A lil disclaimer: I write my chapters early and then revise and go back and revise...hence the previews I add at the end of every update.
I do try to get new chapters out ASAP [even twice a week is super often in comparison to the books I have in my Wattpad library atm] but I'm a perfectionist and I really want to do Marley and Aiden's story justice :)
Rant over, continue to chapter 16 lmao
-
Seven years ago, Marley's brother and mother disappeared without a trace. And after a thorough police investigation, by choice.
They both left her behind with her constantly drunk rowdy father, who could hardly keep a mediocre factory job and the roof over their heads.
Marley has been through hell and back. She's spent nights crying herself to sleep, alone and empty. Holiday's wondering what they would be like if she had a family to celebrate with.
Her birthday ruined forever, because the one thing she's always wanted was something she'd never, ever receive.
Marley has been through hell and back.
And when you go through something terrible, the first thing you think beyond the grief is that 'I've peaked'.
That 'it's only up from here'. You cry and suffer and ache and genuinely believe that you've reached the lowest of lows, the cold hard ground and that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that could be more painful.
You think it can't get any worse.
And then one day, it just...does.
There was no comparison to what Marley was feeling right now. This made losing her mother and brother feel like a walk in the park on a sunny day, a cool swim in the summer.
Losing Aiden - in any capacity - Marley decided was the worst thing she had ever experienced.
Beyond their relationship, Aiden is her best friend, her rock, her protector and her breath of fresh air. He makes her laugh on her darkest days, and makes her best ones so much better than she ever imagined was possible.
Now, her sun was gone.
And it was so, so dark without it.
The night after Aiden drove away, the night he let her go - was a night when a streak was broken.
It had been months since Marley had cried herself to sleep.
And last night, she did.
After the others had fallen asleep, she slipped from her bed and snatched his hoodie from its hiding place, slipping it on and curling up in a ball, allowing it to swallow her as silent tears fell down her cheeks.
Maybe it was the dam breaking more than anything else. Marley had to go inside the diner and put on a brave face and tell Jason, Leo, Ian and Dylan that Aiden needed to be alone right now. She had to smile through the pain, while they all shared glances as if they knew.
Without a single word out of her mouth, they all knew.
And it seemed as though word travelled fast, because when Tristan, Kelly and Gabby retired to their rooms for the night, it was with sad expressions and a remorseful slump to their shoulders.
Gabby brought her a chicken sandwich that she ate two bites of before she was turning away from the world, facing the wall of her bunk and wanting nothing more than warm muscular arms circling around her torso, chest rumbling against her back in laughter at something she said or because he teased her.
And when she pushes him away, screeching 'Aiden Matthews!', watching him only hold her tighter.
Losing Aiden was never going to be easy. It was never supposed to be easy.
She was thankful for her lack of sleep only because it was easier to shower before the break of dawn the next morning, than face whole shower lines of her peers and...him.
It didn't make breakfast any less of a stab to the heart, though.
Leo was absent, but otherwise, the rest of the table had taken their ordinary seats. The cold air from the seat beside her, the one that was now empty, was putting goosebumps across her skin. Making her ache as she shifted her fruit loops around in her bowl.
-
"I already grabbed the reason you're going to die young," Aiden said, pointing to the bowl of fruit loops sitting beside him.
Triggered, Marley sat down and turned to glare at him, "We can't be friends if you shame me for eating fruit loops."
His blue eyes locked on hers, and they redirected all her emotions into a ball of mush like they always did.
"Do you know how much sugar is in those?"
Marley narrowed her eyes, making a big show of taking a big scoop of the fruit loops right in front of him, "Do you know how much I don't care?" her voice was muffled as she chewed.
Aiden rolled his eyes, turning towards his eggs and oatmeal. Marley grinned, swallowing her bite, "You're just jealous you have to eat that healthy stuff."
He shot her an uninterested look, "I enjoy staying in shape for football. And for your viewing pleasure," when he winked, Marley's cheeks reddened.
-
And all of a sudden, fruit loops were the most unappetizing breakfast in the world.
Marley shoved the bowl away from her, barely restraining herself from sprinting from the cafeteria, going back to her bed and curling up in his hoodie.
But she had experienced loss before, and as much as she wanted to wallow and drown in it, she had to remember where her priorities were at. School. Good grades. Brown University.
She couldn't avoid him forever, she couldn't hide from the sad truth that Aiden may have been in love with another girl the entirety of their relationship. It would be easier, but it wouldn't be reality.
So Marley would have to suck it up and act like she wasn't seconds away from crying all the time.
Great.
"-act like you're mad at me and then text me at midnight after Jason's asleep?"
Marley turned her head to watch Jason's face pale with horror at Kelly's words, "Please tell me you two don't...while I'm in the room and fucking sleeping!"
Ryan rolled his eyes from his seat on the bus in front of Marley, and next to his girlfriend Kelly, "Well it's not like you would notice anyway. You sleep like a rock-"
"You just confirmed it...okay..." Jason took deep breaths, leaning out the open window of the safari vehicle while Bree patted his back sympathetically, "I'm gonna be sick."
"So we're gonna pretend like you two don't hook up in the empty room on the first floor of our cabin?" Kelly defended, her pale cheeks flushed in embarrassment.
Bree didn't seem ashamed at all, "We're not nine feet away from another person."
At the same time as she spoke, Bree's blue eyes shifted their focus to the lit screen of Sarah's phone in front of her, sighing loudly, "You're not desperate enough for Tinder."
Sarah turned around in her seat fully to shoot Bree a withering glare, "You don't see guys throwing themselves at me now do you?"
"What about Liam?" Jason declared, crossing his arms, "He literally eye stalks you every day in class."
Sarah scoffed, "There's a reason he's nicknamed Lizard Liam. He like...slinks around and has his tongue out all the time."
"And you think a chlamydia on demand site is the way to go?" Tristan finally lifted her head from her phone to shoot Sarah an amused look from beside her.
"Oh please, like you don't have a Tinder," Sarah retorted dryly as the bus slowed to a stop.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
Marley closed Wuthering Heights and slipped it in her bag as she stood, waiting for Gabby to collect her own bag and walk ahead of her as they filed from the bus.
She felt like a whole day of vigorous activity had already came and went, and she'd hardly taken two steps on the walk towards the building.
Sarah and Tristan were still arguing from behind them but Marley tuned them out in favour of keeping her focus strictly on her converse as they headed inside.
This was new territory they had entered; Marley and Aiden had never, in the entire time they had known each other, been separated like this.
Their classmates filed into Mrs. Weiss' room with about as much enthusiasm as could be expected on a Monday morning.
"Hey, Mrs, there's a party in my pants and you're invited."
Well, at least some things never change.
The class snickered at Leo's routine pickup lines for their blonde, gorgeous teacher. Said teacher was striding across the blackboard in her pencil skirt and heels, back to the room as she wrote notes on the board.
At Leo's comment, she spun around with a sweet smile, "I don't attend small charity functions, Mr. Kahn."
There was a collective 'ouuu' across the room as Marley smiled softly when she took her seat. Mrs. Weiss has a backbone, which is how she manages to survive being the teacher to the world's biggest class clown.
It also makes for an interesting classroom experience.
"You've really hurt my heart Mrs," Leo held a hand to his heart, slumping down in his chair in the middle of the jocks section with a wide, dazzling grin.
"You'll survive as long as it's not a head injury. Again."
There were boots of laughter and 'Ouu. Burnnns' as the class settled in for the day. Marley felt a warmth appear in Aiden's seat as she doodled a tree on her notebook, and it made her whole body tense. But, instead of the pleasant, manly aroma that always follows with him entering her space - Marley smelled a familiar perfume that had her head snapping up to the seat behind her.
Gabby.
"Gabby?" Marley echoed, in which her best friend avoided her gaze entirely, sucking her lower lip between her teeth.
Marley felt an odd twist in her stomach, "Gabby. What...what happened? Why are you here?" she demanded.
Gabby sighed, resting her chin on the palm of her hand and her bent elbow on her de-his desk with a soft expression.
Her blonde tresses fell over her cheeks, "He um...he texted me. This morning. He wanted to give you space."
"Ah," Marley felt genuine pain stab through her heart as she spun back around with stinging eyes.
But that proved to be a very stupid mistake.
Aiden had entered the room just as she turned around, but she couldn't see his face.
He was wearing a black sweater, the hood pulled over half his head to conceal his face, the rest exposing mussed, dark brown hair.
His powerful frame was slumped as he walked across the room, his head down. Marley's eyes flickered to the seat across from Ethan - Gabby's seat - watching him drop into the chair tiredly.
Aiden Matthews is confident. Bold. Loud even when silent. His presence commands a room. He's a force to be reckoned with. His aura is dominating, his frame is tall and broad. He's magnetic. He's the toughest person Marley knows.
He can take down multiple, fully grown men singlehandedly.
Threaten the most menacing people into submission with a look, a few words.
Despite everything that he'd been through, she's never seen him anything but undefeated. Anything but absolutely certain of himself.
It's the reason they met. He found her. He pursued her. It's the reason they fell in love, too. It's the reason behind everything they ever became - Aiden's strength, confidence, and effortless way of being.
How he crashed through her walls without a shadow of a doubt and brought out in her something he saw that no one else did.
Knew exactly what he wanted and went after it.
But that confidence had disappeared. His aura in itself, is now small and defeated. The person she is seeing right now is the true opposite of everything he is that she has come to know.
Without Marley all that makes him Aiden Matthews has...fizzled out. Died.
Marley has seen him fall apart only twice. Once with Ian, and once with his father. But she's also seen him bounce right back. Put himself back together as if he wasn't hurt at all.
Aiden is so resilient Marley just assumed he'd be himself today. Even if only on the outside.
She had never, in her wildest dreams, thought she'd see him anything less than an unmoving entity in every storm, in every circumstance, because that's all she's ever known him as. That's all he's ever been.
She never thought he'd have a weakness.
A kink in his almost impeccable armour.
He's hurting, too. Enough that he has no energy left to be his typical self and push through, be a force that can't be moved.
Marley forced her eyes away from him, wrapping her arms around herself to preserve any body heat that she had left.
She was wearing a sweater as well, mostly because it was as close as she could get to wearing what she really wanted, one of his hoodies. But that wouldn't be fair, in public at least, so she just pulled her sleeves over her hands to cover the fact that they were shaking.
The majority of the day would be class instruction, but the microscope lab they were doing later felt like a ticking time bomb. Especially given that every time it was a break or lunch, Aiden would shoot out of the room like a bullet, and he never took his hood off of his head.
Given this behaviour between them, whispers had already began by the time lunch rolled around, and Marley felt like a spotlight had been shown on her every minute of it. While the group shared small, meaningless conversations while giving her glances she definitely noticed, Marley pushed her food around her plate and only managed a few bites.
It'd get easier. It has to get easier. She chanted to herself like a mantra all the way to class after lunch, trying to hold together the pieces of herself that were fast falling apart.
But that was wishful thinking, given the new circumstances they were stuck in. Being across the room was hard, but approaching each other like the other would pounce at any given moment was singlehandedly the most painful moment of the day.
And there were many fierce competitors.
Aiden dropped his hood for the first time that day, but she refused to look at him for the sake of holding her tears in as she placed the instruction sheet on the lab counter.
It was quiet for about thirty seconds, Marley shifting on her feet and staring down at her shoes, while Aiden stared at her.
"I can..." she flinched at hearing his deep voice again, and how it made her feel, "switch with somebody. If that's what you...if that's what you want," his voice broke.
It would probably be the best idea. Change lab partners, and gain some distance. Give Aiden a chance to think over everything beyond her influence.
Marley likes to believe that she's selfless in most situations - apart from this one. For the next god knows how long, they're not talking, not laughing together or touching each other. And Marley has concluded that it feels like hell.
The fact that they're partners is her salvation, is all she gets. Her small slice of heaven in this new coldness that she has to get used to.
"I don't," she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady, "I don't want that. We um...we work well together-"
A+ for word choice, Marley.
"-and it's not fair to separate another group."
In her peripheral, Aiden's shoulders slumped. In relief?
"Attention students! Eyes up here! In front of you is a sheet of paper in which you need to find the parts of the bacteria cell we discussed, and draw them with as much detail as possible! If you have any questions, to ask your lab partner first. If the two of you are struggling, I'll be happy to assist."
"Mrs. I'm struggling. Without you," Leo called out from across the room, earning a bunch of snickers.
"If you can live without a working brain, you can live without me," she droned a comeback tiredly, which was well deserved given that Leo objectifies her on the daily.
Aiden slid the paper closer to himself, and then the microscope, quietly writing their names in his neat calligraphy on the sheet.
Marley couldn't help where her eyes went, watching him go through the motions of putting the specimen under the light and closing an eye to look into the microscope.
He slipped his pencil horizontally between his teeth, adjusting the knobs on the side of the microscope with precarious fingers.
He hadn't shaved, and he looked about as tired as Marley.
At the sight of his fatigue she turned away, knowing it was unfair to ogle him in the present circumstances. She tucked strands of her dark brown hair behind her ear, twirling her hands in front of her and leaning against the counter while his pencil scratched on the paper.
Aiden had always been good at drawing. At everything else, too.
She noticed when he had finished his half so she lifted off and stared at the paper expectantly. His blue eyes glanced upwards to look at her but she kept her own hazel ones down, safely beneath her lashes.
And maybe it was fair punishment, but while Marley completed the lab, Aiden didn't take his eyes off of her. Not for a single, merciful second.
It'd get easier.
It has to get easier.
-
"B12!"
"You're fucking-"
"G49!"
"Shit, what was that-"
"B06!"
"-one again-"
"N11!"
"Oh fuck this."
The rest of the group - Bree, Kelly, Tristan and Gabby - snickered at Sarah's frustration as she shoved the bingo card away from her, unable to keep up with Conner's quick calls. Marley, however, was almost too far ahead, even with four cards in front of her as if she was a professional senior player.
Her hot pink bingo stamp was hovered over her cards as Conner called a number again, while she quickly stamped the two I19's that she had. As much as Marley wanted to curl up in her bed and wallow - which she had done from one pm to three that afternoon - she knew that couldn't last forever. There was also the fact that distractions helped with the ache inside.
She snatched Sarah's discarded card and began to quickly stamp in the numbers she remembered, all the while also stamping the new stream of numbers that Conner was announcing five of every minute.
"Kelly?" Marley lifted her head to watch Ryan enter the scene, his expression hard and his grey eyes narrowed, "Can we talk?"
"O74!"
She watched the dark haired girl in question glance up from her bingo sheets, brown eyes hardening on her boyfriend, "Does it look like I want to?"
"G08!"
"For fucks sakes, she's been my best friend since-"
"N37!"
"-kindergarten and you're acting like-"
"I24!"
"So you didn't have sex with her six months ago?" Kelly hissed, causing more than a few raised eyebrows around the table.
"G56!"
Ryan gripped his dark hair in his fingers, "It was a one time thing! I told you that!"
"N43!"
"So a one time thing texts you at one am?!"
"I12!"
Ryan threw his hands up, "Does that fucking guy ever stop-"
"B10!"
"-calling fucking numbers?!"
"O44!"
"I'm about to go mental, Kel. Come and talk to me-"
"G52!"
"-when you finally grow up."
Marley watched Kelly shove herself out of her seat loudly, the quiet chatter in the room stopping abruptly, "Excuse me?!"
"B03-"
"Shut the hell up!" Ryan roared, spinning around to shoot Conner - who was standing at a makeshift table in the middle of the room, with the spinning wheel of numbers - the most withering glare Marley has ever seen.
Conner crossed his arms with a stoic expression, "Turn around and walk yourself out of the room. Now."
Marley jumped watching Kelly wheel around and storm out of the front doors of the mess hall, shoving the screen doors open as hard as she could into the shocked silence. Ryan strode out right behind her, fists balled and back tense.
Her mouth had fallen open as she turned her torso back to face the girls, who were all unsurprised by this. How much has Marley stopped paying attention to since meeting-
Stop it right there, Marley.
Sarah rolled her eyes as Conner started to call numbers again, "Don't worry. They'll be back to their typical passive aggressive Romeo and Juliette act within the next hour or so."
Marley frowned, "They're always like this?"
She heard collective groans around the table just as someone shouted 'bingo!' from across the room.
"Neither of them know how to get over themselves. Or face their problems. You know, behave like actual adults instead of jealous children," Bree scoffed with a disapproving head shake.
"If being children means locking themselves in Jason and Ryan's room, and literally shutting each other up thinking their issues are magically going to disappear," Sarah added.
"Angry sex is the best sex," Tristan piped up as she stamped both her cards.
When the table had gone quiet, she glanced upwards to see every one of the other girls shooting her incredulous expressions.
She rolled her hazel eyes, raising her hands in surrender, "What did I say that wasn't true?"
***
Tuesday: