Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke #1)

[ 26 ]

"Abby? What are you doing here?" I asked, my eyes wide open as she smiled at me as she stood at my doorstep. I thought for a moment, remembering that we hadn't agreed to meet up. I allowed her to come through which she did before I offered her a snack.

"No no no, don't worry about that. Scarlett, I think it's time that we had a bit of a chat." She exclaimed as I sighed taking a seat on the couch next to her. I knew what this conversation was going to be about, Marcus and his rather distant behaviour. After accidentally running into him the other day, I was starting to begin to worry about him. He was acting very different since the first time I met him during the interview, his bubbly personality and striking charisma had suddenly seemed to vanish and with each time I thought about it, the more badly I felt guilty for leaving him in the dark that night.

It was half past eight and right now when I glanced at the clock. I could feel my body tensing and already knew that Abby could notice how I was behaving at the moment.

"Look, I just want to say that I'm sorry." I confessed after a moment of silence between the both of us. She looked at me confused, awaiting for an answer as I let out a sigh, thinking to myself the best way to explain to her what was really going on.

"For what?" She asked, looking at me in concern as I could feel myself breaking down in tears. I could sense her body twitch as she moved closer to me, doing her best to comfort me which I really did appreciate but didn't have the energy to say anything. I wiped away the tears from eyes before taking a moment to calm myself down.

"I'm sorry for making a mess of everything Abby. I'm sorry for making a mess of your life, of Marcus' life and his teammates lives. Before he ever met me it sounded like everything was fine for everyone but when I entered your lives everything seems to be falling apart. Marcus is all over the place, everyone's worried for him and it's me, I'm the one to blame for it all." I admitted feeling quite pathetic within this moment. Abby hardly knew but for some reason a part of me felt like she was the closest person I could turn to, but unfortunately the other part of me felt like I was putting all my problems which made me feel like I was suddenly weak, like I should be more independent with myself.

"Hey Scarlett, Scarlett why are you suddenly beating yourself up? You have done absolutely nothing wrong to affect my life nor have you done the same to the other girls who think you are an amazing person to be around. Okay Marcus might be all over the place but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with you -"

"Abby please." I said feeling more guilt rise over me when it sounded like she was only trying to sugarcoat what's been going on with Marcus lately.

"Do you - Have you. Did anything happen between you two that I should know about?" She asked me. I looked into her eyes, the brown coloured eyes suddenly showing distress as I looked down to the ground. I wiped away more tears from my eyes, my eyes stinging from the tears that had rolled down my already moist cheeks.

"You know during the game against Fremantle?"

"Uh of course, Scarlett you're scaring me a little you know that?" Abby answered with the shock clearly evident in her tone. I sighed once more before continuing with my version of events.

"After the match, I was pretty excited that the boys had won. I mean who wouldn't when your time defeats a team like Fremantle you know? So I meet up with everyone in the lockeroom and wanted to congratulate Marcus personality. Tom showed me where he was and I found him with a club physio. When the physio left, we started talking about the game and I don't know how it happened but we kissed and it was awkward between us -"

"Oh my Scarlett, so you guys kissed but what exactly that have to do with anything? I mean yeah it was unexpected but I thought you guys had feelings for each other. Not to be noisy or whatever, ever since Marcus has been hanging around with you, for some reason I feel like he's changed quite a bit, like he's suddenly matured even more than any of us expected."