— *✰ ۫ there is STARDUST in the gunpowder on your lips.

Clarke: ...yes?

Clarke: I want it to be winter. 😞

Clarke: 3

Clarke: do you???

Clarke: but I'm not better than troy bolton

Isabelle: yeah, I look like a boy with a bun :(

Isabelle: why????

Isabelle: hahhahahhahhahah you're SO funny and original!!! how do you come up with this?

Isabelle: I mean, i vaguely remember some little boy following me round for 12 years. christian, was it?

“…speaking of which: pregnant, or not pregnant?” Kylie Jenner, of course. Corrina didn’t know whether or not she believed it. The rumor’s timing was suspicious. “No, I don’t want a gummy bear. I want to go home.” But now that she thought about it…“gummy bear me.” She sighed.

“At the same time as Khloe, Kim’s surrogate and the ten year anniversary? Def not. I think it’s just publicity. Besides, she’s at five months, and she met Travis Scott in April, so if it is his, they worked quick.” She cracked a grin, taking a gummy bear out of the packet and shifting forward so she could get a better angle to shoot from. “Open your mouth. See if you can catch this. Ready?”

“…I never hated you.” He felt bad about it now, of course. Knowing she thought that he’d hated her, but Clarke meant it when he said that’d never been the case. He’d felt something so strongly for her back then–still did–but he didn’t want to label it as love just because she had. He’d wanted to be sure, and it was when he had been that he’d said it, unprompted, but truthfully. Shaking his head, Clarke looked over the photo and found himself smiling. “I had to promise my mom’s two whole months of weekly cleaning to get them to agree to let you on that trip with us.” It was a picture of the two of them, sophomore year, wearing the paper hats from In-N-Out.

“Duh, I know. I just overthought it. I’d even, like, planned how I was gonna run away from home and change my name and move to Mexico just to spare myself the embarrassment of ever seeing you again.” Now, all that was just funny. Isabelle laughed. “Were the dishes worth it?” she asked, playfully. “Oh, hey, this is from that time I gave you head in the back of my car,” Isabelle said, snorting, mostly to get him to stop being so sentimental about this.

“Good thing we’re not friends.”

“You’re so funny, Don!”

“Orange juice? How dare you? I’m allergic,” he pretended to be outraged, slapping the wheel in faux frustration before bursting into a light chuckle. “I guess now we’re gonna have to throw away all four of them just by principle. Or spit in them and donate them to a freshman. But get in. We’re pretending to regret being late today.”

“Good. Find what you love and let it kill you,” she quoted off-handedly. (It was part of her new philosophical phase.) “We could always dump them on some Hipster’s head. You know how they feel about Starbucks -- and their hair could probably use the conditioner. Oh, and apparently Eric got, like, beat up, and there’s rumours he cheated on his loser Hipster girlfriend the other night, so it doesn’t take a genius to put two-and-two together. It just helps that I’m basically a genius.” (This was also part of her phase.) She got into the passenger's seat as asked, but didn’t bother with the seatbelt. “I don’t believe in pretending or regret.” (That, too.)

Parking his car in front of Isabelle’s house late enough that the second period already started (but who got to the first classes anyway so early in the morning?), Jamie honked, there three minutes after he prematurely sent his ‘Your uber has arrived’ text, before even getting on her street. In a drink holder, there was a frappuccino and an orange juice from Starbucks, the latter belonging to him.

@isabelleo​

Although it didn’t seem like it from the way she so often asked Jamie to pick her up and take her places, Isabelle loved driving. She just loved people doing things for her more. So she was happy about this. Her gratitude didn’t come in the form of punctuality (as it took her exactly seven minutes from when he honked to actually come out of her house, sunglasses on), but drinks -- an orange juice in one hand, a Starbucks frappuccino she’d found in the fridge in the other. She opened up with car door with her foot, before spotting what was in his cup holder. “Wow, this is awkward.”

“I would, if I, you know, cared.”

“Now that we’re friends, you have to care about all these little facts about me.”

Maddie: I almost bled out from the knife stabbed in my back, soo..

Isabelle: okkkk drama queen

Clarke shrugged, not blaming her. Aesthetic’s were very important…as were first I love you’s, and Clarke had fucked that one up. “Hey, I didn’t want to say it just to say it. I wanted to mean it.” So when he finally did say it, he did mean it. As he did every time after. 

She couldn’t be bitter about it now, despite the nights following when she’d stayed awake replaying the awkward moments -- plural -- in her head. “Yeah, I know, and I’m glad you didn’t lie just to make me shut up. I honestly thought you’d say it first, though. I never make the first move, so when I did, and you didn’t reply, I thought you, like, hated me.” There was a mildly amused fondness lacing her voice. “What about this one?” She held up another polaroid.

Corrina just raised an eyebrow. Yeah, right. “Then what are we even doing?”

She laughed -- Isabelle got that look. “You’re right, I’m not. It just sounds better if I pretend to be mysterious than if I told you I watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians every week,” she admitted, as if Corrina didn’t know that already. “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Want a gummy bear?”

Clarke: No, Isabelle. I have not.

Clarke: Change subject.

Clarke: :((((

Clarke: that's okay. I always preferred yours. :P

Clarke: is it bragging if it's true?

Isabelle: and, Roosevelt, don't you think there's a reason for that?

Isabelle: sooooo how's the weather

Isabelle: that was the perfect opportunity for a 3 emoticon ! you're losing your funny

Isabelle: wait, I have a brother??????????

Maddie: ✓✓ read at 11:29pm

Isabelle: i'll take that as a yes

He remembered those, too. Clarke smiled at the thought. “I always liked those.” He admitted. He didn’t think it was creepy, but Isabelle was more sensitive to that stuff than he was. Clarke didn’t hesitate to accept her textbooks, peeking over the stack of them to see what she found. He was surprised to see her old Polaroids, remembering how they used to adorn her bedroom walls…but he wasn’t surprised by the amount of them that included the two of them. “Do you remember that night?” He nodded towards one of the pictures. Clarke did.

“Really? I think I deleted them. They didn’t match my aesthetic any more.” She sifted through the photographs, smile tugging at her lips, before he spoke. Isabelle snorted. “Of course I remember. I told you I loved you for the first time, except it was, like, four different times that night, and you didn’t even say it back once. I kept thinking maybe you didn’t hear me. Y’know, I’m still heartbroken.”

Clarke: No, I don't know how that makes him a dick. I'm lost.

Clarke: Just because you broke up with me doesn't mean it didn't hurt you...I'm guessing.

Clarke:

Clarke: Tempting...but no. :(

Clarke: I remember.

Isabelle: have you ever seen me with my hair in a bun, stanley?

Isabelle: change subject

Isabelle: ew who uses emoticons this isn't myspace in 2009 any more

Isabelle: fine. for the record I always preferred your brother

“…did you sign up for psychology or something?” Corrina laughed, shaking her head as she made the right. “I still don’t know where we’re going.”

“No -- what can I say? I'm just a really deep, spiritual person.” Izzy grinned. “Neither do I.”