Corrupted Constructs

Chapter 31

Again, Lexa can't stop her eyes from rolling at the blonde beside her.

"Whatever you say, Clarke," Lexa speaks when a thought pops up in her head. Another question she never got answered. Another thing that still hurt. Another lie.

"Was it a lie when you told me you wanted me to meet your friends and family? You were well aware that was never going to be an option," the brunette blurts out.

She can feel Clarke's eyes trailing over her entire body before the blonde responds, "No, it wasn't. I meant every word of it. And at the time I had convinced myself it would in fact be an option because I was hoping with everything inside me that it might be."

"Oh, come on, Griffin. You knew exactly how this would play out. You knew exactly what this would do to me. To us."

Clarke bites her lip as a look of hurt flashes across her face.

"I knew what was likely to happen, but you often made me forget that it would. To me, we felt real. To me, we were real even if it was under false pretenses initially. Besides, there was nothing I wanted more than for it NOT to happen. There still isn't anything I'd want more."

"You and me both," Lexa mumbles under her breath, quickly lighting up a second cigarette as her first one has burned out.

"Why were you acting so strangely all throughout January? You were distant and weird," Lexa asks, hoping Clarke did not hear her previous words.

"Why do you ask me questions you already know the answers to?"

"I don't know anything when it comes to you," Lexa retorts coldly.

"Sure, keep telling yourself that," Clarke now mumbles. "You probably know me better than anyone, Alexandria."

"Somehow I doubt that," the brunette counters. "Now answer the question, you keep changing topics."

"Fine. My time was running out to find any evidence that you were innocent or that someone else did it. My time was running out to spend time with you. My time was running out to convince you I didn't mean to hurt you. My time in which you didn't hate me was running out. Your time of being happy was running out," Clarke says flatly, her gaze unfocused and distant. "I felt sad, so incredibly sad, desperate, and above all, I felt so guilty. So, I couldn't face you. I couldn't pull either one of us in even deeper. It would only hurt more. For both of us."

"Was there no point in time where you wanted to tell me the truth?"

"Yes and no. I knew you'd hate me, but I wanted to be honest with you. Maybe if I had told you, things would have been different. I would have lost my job anyway, but we could have been..." Clarke trails off.

"We could have been what?" Lexa asks.

"Nothing. It's my turn first."

Alexandria is about to point out that there would be no omittance of truth, but Clarke is quicker in asking her question.

"Are the plants on the roof in bloom still?"

Again, the brunette is taken aback by the complete switch in gears, but her astonishment soon turns to sadness.

"I wouldn't know. Haven't been there in months."

Clarke's eyes meet hers and they carry the same sadness.

Lexa had let those plants die like Clarke let their love die.

The only difference was that Clarke started this entire journey with ill intent while Lexa just couldn't bring herself to go to that glass room again. Not after Clarke. She could not face the memories it now held.