Disclaimer: I don't own IPS. Consider me disclaimed!
Author's Note: There's some bad decision-making ahead. Just giving you all a heads-up. And with that, I give you... this update! Enjoy. =)
Fish Out of Water
Chapter 11
Marshall grunted as he landed hard on the ice, and not for the first time that day. Wincing at the soreness of his backside, he slowly pushed himself back up, only to have his rented skates slip out from under him again, earning him another impact on the rink. The ice beneath him felt much harder than it looked.
Brandi skated up to him swiftly, her sister trailing behind. She held out her hands, her small frame braced to take his weight, and he accepted. She helped him right himself, far more steady on the ice than he was. Marshall thanked her with an embarrassed grimace. He had never been ice skating before but he hadn't expected to me this bad at it. He caught Mary's amused smirk as she watched him wobble across the ice; though still a bit sick and accordingly sluggish, she handled the ice with a long-practiced ease that he secretly envied.
Mary had mostly recovered from her night spent in the park, in February, an act of reckless self-endangerment that Marshall was still inwardly struggling to comprehend. Now only slightly under the weather, she had agreed to come skating with her sister, for which Marshall had volunteered to pay. He was having fun, or so he told himself, though it would admittedly be more enjoyable if he wasn't spending so much time on his ass. At least the sisters were having a good time; Brandi flew across the ice without a trace of fear, as if the thought of falling never entered her mind, and Mary, while more cautious in her skating, looked relaxed as though for once she was thinking of nothing else.
Relief blossomed in him. With the constant tension in her household since the rent incident, it had been some time since he'd seen Mary this content. Gone was the restlessness, the nervous agitation that had marked the past month. Her altercation with Jinx had been a long time coming. Thankfully, aside from a few days in bed with something akin to the flu, there had so far been no repercussions from that night. Jinx seemed to want to forget it happened, either because she couldn't face Mary's accusations of poor parenting, or because she had been so drunk that she had actually forgotten. It was possible that it was a little of each; Marshall thought it likely that what the woman could recall left her disinclined to quest after what was missing.
He smiled as he watched Mary skate, and the distraction caused him to falter again. In an instant, Brandi was at his side, tucked under his arm and steadying him, preventing another fall. Mary skated up in front of him and held out her hands. He took them, and she began to skate slowly backward. Brandi's hands pushed against the small of his back, keeping him upright as he followed her big sister's lead.
"I taught Brandi how to skate this way," Mary said, smiling happily at the memory. "She was a lot smaller than you, though. I could keep her standing straight just by holding her arms."
"He looks like a giraffe trying to skate," Brandi added from behind him with a giggle.
Mary looked at him, her eyes widening as she considered her sister's doubtlessly apt comparison, and she tried and failed to stifle a laugh. Marshall's trepidation on the ice vanished in the face of the perceived challenge, and slipping his arm around her waist, he pushed off with one foot and pulled her into a slow spin. Mary found her hands tucked between them, palms pressed to his chest. Breathless at being drawn into his embrace so suddenly, she looked up, meeting his gaze as they slid across the ice. He smirked and raised an eyebrow at her.
"Now who's a giraffe?" he murmured softly, his breath misting in the air as he spoke.
She leaned into him, not enough to set him off-balance, but enough to bring their faces closer together. He searched her eyes for what she wanted from him; finding an answer, he slowly brought his lips to hers. There was the barest brush of contact before he lost his footing again.
He grabbed Mary reflexively before his knees could hit the ice, and with a soft grunt she held on, somehow maintaining her balance even as she took the bulk of his weight. They froze for a moment, her arms under his, his hands clinging to her shoulders, his face crushed to her chest in their awkward embrace. He looked up at her from the folds of her sweater, grinning sheepishly.
"Yep, still a giraffe," she teased, her eyes sparkling.
She braced herself and kept her hold on him as he gingerly found his feet, helping him to steady himself as he stood. Her hands slipped to grip his forearms from underneath, and he held on for stability. The moment, however, was lost, replaced by another moment of a more platonic tone. Marshall gave her a rueful smile.
Brandi drew up next to her sister and prodded at her. When Mary asked what she wanted, she tilted her head toward the far side of the rink. Mary looked where her sister had indicated, her grip on Marshall's arms tightening as she froze. Her entire frame was suddenly tense. Marshall followed her stare and saw that she was looking at someone; a rather dirty and rough-looking guy wearing a worn denim jacket. The man sucked on a cigarette, staring at them even through the poisonous cloud of smoke he slowly exhaled.
"Mary?" Marshall questioned softly.
"It's nothing," she muttered, shaking her head and glancing at her sister. "Squish, it's time to go."
The trio made their way off the ice, Marshall managing to stay on his feet. Mary and Brandi quickly changed out of their skates; Marshall followed suit and returned his to the rental desk. He followed the sisters as they made their way to the exit, glancing over his shoulder in an attempt to assuage his growing feeling of unease. The individual that had Mary so rattled was still standing in the same place, unmoving except to bring the cigarette to his mouth again, staring after them.
"Be straight with me, Mary," Marshall demanded. "Who was that guy yesterday, at the skating rink? Why was he staring at you?"
"What makes you think he was staring at me?" she deflected.
"Well, I don't know him, and if he was staring at Brandi, that's an entirely different problem."
Mary huffed. "Fine, so he was staring at me. What's it to you?"
Marshall threw his hands up in exasperation. "I don't know. Maybe the fact that some total creep was staring at my best friend and making her uncomfortable as hell is something I should find relevant somehow."
"I'm your best friend?" she asked hesitantly.
"You're my only friend, aside from Brandi," he said with a frustrated sigh.
Mary looked at the sidewalk, deep in thought. There was so much going on. She still didn't know where she stood with Jinx. That situation seemed more tenuous with every day that passed without Jinx either blaming her or absolving her. Being ignored was like being in purgatory, uncertain what her fate was to be, and that was in some ways worse than a decisive move in either direction. On top of that, there was the acceptance letter from UNM. Marshall had given it to her at lunch, and her backpack seemed heavy from the weight of the knowledge that it was in there.
At least some good had come of that; Mr. Brunswick's reaction had been priceless. He had gaped and spluttered like a fish pulled from the water and unable to breathe. When he had finally recovered, he had marked a check next to her name in his damned grade ledger. "Still capable of surprises, I see. Good for you, Miss Shannon," he'd remarked. Mary had blushed, snatched the letter back, and dashed to her seat. It was the first praise she'd gotten in school since she didn't know when, and she didn't know how to take it.
She didn't know what to do with the letter, either. Marshall warned her that applications for financial aid would be coming due, so she would have to decide soon. Financial aid, she scoffed silently, what a pipe dream. The thought, however, made her feel sad; as much as she believed that the reality of her ever getting to go to college was utter nonsense, deep down, she wanted to believe in more. A part of her hated herself for even daring to desire a life she could never have, and under that, she grieved for the loss of something that would never be.
Marshall confused her, too. He kept pushing college like he thought it could happen for her. He said things like what he'd just told her, that she was his best friend. And their almost-kiss on the ice the day before… Where does he think this is going? Doesn't he realize that after graduation, he'll be gone and I'll be stuck here? That this is all going to end?
Mary chewed her lip as she brooded. Mark's reappearance at the skating rink was a new complication, too. She'd been thoroughly creeped out the first time she'd spotted him there, but seeing him there this time as well… it didn't feel like a coincidence to her. She thought she'd seen him around other places too, while she was out and about, but she wasn't sure; she knew, though, that she'd seen his piece of crap Camaro drive by the high school a few times, and she thought it might have driven by her house at night, more than once. Mark was probably stalking her, though she couldn't imagine why, and the thought of trying to explain any of it to Marshall made her feel ashamed of herself. I'm the one who almost dated the guy, she reasoned, so that makes it my fault, and my problem.
"What in the hell…" Marshall murmured, his voice rough with concern and, she thought, a hint of anger as well.
She looked up and came to an abrupt stop. There it was; the Camaro, parked across the street from Brandi's elementary school. Mark stood beside it, leaning on the hood, looking every inch a scumbag. He spotted her, and though he was wearing sunglasses, she could feel his stare upon her. The sensation made her skin crawl. She stood, rooted to the spot, as one of the teachers bustled across the street and had words with him. Flicking his cigarette to the ground and causing the teacher to jump back, he pulled the driver's side door open, climbed in, and drove away.
"Okay, Mary, this is getting serious," Marshall said firmly as he turned to her. "Who the hell is that guy, and why does he keep turning up wherever you are? Unless he really is after Brandi?"
"He's not after my sister," Mary replied, though with less conviction than he would have liked. "I knew he was back in town, but I don't have a clue what he wants. He's just been lurking around like that."
"You know him? And he's been following you around for how long?" he asked incredulously.
"Mark's been back since just after Thanksgiving, that I know of," she answered quietly. "He didn't start showing up in weird places like that until Christmas, and I wasn't even sure he was after me until we saw him yesterday."
"Mark? As in, might have disappeared because he was in prison, that Mark?"
"That was just a rumor, and he'd have been sent to county jail if his sentence was less than a year anyway," she replied defensively.
"That really doesn't make it okay for him to be hanging out in front of Brandi's school," Marshall hissed.
"You think I don't know that?" she snapped.
"We should call the police, Mary. Tell the school. Something."
"Don't bother," she said evenly. "I'll take care of this."
Sighting them, Brandi came scurrying over from the schoolyard. Mary broke into a smile, the most recent of many happy faces Marshall had seen her fake for her sister's benefit.
Brandi was in bed, Jinx was out, and Mary sat in her mother's bedroom alone. She looked over the college acceptance letter she held in her hand, tracing her fingers over it absently. It was so unfair, when she let herself think about it; she wanted it so badly, but it was something that could never be. She folded the letter into its envelope and tucked it away into her bag.
Moving to the closet, she stood on the kitchen chair she'd set there and reached to the left for the niche in the wall along the top shelf. Finding it, she drew out a parcel bundled in a scarf. She stepped down from the chair and sat on the bed, holding the bundle carefully. She laid it on the bed and unwrapped the scarf, revealing the snub-nosed revolver her father had given to Jinx before he left them.
Mary didn't think Jinx knew she was aware of its existence, but she remembered seeing him hand it to her, remembered her mother holding it tenuously by the grip with just the tips of her fingers and shoving it into her underwear drawer before angrily demanding of her husband why he thought she would need the disgusting thing.
Taking in the glinting reflection of moonlight on the smooth metal of the gun, Mary supposed her father had left it for occasions like this one. She picked it up and popped the chamber open. It was loaded, because Jinx could barely stand to hold the thing long enough to load it under normal circumstances, let alone any under which she might actually need to use it. Snapping it shut again, Mary tucked the weapon into her bag, right next to her college letter.
Marshall watched Mary with concern. She'd been unusually taciturn all day; he'd gotten barely a word out of her on the walk to school, during lunch, and in English class. She wasn't much of a talker to begin with, but this was different. She was preoccupied, and it didn't take even the majority of his intelligence to realize that it probably had to do with either Mark or her acceptance to college, or both, but there was something heavy about her silence that went beyond her usual brooding. It worried him, and he was unwilling to let her out of his sight until he figured out what was amiss.
When they arrived at Brandi's school, he saw it; that damned Camaro was parked up a side street, away from the watchful eyes of teachers but with a clear view of their walking route.
"He's here," Marshall informed her quietly, giving a miniscule jerk of his head in the direction of the car.
Mary veered down a small alley between houses that cut through to the sandlot the school used for sports. She hunched against the fence and crouched low, out of sight. Rummaging through her backpack, she fished out the gun.
"Jesus Christ, Mary!" Marshall hissed when he saw it. "What the hell are you doing with that?"
"What does it look like, numbnuts? I'm gonna scare the fucker so bad he'll leave me and my sister alone," she growled. "Maybe he'll even crap his pants. I'll just have to see what happens."
"Is it loaded?" he asked worriedly.
"Of course it's loaded," she scoffed at him. "What good is it if it isn't loaded?"
"Mary, this is a really, really bad idea," he said, trying to keep his voice calm. "This isn't the right way to handle this."
"Then you tell me, Marshall," she snapped. "What is the right way? What would Miss Manners do in this scenario?"
"Call the cops, Mare! It's what they're there for!"
"And when they realize I know the guy who keeps hanging out by my sister's school, what do you think happens to my chances of ever getting custody of Brandi?" she cried, her voice thick with frustration.
"We'll figure something out," he replied. "Just give me the gun, please?"
Mary ran a hand through her hair and put the butt of the gun in his outstretched palm. Marshall swiftly flipped open the chamber and tapped the bullets out into his hand, stuffing them into his pocket. Closing the chamber with a snap, he tucked the now unloaded gun into the back of his pants beneath his coat.
"What the fuck am I gonna do now?" Mary murmured. She looked up at him, her eyes burning with anger, not for him but for her own helplessness.
"We'll figure it out," he repeated. "It'll be okay."
"It's never going to be okay," she whispered, on the verge of tears. She slapped something against his chest; he caught her hand in his, feeling something of a papery texture, but he didn't look away from her to see what it was.
"That's why I can never leave," she added, pushing away from him. She grabbed her bag and bolted before he could see the tears on her face that she couldn't hold back.
He looked down where her hand had been, where his still was, and saw that it held her acceptance letter from UNM.
A/N: Dun dun duuuuunnnn! Things are getting bumpy! Hang in there! I want to take a moment to thank all of you, my awesome readers, and especially those who've reviewed! I love reading your feedback! Let me know what you think of this chapter, and I hope you'll come back for the next one! =)