Cabin Fever | ✓

(53) Petrichor

Double update! Chaps 52&53!

-

From the age of ten forward, Marley had no family.

She didn't go out to dinners. Shout at a sibling down the hallways. Eat breakfasts together on Sunday's or fight over chores. She didn't sit in the kitchen with her Math homework and need to ask for help from her parents. She wasn't scolded for curfew, tucked into bed at night, reminded to brush her teeth.

On family days, parent's days, she stayed home sick. When she and Gabby had events for science club and math league, in the audience were Gabby's parents and family. No one else.

When she needed bras, she went shopping with Gabby and Mrs. Collins. When she had her period, she had already bought tampons and done research because Gabby had gotten it first.

She had a father. A father who, when he wasn't working at the factory or playing poker, was sleeping or demanding to be fed. A wrecking ball.

So, when Marley wasn't at Gabby's or doing house chores for her father, she was in her room finding creative ways to pass the time. When she was younger, it was forts and movies and creating whole worlds inside her head. As she aged, it was Quantum Physics, Advanced Chemistry and Microbiology.

It was realizing that learning was the one escape to loneliness.

It wasn't as if she didn't love her father, or that she doesn't even now - she does. Probably more than he deserves. It's that her childhood, in more ways than one, was stolen from her. It's that she had lost all that was ever worth losing.

Years of her father going missing overnight, getting a visit from Detective Bryan that he was in jail for the next month - bred the acceptance that every time she saw him it may be her last.

Marley eventually came to terms with the silence. With her fathers' reckless lifestyle. She stopped watching the door because he left it years ago.

And since then, she hasn't had someone she'd sit and wait and watch a door for, praying they'd come home. Feeling so lonely and broken because without them, the world wouldn't ever be the same again.

Now, Marley does have someone.

Aiden Matthews.

"Did you know that not all rain hits the Earth when it falls?"

In her peripheral, Ian took a seat on the floor beside her, crossing his legs and facing her body, "I didn't."

Her hazel eyes remained locked on the view of the town and the parking lot, from the large, bay windows of Ian's hotel. She had her legs curled to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. Silent tears were slipping down her cheeks as she watched the rain splash against the window, listened to the sound of the wind rustling, and felt the biting coldness of his absence.

"The smell of ra-rain is called Petrichor and-"

"Why don't you take a shower, Marley?"

She squeezed her arms around her legs tighter, a few more tears slipping, "I made-made you a powerpoint...on the mythology behind the five major constellations a while ago. I want to show you."

Ian sighed quietly. She felt the warmth of his hand on the small of her back, "Later, hm? Maybe tomorrow-"

"I'm so scared!" she burst, her body trembling as another onslaught of grief hit her. She released her legs to palm the window, and press her hot forehead against the cool glass.

She'd never felt any of this before. The fear of the person she loves not making it home. She's decided it really isn't something to wish for.

"Hey," he murmured, and his soothing aura was so similar to Aiden's, that her heart broke. Ian circled an arm around her torso and rested his chin on her shoulder, hugging her tightly uncaring about the dirt and dust she was caked in, "I'm scared, too. I should've listened to Aiden. When he comes back he's going to say he told me so."