A/N: Thanks to Xylem, ReRe04, Cute Pony, Mo-52 (I'm enjoying your fic 'Dancing With Myself', by the way, sorry I haven't reviewed yet. I will, I promise ;)), and MysticChic for reviewing! (And yes, Mystic, I was aware of the repeated line…I don't usually do that sort of thing, but I thought it'd be funny there (stop-action, full on Ellie glare, really standing out because it was repeated); Plus Spinner just doesn't strike me as a Thesaurus sort of guy --Ash)
Chapter 3
I rubbed my arm where Ellie had smacked it. For no reason! None! All I said was that I was really hungry and was going to go down and grab something from the kitchen! I glared back at her, but she'd already turned back to Marco, cringing as she dabbed gently at Marco's bloodied face with the tissue she'd grabbed from his bathroom.
It's so cool that Marco has his own private bathroom. Of course since he always has to look 'just right', his parents probably figured they better just give him a room with it's own bath or they'd never be to work on time cuz he'd be hogging the bath all morning. Maybe I should try that at home and see if they'll build on an additional bath so I don't have to share with my sister.
"This would be easier if you sit up here," Ellie informed Marco, trying once again to coax him to come out of the corner. It was a lost cause. He seemed rather intent on staying down there in his grimy seclusion forever. I swear he could be so melodramatic. And kinda crusty. It was weird; there was still like blood dried on his face and stuff.
You'd think that since this had happened on Saturday and it was now Wednesday, his mom would have made sure he like cleaned himself up or something by now. I know my mom would have been yelling at me by Monday if I hadn't showered. Especially if I was smelling rather rank, like Marco was.
Then again, if I'd come home looking as bad as Marco did, my mother would have dragged my ass directly to the hospital. She also never would have let me sulk alone in my room for days. Mrs. Del Rossi'd always struck me as the smothery type of mom, but apparently she wasn't as smothery as mine.
I considered leaving again as Ellie continued to wash Marco's face like he was a little kid or something, but I didn't want to face Paige's wrath if I were to leave before he was at least a little more Marco-y. I didn't have a clue how I was supposed to help, though. So I flopped back on the bed again and let Ellie do her thing while I watched.
That was exciting for all of 30 seconds.
"So…do you want me to grab you guys anything from the kitchen?" I asked, before getting up again. See, I wasn't just thinking about my own rumbling stomach. I figured Marco had to be kind of hungry too. It sort of seemed like maybe he'd just been hiding out in his room for days, and there was no sign of food anywhere. No pizza boxes or pop cans or even broken chips on the floor. Not like I expected Marco's room to be like mine or anything, but I swear the guy's room was like immaculate. He didn't even have any posters on the walls or stuff out on his desk or anything!
Marco reached up and grasped my wrist. "Don't…" He bit his lip nervously (or maybe hungrily. I bet he hadn't eaten in days, you know? See, not just thinking of my own stomach!) "I'm sorry. You guys should go."
"I'm not going anywhere," Ellie informed him, continuing to dab his face with the tissue. "Get me another tissue," she ordered him. Geez. Ordering around a guy that looks like he took on a meat grinder and lost? There's balls for you. So what if she is a girl, she's got a big set of 'em. After a few moments she stopped cleaning Marco's face to turn and glare at me (again!). What?! I didn't say that balls thing out loud! "Would you please get me another tissue?" OH! She'd been telling me!
I pulled my wrist from Marco's grasp, causing him to let out a pained hiss as I pulled him up on his feet. Oops. Well, he shouldn't have held on. It wasn't my fault! And I didn't feel guilty. Not one little bit.
Okay, fine, I felt really bad, but don't tell anyone or they'll think I'm totally mushy or something. Besides, at least I got him out of the corner. He sat down again, but at least he sat on the bed this time.
I looked down at him, apologetically, quickly averting my eyes as I saw that Marco's blanket had fallen enough to show us that he wasn't wearing a shirt under it. I really hoped he's wearing pants. Not that I think about Marco's pants or anything. I just prefer him to be wearing some.
I got up and went to the small bathroom off the side of Marco's bedroom. It seemed weird for some reason, but I couldn't figure out why. Not at first, anyway.
It also seemed weird that Ellie would use tissues when a washcloth would work a whole lot better. I mean, tissues just fall apart when you try to scrub and stuff; especially after you get the stuff wet. So, I figured I'd save her a big headache and just get her a cloth.
Except there wasn't one hanging on the towel rack. There wasn't even a towel for that matter. I frowned. I guess that's why he hadn't showered or anything. You'd think his mom would have gone and gotten him one if he'd asked, though. Or maybe there was one in the drawers under the sink? I pulled out the top drawer. It was completely empty. As was the second one. And the bottom one, too. Leaving the drawers open, I reached up and opened the mirror cabinet.
Empty.
That's what was wrong with the bathroom, I realized. There was nothing in it. Not even a toothbrush. Talk about weird. And not terribly hygienic. And Marco was usually almost downright obsessive about brushing his teeth and stuff. I mean who else brings a toothbrush to a study session?
When I turned around, I just about smacked right into Ellie.
"So, you noticed it, too?" she asked in a hushed voice, staring at me intensely. I know she's like Marco's best friend and all, but she makes me kind of nervous.
"Um…yeah." I nodded, even though I had no idea what it was that I was supposed to have noticed. I didn't want her to think I hadn't noticed! Whatever it was.
Ellie closed the toilet lid and sat down, absently snapping at the rubber bands around her wrist. "So…what do we do?" she asked.
She's like a zillion times smarter than me, so why was she bothering to ask me? I stroked my chin as if in thought. "I don't know? What do you think we should do?" Ha, take that, Ellie Nash!
She shook her head. "I don't know…But we need to get him out of here."
We do?
"We do?" I echoed myself out loud, thoroughly confused. Ellie looked at me like I was lower than pond scum. "I mean, we do!" I quickly turn it around. She was right, we couldn't let Marco sit around moping about getting bashed. "We should like take him to The Dot," I concluded. The expression on her face doesn't get much better. "For food," I reminded her, but she still looked overly doubtful. "Or, we could go back to my place," I tried again to appease her.
Ellie seemed to think on that for a moment before nodding. "Your mom would know what to do. That'd be good."
Right. Whatever my mother had to do with anything was beyond me, but at least Ellie wasn't giving me the Death Glare anymore.
"We're going to have to get him to admit what happened."
I blinked. What did she mean by that? He already told us, didn't he? I thought back over what little he'd said. Park. Stupid. Yeah, that about covered it. But, I didn't want to look dumb, so I stroked my chin again and nodded.
Ellie rolled her eyes and went back out to talk to Marco again. What?!?
My stomach rumbled again, reminding me that I still hadn't ventured down to the Del Rossi kitchen. And since we weren't going to The Dot, and my house was always lacking in good munchies, I figured it wouldn't hurt to stock up before we left. Marco would probably be a lot more comfortable about talking to Ellie about getting bashed in the park, than he would be with me, anyway. I was admittedly not the most sympathetic guy last time it happened. I've gotten better, so no lectures!
I peeked out into the bedroom and saw that Ellie once again had her attention focused on coaxing Marco out of the corner. While she was busy with that, I'd just head on down to the kitchen. Maybe check and see if Mama Del Rossi had some of her famous canolli around. Mmm. Canolli.
Talk about a bitter disappointment. When I opened the door--rather tried to open the door--it only opened about two inches and then was stopped. What the…? I peeked out and discovered that there was a chain on the door.
On the outside of the door.
Why…?
I looked back at Marco and Ellie, confused.
Ellie had her back to me, but Marco's eyes were focused on me. They were wide until he saw me looking back and then they lowered immediately, as if he were suddenly finding something fascinating about the floor again.
I frowned. Ellie was right. There was something weird going on. Something more than just getting bashed in the park. I stared at Marco as Ellie continued talking to him in a low enough voice that I couldn't hear her. She wasn't getting anywhere. It was up to me, after all.
"Hey, Marco," I called out, startling Ellie, who seemed to have forgotten about me already. "What's up with the chain on the door?"
Marco's fascination with the floor seemed to intensify, but Ellie looked back at me with wide eyes, her mouth slightly agape. It was tempting to make the fish comment my mom always used to make whenever I had my mouth hanging open, but I couldn't remember exactly how it went, so I skipped it.
"Marco?" Ellie prompted softly when he didn't answer.
"It's nothing," he whispered.
Ellie just smiled sadly and ran her hand down his cheek, carefully avoiding the bruises. I stood there feeling awkward as she carefully soothed him a while longer. While my stomach continued to rumble.
"Come on, let's get out of here," Ellie finally got to the point a few minutes later. Marco still hadn't told us what was up with the lock, but she didn't seem to care about that.
"I can't," he answered, miserably.
Ellie looked at the door, which was still open only as far as the chain would allow, then looked back at me, with an almost helpless look. Anyone else, it would have been helpless, but this was Ellie, and I don't think that word is even in her otherwise extensive vocabulary.
"We can go out the way we came in," I suggested. "It's not that hard." Okay, so it was hard, but damn it, Ellie made it look easy. And maybe since Marco was a pretty small guy, it would work better for him, too.
"I can't," Marco insisted, tersely.
"Sure you can," Ellie encouraged. "So come on. Get dressed and we'll--"
"Ellie," Marco cut her off, his voice low, but firm. "I can't."
Enough of that. "Sure you can, Marco," I shot back, getting irritated by his defeated attitude. Sure, his situation (whatever it was, I was still unsure) sucked, but he couldn't just sit there and mope for the rest of his life. "It's easy. You just get your depressed butt up, come over to your overstuffed closet," I threw open the door to demonstrate and was started to find it completely empty. No stupid shiny clubby shirts, no obnoxious cowboy frilly thing, not even a freaking pair of tennis shoes. "Or…or…over to your drawers?" I sounded a whole less confident, I know, but I had my suspicion about what I was going to find. And sure enough, when I pulled open the top drawer, it too was empty.
What the?
I looked back at him and found that he had his face buried now, in his hands. His blanket had slipped farther down, so I quickly turned away, but not before I noticed how he was trembling, and how unnaturally dark his skin was in spots. He'd really been battered this time. Not like he hadn't been last time, but…this time it was clearly more severe. And I had the distinct feeling now that it wasn't some unknown creeps in the park that had done this.
Uneasily, I moved over to his desk and slowly pulled open the drawers one by one.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
I sat down, the weight of realization hitting me. I shook my head. Surely…I looked up at Marco, not caring anymore that he was practically half naked. It didn't matter. Not anymore.
My throat suddenly felt incredibly tight. "Marco…what happened to all your things?" I asked, my voice barely audible. I was afraid I already knew what the answer was.
He peeked at me, and without a word spoken, I had my answer.
I looked over at Ellie and was stunned to see a streak of mascara on her cheek.
"You guys should go," Marco spoke quietly. "Please. My Pa…my Papa will be here any minute and you can't be here." I shook my head. No way were we leaving here without him. I opened my mouth to protest, but Marco shook his head and I shut up. I had no idea what to say anyway.
Ellie did. "We're not leaving you here," she choked out, defiantly. "They can't do this!"
"I'll be okay," Marco assured her, and I fought the urge to laugh. Not because it was funny; the situation was anything but. I guess it was more from the irony. Marco comforting Ellie, when he's the one who's parents were…were…I couldn't even think what they were doing to him. I didn't understand it at all. This was Marco! My best-friend-wouldn't-hurt-a-fly-Marco. And his parents were always so nice. A little eccentric and more than a little embarrassing at times, but…they weren't the abusive type. This was all some big mistake. Why would they suddenly do this? "Now please, just go," Marco insisted firmly. "It will be…bad if you're here. I'm not supposed to talk to anyone."
"Marco!" Ellie protested. "If you don't come with us, I swear to God, I will call the police and have them come straight over here and drag you out."
Marco's eye widened. "Don't. I…I don't want them arrested. Y-you can't call the police, Ellie. Please. They're my parents." He looked so lost as he spoke those words. "M-my…papa. He's just…a little confused." Understatement! And since when does confusion cause bruises? "He'll be okay. He just needs a few days," he continued to soothe her. "I'll be okay."
Ellie wiped her eyes, and looked over at me, looking truly helpless this time.
I shook my head and gave her the "I have no idea" gesture.
"Promise me you will not call the police," Marco prompted Ellie, who shook her head defiantly. "Ellie, please!"
"No!"
"Ellie!" He made such a pained little whimpery noise that one would practically have to be stone-hearted not to fall for it.
For a moment they just stared at each other until finally Ellie gave a defeated little nod. She looked at me, tears glistening in her eyesand nodded toward the window. With one last look at Marco, she went back to the window and left the way she came in. Reluctantly, I followed, sparing one last look at Marco before I start climbing down.
Can I mention again how much I hate rose trellises?