Disclaimer: Still don't own.
A/N: Sorry about all the swears in this chapter. It.. feels in character for these two when they get upset. I wouldn't, otherwise. Also, the very observant may notice that I've fixed a small detail in the previous chapter, to do with chronology: Maeve and Isaac were actually together for two years. (Don't worry, all will be revealed!)
"No—fuck, of course not, Maeve." The import of her words catches up to him, belatedly, and he feels a sickening sensation of falling. It's hard to get the words out. "The — the voicemail I left you. After the party. I came by to see you—"
"Wait. Wait." Maeve's hands fly to her temples. She looks pained. Time seems to drag. There is a thundering in his ears, but he still hears her say,
"What voicemail?"
Otis goes as white as a sheet. "Oh, God," she hears him mutter, and then he dashes recklessly from the room, flinging the door open so hard it hits the wall.
After a moment, she follows.
The gents' bathroom is halfway down the hall. She listens cautiously at the door, noting that the place seems oddly deserted. She recalls hearing something from Ruth about a party. The sound of violent vomiting comes from behind the door, and, making up her mind, she swings it open.
Otis's knuckles are white from clutching the edges of the sink, and he is dry-heaving. He flinches violently away when she tries to rub his back. "Please don't" he gets out, between convulsions.
"I'll get some water," Maeve says, and runs like a deer through the corridors until she finally finds the kitchen. She fills a glass, noticing that her hands are shaking. Her mind is racing. The voicemail, he'd said, assuming she'd know what he meant. As though it were something crucially important. But she's certain he hadn't—
Coming back, she finds him perched on the edge of the bathtub, arms loosely on his knees, head hanging down. She stands awkwardly in front of him with the water, wincing at the sour smell of vomit mixing with the other unsavoury smells of a shared college bathroom, and clears her throat softly. When he looks up, his face is wet and still ghastly pale. He takes the water and drinks, silently.
"You ok?" she says, feeling the words ring hollow.
His mouth sets, looking unusually grim, and he pushes himself to his feet, unsteadily. "We shouldn't talk here," he says, in explanation.
"Yeah, someone might need to take a shit," Maeve says, fighting a hysterical giggle.
For once, Otis seems entirely unamused by her attempt at humour. He pushes past her, one hand still clamped over his mouth, and exits the bathroom. When Maeve follows, she finds him slumped in the corridor. "You want to talk here?"
"Well, just in case I—" he jerks his head toward the bathroom door— "again."
Maeve winces.
He fixes her with the kind of stony look that she can't recall ever seeing from him, not even that day when she confessed her feelings to him and blew up his relationship with Ola. It's actually a little frightening. And the truth that they've just stumbled on—that's a half-covered, hideous thing. She shrinks back from it.
After about a minute, Otis says, very calmly, "The day the Quiz Heads went to the finals, I left you a voicemail message. So you never listened to it?"
"No." Maeve shakes her head, a little desperately. "I don't think I got it. I would've, if I'd seen it. But it was a really hectic day—"
"Hectic."
"Yeah. I, um, called CPS on my mum. The... police came that evening when we got back from the finals and took Elsie." She peeks at him, hesitantly through a curtain of hair, expecting him to look sympathetic, but he doesn't. The look on his face chills her.
He says, still very quiet and calm, "I'm sorry that happened, Maeve. It must have been very traumatic. But I'm surprised that you wouldn't at least listen to it. Isaac was supposed to tell you that it was important."
"I don't understand."
"That evening, I came to your caravan to see you. You weren't there, so I asked Isaac to tell you to check your phone."
Maeve clenches her hands on her knees. Dimly, she's aware of her heartbeat accelerating, the blood pounding through her body. She keeps her voice normal. "This voicemail. What did it say?"
"What's the fucking point now, Maeve? It was three years ago."
"I want to know."
"And I don't fucking want you to." (He doesn't raise his voice at all as he says this, but his eyes are furious.)
"I think I have a right to know. I never got that voicemail, Otis. Isaac never told me he'd seen you. This is not my fault."
"Well, it's not fucking mine either."
They glare at each other, chests heaving, both furious.
"Otis—"
"Can't you just fucking drop it? It doesn't fucking matter any more."
(In a calmer moment, Maeve might have been amused by the fact that she's never heard Otis drop this many F-bombs in a row before.)
"It fucking matters to me, Otis. Okay? I can't— I won't let Isaac take this from me as well. I just can't. I can't." She gets up and paces back and forth in the corridor, choking back tears and a rising sense of being out of control. This is bad. This is really fucking bad. Fuck.
"Fine."
"What?"
"Fine, I'll tell you. Just don't turn around and say you wish I hadn't said it or something. I'm only telling you because you won't fucking let it go."
"I won't," she promises, frightened by his vehemence.
Otis sighs, staring at the opposite wall. Then, in absolutely flat tones, heavy pauses between the words, he says, "It was something like, Hi Maeve. I'm watching you on TV right now. And I wanted to let you know how proud I am of you, and about how you saying you had feelings for me was all I ever wanted to hear. Because it's always been you. I love you. Happy now?"
Hysteria rises in Maeve's throat like fireworks, unable to be contained. She hears herself laughing, a strange, choked, crazy sort of laugh. She can't seem to stop.
"Why are you laughing? Why are you fucking laughing?" Otis's face is savage, agonised, awful. The world is spinning. Otis. Isaac. The past three years a lie. And Maeve realises—
"I can't. I'm sorry, Otis, I can't."
"What?" he almost snarls.
"I can't right now. I'm confused. I— I'm sorry, Otis."
She flees, vision blurred with tears, Otis's face imprinted in her mind's eye as if burned there.
She still has Isaac's number. Pacing up and down in her little narrow room with its piles of books, her mind races. She's tried dialling voicemail, but if it was ever there, the message is certainly long gone. Two options, then. He forgot to tell her. Or he deliberately didn't tell her. But how had she missed it? Third option—he'd deleted it. Could he have deleted it?
She wants to call him. Demand the truth. But it's scary, when you haven't spoken to someone in nearly a year. And when ... things ... ended the way they did.
While she's staring at it, her phone rings.
"Hey Maeve!" Ruth is definitely drunk.
"What?" Her voice comes out sharper than she intended.
"Guess who I made out with at the party tonight?"
Silence.
"Simon! We were both a bit tipsy, and we were dancing, and it sorta just happened— Maeve? You listening?"
"Yeah. That's great."
"Are you alright? You sound a little off. Hey, I caught up with Otis earlier. I thought you liked him at school."
"Yeah?" Maeve rips a bit of nail off with her teeth, savagely. She's about 110% done with this conversation.
"Then how come you ignored him when he left you a voicemail saying how sorry he was and confessing his undying love for you—at least I assume he was confessing his undying love, he wouldn't tell me what he said. Like, I know we all do crazy shit in school, but that's some A-star level self sabotage right there, so again I ask you, why?" (Another pause.) "Oh, shit. It didn't get lost, did it?"
Maeve gives a bitter chuckle. "How'd you guess."
"Shit, Maeve. But you've sorted it out, right? Happy couple?"
"Nope."
"Shit. Do you wanna—"
"Nope."
"Do you want me to—"
"No. Stay. Have fun. Don't drink too much. Bye."
One sleepless night later, Maeve's mind is made up. She calls Isaac.
He doesn't pick up.
He doesn't pick up the next three times, either.
Maybe he's changed his number.
Or deleted hers.
She sends a text: It's Maeve. I need to talk to you about something.
The reply comes within fifteen minutes. About what?
I need to know the truth. It would be much easier to talk about this over the phone.
Okay. You can call me after seven. Tomorrow.
Why not now?
He doesn't reply.
"Hi, Isaac."
"Hi, Maeve. How are you?"
"The night I called CPS on my mum. The summer before we got together. Do you remember that night? I'd been at the Quiz Head finals—"
"Yeah, I'm doing really well, actually, thanks for asking. Yeah, I remember. Why?"
"Did you go through my phone?"
"What?"
"Did. You. Go. Through. My. Phone."
"Sorry, Maeve. You're going to have to give a bit more context. Why would I go through your phone?"
"Otis says he came by that night. I was out, so he asked you to let me know that he'd left me a voicemail. Ring any bells?"
"Oh. Yeah, I remember now. Drunken Party Dipshit. Yeah, he did."
"You listened to it?"
"Yeah. Trust me, Maeve, it wasn't worth your time."
"He already told me what it said."
A long silence.
"Why lie, Isaac? Just—why?"
As she says the words, Maeve already knows the question is futile, even before the dial tone tells her he's hung up.
Maeve stares at her reflection.
She hasn't slept in 48 hours, and her eyes are bloodshot, her hair tangled. She looks wild. Her mouth tastes like something died in it. Mechanically, she squeezes toothpaste onto a toothbrush and runs it under the tap.
"I'm going mad," she says, aloud, to her reflection.
Checking her phone, she sees she has a message from Otis, from late the previous night: Care to explain what that was yesterday?
"I don't fucking know," she mutters.
What do you do when things get bad, Maeve? the therapist had asked her, months ago. She'd shrugged.
Okay, well, here are some suggestions. You could call a friend. Go for a walk. Reach out to your foster mum.
She's not my foster mum. She's just my sister's foster mum.
The point is she's a supportive person. It's good to practice reaching out for help in a healthy way, rather than trying to do it all on your own.
Help. She needed help.
Maeve picked up the phone again, hesitated, then dialled Aimee's number.
A/N. Extra points if you can spot the reference to The End of the F-ing World (Netflix TV show) in this chapter! I've been listening to the soundtrack as I write. It's great writing music...