Chapter 9

Three weeks passed quicker than Marie realized. She worked twelve hours at a time at the restaurant with Morgan, who was actually the manager of the restaurant as well, and whenever she got a chance to work the weekend, she would share her shift with another waitress named Sara who was finishing high school. She quite enjoyed working with Morgan, who got used to Marie quickly and didn't have a filter when it came to gossiping about the people in her life. Morgan often questioned Marie about the gloves and the tights she wore under her uniform despite how warm it was inside the diner but Marie always tried to play it off by pretending to shiver hoping the questioning would stop. And though she liked her manager's company, she grumbled at the end of the week when she counted the cash in her crumpled envelope. Although, she did stop grumbling after the first week after she jokingly wiggled her foot on Logan's lap late one evening demanding he massage her sock-clad feet after such a long day and he un-jokingly massaged it till she fell asleep.

The second week, Logan had come home with more money than she had earned the first two weeks combined after going a couple towns over to gamble. She felt a little embarrassed looking at her small pile compared to his but appreciated him for not undermining her and telling her not to work. Yet, she didn't mind the difference in "wages" too much –it felt sincerely refreshing to settle down after running from one place to the next with absolutely no aim. Even more, she liked the time she got to spend with Logan on their days off when they'd sit on one of the queen beds in their hotel room with the TV on in a low hum, newspaper pages separated between the two with cards spread across the comforter. The ancient heater beside the window would clunk and churn rudely into the otherwise peacefully quiet room but Marie didn't mind one bit.

"Hey, Logan? What do you think about going down to New York?" They were playing a Russian card game Durak that Logan taught her after playing solitaire one too many times. Marie slapped down the last card in her hand and smirked –she was sure to win this time.

"For what?" he said absentmindedly. The lit cigar hung from the corner of his mouth, his concentration wholly on the cards in his hands. Logan sat cross-legged at the head of the bed while Marie sat at the foot with a stack of cards and a single black and white die between them.

"Well for one, the X-Men are there."

Logan scoffed and waved her off. "You're telling me you want to join that uppity rag-tag team of superheroes? In spandex?" He shook his head and looked back down at his cards.

"And we'd be safe!" She glanced down at the card that he finally put down as a defense against her sixth attack card and groaned loudly. She dropped the cards in her hands onto the bed and flips around to get off. "This game sucks! How do you win every single time?" It was their fourth time playing the game that night. She yelped when she felt a tug on the hood of her coat and fell backwards on the bed. Logan's bright blue eyes were above hers full of laughter.

"It's 'cause you're a sore loser, Loser" Logan chuckled, a little smoke escaping his lips and flowing over her face. Marie pouted jokingly but her pout quickly dissolved to a smile. Inhaling the smoke above her, a flurry of memories ran through her mind of family get-togethers. She rolled onto her stomach and got up and sat on her legs and extended her hand out as a silent question to try the cigar. "Thought you hated smoke?" Logan asked with a raised eyebrow but handed it to her anyway.

She held it between two fingers and inhaled deep and instantly began coughing. It felt like her throat was on fire. Handing back the cigar to Logan who laughed and patted her back, she shook her head quickly and replied, "Yep, still hate it!" After a minute of non-stop coughing and the soothing feeling of Logan's hand rubbing her back she smiled sheepishly at him. He still had a grin on his face, clearly amused at her attempt to look as "cool" as him. Logan reached out to tousle her hair but she ducks a little so his hand doesn't touch her causing his fingers to go through her hair.

"Sorry," she barely heard the whisper escape Logan's lips. His hand fell through her locks and softly landed on her shoulder. The whole thing sent a spark through Marie and she knew she was staring but couldn't look away. His eyes were an electrifying blue looking straight back at her. She let her gaze travel down his nose and the sharp angle of his jaw –one that he seemed to be shaving more often now for some reason –to his already parted lips. She felt her body lean forward towards him; his hand left her shoulder and back into her hair again, drawing her head closer.

NO!

Marie suddenly shot up from the bed with a gasp and quickly walked to her own bed, slipped under the covers, and faced the window away from Logan. Her eyes were wide open as she said, "I should get some sleep –got an early day tomorrow." A little lump remained stuck in her throat as she worriedly thought about what happened.

Marie's body had moved back, yes, but she wasn't the one who thought "no." In fact, the voice sounded a lot like Cody's.


The next day, Marie busied herself at work cleaning tables, barely paying attention to Morgan rambling on about her weekend with her new boyfriend. She couldn't stop thinking about Cody's voice in her head –how long had it been since she heard him so clearly? Since the night she touched him, she thought. Then, his memories had spun around her head but most of them faded away quickly after, leaving her with memories she noted was probably important to him. But to suddenly hear him again elated her and scared her at the same time. All this time, she had assumed the memories had faded away because he passed away in the hospital and maybe that was how her abilities worked. So did that mean Cody was still alive? Or did her powers work completely differently? And why had it been Cody's voice that said "no"?

"Jeez, Marie, chill out maybe?" she heard Morgan say behind her. Marie looked down at her hands scrubbing the table so hard that it shook. She smiled sheepishly and moved onto the next table.

She had to admit it was a stupid idea. What did she think she would get by leaning in? The memories of Cody and Jeremy convulsing in front of her flashed through her mind. Marie grimaced and kept scrubbing.

Marie suddenly straightened and spun around to face the rest of the restaurant, eyes darting one side to the other. A familiar feeling resided in her mind -one she clearly remembered in the aftermath of Cody. That odd, invasive feeling that made her think that she was not quite alone as she thought she was. Except this time, its presence was large and looming -she couldn't be imagining it. Someone was with her. In her. She looked behind to make sure Morgan, nor any other customer, wasn't looking at her. She leaned forward towards the growing buzz that tingled over her skin.

"Marie, I'm here."

It was a faint and distant voice full of static and doubt. Marie's breath caught in her throat and like slow motion, from the corner of her eye, she saw him standing there. A glimmer – just barely visible to even her own eye. Even then she knew he was just a figment of her own imagination, but she couldn't help herself as she reached out to touch him….

"Marie are you okay?"

Marie looked behind her in surprise to see Morgan staring at her with confusion and concern. "Um…no," she gasped. "I think I need some air." She moved around Morgan abruptly, still shocked and wide-eyed and walked out of the diner to sit on the cold bench beside the door.

Memories that didn't belong to her surged through her mind again. This time, it was clearer than before. Clean, crisp, and sharp memories of wrestling, and dinners, and family gatherings, and friends that did that never existed in her life flashed in an instant. She felt something wet on her upper lip. She used the back of her hand to wipe it away only to see blood. Her head hurt. She slumped in her seat in exhaustion.

He appeared again beside her, sitting back lazily like she did -like he used to all the time. "Someone else is in here too. That asshole who tried to hurt you. Goddamn if I was there, Marie, you know I would've protected you." He kicked out in frustration. "But he's very faint -almost like an afterthought."

Are you dead? Are you real? She wanted to ask him. The image of him kept flickering in and out like bad reception. Marie's heart beat faster every time he flickered back and she could see his bright, golden hair.

He smiled sadly. "I don't know, babe. You know as much as I do." He paused for a moment, tapping his thigh like he always did when he was thinking about something. "You know I'm not real. I'm just everything that you absorbed from Cody Robbins."

Marie thought her heart might explode from hearing that. It wasn't like she never thought about it but to hear it from an imaginary Cody with his voice hurt more than she could bear. She sighed. It didn't make sense why she was suddenly remembering all his memories, but she definitely felt him there boxed into a section of her mind. She tried to find the little box with Jeremey in it to see if she could access his memories as well but immediately felt a shock run through her.

"I tried accessing those memories for you but there's so little of him I couldn't get anything. But there's something there that I don't understand, babe. I'm not sure what it is but you took something from him."

Marie couldn't understand what that even meant. Other than the few, brief memories she had taken from Jeremy, she wasn't sure what else Cody was talking about. She suddenly remembered the exclamation in her mind from last night. She glanced at him, knowing that he knew exactly what she was thinking about.

"I know it's fucked up, Marie. Yesterday, that man…I know I'm just a bunch of memories but…it still feels like I'm here." He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and his face into his palms. "I want you to be happy, but I think it was too much at once to see you…be you…with him."

I'm really sorry, Cody.

He reached out his hand to touch hers. She felt nothing on her skin. "I know. I forgive you, Marie."

Marie laughed humorlessly. She wondered if she was narcissistic enough to be both Cody and herself and forgive herself like that. It didn't make sense but then again, did it ever?

Marie returned to work but worked aimlessly. She could tell Morgan was concerned but too busy to say anything other than "take it easy." Her day couldn't end fast enough. When the day finally came to a close, she heard the recognizable purr of Logan's stolen motorcycle in the diner parking lot.

"Here's your boyfriend to pick you up," Morgan teased her in an attempt to cheer her up. Marie smiled awkwardly and said goodnight before leaving the diner.

Without a word, she hopped on behind Logan onto the bike unable to answer when Logan asked her how her day was. She put on her helmet and rested her head on his back. Relief washed through her when he silently understood and didn't press further. He kicked off and drove them both back home.

She could tell he knew something happened, but she wasn't even sure where to start. He knew that her skin was poison but how could she even begin to explain something she could hardly understand herself? How could she explain how she had her ex-boyfriend's memories running through her mind? That her mind was playing tricks on her by him appearing in front of her?

As she curled into bed, the end of her bed shifted in weight. She felt Logan's hand on her sock-clad foot, ready to give her a massage in his way of comforting her -probably thinking she had a rough day at work. The instant sensation of his touch felt like a burn. It scared her to her core. The thought that an essence of Cody was inside her, watching another man care for her made her feel embarrassed and even more lonely. She pulled away her feet quickly and remained in a fetal position. "It's alright, Logan. I just want to sleep," she said firmly. The bed shifted again in weight. She head the clicks as lights turned off in the room.

Neither of them said goodnight.


A/N: Let me know what you think. I hope the last part of this chapter made sense? I can definitely reedit it if it makes 0 sense haha. Let me know what you'd like to see next/any thoughts/ideas. Thanks for reading!