This is not edited. Because it is late. And I don't want to make you guys wait another day. But ignore any mistakes. They will be fixed. And I hope none of this seems rushed; I don't think so. That's always my concern. Please review!

"It must be difficult, not having your mother around very often. Do you think her presence would help you?"

I sat across from Marcus, my hands tucked neatly in my lap. He was just as he was last week, as if he hadn't moved at all. It was Sunday evening now, and though I'd assumed therapists went along with the general rule and took the weekend off, that seemed not to be the case when I was concerned. He said he was repaying a favor to my mom, for keeping his cranium intact after his accident.

I would've laughed if the image didn't fill my mind with the pictures of blood and broken bone.

I looked from him to the coffee table. It was perfectly clean, no hints of brown stains or dried circles. Either no one used it, or Marcus was paid enough to keep even his office furniture in mint condition. Looking at the way he dressed, you wouldn't think he made much. But then your eyes would catch on the nice watch glinting on his wrist and end on his polished shoes, and you'd know he made plenty.

I shrugged. "Before, maybe. Not much now."

"Why not?"

"Because like you said, she wasn't around much. She compromised knowing me for being the best at her job."

A line appeared between Marcus's brows and he readjusted his posture. "And you resent her for that?"

I shook my head, somewhat annoyed. I was reminded of that one film with Lindsay Lohan and her mother who worked as a therapist. And how do you feel about that?

"I don't resent her at all," I said. "She loves her job. She saves lives. It's just fact that she doesn't know me as well as she thinks she does."

"She spoke of a drinking incident. That you came home drunk one day."

My hands curled into fists in my lap. "That happened once," I said for what I hoped was the last time. "And I wasn't drunk when I came home. I was at the party, but I . . . stayed at a friend's house," I said quickly. "And was driven home the next morning."

"I see," he said calmly, nodding for emphasis. Not a strand of hair came out of its place.

"About friends. Do you talk about any of your struggles with them?"

Automatically, my thoughts went to Bellamy, sitting on my porch, talking about beating fathers and cigar burns, the size of nickels. "Yeah."

"And do they seem to share your mother's concerns?"

Thalia flashed through my mind. She and I had been friends for years, yet did she honestly know what I was dealing with? How could she? Her family was still intact. Whenever I ate over at her place, I couldn't remember a time her father came home and didn't peck his wife on the cheek. I couldn't remember when her mother didn't smile back and lean into him. No, Thalia couldn't understand.

My thoughts returned back to Bellamy, and I was suddenly struck with the knowledge that the guy I'd met only a couple months ago knew me better than my lifelong friend did. Than even my own mother did.

"Not really," I said. "They think I'm ruining my chances."

Marcus raised the tip of his pen to his face, creating a small dimple in his cheek. "Do you?"

"Yeah," I replied honestly. "But I already knew that. I wasn't struggling to come to terms with it."

"Then what is it you are struggling with?" asked Marcus. He leaned forward. "What seems so hard for you to do?"

I thought of the torn textbooks. The ripped pages scattered across my bedroom floor. I remembered the hundreds and hundreds of hours I'd drowned myself in their words, tracing my fingers over every diagram. Drawing them until I remembered all the details. It wasn't only my heart I'd put into it. I'd put in my very soul, and heartbreak was nothing compared to a broken soul.

I returned my gaze to the coffee table. "To care."

********

The following day, I sought out Thalia. My previous session with Marcus prompted me to talk to her. Though I still wanted some space, I missed having her around. How we'd left things was a constant nag in the back of my head and it was something I knew a simple text couldn't fix. I had to be sure.

When the lunch bell tolled, I entered the cafeteria and found her at our usual, three-seated table. One for her, one for me, one for a ghost.

She looked up at me and her eyes widened ever so slightly. A straw was in her mouth, but she stopped drinking at my approach.

I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder, feeling awkward. We'd had plenty of fights before, but none so dark as last time. "Hey," I said meekly.

Thalia swallowed and set down the drink. "Hey."

"How've you been?"

"That was going to be my question."

I smirked. "I've been okay, I guess," I replied lamely. "You?"

She fiddled with the sleeve of her blue shirt. "Grand."

I sighed, giving up the charade of chitchat. "Are we okay?" I blurted.

Thalia gave me an incredulous look. "Clarke, we were never un-okay. Finn . . . died," the second word came out lower than the rest. "You're allowed to get pissed off. I shouldn't have said what I did anyway. I was in the wrong."

I unleashed the air I hadn't known I'd been holding. "I'm really glad. I"-

"But I am worried about you," she interjected. She splayed her hands on the table's surface melodramatically. "Clarke, what are you thinking? I saw the bulletin board. I've never seen you get anything less than an A in your whole life. The worst grade you ever received was a B in middle school. And I watched you cry over it for a week."

I'd known this was coming. It was actually nice. If the chair weren't empty at my side, it would've felt normal, just another Monday.

I searched for the right words. "It's just . . . not the same anymore." I shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me as much. Can we talk about something else?"This wasn't something I was really in the mood to discuss.

"All right," she nodded exuberantly. "How about you at that party? Drunk?"

Would I ever live that down?

"At first I didn't believe it," she went on. "I thought it was just a rumor, but it isn't. Is it?"

"That was a slip up," I told her, tone blase. "Won't happen again."

But she continued as if she hadn't heard me. "And then you go off somewhere with Bellamy Blake?" She shook her head at me.

"It wasn't like that," I said abruptly, not liking the implication in her voice.

"Where did you even go?"

Suddenly, I felt like I was being interrogated. I couldn't lie well to Thalia, and in this case, the truth benefited me. Or at least, I thought it did. "To his place because I was too intoxicated to find my way home. And something about forgetting a route." The memories were still hazy.

Thalia's mouth popped open and I knew it was bad when I'd rendered her speechless. I regretted the truth instantly.

She blinked. "Clarke, that's dangerous. He could've done something to you. Who's saying he didn't? Bellamy isn't . . ." she looked around, making sure he wasn't within earshot before saying, "he's not like other guys."

It was my turn to lose my voice. My walls shot up. "He didn't do anything to me, Thalia."

"How do you know?"

"Because he's not a bad guy, all right?" I snapped, surprising the both of us. But I didn't apologize for it. After everything I'd learned about Bellamy first-hand, I knew he deserved better than this.

Thalia's mouth still hung open. "So, what, are you like hanging out with him now?"

I took a slow breath in an effort to reel in my spooling anger. "We've helped each other out a couple of times."

Thalia gawked at me. She shook her head again. Her disbelief slowly ebbed, replaced by a look I was all too familiar with- pity, like I'd somehow let her down. But this time it wasn't because of my dad, or Finn. It wasn't even for my grades. It was because of my affiliation with a man who gave me his leather jacket and sat with me in the rain.

"I . . ." She leaned back in her chair. "I don't get you, Clarke. What could you ever help Bellamy Blake with?"

I clenched my jaw, regretting my earlier decision of sitting down. "I'm friends with his sister," I answered simply.

"The freshman?"

"Yes."

Thalia tossed up her hands, and the chair legs scraped against the floor at the movement. "That's kind of creepy, Clarke."

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying everything I wanted. "You don't get to do that," I told her instead. "You can't just make snap judgement calls when you don't even know who you're talking about. They're nice people."

Genuine hurt flashed across her eyes. They narrowed. "I know I don't recognize who you are right now," she hissed, all traces of her jovial attitude gone. She took her drink back in her hands and stood. "While I was worried about you, it turns out you were off befriending kids. I thought I was your best friend and now you're defending your new ones to me?" She strung her bag over her neck and raised her hands at me. "You know, I take it back. None of this is okay. We're not okay."

She stood and pushed back the chair. Then she stalked out of the cafeteria.

I didn't go after her.

********

I was tired when I got home. Drained emotionally, I filled the coffee pot with bottled water and grabbed a Tupperware of day-old casserole from the fridge. Everything in it was something-days-old. I took out a fork, but a sound of movement coming from upstairs kept me from starting on my early dinner.

I set it on the counter and headed up the stairs. "Mom?" I asked softly. I went for her room. The door was cracked and I raised my hand to push it open.

"I miss you, too," came her voice from inside, but she wasn't talking to me. She must have been on the phone, and though that was common, the happiness in her voice wasn't.

I inclined my ear to the door.

"Thank you for not pushing this. We both know Clarke's not ready."

My insides grew cold. I stopped breathing.

A pause.

"You don't know how much I appreciate it. I'll see you soon."

I heard her hang up.

Composing myself, I quickly retracted from the door and went to the banister, acting as if I were just coming up the stairs when she emerged from her room. She looked from the small screen in her hands to me.

I begged my expression to look nonchalant, and not match the turmoil rolling inside. "Were you on the phone with someone?" I asked. My voice gave nothing away. Never once, did she not trust me with something and I clung to that hope now. I waited for the truth.

My mom shrugged and dropped her phone in her scrubs' front pocket. "Just a patient of mine."

It took every ounce of willpower to keep my emotions from bleeding into my face. I nodded, and stepped to the side to let her down the stairs. She passed me calmly, going on her way like usual. Like a thousand times before.

I didn't know which was more disturbing: that my mother had just lied to me, or how good she was at it when she did.