Somewhere Only We Know
Roughly based off the song by Keane coupled with my old love of Marie and Double-D
Marie Kanker was alone. Like she always was. Oh sure, her sisters were down stairs, May cooking up another one of her concoctions and Lee yelling at the football game but for not the first time Marie felt all alone. She loved her sisters to no end, they were all she had left, but sometimes they just weren't…right. Lee would scoff at her feelings, trying to toughen her up by telling her to ignore them, and May wouldn't understand how they weren't enough. Marie wondered if she was just missing her mother and father.
Whenever their mom left, Lee, as the oldest, would take charge. She was seven the first time their mother disappeared and mom's departure hit her hardest, though she stayed strong for her sisters. Marie was six and hadn't understood initially what had happened, but when her first day of school came around and Lee took her instead of their mom, Marie had figured it out. May was five, barely ready to start kindergarten, and always had her head in the clouds. She'd held on the longest, driving both her sisters crazy for the first five years with her insistence that Mom would be back any day. Finally, Lee had exploded. She'd flung May across the trailer's small kitchen, screaming that their mom was never coming back, that they'd been abandoned by the person that was supposed to take care of them. As May's tears had flown, Lee had broken down too, dropping the tough twelve-year-old act in favor of becoming the seven year old that had never cried for her mommy. Marie had been the strong one that night, her sister's clinging to her like a lifeline. Now, at seventeen, they were all she really had.
No, Marie didn't need a parent. And she didn't need her sisters. She needed a friend. The one thing she didn't have.
Marie rolled over on her bed and stared at the ceiling. Her eyes drifted to the emergency hatch. Before the blue-haired girl knew it, she was up and fumbling desperately with the latch and the small door was popping open. Without a second thought, Marie had her arms through the opening and her hands braced on the roof. Marie was slim and with a simple pull she was sitting on the lip of the hole, a cool late September breeze lifting her hair. 'Lee's hips are too big to get through there and May's too clumsy.' Marie thought wildly as she jumped up and slammed the hatch. Suddenly, or maybe not, she wanted to get away. Just run and get to a place where no one knew her. 'Maybe this is what Ma feels whenever she leaves us.' Marie thought as she ran across the smooth metal of the trailer but pushed the thought away. She would come back. She would not abandon her sisters. For now though, she just needed to get away. Swinging off the drainpipe like she'd done a thousand times before, Marie bolted for the trailer park entrance, running like she was being chased by wild animals. It felt wonderful. Like she was finally free. Free from the trailer park, free from being a Kanker, free from everything. But she wasn't. Not yet. Not as long as she stayed on the cul-de-sac.
She came out somewhere between Jimmy's and Ed's houses and slunk quickly beneath their windows. Once her feet hit the concrete she was running again, her long legs stretching out beneath her. She was Peach Creek High's champion X-Country runner and one by one she passed Ed, Eddy, and Kevin's houses. As she reached the corner, Marie looked across the street to Double-D's house. For a moment she wondered what would happen if she turned up there, just burst in to watch him work at whatever his latest experiment was. He was one of the only people that didn't make her feel like a freak, even when she was forcing herself onto him. But no, she couldn't go there. She needed to be somewhere where no one would recognize her, and Double-D's house was certainly not that place. Besides, the house was dark, which either meant that they were all asleep, or the household was out.
She crossed the street and started running towards town, pausing only when the cul-de-sac was out of sight. Marie slowed to a walk and pulled out her wallet. She had forty bucks and some change, her bus pass and the schedule folded up, her bankcard, her house key, school ID, and a strip of photos of her and her sisters. Pulling out the bus schedule, Marie knew what she was going to do. A few towns over in Holden they were having a fair and a bus left for Holden in fifteen minutes. If she double-timed, she could make it and get out and home before dawn. She'd have to walk back but that was no problem for her.
Marie arrived at the bus stop just as the bus drove up and inside a few minutes she was up the stairs and into a seat. The bus was a little under half full and it was quiet. Pulling her light jacket around her, Marie put her knees up on the seat in front of her and dozed against the window. Holden was six and a half miles away and it would only take 15 minutes to get there so she didn't have time to sleep. As trees and the occasional car or house flashed past, memories began to flash before Marie's eyes, memories of her ma leaving, being teased incessantly in school, the time that May got so sick that she withered down to a skeleton and they'd thought she was going to die. Marie shut her eyes, trying hard to make them go away.
The bus dropped her off just down the street from the fairgrounds and after Marie paid for her ticket, she headed for the nearest roller coaster. She didn't want to think and what better way than on a ride that moves faster than your brain? The second she was off, she got on another, and then another and another until she was so dizzy a carnie had to help her sit down. The second her legs no longer shook, Marie was up again and headed for the food. She got nachos and cotton candy and popcorn and the biggest soda she could get her hands around. It was probably just a bit self-destructive but for once Marie didn't care. She had an hour walk home to work it off.
Marie made her way over to the games and slower rides in a daze, not really paying attention to where she was going. She was almost to the end of whichever line she'd gone into when she noticed just what ride she was waiting for. "The Tunnel of Love?!" She screeched, spotting the glowing pink sign. Then she looked around at the rest of the people in line. They were all girls. "Uh, where are the guys?" She asked the twittering girl in front of her.
"Oh, their line is on the other side. Its singles night so they're putting one boy and one girl that haven't met in each boat." The girl sighed dreamily. "I hope I get a cutie!"
Marie sighed in turn and leaned on the fencing that kept them in a single line. She was too far in to get out of line so all she could do was wait and hope the guy didn't try anything.
As the ride attendant ushered her into the darkened opening, Marie slipped on a puddle and landed against a frail chest, jolting the boat into motion. Strong but skinny arms steadied her and a voice stuttered out in the dark, "Oh, I'm sorry. Are you alright miss?" A familiar voice. An all too familiar voice, high-pitched and nasally with an adorable tendency to stutter and trip over its words.
"Double-D?"
Said boy felt his jaw drop open and was suddenly hyper-aware of his hands resting one on her shoulder and the other on her hip. He hastened to remove them and was surprised to feel Marie fling herself away from him as though he'd burned her. That was not at all what Double-D had expected. What he had expected was for the blue-haired Kanker to take advantage of the opportunity afforded her by the darkness and his inability to escape to kiss him like she always did. Even more odd, he found himself feeling abandoned.
"Marie?" he called softly into the darkness.
Marie nodded, and then realized he couldn't see her. Just the sound of his voice was enough to make her forget where she was. "Yeah sweet cheeks, it's me."
"What are you doing here? Where are your sisters? You three are usually inseparable." His voice was more curious than scornful but Marie bristled anyway.
"Yeah well I could ask you the same thing. Never really took you as one for the Tunnel of Love. Where are the other Ed's? Aren't you guys attached at the hip or something? Or are you on a date?" Though she tried her best to sound nonchalant, folding her arms even though he couldn't see and looking away, she craved the answer to her last question. She knew Nazz had always had a sort of a thing for Double-D and though the blond had been dating Kevin the last Marie heard, you never knew what could happen. Or maybe she wasn't even from Peach Creek and that's why they were there.
"Oh, erm, my cousins are visiting and I was told to accompany them here by my parents. They patronized me onto the ride."
At least he had a good excuse. Marie's hands tightened on her arms. "Yeah well maybe I just need to get away sometimes, okay?"
Double-D shifted nervously and wished he could see her face. Then, he wondered why. "Er, well… M-may I ask why?" It was so unusual for not to be around her sisters that he wondered if something had happened.
Marie sighed. She needed to talk to someone and if he was asking… Sure once they got off the ride he'd go back to hating her and she'd go back to pining but here in the dark… "Sometimes I just feel so lonely. Yeah I mean I've got my sisters but it's different than that. And it's not parent stuff either. Even if it was I wouldn't be able to talk to them. I need someone to listen, someone who doesn't think they know me and won't just brush off how I feel or try and give me suggestions to get me to shut up. I guess I just need someone to talk to without them judging me. But I don't have anyone."
Double-D was silent, thinking about what she'd said. Then, he said something that surprised them both. "There's me."
Marie wished desperately that she could tell him everything. But how could she? Not only did he know her, he knew her at her worst. Marie shook her head. Had he really forgotten who he was talking too? "You know me, Double-D."
She felt him shift slightly as the boat rocked. "No I don't. Not really anyway. I know of you. And there's no way I can judge you only from that."
Marie had never thought of Double-D as thick, but now as he tried to explain why she could talk to him freely… Still, she had to wonder why. Did he, of all people, really care about her? She tried again. "You hate me."
"No I don't." The words, coming so suddenly from the darkness, hit her like a ton of bricks and she almost laughed.
"You should." She snorted. "You have every reason to."
He knew what she meant. Of course he did. But it didn't matter to him. In fact, it had been quite a while since the last time it had happened. Almost four years, ever since they'd started high school. He leaned forward, feeling blindly for her hand. Lucky for him, it was resting on her knee and the feel of her warm skin sent a jolt through him. "I don't know you Marie. But I'd like to. If you'll let me Marie, I'll be your shoulder to cry on and your ear to listen."
Marie sniffed and felt a warm tear that she hadn't even known was there slide down her cheek. That, more than anything, had been what she'd needed to hear. And it had been said by the one person she'd never thought would look at her with anything more than revulsion. She leaned forward and hugged him. "Thank you Double-D." She whispered before pulling away. She'd seen the light up ahead that meant the ride was ending. Marie didn't know what would happen when they got out of the boat, but if they parted company with nothing more than those words between them, she would leave with a smile.