lexa’s eyes on her like a laser, hot and dissecting, and Clarke squirmed in the glare of fair lights spilling through the trees.

She suddenly felt intensely aware of her appearance. Her sloppy ponytail and baggy, faded hoodie made her stomach ache, and she wished she had put a little more effort into her outfit. It surprised her. Pushing the thought from her mind, she tried not to focus on herself or on the feeling of Lexa’s gaze burning over every inch of her, but on Lexa instead.

She sucked in a deep, cold breath and finally took all of Lexa in.

At nearly sixteen years old, Lexa Woods was tall, so much taller than Clarke remembered, but still more hair than body. The same wild curls, pulled back in some places with thin braids, but mostly loose. The same guarded eyes. Her face was slimmer, more angular—all high cheekbones and a cutting jaw. Full lips. She looked grown, more-so than Clarke could have ever pictured in her mind, and it made her stomach stir.

Her gaze scanned down the long length of Lexa’s body. Her loose-fitting plaid shirt hung off one shoulder, put the gray tank top Lexa wore underneath on display. Her jeans were tight, stretched around fuller hips than Clarke would have imagined for Lexa, and tattered around the knees. The black converse she wore had holes in the sides, neon yellow socks visible from within, and white laces so dirty they looked gray.

Biting her bottom lip, Clarke shifted in place again and tucked her hands up into her sleeves. “Lexa.” She didn’t know what to say, if she should say anything at all, but it felt like years had already passed with them standing together between the trees, and Lexa still had yet to do anything but stare at her. It felt good to say her name, though, so Clarke let out a sigh and said it again; said it soft and full and hoped it wouldn’t be weird. “Lexa.”

She tried to conjure something, anything, more, but everything felt knotted up inside her. An annoyed huff slipped out as Clarke struggled to speak, struggled to push free all the words bobbing at the back of her throat. It was as if all the years between them had compressed into a jagged lump and lodged itself in her esophagus. She felt like she would never be able to swallow it down.

But then Lexa surprised her by clearing her throat. She opened her mouth as if to speak but then closed it again, furrowed her brow. She hesitated a moment and then cleared her throat again. “Clarke.”

The sound of her name rolling off Lexa’s tongue with ease, that hard, perfect ‘r’, was unexpected. It hit her like a shot to the gut, and for just a moment, Clarke felt breathless with all the ways things change; all the ways life could sweep you up or leave you behind. Lexa wasn’t that little girl anymore, the one with the thickness in her tongue and the willingness to follow Clarke anywhere. They weren’t kids anymore. They weren’t anything.

Lexa crossed her arms over her chest, licked her lips. “Speech class,” she said, and Clarke realized her reaction must have been visible.

She forced herself to nod, to smile. It was shaky, stilted, and she had to swallow through the thickness in her throat before she could bring herself to speak. “I always liked the way you said my name before.”

Lips pursing for a moment, Lexa shifted as if uncomfortable. She straightened her spine and visibly squeezed her arms more tightly against her chest. “Things change.”

“Yeah.” Clarke nodded. “I know.” She felt hyper-aware of her body, of the space between them, of the silence and how uncomfortable it grew by the second—every breath, every lick of her lips, every bob of her throat, every squirm of her stomach—and she hated it. She was desperate to find the easy flow that once existed between them, that natural connection Clarke knew still had to exist. Somewhere down, buried deep, but there. Always there. “How—”

“Why did you follow me?”

Clarke hesitated, unsure of how to answer; unsure if she even knew the answer. Standing there, across from Lexa, felt like a dream, one she knew she wouldn’t wake up from and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to, no matter how painful it could be. She hadn’t thought of Lexa in a long time. Hadn’t pictured her face in her mind like she used to or scratched it onto paper with pencil and pen. She hadn’t found herself buried beneath a wooly blanket in her tree house, reading secret letters in the lamplight, in over a year. And now, Lexa was standing right in front of her—not a memory, not a fantasy, but a breathing, beating, beautiful thing sharing the same space and air as Clarke, and looking at her as if she was foreign.

As if she wasn’t the girl Lexa once held against her naked chest, close and quiet in a cold shower stall. As if she wasn’t the girl who used to hold out her hand, wait for Lexa to touch, to hold, to connect. As if she wasn’t a part of Lexa’s history or of her heart. As if she wasn’t Clawke at all.

It stung in the worst way, burning hotly in her chest. In her belly. Behind her eyes.

“I ….” She shook her head, let her body cave in a bit. Shoulders slumped. Hands loose at her sides. Somewhere along the way, Clarke had learned that honesty almost always came in one of two ways. Through the clench of teeth and fists, the fiery destruction of care. Or in the slow collapse of defense, that quiet, gentle caving. And Lexa? She deserved a tender truth, the kind that gave itself in whispers of words and touch. She had known the clench of fists too intimately, too long. “I thought I would never see you again.”

Lexa glanced away from Clarke. Her gaze disappeared into the trees, and Clarke watched as Lexa’s jaw clenched, ticked, just a second before quiet, biting words slipped through her lips. “You would have no one to blame but yourself.”

The words knocked the wind right out of Clarke, an audible rush of air slamming through and out. Fuck. Her eyes instantly watered, and Clarke felt her fingers curl into fists. She let her short nails dig into the skin of her palms and bit at the inside of her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.

It was what she had been expecting from the start, but Clarke quickly realized that she hadn’t been ready to actually hear the words. She hadn’t been ready to hear them once dipped in Lexa’s gentle voice and slipped between her ribs like a poison-tipped blade. Quiet truths, she realized, could still feel like destruction.

“I ….” She licked her lips, forced in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Lexa. I couldn’t—”

“You could.” Lexa cut her off, eyes locking back onto Clarke. “You chose not to.”

Sighing, Clarke forced herself not to argue, and instead, she nodded. “You’re right. I chose,” she said, “but it wasn’t because I wanted you to get sent away. I wasn’t trying to betray you. I was just … Lexa, I was trying to protect you.”

A short, choppy, bitter laugh slipped free as Lexa shook her head, and Clarke hated the sound of it. It didn’t sound like Lexa at all, not the Lexa she knew or remembered or ached for. It sounded too cold, too angry; finished in a way that caused a spark of panic to ignite in Clarke’s chest. Lexa hadn’t been a present part of her life in years, but the thought of losing her again in the same breath she found her made Clarke feel suddenly and unrelentingly terrified.

“I can protect myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

For only a moment, Lexa closed her eyes, and Clarke watched as she took a deep, steadying breath. When she opened her eyes again, they were familiar. They looked at her like they knew her, just a flash of gentle, of care, of yesterday, and Clarke ached with all the ways that one look touched her.

“Lexa.” It came out in a whisper as Clarke stepped in, stepped closer. She was reaching out, about to touch, when Lexa suddenly blinked down hard and jerked back. It was painfully reminiscent of all the times Clarke had seen Lexa flinch away from her touch or anyone else’s, and in that moment, they were kids again. They were, and Clarke could almost hear Lexa’s voice in her head.

Okay, Clawke.

The moment slipped away as quickly as it came, though, and Clarke watched as Lexa moved away from her. “I’m walking away now, Clarke.” One step. Then two. She was flooded in light at the edge of the food stands when she glanced back one last time. “Don’t follow me.”

“Wait, no,” Clarke said, taking a step of her own. “Lexa, wait.”

By the time the words were out, Lexa was gone, disappearing into the crowd again. Clarke felt her sudden absence like a freezing wave, washing over her in a shock of pain. Seeping into her clothes, into her bones, so that she couldn’t move or breathe or even think about anything but the cold. But the pain. But the absence of warmth.

The next moment, it was almost as if it hadn’t happened at all. As if Clarke had imagined it, dreamed it. Conjured it up in a quiet moment of despair, a bubbling breath of guilt.

Lexa had come blazing back into her life like a rare comet, burning and bright and beautiful, and so terribly, terribly fleeting.

And in that moment, there was no way of knowing if she had truly ever come at all.

Or if she would ever come again.

That night, for the first time in months, Clarke slept in her tree house. She dug up Leggy Sue from the old bin at the back of her closet, and when she pressed the ragged, faded stuffed octopus to her chest, Octavia didn’t say a word. The nights were getting colder, and Clarke knew it was probably past the point of sleeping outside, but Octavia didn’t seem to mind. She just squeezed onto the small mattress with Clarke and pulled the thick pile of blankets up to their chins.

Burrowing in behind Clarke, Octavia pressed her forehead to the space between Clarke’s shoulder blades. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Clutching Leggy Sue like a lifeline, Clarke shook her head. The swishing sound of her hair against the pillow sounded almost thunderous in the quiet tree house. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Kind of seems like there is.”

“Well, there’s not.”

“Oh, so you just came back crying for no reason then?”

Clarke huffed and clenched her eyes closed, tried to force sleep to come. She knew it wouldn’t.

“How come you never told me about Lexa?”

“What about her?”

“I don’t know.” She felt Octavia shrug, the motion causing the small mattress to dip. “Anything, I guess? I didn’t even know she existed.”

A spark of pain flashed through Clarke’s chest, and she clenched her arms more tightly around Leggy Sue. Guilt burned in her belly, boiled. Clarke was sick with the feeling. When had Lexa slipped through her fingers, slipped from her mind? When had the letters stopped? The wondering? The worry? It was a tragic, terrible thing, Clarke realized—trying to remember at what point she had forgotten, trying to understand how she had ever let herself forget at all.

Slipping one hand up from Leggy Sue’s soft, bulbous head, Clarke rubbed at the sting in her eyes. She swallowed through the itch in her throat, the thickness there that refused to thin. “It was a long time ago.”

“What was?”

“Me and Lexa,” Clarke whispered. “We were friends. We ....” Her voice cracked and she winced at the sound of it. “It’s not … there are things I can’t talk about.”

She felt Octavia shift behind her and then a hand settled between her shoulder blades and rubbed little circles there. “Why not?”

“I just can’t.” Clarke squeezed her eyes closed tighter, tighter until she felt them ache and strain. “It’s not my stuff to tell.”

Octavia was silent for a long time, and when she spoke again, Clarke expected her to push. Instead, she just continued with her small circles between Clarke’s shoulder blades, and said, “Okay.”

A shaky breath worked its way through Clarke’s lips, up from her soul, and she let the tension leak from her body. Her eyes hurt. So did her heart. But that small bit of release helped. It somehow made her feel like, at some point, this ache might actually ease again. Part of her hoped it wouldn’t.

“That’s her,” she whispered, surprising herself. Eyes still closed, she pointed to the nearest drawing tacked to the wall of the tree house just over their heads. She could picture the drawing perfectly in her mind, a younger Lexa. Head bowed. Eyes cast toward the floor. Knobby knees pressed together at her chest. It was one of several plastered around the place.

Clarke felt the mattress dip and move behind her, but Octavia didn’t say anything. She didn’t stop the motion of her hand on Clarke’s back either.

“She got sent away.” Leggy Sue muffled the words, partly tucked under Clarke’s chin and partly smashed against her mouth.

“Oh.”

Clarke opened her eyes again, stared at the barely visible tin tucked into the corner by the mattress. She wondered how many letters there would be if she had never stopped writing, wondered if that small tin would even hold them all. Her fingers ticked under the blanket, itched for a pen.

“It was my fault.”