Jigsaw Girl

All my love

Chapter 13- For you, Clarke

"I love her and that's the beginning and end of everything."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Letter to Isabelle Amorous, Feb 1920

I'll admit, when I finished Clarke's letter the first time, it felt as if I was being choked. It was like her words wrapped around my throat like a fist, squeezing for all they were worth and I was powerless to them. And I don't know how long I remained like that, gasping for breath alone in my kitchen, but I know I didn't move until my phone rang.

Somehow the ringing of the phone was able to break through the ringing of pain my ears. I scrambled around the loft, looking for it and praying that it was Clarke on the other line.

"Clarke!" I didn't even take the time to check the caller ID.

"Um no... it's Octavia. I was trying to get ahold of Clarke, but I take it she's not with you? Is everything ok?"

I don't know how long I was silent, but it was long enough for Octavia to repeat my name a few times.

"Lexa! What the fuck? You're scaring me!"

"She's gone." They were simple words, and yet the hardest ones I've ever had to speak.

"What?"

"She left me. She left us." I reached for the letter and before I could stop myself, started reading it out loud for Octavia.

After I finished, she was silent for a few seconds and I wondered if the call had dropped.

"I'm on my way, Lexa. I'll call everyone and we're going to find her. She couldn't have gotten too far."

We hung up and all I could do while I waited for her, was read the letter over and over again. Everything in it felt like a lie. There wasn't someone else out there for me, only Clarke and she wasn't going to rip me apart. Or turn me into Abby. She had always done the opposite for me. Clarke built me up and made me better. She made me whole, and no matter what a life with her entailed, I would willingly take it. I didn't want a so called "perfect life" with someone else. That's not my definition of perfect. Perfect for me, was Clarke, in every way. My perfect was in every jagged piece of her that held the monsters and blood, just as much as in the soft and rounded pieces. Why couldn't she see that?

I'd lost count on how many times I had read it by the time Octavia arrived. She had been crying and that was when I realized I hadn't shed a tear yet. Foolishly, I took that as a sign. I wasn't crying, because she wasn't really gone.

I put the letter back on the island, grabbing my shoes and phone. My adrenaline soared as high as my hope did in that moment. "We're going to find her. Come on."

We met up with everyone at the gym and then searched for hours, hitting up all of Clarke's favorite spots. It was eerie, the overwhelming sense of déjà vu we all felt. We had been in that position before, searching and wondering where she could be.

I tried very hard to hold on to my hope that we were going to turn the corner on Woodward Ave, and see her waiting at the bus stop. Or, that when we went back to check the Riverwalk for the fifth time, I would see her head of cotton candy hair, sitting at our spot.

It didn't happen though. Not that first day, or the second. And when Octavia suggest we file a missing persons report, I begged her not to give up yet. That we had to check all the spots again one more time. She knew we weren't going to find her, she knew it and deep down I did too, but still she took pity on me.