Chapter 1
Present
“Okay, Clarke! Okay. I’ll text you when I get to my car. I know what time it is. I know, I’m sorry. Love you too, Clarkey. I’ll be safe. Chill out I’ll be there in like twenty minutes tops.” Raven rolls her eyes as she hangs up on Clarke. Sure, it was almost three am and she told Clarke that she was going to be home by midnight but Raven lost track of time. Really, Clarke should know this would happen. In the end it was the librarian who forced her out, eyes bleary and red from staring at the computer screen for too long. So what if she accidentally cursed the librarian out, effectively earning her a two-week ban from entering again? She was in the middle of a thought that she wanted to finish and all of her friends and that librarian included learned the hard way that interrupting her didn’t make for a happy Raven. Regardless, the extra time she bought having the librarian print up her ban allowed her to finish up her paper. Tonight was a productive night even if it cost her a good nights rest, a ban, and Clarke was going to hand Raven her ass when she got home.
She pushes her glasses up her nose and clumsily shoves her headphones into her headphone jack as she makes her way toward the parking lot. She presses play and music soon follows as Raven yawns and digs into her pocket for her keys. Another worried text from Clarke comes across her phone.
To Princess Griff:stop worrying!!!! im getting an A on that paper and you’re killing my vibe princess!!!
And then another because Raven’s an awesome best friend.
To Princess Griff:is lex there tonight? mcdonalds on me for making you worry
Raven clicks send after adding a string of emojis, laughing at the order that Clarke sends nearly immediately in reply. Clarke worries too much for her own good and Raven worries too little. Truthfully, Raven probably was the reason that Clarke worried as much as she did. Twelve years of being best friends with a girl who regularly tried to blow things up would do that to a person.
Raven can’t complain too much, though. Clarke’s saved her ass more times than she can count and since she started dating Lexa she’s mellowed out a bit. Domesticated Clarke sure is a stark difference from when they were kids. Raven picks up her leisurely pace when Lexa’s text, her own order to McDonald’s, comes across her phone.
Campus at night was quite, especially on a Thursday night. There were a few students in the same position as her, headphones in, absently wandering home after studying too long for their own good. A few walk hand in hand toward the on campus housing. A few other are just walking around. Raven rounds the final corner to the parking lot and spots something out of the corner of her eye. A girl lies in the grass beside a tree, head tilted up toward the sky with a textbook resting on her stomach. The familiarity of it causes Raven to freeze. It couldn’t be…
She fumbles for her phone, hurrying to pause her music. She drops her headphones and tucks them into her shirt with hands that grown increasingly sweaty. McDonald’s is going to have to wait.
Raven takes cautious steps toward the girl underneath the tree. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen something like this on campus, students slept and studied underneath them all the time when it was more convenient than heading home before a next class. But really, this was creepy. She’s approaching some girl on a hunch that she seems vaguely familiar. That reasoning almost causes her to turn around, too, but then she catches a glimpse of something that makes her eyes widen and feet spring forward: dark hair and braids.
It happens so quickly. Suddenly, the girl is snapping toward Raven defensively, mouth open and ready to defend. She flies to her feet and her eyes, pale green, widen in surprise when they both get a good look of each other. Raven audibly gasps. Another gasp soon follows that’s not her own.
“Raven?”
Who knew that two syllables could knock the wind right out of her? Suddenly, she’s not eighteen anymore. She’s sixteen and Octavia’s pressing wet kisses to her neck. She’s fifteen and Octavia’s smearing ice cream on her lips. She’s fourteen and they’re back in that damn tree house, staring up at the stars like Octavia was only moments before.
“Octavia?”
She’s thirteen and Clarke, Octavia, and Raven are all watching Lilo and Stitch again. She’s twelve and Octavia’s catching fireflies in the middle of the night because they’re both scared of the dark. She’s eleven and they’re lying tangled in bed, passed out with Clarke wedged between them.
“I can’t believe you’re here. Bell and I… We just assumed you’d gone somewhere else.”
She’s ten and they’re defending themselves against John Murphy’s water balloons with super soakers.
“Do- do you go here?”
She’s nine and Octavia’s decking Finn Collins in the mouth for kissing Raven on the cheek.
“Yeah. Got a scholarship. Bell transferred and helped me move back out here. You?”
She’s nine and Octavia’s decking Finn Collins in the mouth for kissing Raven on the cheek. Eight and they’re both spending the night at Clarke’s house for the first time.
“Yeah.. Yeah, Clarke too,” Raven adds quickly, breathing out unsteadily for ten different reasons all at once. “Do you live on campus?”
She’s seven and she’s meeting Octavia for the first time all over again.
“No, Bell and I live in an apartment a couple miles from here.” Octavia stares and it makes Raven uneasy.
“Oh.”
It’s awkward and it’s weird that it’s awkward. Her former best friend of nine years stands in front of her and Raven doesn’t know where she’s been for the past two years.
“Do you have a pen?” Raven says suddenly. Octavia nods and bends down to dig into her bag and retrieve one. “Listen, I have to go. Clarke… She’s going to kill me. And McDonald’s. I- I have to get McDonald’s.” Raven takes the pen and grabs Octavia’s forearms and starts to scribble numbers onto it. She hopes Octavia can’t feel how sweaty her hands are. “But O, listen, you call me, okay? Clarke and I, we’re still at the same place.”
When she looks back up at Octavia after dropping her arm and handing back her pen, she’s staring. Her pale eyes send shivers down Raven’s spine that remind her all too well of where they left things off two years ago.
“You wear glasses now,” Octavia states.
Raven subconsciously touches them at her words. She’d gotten them when she was seventeen, a year after Octavia disappeared. “Just for reading.”
“You still wear the brace?”
Raven frowns and tugs at the bulkiness of that, too. “Some things never change?”
Octavia laughs, the same bright, familiar smile gracing her lips. “You look good, Rae.”
Raven blushes and she’s thankful for the coverage the poorly lit campus offers. “You too, O. I like the braids.”
Octavia lingers a second more and it’s not awkward this time, it’s familiar. She smiles faintly and drops back down to pick up her book and her bag that rest at the base of the tree. “I’ll call you, Rae.”
Raven nods. “You have a ride?”
“Yeah, Bell’s coming to get me.”
Raven smiles at the thought of the boy. “Tell him hi for me?”
“Course. Tell Clarke I miss her. And Abby, too.” It knocks the air out of Raven for the second time that night. Suddenly she remembers that Octavia’s beengone and all she wants to do is draw Octavia in for a hug like they’re kids again and ask her where she’s been. And Octavia, always knowing even after years of being apart, her brows knit together for a second before she’s tugging on the edges of Raven’s uni sweatshirt and pulling her into her arms. “And you, Raven. I really missed you.”
Eventually, they’re pulling away from each other again and Raven’s head spins in a mix of sleep deprivation and a flare of emotions. “I missed you, too.”
They part and Raven gets to her car as quickly as she can and she drives straight home. Her heart beats too quickly and the entire time high school floods back to her, Octavia floods back to her.
She doesn’t get McDonalds and Clarke’s quick to comfort when she storms into the house looking frazzled and upset.
“Raven? What happened?” Clarke asks while Lexa lingers behind the two of them, wanting to help but not knowing how. “Where’s the food? Are you okay?”
Raven doesn’t say anything for a while. She lets herself calm down in her best friend’s arms. In the morning she’d probably blame her nerves and the fact that she’d stayed up until 3am writing an essay but right now Octavia’s return made her feel like her world was falling apart. Again.
“Raven?”
“Octavia’s back.”
“She’s back?” Clarke nearly squeaks, gripping Raven a little tighter. “Are you okay?”
“I was over her."
"And?"
"And then she said she missed me."