Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You think I don’t know that?” Abby yells at her daughter. “You act like I have a choice! We don’t have the money to live in the city anymore, Clarke.”

Clarke looks at her mother, tears welling in her eyes. “You can’t make me leave! Just like that? I have one year left. One! I have friends, Mom.”

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit,” Abby sneers. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw Niylah.”

Clarke looks at her mother with disgust. “Fuck you!” she yells back and quickly turns on her heel. She runs up the stairs as tears stream down her face. Fuck her mom and her new job. They have lived in the city since Clarke was twelve years old. It’s all that she knows, and now her mother is ripping it away from her, as if her life hasn’t changed enough in the past year.

Moving all the way from New York City to some random town upstate is not only painfully inconvenient, but also, in her eyes, incredibly cruel. She has one year left of high school, and she prefers to finish it around people she grew up with — even if she doesn’t talk to her friends as much as she used to.

It is apparent to everyone in her life that after the crash she was never the same. She’s a shell of who she used to be, in all honesty. Her friends try to be there for her — they really do — but they can only handle her anger to a certain extent.

It isn’t that she is angry at them, per se, but rather the world. She curses God, or whoever controls her existence, asking why it has to be her to shatter her leg. Why she has to live with a permanent disability the rest of her life. The stupid brace that everyone looks at — she curses God for it. She curses God repeatedly. She asks why it has to be her — why it has to be him.

If someone were to tell her a year ago that she would no longer hang out with her friends, or that her grade average would be a C, or even that she would wear sweatpants and sweatshirts to school every day instead of a real outfit, she would have told them they were lying. If someone were to tell her that her father would die in a car crash with her sitting in the passenger seat, she would have
punched them in the face.

She thinks back to the moment her life changed forever. One moment Jake and she were peacefully driving on their way to the grocery store, and the next, a Ford truck rammed directly into the driver’s side, effectively crushing her father.

The car had rolled onto its side, her head hitting the cracked passenger seat window. It took a few seconds to regain her bearings before she touched her head and felt the warm blood.

The whole car was crushed. When she looked down into the footwell, she noticed that the dashboard had crumpled in on itself and her left leg. She tried to move; she had so much adrenaline coursing through her that she barely felt any pain. She started tugging on her leg with her bloodied hands, but the only thing that came from it was the fabric ripping against the splintered plastic of the dashboard. In a time that felt much longer than a few seconds, she craned her neck towards her father. She wished that she hadn’t.

“What the fuck!” she screamed. “Dad!”

Her father hung limp from his seat above her, the whole left side of his body crushed. Blood dripped down his face onto her. Her dad, the man who had raised her, was unrecognizable next to her.

She began screaming from the top of her lungs, thrashing against her seatbelt. Her brain was too muddled to think straight. Never in her life had she seen so much blood. She reached out to grab him, clawing at his seatbelt, trying to find a way to get him out. She wasn’t thinking straight. She wasn’t even unbuckled.

“Dad? Dad!” she yelled. “Wake up, Dad!”

But he wasn’t going to wake up.

-------------

She stands in her room; the walls are bare for the first time since her family moved in. It is an odd sight and makes Clarke uncomfortable. She wonders what the new house will look like.

“Moving truck’s here!” her mother calls from downstairs.

Clarke sighs. She picks up her suitcase full of the rest of her clothes and leaves her childhood room one last time.

“Coming,” she calls back as she pads down the steps.

It has been a week since her mother broke the news about moving upstate. The town is called Arkadia. It’s a relatively small town, but big enough that not everybody knows each other. Abby’s friend, Dr. Kane, works at a hospital there — he’s the one who put in a good word for Abby. Since the town is smaller, so are the hospitals, and Arkadia Medical Center was in need of a new Chief of Surgery, so Abby quickly took the job. It pays better than her current job, just with a little less prestige than working at New York-Presbyterian.

It is currently Friday. Abby wants to have them moved into their new house by Saturday, and they both start their respective schedules on Monday — Abby with her new job, and Clarke with her new school.

To say Clarke is nervous about the fresh start is an understatement. She couldn’t be more nervous, in all honesty. At her current high school in the city, she knows everybody, even if she doesn’t really talk to them anymore. At Arkadia High School she won’t know anyone. The only comforting thing about all of this is that she has only one more year of school before she can leave that town for good and go to college.

“Help me get these boxes in the truck,” Abby says, pointing at the boxes next to the couch. “I want to get on the road as fast as possible.”

“Sure,” Clarke says, knowing her mom is already going to piss her off today.

They load the truck together while the U-Haul driver and his team work on getting the heavy furniture. Clarke is quiet the whole time.

“Are you really going to be like this the whole day?” Abby asks.

“Like what? I’m doing what you told me to do.” She shrugs. “Moving the boxes.”

“You know what I mean, Clarke.” Abby looks pointedly at her. “I really can’t deal with an attitude for five hours. Buck up, please. I’m asking this one time.”

Clarke looks at her mother incredulously, like she just told her to run fifty miles in an hour. “‘Buck up’? Seriously? How about you gain some sense and put all this shit back in the house so I can actually live my life!”
“Clarke!” Abby quietly snaps, so the movers who are exiting the house with the leather couch don’t hear. “Don’t disrespect me. We are leaving. Please start to come to terms with it. I know it’s hard, but it has to happen, and I need you to start acting mature about it.”

“Disrespect—” Clarke just shakes her head. She can’t believe this. Is her mother really this dense? “You know what? Fine, I’ll stop disrespecting you. Let’s just get this over with.”

Her mother nods her head in agreement, and they continue to pack the truck. They finish pretty quickly, much to her mother’s satisfaction, and get on the road almost as soon as the movers leave. Clarke has her headphones in, while her mom listens to a podcast. She would usually sleep during such a long car ride, but she is too distracted to focus on resting. She watches the city pass them with a melancholy feeling. She knows she has to come to terms with this move, but she can’t get out of her own sorrow.

Eventually the city turns to highways, and a few hours later, highways turn to suburbia. The first thing Clarke notices about Arkadia is that it’s pretty clean, much cleaner than the city, at least. At least that’s one pro to this whole disaster: no rats the size of cats. She rolls her eyes. There are no pros to this.

Driving through her new neighborhood, she notices it is relatively well off. The residents here are probably upper-middle class. All the houses they pass are at least two stories, and a lot of the driveways have basketball hoops on them. She finds it strange. Back in the city there were plenty of outdoor courts — she doesn’t get how people can play basketball on a slanted driveway.

“This is it,” Abby says.

Clarke turns her head, peering through her mother’s window, before they turn directly into the driveway. It is a nice house, yellow on the outside, with a few trees. From what she can tell, there’s even a fenced yard peeking into her line of sight.

And of course, a basketball hoop on their slanted driveway.

Chapter Text

Clarke stands in the foyer, taking in her new “home.”

The walls are a cat-puke yellow. She wonders if an elderly couple lived here last because there is absolutely no way anyone below the age of forty would have that color on their wall. To add to the “charm,” the floorboards creaked as soon as she entered. There are also scratch marks on the wood, furthering her belief that an old cat lady must have lived here.

So much for an upper-middle-class neighborhood, she thought.

Besides the squeaky floorboards, the house is silent. Almost too silent. It’s much different than the bustling of the city.

The door creaks as it opens behind her.

“Not too bad, huh?” Abby asks, putting her hand on Clarke’s back.

Clarke rolls her eyes and pulls away from her mother’s touch. “Where’s my room?”

Abby sighs. “Upstairs; first door to your right.”

Clarke turns on her heel, quickly heading up the steps in the foyer. Again, the floor squeaks.

The second floor isn’t much different than the first floor. The same puke color adorns the walls, along with the same scratched floorboards.

The hallway is narrow. Clarke assumes that the doors must have to be pushed inward, because there is no way it’s possible to open them without hitting the other wall. After passing what she assumes is the bathroom, she gently opens her bedroom door. A cloud of grey particles puffs in her face as the door opens. She coughs, blinking fast through the plume of dust. She wonders when the last time someone actually lived in this house was. Her mother would surely try to convince her that the house was amazing and full of “charm.”

Yeah, charm her ass.

The room itself isn’t too bad. In front of her is a large window with a thin tan curtain. The sun peeks through, illuminating the whole room. Just outside she sees her neighbor’s house. There is a window directly in her line of sight, but the blinds are closed. That house looks much nicer.

An upside to the room is that her walls are a cream color. Clarke doesn’t know if she’d have been able to stand that terrible yellow in her bedroom. The plan is to adorn the walls with her artwork. Her room in Manhattan was decorated nicely but covered in old painful memories that were too hard to take down. Now she has no choice since the room is already bare.

The closet on her left is open. It already has a wooden dresser, a broken one at that, and a rack with hangers inside it. The suitcase containing her clothes is still in the movers’ truck; she needs to get it soon. There is no chance that the weekend will be spent unpacking — she wants to get this over with as soon as possible. Maybe she can convince her mom to put some boxes in the garage and wait until Christmas break to unpack them.

Deciding that she is going to get it done as fast as possible, she starts toward the door but stops dead in her tracks when she sees something familiar in the corner of her eye.

It is a drawing on the wall.

Clarke slowly walks up the drawing. Dropping to squatting position, she traces her fingers along the crayon. A girl with blonde hair holding a brown-haired man’s hand. They stood on a green line of crayon, representing grass, and above the two was crayoned colored sky.

It could only remind her of her father. The way that he encouraged her art, whether it was a paper drawing or a crayon drawing like this one.

“Clarke! Jake!” Abby called out, looking for her family. It was unusually quiet in the Griffin household. But through the eerie silence, she made out hushed whispering. “Hello?”

“Hide, Clarke!” Jake said, laughing.

Abby heard little feet padding across the hardwood floor. Suddenly, Jake stood up and made his way around the other side of the staircase.

“Hey, babe,” he said sheepishly, leaning against the banister.

Abby eyed him suspiciously. “Where’s Clarke?”

“Oh, who knows. Probably at her desk drawing,” he said. “Kids—you never know what they’re getting up to these days.”

She heard giggling on the other side of the banister. “Yeah, you never do, do you?” she asked rhetorically, brushing past Jake to find her six-year-old daughter crouched down with a handful of crayons in her hand. “Oh, look. She’s drawing!”

Clarke giggled. “Look, Mommy,” she said, pointing a crayon at the wall in front of her.

“Now wait—” Jake interrupted.

“Clarke! What have you done?” Abby gasped, covering her mouth.

Before her, in their brand-new house, was a drawing on the white wall. Colorful crayons formed three stick figures—two larger ones holding hands with a smaller one in the middle. Around them were scribbles of red, blue, green, all mixed together. The only clear part of the wall art was the three figures in the center.

“Clarke, give me those!” Abby said, raising her voice. Clarke frowned, unsure why her mother was upset when, just moments before, she and Jake had been laughing.

“Abby, it’s fine. I’ll clean it with some Clorox wipes. She didn’t know any better,” Jake said, walking up to Abby and taking her hands. “Look how happy she is.” Jake had always been better at staying calm, and he knew how to soothe her temper.

Abby looked down at their daughter, who was smiling again after watching her parents interact. Abby squatted to get face level with Clarke. “You really do like to start trouble, don’t you?” she asked, grabbing Clarke’s chin playfully.

“Noooo,” Clarke said. “I just drew us a picture!” She giggled, reaching for her yellow crayon to scribble again—this time intercepted by Abby.

“You only get away with it once, bubba,” Abby said with a laugh. She rose to her feet. “Alright, I guess we can keep the drawing—at least until we move out.”

A floorboard creaks. “Not too bad, huh?” Abby says, breaking the silence.

Clarke lets her hand drop from tracing the drawing. “Not too bad—if you don’t mind that your house is falling apart,” she retorts, pulling herself upright.

“Hmm, I guess I don’t mind then,” Abby fires back with the same level of attitude as her daughter.

After spending five hours in the car with her mother, Clarke’s alone time is far overdue. “Do you need help? I know you want to get this move-in over with.”

Abby shakes her head. “No. You rest,” she says, then points her thumb at Clarke’s door. “I’m going to make sure all the furniture and boxes are in. I suppose it’s not that big of a deal if we wait until tomorrow to unpack.”

Clarke nods in agreement, but her eyes drift to the window. The tan curtain glows orange as the sun begins to set.

“How much do you want to bet that window won’t even open?”

Abby laughs. “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” she says, striding toward the window and unlatching the lock. Clarke watches in amusement as her mom struggles to shove the frame upward.

“Clarke, give me a hand.”

Clarke laughs and steps forward to help. Together they grunt as the window slowly opens. The wooden frame squeaks against its tracks, and flecks of paint fall onto their faces. They manage to get it halfway up.

“I don’t think it’s worth it,” Clarke huffs, wiping her sweaty palms on her shirt.

“Yeah, probably not.” Clarke thinks her mom sounds slightly defeated.

--------

After Clarke and Abby ate pizza in the new kitchen, she retreated to her room for the rest of the night, bringing a few boxes with her. She lay in her new bed, fiddling with an old Rubik’s Cube she had found in one of the boxes. She never knew how to solve one, but she had gone through a phase in middle school.

Her lights were off, the only illumination coming from her half-open window.

Chapter Text

Clarke woke up the next day to the blinding sun seeping through her curtains. She slept restlessly, but not so badly that she couldn’t function for the day.

She knew she’d have to help unpack today. There was no way they would be getting everything done like her mother had hoped, but they’d try.

After putting clothes on, she exited her room, yawning. Downstairs she heard the sizzle of a pan and smelled bacon. Strange. She hadn’t had a home-cooked breakfast in a long time. In fact, she hadn’t had one since her dad passed, if her memory served her right.

Nevertheless, she walked down the steps that led to the foyer and turned, heading into the kitchen. She found her mom standing over the stove, pushing bacon around in a pan.

She cleared her throat. Abby turned and looked at her, smiling.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Just some bacon. Thought it would be nice to have something homemade in the new house. Start fresh.”

Clarke nodded and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

“Sit,” Abby said, “it’ll be done in a moment. I have some Eggo waffles too.”

“Homemade meal, huh?” Clarke said, laughing lightly.

“You get what you get,” Abby responded, smiling.

Clarke sat at the table, slightly wary. It wasn’t that she was unhappy about her mother’s change in attitude, but rather confused. Abby and she hadn’t gotten along in quite some time, and she wondered if her mom was trying to make amends. Ideally, she’d like that, but so much had happened since her dad passed that she was unsure how they could move on from everything they had gone through.

“Unpacking today?”

“Yeah, gotta get stuff done before tomorrow. We don’t want to be behind,” Abby said. “We won’t be able to unpack more until the end of the week. You will be busy and so will I.”

“Yeah,” Clarke sighed. “Let’s just get it over with. I know it’s gonna suck.”

Abby brought Clarke a stack of waffles and some bacon.

“Eat now and get energized. It’ll help.” Abby put her hand on Clarke’s head in a loving sort of way. Clarke shrank away. Abby didn’t seem to notice.

“Okay.”

—

Much to Clarke’s surprise, the day went by smoothly. Unpacking wasn’t the worst since the movers had already brought in all of the heavy furniture.

Clarke started unpacking things for the family room, while Abby stayed in the kitchen unpacking pots and pans. The first floor got done within the day. Everything looked nice and orderly. It was one of the first moments Clarke felt anything but disdain for the move.

Later that evening, Clarke decided to make herself a sandwich, which was fine with her mom. They usually parted ways for dinner. The breakfast together had been more of an anomaly than anything else.

As Clarke sat in her bed eating her dinner, she had a Diet Coke on her side table that she was slowly drinking with her metal straw. By the time she finished her dinner, she got out of bed to throw her paper plate in the small trash can she had set next to her door.

Once she turned around to go lie down, the light that was constant in her window shone in her face. She went over to close it before she saw something.

Across from her was her neighbor. They had a thin curtain, so she could make out the outline of them. It looked like they were a girl because she could see the long hair through the shadow.

The girl was pacing back and forth, but Clarke couldn’t hear her. She decided to open her window, or at least try again.

Brushing the dust off from the base of the frame, she gripped the divot in the wood and pushed upwards. The wood creaked but barely moved. She kept pushing but made no progress until she looked up at the top of the frame and saw a latch. Of course, it was locked.

As soon as she popped the latch and pushed again, the window went right up. There was no fly-catcher screen, so she peeked her head out the window.

She heard the mumbled voice of the girl across the gap between the houses.

“No, Anya,” the girl said. Her voice was authoritative but soft. “You know how I feel. I’m not dating at all this year. Not after everything that happened. So just drop it.”

The girl sounded annoyed. Clarke wondered what had happened to make the girl not want to date anyone. But she felt like she was invading her privacy.

She went to close the window.

“I’m completely over her. That was over a year ago. I’m not gonna be hung up on someone who cheated. Please stop worrying—”

Clarke shut the window quickly. She was definitely getting into invasive territory. She still couldn’t help thinking who this girl was.

Or, better yet, why her friend was so worried about her dating, especially if she had been cheated on. It sounded like a weird conversation.

She pushed the thoughts out of her mind, though. It was none of her business.

Sighing, Clarke laid back down. When she closed her eyes, she saw the shadow of the girl across from her window.

Chapter Text

Monday came quickly. Clarke woke up to the sound of her mom walking around in the kitchen, the aroma of coffee and the clattering of pots and pans making their way upstairs. The first day of school was always stressful, whether you were going back to the school you had gone to your whole life or starting at a new one. Nevertheless, it was evident that attending a new school was much more stressful.

Clarke picked out her clothes. She wore a usual crop top with an oversized zip-up jacket, paired with baggy thrifted jeans. Clarke had never worried much about her fashion choices before, but after her injury, she became more self-conscious. She had to make sure she could find clothes that still looked good but hid her leg brace. Hence the fact that she thrifted more baggy clothes. A gold necklace with the initials JG on top of a cross sat on her bedside table. She quickly put it on. Clarke wasn’t religious per se, but she found comfort in the symbol. She liked to believe her father was in a better place. She wore the necklace every day.

After putting it on and finishing the final touches on her outfit, she made her way downstairs. Clarke was greeted by her mom.

“Hi, honey,” Abby said cheerfully, but Clarke could tell she was tired. The weekend had been long. All of the unpacking had drained them both.

“Hey. What are you making?”

“Just some coffee and eggs. Not gonna go too crazy this morning. I’m in a little bit of a rush.” Clarke looked at the clock on the microwave. It read half past seven.

“Don’t you have to be at work by eight?” Abby nodded.

“Yeah. Gotta pick up the pace, don’t I?” Abby tried to keep a calm demeanor, but Clarke could tell she was stressed. Clarke walked up behind her mom and took over with the eggs.

“Why don’t you just go sit down and drink your coffee, hmm?” Clarke said gently. “I’ll finish this.”

Abby sighed but listened. She sat at the wooden table nursing her black coffee — the kind Clarke hated. Clarke understood what her mom was going through to a certain extent. When Jake had died, their income was cut in half, and although Abby worked very hard in New York, the pay hadn’t been enough to continue living there. Clarke also sensed that there may have been too many memories of Jake left in New York. She sympathized with her mother on that level, but she was still frustrated. With everything that had happened, she wished that the two of them could keep some level of normalcy, but her world continued to shift.

Placing the eggs in front of Abby, Clarke said, “I’m going to get my bag. The bus is going to be here in like fifteen minutes. I’ll see you tonight?” Abby nodded.

Clarke grabbed an untoasted bagel before running back upstairs to grab her backpack. She double-checked that she had everything before leaving.

Being from New York, the family hadn’t had to worry about transportation. They had one car because they used the subway system primarily. Because of this, Clarke didn’t have her own car. She was resigned to take the bus every day for the school year.

The day was warm, and the morning sunshine beamed through the trees as she walked to the stop. She was glad she wore a crop top, but she took her outer layer off. She hadn’t realized it would be almost eighty degrees outside.

After a short walk, she came to a stop. A few students stood at the stop sign already. One was on her phone scrolling through some social media app, probably Instagram. And then there were two boys — an Asian boy with straight black hair and what looked to be his friend, a taller guy with floppy brown hair. The two boys were whispering to each other, but Clarke couldn’t make out the conversation.

Clarke heard the engine of the bus, and looking to her left, she saw the vehicle trudging toward them. She grabbed both of her backpack straps and stood behind the brown-haired boy, and once the bus came to a stop, they all climbed on in a line. The ride to school wasn’t too bad. There were already a few students on the bus, and along the way, they stopped about three more times, gathering at least ten more students. Clarke sat in her own row, leaning against the window. Her breath left a mark on the glass, and the bumpy parts of the road jolted her forward. She clutched the cross bearing her father’s initials, gaining some comfort from the action.

As the ride continued, she noticed how different it was to take a bus to school rather than the city subway. Instead of adults on their phones talking about work, students sat in the back of the bus chatting about their excitement for the back-to-school party. Instead of the metal screech of tracks and the standing poles she’d usually been stuck holding onto, she sat on a stiff bench seat, smelling gas and plastic. Clarke had never considered how much she would miss the sounds and smells of the city. Even if it was the trash left on the sidewalks that didn’t smell particularly good, it was still nostalgic. Now she was a normal suburban student.

The bus lurched to a stop, screeching — surprisingly similar to a train, just less metallic. The driver didn’t say anything, just opened the door. Students put their bags back on and began filing out of the vehicle. Clarke was one of the last to exit. She had attempted to stand several times but immediately sat back down because the students were moving too fast. She wondered how they were so awake to be moving as quickly as they were.

The high school was extremely large. There was a ramp and stairs leading up to the four glass-door entrance. To her left, the football field and bleachers stood loud and proud.

The bus behind her drove away with a plume of exhaust hitting her on its way out. She coughed and moved forward.

What looked like hundreds of students were exiting their buses. She assumed most of them were freshmen and sophomores since older grades probably drove. Some students climbed the ramp and others the stairs. She chose the ramp. She wouldn’t be able to climb so many steps with her leg brace. Waiting until most of the students had made their way up the ramp, Clarke started her ascent. She hadn’t wanted to slow anyone down or, more importantly to her, embarrass herself.

The school was completely digital. She was able to access her schedule via an online Canvas site that showed her all of her classes and homework. Arkadia High School didn’t have a homeroom. Instead, they went straight to their first class. Clarke’s first class was AP Calculus. Clarke loved math. A lot of people didn’t understand how that was possible. Most people gagged at the idea of willingly doing, or rather, enjoying math. But Clarke had found that once one understood math, it was actually fun. Admittedly, one of her favorite parts of being good at math was secretly knowing that she was pretty smart. She never told anyone this because she didn’t want to come off as cocky, but she liked being proud of herself — something that had been hard for her since the accident.

Clarke also liked art. She recognized that the interests were on completely different sides of the spectrum, but both of her parents had encouraged her to pursue whatever she wished growing up.

While both of her parents worked in STEM, and Clarke had known for quite a long time that she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps, her parents never wanted her to feel burnt out. Because of this, Clarke became very good at painting — particularly scenery. She knew it was somewhat cliché, but she loved Bob Ross. She could have chosen a more niche artist to follow, but his voice was just so soothing.

When she was about twelve years old, she had discovered him one afternoon when her father noticed her growing interest in art. At that point, she had not yet discovered her passion for oil painting. Jake, of course, knowing nothing about art, only knew the big names.

Clarke came downstairs from her bedroom to see her dad watching an art show. “

Hey, Dad,” Clarke greeted, walking into the family room. She looked at the television. A scruffy man with an afro was painting while talking quietly, saying something about happy clouds or something like that.

“Clarke!” he replied excitedly. “You seen this guy before?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so. Who is he?”

“This, my friend, is the famous Bob Ross. I’m almost positive he’s the best artist ever.”

Clarke looked at him skeptically but sat next to him.

“He paints with oil — wait, no, oil paint. Not just oil,” he said, laughing at his own mistake. Clarke just smiled. Jake pointed at the screen. “See? He paints nature. He’s pretty good, huh?”

“Yeah, he is,” Clarke agreed. “How do you know who he is?”

“Oh, he was pretty famous for my generation. He used to have a TV show and would invite people to watch and follow along. I never did. You know how bad I am at art,” he said, looking down at his daughter. “I’m nothing like you. You’re amazing,” he whispered, stroking her blond hair before landing a light kiss on the crown of her head.

Jake and Clarke watched the whole episode together. Clarke became entranced by the art — the oil paint, the scenery, the brushes, the man’s voice.

“So, do you want some supplies?” Jake asked excitedly once the episode had finished.

Part of Clarke was confused — Jake seemed more excited than she was. “Yeah, I guess we’ll have to get some oil paints,” Clarke said, laughing.

Clarke sighed.

She signed up for Painting 3. It was really more of a “go at your own pace” class. The teacher would assign projects, and since most students had taken all of the prerequisite art classes, they could use whatever medium they wanted and would most likely not need any help. The only thing they had to worry about was the due date. Clarke was rather excited. She felt that after the first week of icebreakers and syllabus speeches, she would have a relaxing class to go to where she could recharge and allow herself to get through the rest of her day.

The memory of her father lingered as she headed inside the double doors of her new school, ready for the easy and exciting classes. In fact, maybe even the harder ones. She wondered if the help of her necklace and the memories of Jake would get her through the day.

She hoped they would.

She needed the strength to push through.