Cabin Fever | ✓

(82) You

"Mar you've been saying 'oh my gods' repeatedly into your pillow for the last ten minutes. Did you hit your head or something?"

Marley just curled her pillow tighter over her ears and ignored her best friends' question because yes, the reckoning had arrived.

The reckoning being that Marley was right back to being herself, and not some teenage hormone poster child with no self-control. Given that she has returned to her natural state of being, she was questioning her sanity as much as Gabby was.

"It's almost comforting that our friendship still involves us freaking out about things together," Gabby mused. In the next few seconds, she was plopping down beside Marley on her bunk, shoving her face into Marley's pillow beside her.

It was almost eight at night, and the room was empty. Gabby and Marley were the last of the girls who hadn't gone to the study session in the common room, or down to the mess hall for dinner. Aiden has texted her multiple times but Marley chose not to read them. She knew they both had schoolwork to do, but she couldn't face him, or worse — his best friend Leo.

"Would you hate me if I blindfolded Leo and dropped him off to an unknown location?" Marley mumbled.

"I would hate you if you didn't let me tag along and shove him out of the car myself."

Marley laughed. She shouldn't have even questioned that.

"We're in this together, Mar. If you kill somebody who else would you call to help you remove all forensic evidence and dispose of the body in a secure, discreet method that also speeds up the decomposition process?"

"If by body you mean Leo."

"Definitely. Care to share what he did this time?"

Marley groaned into her pillow, "I would rather be the one thrown out of a car blindfolded than relive or retell any events of a few hours ago."

"You know we'll always be okay, right?" Gabby told her quietly, shifting on her side to face her best friend.

Marley turned her head to peek an eye open in Gabby's direction. She smiled, "Yeah. Despite the fact that social humiliation might kill me, sure. We'll always be okay."

Gabby sighed. Marley knew her best friend wouldn't push for answers because she knows her too well to do that. Instead, she just laid on her back and stared up at the bunk ceiling.

"Ethan asked me out."

Marley turned onto her back, too, also staring up at the ceiling. "You're going to say yes."

"I already did."

Marley wasn't surprised at all. She knows Gabby Collins as well as she knows herself. "I've seen you two hang out all the time. Gabby, he's nearly a duplicate of you. You have the same sense of humour. The same level of intelligence. He understands you. I would be so happy for you if I thought you liked him as much as he likes you."

"I do," Gabby said distantly. "And I told him that, when I told him Leo meant nothing to me."

Marley wasn't surprised by this new information either. "Well, when the girl you likes brother is flown across the country by another guy she's close with, feeling threatened would be normal I'd say."

Gabby scoffed. "Leo has the money to do things like that without any struggle. I'm sure he just threw bills and signed cheque's until Gavin was on a plane. It wasn't this big, toilsome gesture. Ethan has the same ability to be thoughtful and kind. He just doesn't have a million dollars in his bank account to do it for him."