Sorry for the delay! When life intervenes…work, people, work, etc. So here is the next chapter! Thank you for all of the encouraging reviews and advice—it's a trip sometimes, trying to think up the words. But I'm trying. (A/N: The Weepies, "Safe As Houses" lyrics)
Feeling
sick, stay home inside
See the T.V. news, and the New York
skyline.
I want to make you a sheltering sound
But right side's
wrong, and upside's down
Mary's feet stilled. His words echoed in the small kitchen, bouncing off the pots and pans in the drying rack, the glass of vodka that rested half full on the counter, down to the delicate floorboards where he stood. It reverberated in her mind, taunting everything she thought she knew about him. Or didn't know, she guessed.
She felt frozen. Happy was a hard place to find. Fine was hard enough. That was yet another lame expression. How are you? Why did people have to ask that? If you looked like hell, the kind of hell that made you ruin your brand new boots, the ones you buy once every six months, the kind of bad that makes you dye your hair a hideous shade, or stop sleeping and wind up passing out in front of a vending machine, why ask? Obviously, you're not relatively fine. But that was how she and the rest of humankind always answered, I'm fine.
Mary wasn't fine, in any sense of the word. If she was mad at Brandi before, now she was furious. She had no right to give out pictures of her, especially considering her nearly blown cover at the stupid funeral because the dead cop's psycho partner went all Mean Girls on her. Suddenly, she felt very, very exposed.
"Mary," Marshall coaxed. Her gaze rested, unblinking, on the photo still. She didn't hear him, or was pretending she was anywhere else in the universe but sitting in his kitchen. He decided to continue, whether she wanted to hear it or not.
"Mary, you know that, first, and above all else, you're my best friend, and I shouldn't have to tell you that. The difference between us, what I should have said months ago, knowing I could have died, was that I wanted so much more with you. I didn't want to lose you; I don't want to lose you. Losing you because I want more, that would kill me."
He'd kept his distance. He'd left space between them. For years, for seconds. Now the mere ten inches that separated the pair seemed oceans away and fathoms deep, and yet close enough to swim to shore. She was still, though. She wasn't treading water; and as the moments passed, he felt like more than his heart was sinking.
He wanted to cross the few inches, but he didn't want to push her away. She was skittish and untrusting and he knew why. It hurt that she didn't know, didn't realize that he was different. He slightly stepped closer, realizing he was afraid to be in his own home at that moment.
She was a fighter, literally, figuratively—she could hurt him a million ways in one. Eyes still focused on the photo, staring down at her honest, smiling, happy face, she wondered if it could work. She destroyed everything personal, and she'd decided to keep Marshall at a distance so she could keep him. It was logical, and completely backwards and upside down and wrong.
His bare feet came into her unfocused stare, knowing how close he must be. Instinct and intrusion of personal space made her pull her eyes off of the picture, and left her caught up in the expression she'd seen when he'd asked her to dance earlier. That hope was startling. Hope that she would want him back.
Her voice was trapped; hostage in her own throat and the tangled words spinning around her head did not try to rescue her either. Her fight or flight response failed miserably.
She felt him push the errant strands of blonde bed hair behind her ears. She could stop him. She could hit him. She could yell and scream and kick. She could, but she was still frozen—stuck in the moment. She was cornered.
His other hand rested loosely on the curve of her waist. His response seemed heavily weighted towards flight if she did decide to snap, he mused idly. He wanted her to meet him halfway on this, but she had become a mute since he'd spoken. Two inches, Marshall thought. Two inches to find out for the rest of his life if he'd made the biggest mistake.
Two inches he closed in a blink of her eyes.
The hand behind her ear moved to the back of her neck, pulling her in, bringing her as close as possible as he kissed her, slowly, waiting for some kind of pain. It was a long minute for her to respond…the frame of her shining happy smile falling from the hands that had been white-knuckling the photo for dear life…hearing distantly the shatter of the expensive glass cover.
Her own hands floated unbidden to his chest, winding them limply around his neck, as his hand around her waist crushed her to him in the moment. She didn't think, and he wasn't either.
They were a mess of hands and hair and unknown emotion and kissing, he still standing, she still sitting on his kitchen counter. His lips had grazed across her cheek, from her jawline, down to her neck. Mary breathed in sharply at the contact, lost to the feeling of it all.
Bits of forgotten thoughts came together. Where and how far would they take this? Would she regret it in the morning? Would he? She was at an impasse; if she pulled back now, she'd lose him for good, but if she let it go, she'd be the one to ruin it. Either way, it was and would be her fault. She was a damned soul, and he was just an innocent bystander.
His eyes met hers then, feeling her tense suddenly, waking up to what was happening. Fear and sadness rolled over in her hazy, brown eyed gaze. He didn't want to let go, hands hovering like before. She shook her head, biting her swollen lips.
"Marshall…just…take it back," she whispered, feeling sick as she did. She couldn't look at him now, seeing the defeat that settled harshly over his face, his entire body. He backed away, flinching as he stepped on a piece of the broken frame. The sharp glass snapped him awake, from the dreamy state they'd been in. "Marshall, here let me—" She started to say, readying herself to slide off the counter and grab a towel for his foot. But he shook his head.
"I'm fine," he said. The crappy saying ringing in her mind wasn't what halted her movement, but his tone, disconnected, impartial, ambiguous. She stopped, watching as he walked away from her, hurt and helpless. They wouldn't be the same after this, no matter how much they smiled through the denial.
And she was left breathing stiffly, thinking of all the ways they'd kill themselves over it for the rest of their friendship.
Whatever, she thought, was left of it.
It's
quiet in the streets now
It's screaming in your head
We're
passing the time
We're breaking apart
We're damned at the end
We're damned at the start
Blame it on the roses
Blame it
on the red
Running out of time
Running out of breath
Saying
hey now you're bleeding for nothing
It's hard to breathe when
you're standing on your own
We'll kill ourself to find freedom
You'll kill yourself to find anything
(A/N: End lyrics, "Hey Now" by Augustana…I know, I know, but I couldn't resist because I thought they were cohesive with my idea.)