Torn

Liberated

Bellamy couldn't sleep. 

No matter how hard he tried, he kept tossing and turning. He listened to the voices outside the tent, the voices of campers sneaking away at night to fall in love. He listened to Clarke's soft breathing. He listened to the creaking of the bed every time he moved. 

No matter how hard he tried not to listen, he inevitably did. It was madness; and he couldn't stand it, he wouldn't. 

And as if on command, like some stupid self guilt he felt, Bellamy sat up. He sat up and silently cursed himself for caring, for being a jerk, for not being able to save this damn camp. His mind was going on overdrive and he needed to leave, not forever, just enough to clear his mind. He shoved his feet in his boots and left the tent.

Bellamy refrained from stealing Jasper's moonshine from the supply tent, much to his discontent, and walked to the river. When he reached its shore he didn't dive in, he didn't scream, he didn't run back and forth he just sat down on its coarse floor, his feet digging into the dirt.  He let the moonlight wash over him, he let the noises of the forest envelop him, he let his worries wash away with every lap of the waves. Bellamy took a deep breath, afraid that he would cry. 

Was it okay for him to cry? How much longer could he keep up his facade? How much longer could he look in the mirror and the only thing he sees is a monster? He was so angry. Angry at his mom for dying, angry at his dad for leaving, angry at Jaha for forcing Octavia to hide under the floor for sixteen years. He was furious at being sent down here, furious at the Grounders for killing his friends; but most of all he realized just how much he hated himself. Absolutely disgusted by his character. He realized now more than ever, sitting alone under the moon on the beach, just how hopeless he was. He couldn't save them, hell, he couldn't even save himself. How was he to expect to save the 46 if he lost his sister on a weekly basis. 

So yes, it was okay for him to cry. It was okay to cry. 

So he did; for the first time in thirteen years. He wept, his head tucked down, his knees close to his chest. He wept in misery, in agony. He wept for as long as the voices in the forest died down and the moon left its place high above the earth. He wept for all those years building inside them, for every failure that he refused to cry over, he did. That night he wept out thirteen years of tears, staring from when he was eight with the death of his mother to now at age twenty one with the death of his friends. And what he felt was unexplained. 

What he felt, that was indescribable to him at that moment, was liberation. Bellamy Blake was liberated.