The B-Side

Chapter 12: Declare

Marc was on the bed lying next to me, still and silent but not asleep. The barricade was now gone, our fingers barely touching between us. I could hear his breathing almost in tune in mine, but there was something amiss at the way he was breathing that bothered me, that nagging feeling just tugging at the corners of my head.

Not Neil.

When Marc and I went back to the room a couple of hours ago, he went to his baggage and fished a tattered white envelope. He handed it to me, and when I reached inside, I saw about eight folded pieces of paper. When I inspected them, I saw they were letters, each written on the day of the month when the assault happened, eight letters to signify the eight months we were apart. Though Nate had told him off, Marc still remembered. He never forgot, and never forgave himself.

I kissed him on the cheek as I read each of the letters, Marc intent on watching me as I do.

And now, a couple of hours later, I was staring at the ceiling, my head reeling with Marc’s words in the letters. He cared. In fact, I really did think he loved me but he was just too late. The day it happened, he already realized he lost me. He realized what he lost—and that was what he wrote in one of the letters: I knew what I lost you the minute I let you walk out that night after I hurt you. I lost the person I hadn’t realized I loved. It was stupid. And unforgivable. And this is my punishment.

But he wanted to give me time and space.

And even though he was seeing Celes, he kept on saying in his letters—I am with Celes, but Celes is not you, L. She can’t measure up to you.

The last letter, written a couple of days before this trip, said: Celes and I are fighting again. I think she found and read my letters to you. There is this part of me that was glad she read them so I wouldn’t have to tell her, but… I love you, L. Please come back to me. I need you back. I’m here now. I’m waiting.

“You know, you write kickass love letters,” I told him, and he let out a hollow laugh. “Too bad I was too late,” he replied with a wry smile.

“I feel bad for Celes though.”

Marc shrugged. “She and I… we were trying too hard. It never worked out, and I don’t think it ever will. We were just… stupid not to realize that, just like how stupid I was not to realize I actually love you.”

He rolled on the bed to face me. “You showed me that ring earlier. Did he give it to you?” he asked me, and I saw his eyes on the necklace dangling around my neck, the ring glinting in the room’s dim light.

I nodded. I showed him how the ring become rings, and Marc was amused. “That guy’s creative. Original.”

I grinned. “Actually, he is, but I would credit the ring to his family’s tradition.”

We fell into this eerie silence again, until something hit me. Marc’s last words in his last letter to me: I’m here now. I’m waiting. They made me think about the last words of Neil in his Track #10.

And then… another something hit me. And when you get over the hump, play Track #11.

I was pretty sure that I already got over the hump.

I got off the bed, startling Marc, and he watched me in mild awe as I fished the tape recorder from the bag, its neon pink earbuds dangling and shining under the bright sunlight that was peering through our semi-closed blinds. I shuffled through the bag and also found the tape that had the track.

“Throwback Thursday?” Marc teased as I sat on the bed next to him again. I plugged the earbuds in my ears.

TRACK #11.