#42 – Spinning

Cassie

Jake says I'm good at reading people, and I guess it's true. I mean, it's nothing special to me…I just pay attention, you know? I pick up on things other people miss. There's nothing supernatural about it. I'm not a mind-reader. I just pay attention, and I think about what the hints people drop mean.

I was sitting in my room, debating for the hundredth time if I could risk writing a journal about what was going on in my life. The answer, obviously, was no…even if they weren't controllers, my parents would flip out if they ever found it. At the very least, I'd be looking at some time in a psych ward. Writing down the things that go through my mind would be a potential atom bomb.

As I let my thoughts flow, they kept coming back to the same thing – Marco. I'm always worried about Marco – he acts like the least vulnerable, the one most able to deal with the things that we see and do. I've always known it's just a shield, and I've always known that one day, when that shield finally cracked, we were going to be dealing with a major meltdown.

Well, if there was ever a time for Marco's shield to break down, this would be it. He coped when his mom died, and he coped when he found out she was still alive and the slave of Visser One. He had that tiny hope to hold onto then, the hope of saving her. After the throwdown we'd just had with her and Visser Three, it looked like that hope was gone. She was almost certainly dead, and even if she wasn't, she was being hunted by the entire Yeerk Empire.

To say the situation looked grim would be the understatement of all time.

It was a Friday night, and I just wasn't going to be at ease until I made sure he was okay. I told my parents that a friend was having "parent issues," and that I wanted to go to them so they wouldn't be alone. They didn't question me further, they just asked if I needed a ride and told me to be careful when I said I didn't. They're really cool like that. They still trust me, somehow.

When I got to Marco's place, I could hear the bass pounding out into the front yard. Obviously his dad was at work, or I doubt he'd have been playing rock music at full volume at almost midnight. I gritted my teeth against the noise and rang the bell. It took four tries before I got an answer; I had almost decided to morph and call him in thought-speech when he finally answered the door.

"Cassie!" he yelled, grinning like a mad man. "Oh, wow, great to shee ya!" He wrapped me into a big, very un-Marco-like hug, and I almost gagged at the smell of liquor radiating from him. "Come in!" he stumbled back into his house, and I followed.

The first thing I did was go to the stereo and turn it down. Way down. Marco collapsed onto the couch and grinned sheepishly at me. "Guesh it was a wittle noisy," he said.

I raised an eyebrow. "A wittle?" Something about this struck Marco as hilarious, and he laughed until he cried.

I sat down beside him and waited for the gales of laughter to die out. When it did, he gave me an open, naked look that I wasn't used to from Marco. It was like his expression was made out of words, and they said, "I'm sorry for this, but I'm so glad you're here." He reached around to the side and behind his couch and came out with a bottle of vodka. He thrust it at me in a gesture of offering, almost dropping it in the process – I noted that it was halfway gone. "Wannsome?" he slurred.

I took the bottle, but made no effort to open it or drink any. "Thank you," I said, holding it in my lap. I figured that was the safest place for it; Marco looked to be about two shots away from alcohol poisoning. I studied him for a moment, and he couldn't hold my eyes; his gazed dropped into his lap. "Marco, are you okay? What's wrong?" I asked as gently as I could.

He started laughing again, but this wasn't the same; it was sad laughter that tried to break my heart. "Whass wrong?" he gulped. "What have you got? Mom's dead. I'm dead too, I juss won't admit it to myself." His eyes came from his lap to mine again. He said earnestly, "We are all dead, Casshie. It doesn't matter. None of it matters."

"You only feel like that because you've had a little too much to drink," I said as non-judgmentally as I could manage. It wasn't hard; I didn't think any less of him for getting drunk. As a matter of fact, it seemed almost like the most logical thing for him to do, even to me. His eyes dropped again, and I added, "I'm not here to lecture you, though. I'm not here to tell you we need you. I'm just here."

It scared me a little when he started crying, even though I sort of expected it. He tried to talk through the sobs, but I couldn't make anything out. It didn't matter what he was saying, anyway. The only thing that mattered was that he wasn't letting it fester inside of him anymore. He was letting it out. Instinctively, I reached out and pulled him close, and he hugged back with all of the desperation of a drowning man grabbing a rescue swimmer.

It took a long time for him to finally wind down. It seemed that the alcohol and crying spell had completely drained him – he started falling asleep, right there sitting up and leaning on me. I wanted to let him, but I also didn't want him to wake up with a hangover. "Marco?"

"Huh?" he sounded confused.

"Do you think you could morph?"

"Morph? Morph what?"

"Doesn't matter. Anything."

I guess he wasn't as far gone as I thought, because he chuckled. "I geddit. You want me to morph so I won' be drung anymore. I like the room spinning. Wee."

"You don't have to if you don't want to, but you're probably going to feel terrible tomorrow if you don't."

"I'll morph away from the hangover. Not this. I worked hard to ged this drung."

"Okay." I just sat there with him, listening to his breathing get longer and heavier. Before he fell asleep, a question occurred to me. "Is that your dad's liquor?" I asked. The last thing we needed was for Marco to get grounded for dipping into his dad's stash.

"No. Mine," he breathed.

I wanted to leave him alone and let him sleep, but curiosity got the better of me. "How did you buy it?"

"Morphed my dad. Agwired him while he was sleebin'."

We Animorphs are nothing if not adaptable.