Cabin Fever | ✓

(57) Are You Seriously About To Strip In The Middle Of The Woods

⚠️ This is going to be a lil difficult to read. Just a heads up ⚠️

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Today was an outdoor lab day.

It was a little after nine in the morning, but they would be here for a while. There were a lot of samples to collect, specimen to draw, and notes to take. Each location to be studied had a coloured flag. Every set of partners were given a map and an order for which flag to go to first.

Despite her 4.0 GPA Marley has zero sense of direction, so Aiden took the lead and made sure the path was clear in front of her. They were surrounded by thick forestation and marshy ground, thankfully not having to wear suspenders like they'd had to in the past.

Which admittedly is amusing because Aiden, despite wearing plastic green pants and chunky rubber boots, still looks like...Aiden.

He stopped them at the purple flag, and she slid out their clipboard and passed him a dropper to collect liquid samples according to the instructions. Marley scanned over Aiden's crouched position, his face remaining impassive as he carefully retrieved the sample and put it into the tray she was holding out.

"You've never spoken about your mother," she mused as gently as she could. Not wanting to pry, only suggest that she was curious.

He locked eyes with her for a brief few seconds before going back to avoiding her gaze and gently grabbing the sample from her hands, setting it into the bag.

"There isn't much to say." He was actively focused on his current task, which meant there definitely was something to say.

And the look in Aiden's eyes, the impassive expression with a hint that he was lost in his memories, had Marley remembering her brief encounter with his father. Cold. Calculating. Ruthless. How he cheated and never seemed regretful. How he allowed Violet and Aiden to be abused in more ways than one.

Recalling her own father had the question flying out before she could word it better.

"Does your father hurt her, too?"

For a heartbeat, he stilled. He tried to cover it up, but she was too in tune to him to not notice his instinctive reaction. Marley wasn't in the mood for biology right now, so he began doing all of the work himself - unbothered. He lifted gracefully from the ground.

She watched him with sad but firm eyes. His strong jaw was tight, full lips pursed and she knew both weren't because he was frustrated with the algae.

"Is she not safe?"

His hand stilled where he was writing observations down in his always elegant script. Aiden shifted the clipboard and pen together in his right hand and crossed his arms. Marley watched him lean against the closest tree, sighing with unreadable blue eyes.

"He's never respected her. Not as his equal. But I can say I've never seen him be physical with her. I would have intervened if I had."

She crossed her arms in return, suddenly feeling cold, "I don't doubt that you would do something about it, but you weren't around much, were you?"

"Neither were they. They're almost always gone. But fifteen and sixteen were rough years for me. Ten to thirteen I was still too scared of everything to leave the house at night, but at some point I stopped caring and..." he ran a hand through his hair with a tired expression.

Marley watched Aiden crouch again and continue to work, but his stature was inviting her to keep asking him for more information. Open book.