Nerve; 15
A week before school starts, you work up the nerve to make your way across the road. You’re not sure what you’re doing; reintroducing yourself? “Welcome to the neighborhood, I’m the kid who was in love with you when we were little, hope you remember me, sucks about your dad.” What the hell, Lexa. But you wait until Abby’s car was gone and make your way over, hands in your pockets and kicking rocks along the driveway. You can hear loud music as you get closer so you figure Clarke is actually home.
You ring the bell and the music lowers a few decibels before the door is cracked open. A face appears between the door and the frame, messy blonde hair falling everywhere.
“Yea?” Says Clarke, and you forget how to breathe. She’s looking at you curiously, pulling the door a little wider, and something flashes in her eyes. “Lexa? Is that you?” She steps outside and your heart is fluttering and your head feels swimmy and maybe it’s showing on your face because Clarke looks concerned. “Lexa, are you okay? You look like you’re going to…”
Her voice fades out as the ground rushes up to meet you and you have half a second to realize that even if you’re not actually passing out, the impact is about to do it for you.
You come to with your head in Clarke’s lap as she wipes blood off of your face with her shirttail. It takes you a second to get it all back, and then your faces flushes. She grins and helps you up. “Well, if that’s your reaction to my painting clothes, I can’t wait to see how you feel when you pick me up for prom.” And just like that, everything falls back into place.
She leads you inside and shows you to the bathroom so you can clean yourself up. Your jaw is scraped up and you managed to put a good gash in your forehead, but nothing that’ll need stitches. You’ve done worse on your skateboard, so probably no one at home will ask and you won’t have to tell them that you literally were overcome by seeing Clarke after all this time. You blush again as you head back out to the kitchen.
“Come here and let me look at your face.” Clarke is waiting for you with a first aid kit and she makes you sit at the bar so she can dab antiseptic cream on your jaw and stick a bandage on your forehead. She hums quietly, standing between your knees while her fingers brush over your face, and you shyly reach out to put your hands on her hips. Clarke kisses the tip of your nose and then blushes.
“Sorry…I don’t mean to assume anything. It’s just, you’re here and I never thought I’d see you again and I imagined so many times that I’d find you, when we were older, and then. Here you are, standing on the doorstep.” She’s starting to babble so you pull her closer and she stops, looking at you hesitantly.
“I told you. Osir gonplei no ste odon nowe, Klark kom Skaikru. Ai hod yu in.”
Clarke nods and presses her face into your neck. “Ai hod yu in, Leksa.”
You’re almost surprised, but Clarke always was smart; it would be silly to think she’d never do something as simple as a Google search to find out what you’d said to her when you left. The two of you stay like that for a few moments before you realize that Clarke is still wearing the shirt she was using to wipe your face earlier.
“D’you want to go change? You’ve got blood, on your shirt. Sorry.”
“Oh. Yea, I should do that. And probably clean up my paints. Stay right here?”
“Of course.”
She comes back a few minutes later in a clean tank top with a handful of paint-covered brushes. These get rinsed out in the sink before she turns back to you, drying her hands on a dish cloth. “So. Want to go for a walk? There’s a creek in the woods behind the yard.”
You smile and stand up. “That sounds great.”
“Okay, but you have to promise not to pass out again.” She leaves a note for Abby on the fridge and grabs her phone and house key.
You follow her out the door, laughing and blushing. “Alright, listen. We don’t talk about that. It stays between us. You’ll ruin my image.”
The two of you cross the backyard and head into the woods, laughing, and for the first time in years, things feel right and easy.