Conflate | Bellamy Blake ¹ ✓

※ | chapter nine

❝it's unbelievable how you can affect someone so deeply and never know.❞

-michael clifford, 5 seconds of summer

♛

LATE THAT NIGHT I'M lounging around with Octavia, neither of us up for doing anything. Yesterday's events have shaken the whole camp. Nobody feels like working much except trying to relieve the stress or repress the memories. For Octavia and I, it's having endless conversations about nothing. For Bellamy, it's sleeping with girls. I don't know where Clarke has gone.

I sigh, despondency brewing up when I remember how close we had been before I was imprisoned. I could tell Clarke anything without having to worry about judgment. We couldn't go a day without seeing each other. We helped one another with our classes. For most of my life I could see what it would feel like if I was allowed to have a sister.

But now, after two years, things have changed. Clarke is still the same but with slight differences. I almost never see her or talk to her compared to how much I used to, and it bothers me. She's always with Finn. Sometimes I don't think she realizes how much I miss her. Octavia and I are growing ever closer, but it will never be the same. Our relationship is entirely different to the one Clarke and I have. Had. Our friendship is bent, and I don't know how to fix it.

"What are you thinking about?" Octavia asks quietly. She sits with her back against the trunk of a tree, sitting in the soft moss at its roots. The multiple campfires and torches around us illuminate her shiny face in a fiery glow.

I shrug, my oily hair falling into my face. I flick it over my shoulder before responding. "Relationships. How they aren't the same."

Octavia nods in understanding. "I agree. Though Bellamy is still extremely overprotective, he's edgy. Something's off." Her chapped lips pull into a slight frown and her eyes wander off in thought. "Maybe he hasn't slept with enough girls."

Her sentence takes me by surprise and I burst into laughter. Octavia smiles along with me, her eyes crinkling at the corners. I sober up and admit, "Probably."

Octavia leans forward and moves her eyebrows up and down with a teasing smirk on her face. "Maybe you're next."

My mouth drops to form an 'O' and this time, she is the one to laugh. I scrunch my face up and smack her lightly on her arm. "Shut up! I'm not into pointless affairs like that."

A sound that's kind of like a rocket causes us to stop and listen. It grows louder and louder with each passing second. After one glance at one another, Octavia and I are standing up and moving quickly toward the center of camp.

"Bellamy, get out here!" Octavia shouts near his tent. I stand beside her and stare up at the sky, where a single pod is descending to Earth at an extremely fast rate. There's a ring of orange and yellow at the top of it from the burning atmosphere. I'm vaguely aware that Bellamy is now near us, his eyes locked on the pod. "There!" Octavia points to it as more people gather around us.

"They're coming to help us!" Jones exclaims excitedly as a parachute deploys from the pod and decreases its speed. "Now we can kick some Grounder ass!" A collection of pleased agreements rises up from the small gathering.

"Please tell me they brought down some shampoo," some random girl mutters. She has dark hair pulled back with braids and a sharp jaw with a pointed chin. A thick blanket is wrapped around her tall frame. I recognize her as one of the girls who emerged from Bellamy's tent and roll my eyes, taking a step away. As I do so, I bump into Bellamy himself and trip over my own feet. Almost automatically, he catches me and I'm staring up at his smirking face.