1.
Girls Run From The Police.
In retrospect, Marceline considered that stealing her best friends car to escape the police without actually bringing said friend with her wasn't the best idea.
Beside her, Jason yelled "Fifth gear!"
Marceline responded with "It's an automatic!" And then "Put your goddamn seatbelt on!" He did and a few moments passed before she looked at him, frownknv. "We're literally going 30 an hour, what do you mean fifth gear? Do you know how to drive?"
"Marceline, I didn't come here to be judged-- BRAKES!"
She gave a rather unflattering shriek and slammed her foot on the brakes, coming to a screeching halt just before she committed vehicular homicide. There was a second where her potential victims stared at her - Marlie stared back - and then Shiloh Whitley spoke.
"Christ, Marlie. Learn to fucking drive, will you?"
This, evidently, was where their night got interesting.
Shiloh Whitley was a whirlwind of a girl. 5'2; Korean and fluent in the language, currently cussing Marlie to hell and back. Lola beside her was breathless and leaning on Shiloh for support. She have a halfhearted wave and they began to move. Jason looked at Marlie, face the perfect image of rattled, and said "You know them?"
"The past two years, give or take a few."
Marlie slumped back in her seat as Shiloh and Lola got into the back of the car. she and Jason exchanged looks and he asked her "Do your Friday nights always go like this?"
"Not if we can help it." Marlie said and turned to look at Shiloh as the car door slammed shut. "When'd the party break up?"
"According to Everett - He's angry by the way - about two minutes ago." The glare of Shilohs' phone lit up the car and she squinted. "He said, and I quote "I'm gonna fucking kill her"." Marlie chuckled. Shiloh looked up through her eyelashes. "What did you do?"
There was a pause. Marlie waited for her to connect the dots but all she got was a blank stare. "Shiloh. Do you see him in this car?"
"No?"
"Then there's your answer." Marlie turned back to the steering wheel. Fingers drumming on the steering wheel, she heard a sigh. "I stole his car - Jesus Christ."
Shiloh huffed a laugh and caught her eye in the rear view mirror. "Is it really stealing if he gave you the keys?" And this really wasn't the point. The point was that Marlie had taken his car and left him behind in the hands of the police.
She looked at Shiloh and Lola in the rear view mirror respectively and heard her phone buzz on the dashboard. It was January first, 2018, 00:17. Her hands were shaking from either nerves or excitement - she couldn't tell which - and she felt the ghost of a touch on her shoulder.
"You alright?"
"Just dandy." Marlie sighed. She was, in fact, not just dandy. She was tired. She was nauseous. She wanted to go home and she was hiding from the police.
"Hey, Marce." Lola spoke up, staring out the back window and tearing Marlie from her thoughts. "You might wanna get going." The blare of a car horn behind them backed her up and Marlie, cursing, put the car in drive.
There is no excuse for bitterness; but they were all college students.
It had gone like this: the town council was out of commission for a while, which meant the recreation grounds had no supervision. So, naturally, the younger population decided to trash it. It was New Years Eve, anyway. It was bound to happen.
Everett Mays sat beside Marlie on the hood of a car he never stopped talking about. With middle class parents and no siblings to speak of, he had a more than comfortable life; the perks of this included a car of his choice and a lack of student debt. His shaved head, star spangled skin, and two different coloured eyes left Marlie, pasty and raven-haired, quite plain beside him.
They watched people pass by, a bottle of rose wine between them. Marlie looked at him and went to say something before she was cut off by the meaty thud of someone throwing a punch. A boy crumpled in half and the circle that had surrounded them began to dissolve.
It was Kendall Owens, pale and lanky and very, very dangerous, standing over some poor 19 year old Marlie vaguely recognised. He said something that was lost in the music and reached down. A wallet was taken, IDs and licenses left behind, and he was gone.
Marlie looked at Everett. "Should we maybe do something?" and he shrugged.
"If he's not up in five minutes, sure."
Between then and the police being called, Marlie didn't remember much. It was probably around eleven when Jason showed up. He was a complete stranger but, after Everett had left Marlie on the hood of the car, he'd hoisted himself up beside her and asked her "Marceline, right?"
She spent her next five seconds trying to decide whether he was attractive or just had a nice jawline, but managed to say "I prefer Marlie." And then "who the hell are you?"
The look on his face faltered for a moment - Marlie was a brash and awkward thing - before it returned and he grinned again. "Jason." She'd watched the shape of his lips as he said his name and found that the answer was attractive. Definitely attractive.
He carried on speaking, voice raised to be heard over the music. He told her she was gorgeous, which she wasn't. She told him he was drunk, which he wasn't. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
"I've never seen you before." Marlie observed. Jason took a swig of the wine bottle between them, no permission asked, and looked at her.
"And to think of what I've been missing." His voice was lazy, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Marlie chuckled, looked him up and down, and said "The way you flirt is shameful. We've known each other for what, two hours?"
"Longer than some people's marriages." He checked his watch. "No, I'm one of Everett's "long distance" friends who he dragged along tonight." He implied there were more, and Marlie went to ask but, with impeccable timing, Everett showed up on her phone with a text that read "guess who called the police on us all"
And Marlie, who had heard and done this countless times before, replied with "Kendall" at the same time Everett said "Kendall motherfucking Owens."
Jason asked if she was alright then and Marlie, just sober enough to be allowed to drive, didn't respond. Instead, she gave him a smile and a receipt with her number at the bottom before she pushed herself to her feet to find Shiloh.
They had a system put in place. Shiloh wouldn't stop drinking until someone or something stopped her and therefore, the buddy system was brought to light. Some poor bastard had to stay at her side the entire night to make sure she didn't die. This time it was Lola who was supposed to be watching her. They collectively realised that she'd failed in her duties when Marlie found Shiloh wedged between Kendall and another stranger. Flashing him a look, Marlie took Shiloh by the arm and hauled her out of this mess.
Sweaty palms on sweaty skin, Shiloh took a moment to focus on the girl in front of her. Lights flashed off her face and the bass pounded in Marlie's chest, though that might've been something besides the music. Then, Shiloh went to ask something but frowned when she saw Marlie's face. "What's up?"
Marlie swallowed. "Guess who called the police to shut this all down?" She jerked her head in Kendall's direction, watched Shiloh's face fall, and asked "where's Lola?"
"She went off somewhere." Shiloh waved her off and glanced at Kendall as Marlie tugged her along. She stopped dead in her tracks and slipped out of Marlie's hands before she could do anything. Shiloh looked at her, eyes suddenly ablaze. "Go ahead without me. I'll get Lola and bail, it'll be fine."
"What- why? Shiloh, are you alright?"
Shiloh didn't dignify that with a verbal response. Instead, she shoved her way back into the crowd and sent a glance back in Marlie's direction.
The last time police had ruined a perfectly good night, Shiloh had been one of those who'd been rounded up. She swore up and down that there was a chase but Marlie, a sober witness, knew that the closest thing to a chase had been when Everett tried to run and tripped three feet down the road. Pathological liars and great minds both think alike. But that wasn't the point. The point was that after sobering up in a holding cell until morning, Shiloh wasn't fond of the idea of doing it all over again.
Twenty minutes after she'd bolted, Shiloh would send Marlie a text saying "I'll explain later I promise xx" and exactly seven seconds after that, Marlie would almost hit her with Everett's car, but you know how that goes.
Back at the party, Marlie looked after the back of Shiloh's head for five seconds before cursing and turning back to where she came. Jason was still on the hood of Everett's car when she returned, fingers lingering on someone's face - New Years kiss and all that - until he caught sight of Marlie and her less than happy face.
Strangers departed and there was only Jason, who, frankly, was a stranger himself, left behind. A beat of silence, then he said "you came back" as though it was a question.
"Well," Marlie was exasperated, clearly, "its bad manners to ditch someone."
Her fingers curled around the car keys in her pocket - designated driver gets the keys - and she jerked her head in direction of the car. "Get in."
"Excuse me?" A split moment of shock, then another grin. "People usually buy me dinner before I let them take me home."
Marlie scoffed. "You wish I was taking you home."
For a moment again, there was silence. If Marlie looked up she'd see his face flushed and flustered. But she didn't and Jason went unnoticed. Marlie said "No, the police were called. We've got fifteen minutes, tops, before they get here."
She unlocked the car and stopped at the drivers side. Jason kept staring. "You're not coming?"
"I'd rather not." He said. They were, after all, still strangers.
"That's nice." She hauled herself into the drivers seat. Looking at him through the windshield she said "get in the car, bucko, otherwise it's a holding cell for the rest of the night."
Pros and cons of getting in a strangers car were weighed up in his head. He was still sat on the hood of the car, turned to look at her with the light in his eyes when he decided to cement their friendship. He shrugged, slipped off the hood, and simply said "lead the way."
This brought them up to their current predicament of 'where to now?' Marlie put the car back in drive, told Lola to stop flipping off the people behind them, and pressed down on the accelerator.
Silence fell over them. Shiloh rested her head on the window, Lola's on her shoulder, and Jason had a look on his face that seemed to say how the hell did I get into this?
Marlie simply glared at the traffic lights ahead.
All four of them startled when Marlie's phone went off. Buzzing on the dashboard, it stayed that way until Marlie pulled over in the closest petrol station. She tossed her purse in Jason's lap - "go fill the car up" - and answered it.
The unmistakable sound of Everetts' voice came through. "Hey Marlie."
She took the phone away from her ear, checked the caller ID, and said "this isn't your number."
"No, uh. . . This may or may not be the police station." He scrambled for words. "Don't hang up! This is the only call they're letting me have."
"Ten seconds. Go."
"Okay so the police got here before I managed to leave and now they want someone to pick me up and my parents are out of town and--"
"Yeah, alright. I get it." Marlie examined her recently chewed nails. "Which station are you in?"
He told her.
Marlie choked then. "Excuse me?! That's an hour away!"
"Yeah, I told them that!" There was the distinct sound of Everett pacing. "You think they actually listened?"
Marlie rested her head on the steering wheel and heaved a sigh. Jason got back in the car. Lola grunted a greeting. They fist-bumped. "Alright." Marlie said after ten seconds passed. "Alright, yeah. I'll be there as soon as I can. You're lucky you're near a hospital." Everett gave a questioning sound. "You're gonna need it."
They ended up driving for what felt like hours. It was only fifteen minutes before Shiloh asked "What do you think actually happened to Gabriel?" Marlie sighed, it was going to be a conversation one day.
Gabriel Abernathy had been a watered down version of something great. His daddy issues and upper class parents set him apart from the others, and he was defined as a king among men. The definition of arrogance and the poster child for a typical jock, he had died three months before.
Nobody knew exactly how he went. Body contortions suggested that he'd drowned, but the winter was cold and was a likely culprit. It had been three months since he died; no questions had been answered.
"Don't you think he drowned?" Marlie entertained the conversation, as if it would end any differently than usual.
"No... I don't think so." Shiloh sighed. "I don't even really think he's dead."
Marlie chuckled. "We have the body to prove it, don't we?"
"No..." Shiloh sighed again. "I don't think so."
The conversation was beginning to turn grim, so Marlie gripped the steering wheel and drove on.