Marcelle is attractive.
Marcelle is a football player.
Marcelle is cliché.
Marcelle is a wolf in sheep clothing.
Marcelle is a Christmas fanatic.
Marcelle is just downright annoying.
Matthew Griffin is a certified theatre geek/video game nerd. And...
❝Blast this Christmas music. It's joyful and triumphant.❞
The Grinch
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Every time he steps into a hospital, an automatic pity-hat goes on his head and he looks with long eyes at every passing patient in a bed. A gray lady with a tube blooming from her mouth—shame. A child with a neat row of stitches down his forehead—shame. A paranoid mother of six bringing the entire litter of children to push her husband in the ER only because he's complaining about a little reflux pain [while she's assured he's in full heart-attack mode]—shame.
Usually Marcelle is the one in the bed, his skin is drawn together by a wire again, he ate something beastly again, he broke a bone again, he knocked out a tooth again. Today, he is the one pacing up and down the halls impatiently. Today, he is the one accumulating blood on his nail beds. He is cold, but he's too numb to put on a jacket. He's not going to wear Matthew's jacket, even though the EMT did give it to him for safe keeping.
He'll violate Matthew.
He's still processing the flashes of memories trying to find a safe house in his mind. With his eyes shut and his breath held, he sees Matthew, pale Matty-boy, clutching to his chest as if his ribcage is falling off and he has to glue it back. He remembers the color of his lips vividly, the same lips that touched him and made him special. It hued into a shade of blue, a cobalt, colder than ocean water in winter. His pupils dilated, as if he accepted the cause and tossed it over his shoulders to the back of his head to focus on the only thing that mattered—his heart.
Marcelle knows CPR, he classifies himself as a pretty successful lifesaver, but the second he had to use his knowledge, his fingers went limp, his breath hitched and his throat burned with bile. He wanted to lay next to Matthew and wail in a puddle of self pity, because he might be losing his first love.
He might be losing the person who made him fall in love like a dog. Matthew can shun him away, hide him, but he'll always crawl back to him.
He decided against his better judgement and finally shrugs on Matthew's jacket. It still smells of him—strong and persistent, but subtly exuding. Matthew chugged his entire life into the pockets of this jacket, his wallet, his keys, his phone [morbidly cracked and far beyond it's expiration date].
That's how Marcelle remembers Matthew. He remembers him as the scruffy kid who always got hand-me-downs from everyone—he never got the first of anything. Even the Jeep Wrangler, resting in it's raven glory in the school parking lot, wasn't new. It's a second hand car he saved up for his entire life.
Now he has second-hand health too.
He's never been in a situation quite like this before. His heart is thumping and his skin feels dry and cracked, as if he can't hold himself inside his skin. He feels hurt and angry and he's tired and nauseous. He wants to hold Matthew's hand and assure him that he'll be okay, but he doesn't know for sure. Hell, he doesn't even know what the doctors are doing to Matthew.
