She looked back up to him, her eyes watery as if she were about to cry but holding it behind an angry scowl. "He didn't love me, and I see it now, because back then he only wanted me for what I had more than for who I was. He just wanted me to be a pretty face attached to his fucktoy."
Bog gulped. This was bad. Worse than bad. Marianne must have been fifteen when all of this happened. She was a just child!
"But it didn't stop there," she kept talking, the first tears going down her cheeks, but he didn't make any comment about it. "People started talking and spreading more and more rumours about what really happened between us. They said that I was incapable of satisfying any man, that I was a frigid, frozen Empress. Everything you can think of, they said about me."
"But you were fifteen! How could they expect you to do that?" Marianne snorted, unamused.
"You tell me! Every girl in school was more than ready to drop her panties for him, I was the defective one!" her voice broke. The girl rubbed her eyes with her long sleeved black t-shirt, trying to stop the stream of tears going down her face. "You'll have to excuse me, I'm not usually a crier. That's my sister's job."
"Don't worry," Bog thought about putting a hand on her shoulder, but he talked himself out of doing it. Maybe it would do worse than good in that moment.
"I had to…," she continued, "I had to endure this, you know? My sister only knows what everyone else does, and she can't know the truth."
"Why not? Why didn't you tell an adult then? Or the Director?"
"You don't understand . Roland is the big promise, the poster child of this school. No one would believe me," she sniffed, the tears finally stopping as she looked at him in the eyes. "And the Director is my father. He adores Roland like the son he never had."
Bog blinked once, twice. The plot thickens , he thought.
"I'm sorry," he finally said, "for having to suffer that alone."
"I guess so. But at least now someone knows," she smiled softly and then sighed again. "I'm a mess." Marianne looked down to the smudges of makeup on her sleeves.
"Nah, it's just paint. Here," he offered her a handkerchief to clean her face.
"I'm sorry," the girl murmured, her voice muffled by the cloth, "I'm ruining your stuff."
"Don't worry about it. I have tons. My mother usually gives me those for Christmas." He breathed when she finally smiled, feeling a weird clench on his heart.
They settled into a comfortable silence as the sun started to set somewhere on the horizon, the light coming through the windows going more orange by the minute. Marianne finished cleaning her face of the make-up but didn't immediately give back the handkerchief to its proper owner. As she thought of cleaning it on her house and return it the next day, she dwelled on the fact that she had just told her deepest secrets to a person she barely knew; a secret that she didn't dare to tell anyone. Maybe that's why she felt comfortable sharing her suffering - he was a complete stranger to the situation, after all. He didn't know Roland so he didn't idolize him, and he didn't know her before the whole incident so he wasn't taken aback by the sudden transformation of her personality. She felt like she could be herself around this not-quite-stranger-anymore.
"The worst part is," she continued after clearing her throat, her eyes looking down to the piece of cloth on her hands, "I really liked him. He was so good looking, you know?" Marianne let out a dry laugh. "How stupid of me."
"You were young. Don't beat yourself up because of that," the teenager looked up to the man still standing a few steps in front of her, the fading light of the sun bouncing on his angular face making shadows that made difficult the task of reading his expression. For a moment she thought that he sounded a bit sad.
"Not that young," she sighed in defeat.
Another moment of silence fell on the Library, but this time there was a certain kind of tension radiating from Bog. She knew that there was something that he wanted to say and wondered what it would be about. He had tried to comfort her, but what was his real opinion about this? Was he going to treat her differently from now on? She hoped that he didn't.
"It's getting late," he finally said, but something told her that it wasn't what he had in mind. Marianne blinked as she realized that the light was almost completely gone and she couldn't see what was in front of her.
"Yeah, I should be going home or Dawn is going to get worried."
"I could give you a ride home," Bog offered quickly, and if she could see his face she knew he would be slightly blushing. He wasn't the type to initiate a socializing situation. "If you want to." He added like in an afterthought.
"That… that would be great. Thanks."
They both managed their way out of the Library and the forgotten books to be catalogued tomorrow. She waited in silence as he closed the door with his keys and followed him into the parking in equal silence. He still looked like he was thinking about something serious, and she could almost see the thoughts going back and forth behind his blue eyes framed by his small glasses. Curiosity burned the tip of her tongue, but she knew she was in no place to demand anything. She had opened her soul today but that didn't mean that he had to do the same and share every thought and secret with her.
It was indeed a childish thought, so she did her best to shove it way back into her mind and focus on her reflection on the car window as she waited for him to unlock the car doors. Man, her face was a puffy red mess. She didn't know how she was going to hide this from Dawn once she got home.
"Where to?" Bog asked once she seated beside him on shotgun and had fastened her seatbelt.
"It's not far from here. Take me to Willow's Park and I can walk."
"I'm not going to make you walk alone at night," he frowned without looking at her.
"Well…," Marianne tried not to dwell on that fact that he wouldn't look at her, "if you insist…"
She told him her address and he finally started the car, leaving the almost empty parking behind.
The ride wasn't as quiet as the Library was, the soft murmur of the car engine and low music coming from the old stereo filling in for the conversation that wasn't happening. Bog still looked like he wanted to tell her something, but so far no luck. She sighed when the familiar buildings of her street surrounded them.
"I…," his voice startled her. Bog turned his eyes in her direction (finally!) and then looked back to the road even if they were going so slow that a man walking his dog was faster than them. "I…"
"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, Bog," Marianne dropped her nickname. "Really."
He sighed.
"I know. But still you deserve a bit of sincerity. I guess?" it was almost cute seeing a grown man as nervous as Dawn the day of the Spring Ball.
"I appreciate the thought," the car stopped in front of her house and the librarian killed the engine before leaning back on his seat and sighing deeply.
"I want to tell you before you find out by other people," she smirked when he gave her an apologetic smile. Marianne shuffled on her seat and turned her body in his direction, silently telling him that she was listening. "I was told that I was too hideous to love. By a girl I loved. On my last year of high school."
Marianne blinked in surprise at the, well, normal secret. She didn't know what she was expecting but it wasn't definitely this. A heartbreak? She could deal with that. But it was clear that this went further than that for him.
"What?" she deadpanned. "Tell me you didn't believe her."
"Well…. She didn't actually had to say the words. I kind of understood it by the context." he started to fidget with his fingers, not really looking at her.
Marianne snorted.
"Then maybe you should have stayed to hear what she really wanted to say. You are not hideous, Bog."
It was his time to snort.
"Tell that to my "dear" classmates back in high school," he grumbled and fixed his eyes in some point outside of the car. Marianne sighed. This was just the tip of the iceberg, she was sure of it. This man oozed low self-esteem and image issues. But she couldn't do more than hear him when he needed someone to talk to.
"Teenagers are cruel and stupid and full of crap. Believe me, I'm one of those," she put her left hand on his right one, which was now clenched in a fist on his leg. "Don't believe any word they say because they usually are driven by a strong need to belong, like sheeps in a herd. If someone decided to target you, everyone would follow even if they don't agree with it."
"Suddenly I feel like you are the adult in this car," Bog snickered.
"Nah, I just had to suffer herd mentality the last few years. Rationalizing it helps me when I don't want to go to school."
"Aren't you a brave little thing?" he smiled when she blushed at his comment.
"I'm not going to comfort you anymore, idiot ," she huffed and looked elsewhere, provoking a laugh on the man by her side. She finally caved in and joined him in the laughing, the mood between them finally easing into something more of the usual.
A car honking brought them out of their little bubble, making them realize that she should really go home and he should move the car before someone called the police for blocking the road. At this hour there weren't many cars but better safe than sorry.
It was then when both realized that Marianne still had one hand on him. The girl blinked and withdrew it so fast that it became a blur, her heart going at full speed. She hoped that he wouldn't think anything bad about her, like she was some kind of creep. Marianne didn't risk it and turned to open the door as fast as she could, blurting out a goodbye and a thanks before rushing to the door of her house, disappearing behind it when she managed to open it.
If she had turned and looked inside the car she would have seen a blushing Bog looking at his right hand, his bony cheeks painted a soft shade of pink.
That night, sleep evaded the librarian. He kept thinking back to the events of the day, from discovering the general opinion of the girl he was working with, to the impromptu heart to heart and the way that they easily swung back into their happy routine.
Bog couldn't believe that he had told Marianne about what happened so many years ago. He hadn't told anyone, not even his mother. But with Marianne, trusting her and confiding in her came easily. She was that kind of person, he guessed, people that radiated charisma and were reliable and capable of guarding a secret.
He wondered how she was like before all the stuff that happened to her. She didn't seem to like her old self much and by what other teachers told him, she was a completely different person back then. Bog was sure that a experience like that changed anyone, no matter how strong you were.
He turned in his bed, restless as his thoughts went to darker places. He couldn't imagine what she would have felt like when she discovered that the person she loved only wanted her body, and openly went to other women in places where people could see them. And then have all the whole school ganging up on her on a daily basis.
He scoffed. Marianne was right, teenagers were mindless sheep fighting for approval, eager to agree with the general opinion no matter how absurd it was. He was bullied for being too ugly, Marianne for being too pretty. Because they couldn't pick on her appearance they made up stories about her, but that was the only difference to his situation.
None of them deserved her, he was sure of that. She was so brave and strong, capable of enduring all the rumours and the sideway glances with determination; she was passionate about the things she loved, like her sister and her music, and she was not scared to admit it out loud; she didn't hesitate to make her opinion known even if it made anyone angry with her.
Bog looked once again at his hand, feeling the ghost of her touch where her fingers laid against his skin. Marianne didn't hesitate today when she touched him or when she told him that it was stupid to think that he was too hideous to love. Even if it was a white lie, her golden eyes shone with the usual determination and stubbornness that drove her, and he appreciated it.
But still, he didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve her.