The Slowest Burn - Bellarke

Bellarke Modern AU- The Tutor (Part 1)

*Clarke Griffin is in desperate need of cash, and Bellamy Blake's rich overbearing step-father is willing to give it to her if she gets Bellamy through high school*
*Trigger warning: abuse, drug use.*
***

The sun shone through a crack in the blinds, casting a golden glow on a very sleepy Clarke Griffin.

The girl huffed, rolling over and trying to will herself back to sleep. She'd only gotten home from the graveyard shift at the diner at 2, she needed at least a few more hours before she had to get up and go to school.

To her surprise, and much to her alarm, she could hear the sound of the shower running, she forced her tired legs out of bed and down the hall, toward the bathroom.

The hall light was on, flickering insistently at her. She knew she needed to get it fixed, but until her next pay there was nothing she could do.

"Mom." Clarke called into the seemingly empty bathroom.

She moved into the room then, her mother was nowhere to be found, but the shower was still running.

Clarke reached in to turn off the taps and realised it was ice cold. She touched the hot water tap, it was on, and who knows how long for.

"Shit." She cursed.

"No hot shower for me I guess." She turned the taps off, exiting the bathroom in search of her mother.

She moved toward the kitchen, to find her mother sitting on the back patio, their golden retriever Picasso splayed across her lap.

"Mom?" Clarke asked, allowing the frustration to enter her voice.

She threw open the glass door.

"What the hell, mom?"

"Oh Clarke." Her mother turned to her with glassy eyes.

"You're up early."

"Mom," Clarke sighed sympathetically, moving over to sit next to her mother on the steps.

"What're you doing out here?"

She knew she had to be gentle with her. Ever since her dad had died, Clarke's mother had been inconsolable. She quit her job, stopped going to AA and was up at all hours. Clarke was terrified for her, but also terrified to speak up.

"I was going to take Picasso out for a morning run," she said, scratching between the grateful dogs ears.

"But when I got out here- it just seemed too much." She said quietly.

"You left the shower on."

"Oh did I?" The woman laughed softly.

"Must have forget to turn it off when I got out last night."

"Last night- I- Jesus Christ Mom, do you know what our water bill is gunna be like?" Clarke asked, losing it a little.

"I'm sorry, Clarke." Her mother was crying then.

Clarke sighed, pulling the woman close to her.

"I know." She whispered.

"I know you are."

***

Bellamy Blake scaled the distance from his second story window to the roof with ease.

He'd done it what felt like a thousand times before.

Waiting for him was his best friend, who was also, conveniently, his weed dealer.