The Missing Cut
The following Monday after practice, Lexa fully expected to find Clarke with a ruggedly cute bandage covering a couple of tiny butterfly strips on her forehead. However, when Clarke sauntered in for her mandatory ankle check, Lexa saw no such thing.
“What? Is there something on my face?”
“More like something missing from your face.” Lexa retorted without much thought. Clarke looked adorably confused as she hopped up on the table. “Your cut,” Lexa clarified. “It’s gone.”
“Oh, yeah,” Clarke’s fingers grazed the perfect skin that should still be broken open. “That cream they prescribed. Wow. Yeah, does the trick. Works miracles, really.”
Lexa glared at Clarke over her shoulder as she filled a bag of ice. “You had a laceration on your forehead. That doesn’t go away overnight.”
“Maybe I’m just a quick healer,” Clarke proposed playfully.
“That’s impossible,” Lexa shook her head, placing the bag of ice carefully over Clarke’s ankle. “Nobody can recover from that so quickly.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“I just don’t understand. I’m studying to be a medical professional. What I saw yesterday and what I see now doesn’t make any medical sense.”
The shift in Clarke’s body language was alarming. Lexa blinked, and Clarke went from playful and kind to cold and closed off. “Sometimes the world doesn’t make sense, Lexa,” Clarke bit out. “And I’d appreciate it if you would finish icing my ankle, and let me be.”
Lexa recoiled as if she had been slapped in the face. She readjusted the ice pack on Clarke’s ankle and busied herself with checking the training room’s emails. After twenty minutes of silence, Lexa checked her watch.
She would usually make every effort to do as much as possible for Clarke, but with the verbal wallop she received earlier still fresh on her mind, Lexa quietly peered around the computer. “You can take the icepack off now. Your twenty minutes are done.”
Lexa could see Clarke’s eyes roll from where she sat as she tossed the melting bag in the sink. Clarke was almost out the door before she turned around. “I really hope you take my advice. You can’t know everything.”
Lexa clenched her jaw in an attempt to keep her mouth from spewing out a heated and rude remark. She crossed her arms as Clarke dared her to say more with a slight raise of an eyebrow. They both stood there in a strange, slightly sensual, stalemate.
Lexa didn’t flinch. She was too stubborn and too worked up over Clarke’s complete indifference and lack of sharing to give in. Clarke’s shoulders suddenly relaxed. She spun on her heel, and with an audible huff, left the training room.
Lexa had no idea why the tension escalated as it did. Clarke had to know that her miraculously healed laceration was strange. She just wanted to understand. But Clarke was so indignant. Lexa wiped down the room, quickly finishing her tasks before heading to the locker room in a fury. She changed into her spare set of athletic clothes, grabbed her headphones, and took off towards the nature trail.
The combination of the music, fresh air, and blood pumping through her veins began to calm her. Her mind focused less on Clarke’s infuriating flippancy and more on the uneven earth beneath her feet. Within minutes, Lexa relaxed and genuinely enjoyed the pure pleasure of running through the woods. Endorphins were truly amazing.
Lexa had just passed the halfway point on her two-mile loop when a flash of yellow sped by her peripheral. Her head followed the random movement, but whatever it was, it was gone before she could catch another glimpse.
She finished her run without another incidence, and while her mind was peaceful, she still wondered how on earth what she saw earlier was possible. She sighed while grabbing her bag. She should just let it go, accept that Clarke had some superhuman healing capabilities that she would never fully understand. Or she could confront Clarke again, demand answers, and not leave until she heard the truth.