Asterism

18. still hurt

PRESENT

Over the last three hours of rotting in the drunk tank, Marley and Jamie had been deteriorating slowly.

Marley looked to him in her exhausted haze. His short-cropped dark blonde hair was matted and damp, his eyelids fluttering as he napped, and his jeans covered in dirt and dust. Marley's senses were too traumatized by the scent of vomit - her own and others - to be able to pick up on much else, but she can imagine he smells as pleasant as she does.

Looking down at her legs alone, Marley winced at what her boyfriend would have to see. Her bare skin was covered in brown patches of where the dirt clung to the places where she had cold sweats. Her converse were likely garbage after this given how disgusting they looked, and Jamie's shirt she was wearing was as good as ruined. Marley didn't even want to know the state of her makeup of hair, and she probably would've sold her first-born child for a toothbrush if someone offered.

Between conversations with Jamie, Marley had thought about two people the most, and one of those was her father.

Even though she knew his conditions as a long-term inmate were luxury compared to a drunk tank of college kids, it gave her perspective as she studied the cold concrete floors and the iron bars that caged her. Despite the way he treated her, if there was a way to release him from jail tomorrow she would. It's been almost a year since he was incarcerated, and he was nearly beaten to death as part of his time there; she figured by now he's paid his piper, maybe even changed. But even Marley knew deep down was wishful thinking with a man like Bob Hoover.

The second person who plagued Marley's thoughts was Gabby Collins, but it was more of a haunting manner. She would hear her best friends' laugh, hear a conversation they'd had, see a memory flash behind her eyes and it would have her heart aching more than her stomach ever could. Things had gotten so far out of hand between them last night, and the alcohol was the gasoline feeling the spark into a forest fire. They'd never had a fight before, let alone one of that magnitude, even if they'd bickered once in a blue moon. Marley hated every second of what she could remember of it. She didn't know she was capable of such hurtful words until that fight, when she compared Gabby to her mother -- someone who betrayed her ex-husband and her own children over and over again, choosing men and other substances over her own family.

Marley knows with everything she said, she deserves the pain and humiliation she feels from everything Gabby had said in return.

And, well mostly because she's right. Marley has always feared that she's boring, that her idea of fun is mundane, and she knew it true deep down. Gabby has been meeting new friends in college, who are so much more fun to be around and want to do many more things her best friend of fourteen years probably wouldn't. Gabby is seeing all of these people around her and realizing she can do better. Isn't that what Marley wants for her, anyway?

Gabby has also said she isn't allowed to complain about anything, because Marley's problems and her life take over. She's right about that, too. Marley makes her family and mental health issues centre stage and tends to only see herself.

And that last point Gabby made that stuck with Marley, was that Aiden has become her entire life. That without him she doesn't know who to be and where to go, that she clings onto him whenever he's around, and is desperate for his attention. And yet, when it comes to their intimate relationship, despite everything they've been through she still won't give herself to him. Gabby's right, it does make her a prude. Isn't that the definition of the word? Someone who is too reserved about their body?