The Convenient Marriage (MLB Fanfiction) COMPLETE✔

Chapter 57⚠️

⚠️ MINI CHAPTER ⚠️

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  Chloe opened her eyes, feeling muggy from the meds she had taken before.
  Her body felt incredibly heavy. She almost felt as if she wouldn't be able to climb out of bed and live a normal life again.

   She would have walked around, just to feel the floor beneath her toes, but the catheter inside proved the task of getting up to be even more difficult. 

   Her brow furrowed, her blue eyes moving towards the door as it slid open and a blond male stepped inside.
   Chloe immediately rolled her eyes, closing them immediately as the mere sight of him made her incredulously anxious. Especially at a time like this, Chloe couldn't be bothered. She was sure the night he stopped by her penthouse would be the last time she'd see him. 

"Are they just letting anyone inside?" Chloe asked, her chest growing tight the moment her scratchy voice escaped her pale lips. "I thought I asked for no visitors."

  Felix sighed, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He glanced down at her, shifting his weight with a simple shrug. 

"I suppose it's the last name I decided to take on..." he rasped, pulling a chair out from beside her bed. "It gets me places..."

He sat down, immediately leaning into the chair and folding his hands against his stomach as he glanced up at Chloe with a blank expression. 
"Chloe, what the hell are you doing?" He asked, his voice strained as the lines beneath his eyes deepened. "Were you really that fucked up just by seeing me?"

  Chloe furrowed her brow, immediately turning over so that she could face her back away from him. She gripped on to the pillow as her heart sank into her stomach. A small blush dusted across her cheeks and Chloe tried everything she could not to hyperventilate. 

"I-It was an accident. I wasn't thinking, I started becoming careless and I went too far,” she conceded, her voice quivering the more she thought about how everything went black the moment she overdosed. "Why'd you come? To rub it in my face how you're going to tell everyone my secret?"

  Felix groaned, reaching up with one of his hands to pinch the bridge of his nose with vexation. 
  It went without saying that Chloe was reckless all the time. Since the moment they first met, Felix almost felt as if he had to babysit her.

"I'm not going to tell anyone about your drug addiction, Chloe," he deadpanned, his hand dropping back down on to his lap. "I know I said in the past that I would, but I sort of don't care about it anymore..."

  Chloe opened her eyes, scoffing with a furrowed brow as she remained completely unconvinced. 

"Your secret was already out. Marinette knows what you did to her. You told me that if I told anyone that I saw you with your mistress, you'd tell everyone about my addiction," Chloe explained, her voice cracking at the last word. "But now it doesn't seem fair. You still have this over my head. You could still tell my father, my friends..." her voice trailed off the moment her mind reflected back to her mother. "M-My mother..."

  "I'm not going to tell your mother. Yes, Marinette found out about my infidelity, I tried to reconcile, she decided to stay friends...I told you I had some time in London to think. I'm not the same man that I was before," Felix explained. "In fact, I'm growing concerned about how bad it's gotten. I really think you should consider reh-"

"Don't say it!" Chloe interjected, immediately whipping back to glare at Felix who remained unphased at Chloe's sudden hostility. "I have it under control. You made me anxious when you stopped by, so I needed to up it. Once you leave and never come back, I'll be back to where I started. I can stop anytime I want. I don't need anyone's help."

Felix pressed his lips together, sarcastically nodding as he rolled his eyes. He folded his hands back onto his stomach and glanced up at the ceiling.

  "That's bullshit. Every addict says they can stop when they want. The main symptom is denial that there is a problem. Yes, you may have seen me with my mistress, I was terrified that you were going to tell the press about my secret relationship. I blackmailed you into keeping quiet because I was terrified to have Marinette find out that I was cheating on her. But I already told you before that I won't say anything about it. I don't care that you know anymore..."

  Chloe squeezed her eyes shut, her heart aching in her chest at the sound of Marinette's name. She could vividly remember the young woman standing in the corner of her room, attempting to reach out to her before Chloe coldly rejected her.
  She exhaled, a cold scoff escaping her lips as she gripped even tighter on to the pillow.

"Marinette...I can't even look at her the same. I feel so guilty knowing that I knew what her boyfriend was doing and I kept quiet,” Chloe whispered. "I don't even deserve to look at her. I can't be around her..."

  Felix furrowed his brow, leaning up to prop his elbows onto his knees. Knowing how Chloe was, he knew how she often pushed people away when she was guilty, and she often did it in the most cruel ways she knew how.

  "The fuck does that mean? You're treating her like shit?" Felix asked, perking a brow as he glanced up at her.
  Chloe sighed, keeping her lips pressed into a tight line as even the thought of how she treated Marinette moments before crumbled her. 

  "I...I don't want her to be friends with someone like me. I don't know what else to do to make things right, but I thought that if I did this, she would remember not to come near me or be friends with me."

  Felix groaned, reaching up to run his hand through his hair. 

  He dragged his hand down his face, an annoyed expression plastered onto him as he moved his eyes away from her.
  "So then just be honest with her. Talking to her about your troubles isn't my place, but God damn it, Chloe, you can’t do that. I know it sounds hypocritical coming from a scumbag like me, but that should tell you something. Even I had to talk to Marinette and tried to make things right; pushing her away like this is incredibly wrong, especially because I know she would understand you. Don't make her feel like she did something for you to hate her," he explained, leaning back into the chair to fold his hands against his stomach.

  Chloe breathed in, her eyes burning beneath her lids the moment she felt tears pooling behind them. The fluid leaking out from the edges of her eyes as she gripped on to the pillows even tighter at the thought of Marinette believing that she tried to kill herself. Chloe was well aware that Marinette believed that she was angry or hated her for deterring her goal to ultimately kill herself, when that wasn't the case at all.

Chloe simply had an addiction that started from a ploy to get her mother's attention. It had only increased due to the neglect, and the fact that Chloe had money - it was easy access to any drug she wanted. 

  Chloe had voids within herself as well, and she needed as much as she could to numb the pain of it, but in the end it was only detrimental to her life and her wellbeing as a whole.

Knowing that Felix knew, and knowing he returned only exacerbated the anxiety she felt that he would tell someone.

  Chloe fucked up her own life, and the more she thought about it, the more she simply felt more and more mad with herself.
"I...I don't hate Marinette..." Chloe breathed, seeing herself in the young woman she rejected just like she had done so many times when her mother rejected her.

Felix glanced up at her, his eyes moving towards her shoulder, noticing them shake as Chloe began to cry.

"I...I hate myself..."