You fell from the sky onto my ground

She stared into the sky past the window pane, down to the ground, Lexa’s ground, that was diminishing with each breathe. He knocked up on her shoulders giving her a questioning look, You ok? And Clarke had just smiled. That tight plastic one that people do so that your loved ones won’t know that havoc reigning within.

Bellamy planted a small peek on her lips, almost as if feeling her fight from within and that storm dissipated in her chest, for the time being at least.

“You are Clarke Griffin.”

Both their heads turned to the elated air hostess who shoved in front of the bit amused Clarke the NY magazine where Lexa had the front page article on “Clarke Griffin?”

She didn’t look up to say a “thanks” to the already fading hostess who had congratulated her on her success. Clarke opened up the page which portrayed that very first picture of her that Lexa had captured on their outing. Eating that pizza. Even the thought made her smile.

“Art Through the Eyes of a Novice” by Lexa Woods was lettered beautifully sculpturing her picture.

What is exactly is art to the unpracticed eyes of a person? In the words of Degas himself, “ Art is not what you see but what you make others see.” And I saw not just an application of human creative skill and imagination in a visual form of a painting, I saw the lyrics to that painting, the story blossoming in each of its strokes ……

And Clarke tuned out the rest of the materialistic world.

Unlike Raven Reyes, Octavia met Clarke or Clarke met Octavia who happened to be each other’s roommates during Clarke’s second year in college. O had apparently been a transfer student who considered the California University could give her a better sports scholarship than Chicago University. To say that they became instant friends would be the least for O integrated herself so articulately that soon, Raven, Clarke and O became “The Sinister Trio” (the name had apparently been Ray’s idea so you must know how that usually ends up).

O didn’t need to be told twice that she was also Clarke’s best friend but she also knew that sometimes Clarke failed to convey her thoughts to her as she does with Raven.

After the Finn series, everyone knew about her aloofness, rather her indifference to relationships but it escaped no one’s view of how she had started smiling again. That goofy kind of smiling again. Even though none of them met that girl personally, the way Clarke went on chanting about her, sometimes O wondered that maybe she did know Lexa, as if she was breathing inside the said blonde.

But soon enough when things didn’t work out with that said “Lexa” she shrugged it off, in the words of Clarke herself, “all good things come to an end, so no big deal”. Eyes are the windows of your soul and perhaps the door to your heart, so whenever Clarke lied, O could see a slight ignite in those blue stormy eyes. O learnt amidst all her best friend’s empty gestures that “Lexa” was never just a crush.

If someone asks O how the hell did Bellamy enter Clarke’s life, well O wouldn’t be able to answer you. She just knew that Bell was somehow always there and yeah maybe just his constant presence was a way of how he wormed himself in Clarke.

Bellamy and Clarke, they sounded good together, they were good together, they were cute, understanding and ok, good but that was it. Bellamy was good for Clarke and Clarke was good for Bellamy, but O didn’t know but somehow it lacked that “spark”, that eternal flame. That or O just was a sucker for romantic cheesy movies.

But O was somehow always right. A talent that she shared with Reyes. And her hypothesis of sorts was cemented when she first saw Clarke, a ghost of herself would be the correct phrase. O thought that maybe it was because of her journey but even she knew that she was trying to jump out the inevitable.

No sooner than two days ago, when Abby, O, Bell, Clarke and Kane sat down to decide on the wedding date, O could see Bellamy happy and Clarke trying to be happy, and somehow that was the major flaw. You don’t try to be happy, happiness should be you. O couldn’t feel less shocked when she noticed that Bellamy maybe didn’t notice that aghast look of his fiancée, even Abby was fidgeting in her seat trying to understand the mood of her daughter.

The opening of the car door jotted O out of her thoughts when she looked up to be Raven riding shortgun with her.

“Ready, Reyes?”

“As I’ll ever be, Blake. Let’s get Griffin.

“So, where are we going?”

Clarke was called by Ray and O saying they wanted to talk about her wedding plans since they were both her maids of honours of sorts. Clarke had been hesitant but Ray’s constant nagging was something she had yet to get accustomed with.

“A drive.”, O answered from her seat.

“A long drive.” , Raven said from hers.

“What’s with the sudden vagueness?”

O didn’t answer, looking up front the road and Raven snorted, adjusting her Ray Ban

It wasn’t until they came to the outskirts of the city with the never-ending road stretching ahead your north and south with almost very few or no forms of humanity, that the car came to a halt. The direction on the roadside placard wrote, Grover Beach – 30 Kms. Clarke didn’t realize that she just might have spaced out when Raven incessant calls brought her to reality.

“What’s going on Clarke?”

Clarke snapped, “Why, something should have been going on?”

O looked back to Clarke, “My, aren’t you being a sarcastic bitch days?”

“I think you need an intervention”, Raven declared all the while scampering to the backseat bedside Clarke.

“From what?”

“From yourself? I don’t know, what do you think?”, Duh, thought Raven.

“Did you meet Lexa?”

The way Clarke’s head jerked at Raven for putting it out in the open so bluntly, glaring at her as she flicked her eyes towards Octavia who didn’t say anything, who didn’t even appear to be surprised.

“You told her? When I told you not to?”

“Blame the alcohol-testing, Monty subjected me to. And the sub-conscious drunk Raven might have slipped it, I swear I didn’t, I never meant to. After a second, she added, I’m sorry Clarke.”

“Why shouldn’t she have told me? Is it because I’m your fiancé’s sister -----------

The way Octavia said it with a grief-stricken look on her face, Clarke had to nod her head in a negative.

------------ or because Lexa used to a crush? I mean, what’s the deal. Everyone has stupid crushes, they are like shitting tides, right Clarke?”

Clarke didn’t utter anything, she just sat at their backseat. Pacified. She might even appear a bit green exteriorly too, probably because she left on a empty stomach.

“Did something her, Clarke?”

No sooner the question was left to hung mid-air, with lightning speed, Clarke ran out of the car and went to the roadside to vomit out whatever the heck was grovelling inside. Raven and O ran out to her, holding out a bottle of water to her.

“You ok?”

“Clarke, are you ok?”

“Yes.”

The sun seemed to hot and for once she wished if she should get burned alive in it. Her eyes were already betraying her voice and without much ado, she found herself in the middle of a tight hug.

“I want “it” to be Bellamy, O. I need it to be Bellamy.” Clarke said amidst her warm tears

“I know, Princess.”

“I do love him, guys.”

“We know.” But you love her more, they wanted to add.

“Stop crying,” Clarke sniffled out. “Why are you crying?”

“Well you won’t stop crying anytime soon, so what kind of friends would we be if we let you cry alone, huh?” , ok so when Ray says things like that even dwarf grumpy would have had to smile.

She didn’t know how long, but it was O’s voice, her words that ghosted her dreams, “Griffin, we are the trio and you’ll always find me by your side but I’m also Bell’s sister. Do right by him too.

There are more hearts at stake than just yours, Clarke.”

She felt Bellamy behind her, felt his hands slowly move up to her waist, pulling her into him. She felt his lingering kiss on her cheek, as he slowly crept down wet kisses down her neck, brushing aside her hair. She thought it would feel right but somehow inside the pit of her stomach, it felt wrong. She knew it was wrong. When Bellamy twirled her around, Clarke shut her eyes, hoping that maybe he would evade that emptiness that was swimming in herself.

Bellamy knew Clarke, much more than he let on, so when he felt the tensed muscles of her, he knew that something was wrong. He could almost feel her catch a breath of surprise when he twirled her around to face him. For a moment he stood agape when he saw Clarke, her eyes shut but a small stream of water had yet found its passage past her eyelids.

“What’s wrong, Clarke?”

Clarke didn’t open her eyes. Like a 5-year-old she nodded her head, as if implying nothing was wrong, except her whole demeanor screamed quite the opposite.

“Hey, before we are anything, we are friends. As a friend, tell me what’s the matter? Come on, Clarke, if you won’t tell me what’s wrong my mind’s gonna wander to all sorts of had places, ok?”

“I can’t do this anymore, Bell. I just can’t.”

“Wha- ? I don’t understand, help me understand.”

“I can’t do us. I’m so sorry.”

Bellamy knew something gravely wasn’t right. But he didn’t know that the “us” that he had thought Clarke and he was, was the wrong thing.

“I can’t, shouldn’t marry you, vow myself to you when all the while I know I’ll be regretting it. You don’t deserve that, I don’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”

Clarke felt lightheaded so she found herself the support of the armchair. She knew she had opened the gates to a millennium of questions but they were all overdue anyway.

“Who is it? Is it that Lexa? Did you sleep with her?”

The sheer plea, that desperation in Bellamy’s voice when he asked her that made Clarke a wish to punch the wall. Maybe the ache will limit the guiltiness that slowly plagued her, to help her find her voice but none came out. The silence that followed gave Bellamy the answer that he needed.

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you ----“

But Clarke’s eyes stared him right in the eye, for she did bed Lexa. She did made love to her that night and what was worse was it felt so right. It felt right even when she was engaged to another and yet again on that unholy night Clarke’s voice betrayed her. And she knew that Bellamy knew and when she felt that echoing of pain on her right cheek seeping down herself, she didn’t flinch. She deserved it after all.

“Huh, you made a pretty great fool out of me. Did you, um, did you even ever love me or I ----- “

“I did, Bell. I do. I still love you. I just ----“

“You just love her more.”

Yes, Clarke did. She did and when she heard Bellamy say those words which she wanted so badly to avoid, it hit like a ton of bricks. Everyone knew about Lexa, the great love of Clarke, how she had pieced back her infinite pieces only to have broken it down too many more.

They all knew. And so did Bellamy. Bellamy had his guesses but when he saw that smile on Clarke’s face, that whole-room-illuminating-peaceful-smile, back when he went to surprise her in NY, he knew that Clarke was happy.

Maybe the happiest he had seen in his time. He couldn’t say that it didn’t hurt an ounce, it did, but to see your loved one’s smile, even if it’s not because of you, makes you smile to. He even remembered that heart wrenching look on her face when she had boarded that plane, the way she led onto that chestnut haired girl – Lexa at that restaurant, the way she trailed down the heights as the plane rose and the ground shimmered down into nothing but mere dots, counting them as if she was leaving a part of her in the realms of NY.

“I tried so hard not to. I did, Bell, I did. But the more I tried, the more it was as if avoiding the inevitable.”

And this hurt even more. Bellamy knew that Clarke wasn’t lying, she tried. He knew that she tried, he had that faith in her and that’s why it hurt even more, to have faith and watch it crumble, your sandcastle. Clarke slowly pulled out the ring from her left finger and handed it over to Bellamy.

“I made it for you. What will I do with it?”

“Improvise it a bit more, I guess and give it to someone who deserves it.”

“Does she know?”

“Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. I don’t know.”

“You won’t tell her?”

“I don’t know even if there’s an us. I don’t know what to tell her when she had given up on us, when’s she’s a freaking thousand miles away in some place living her dreams, those which would never involve me. It’s so tiring sometimes, you know.”

Clarke, you should let her go.

Clarke, she might love you but not as much as you do.

Clarke, you’ll only end up hurting more.

Clarke had tried. She did. But when she thought about it, maybe she didn’t try too hard, maybe some sadistic part of her loved to be burnt in the flames of Lexa Woods.

“As one friend to another, move on from her, Princess.”

Bellamy gave her a tight smile, Princess, no matter what they were, she will always be Princess to him.

Clarke gave a bitter laugh. Yeah, right.

“Yeah, one day or maybe forever. It takes as long as it takes.”

She snuffled as she felt strong arms engulf her tightly. Maybe this was how this was supposed to end, but still it hurt. Sometimes, she wished if loving someone could hurt anymore. But she also knew, Lexa was worth it and no matter how much she would bitch about her, at the end of the day, she loved her for all she was.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy.”

“Me too, Clarke. Me too.”