Marianne by Elizabeth Hammer (best books to read in life TXT) 📕

“No. Of course, no.”

He could deny it, but it didn’t matter. She knew what his problem was. It’d been whining at her in the back of her brain, but she hadn’t paid much attention before now. “I haven’t been calling you much lately.”

“That’s correct,” he said.

See? This is what being a drama queen does to your life. She was so caught up in her imaginary crises that she hadn’t realized that she was creating a real one. “I’m sorry,” said Marianne.

“Don’t—”

“I was sick,” she said. “And I had school, too. I mean, I don’t know.” Weak excuses, but the best she could come up with.

“I get it,” he said. He said it funky, though, like he didn’t get it, but was forcing himself to believe that he did. Marianne bit into her lip again. He always tried so hard to be fine with everything; it was a little unsettling. Humbling. He continued to talk, still insisting that he wasn’t mad. “—just so long as everything’s okay between us, it doesn’t matter. I was—”

There it was again. Why was he doing that? Why pretend that he didn’t care? She was the kind of person who could take constructive criticism. Didn’t Patrick know that about her? And he had every right to be upset; this was only the second time in a full week that she’d picked up the phone and called him. That was bad. Real bad.

“—and just slap me when I get like that. I’ll be more normal when I get home again—”

Marianne would be seriously panicked if he ever avoided her the way she’s been doing to him. What if he’d gotten bored with her? What if he’d found another girl? She’d have gone ballistic and brought it up the first chance she got. And here was Patrick, skirting the issue, acting all cagey. She was about to interrupt him and ask him why he wasn’t telling her off when her brain crashed, leaving her with only one coherent thought: Oh, crap.

“—finally gave me time to play Guitar Hero with Jose. It’s fun, as long as you can find a seat in his room under all the Wendy’s trash—”

“Wait. Just wait,” said Marianne, interrupting the story she wasn’t listening to. “Just stop talking for a second.”

Oh, crap. Sally was right; they were all right. Oh, crap. She needed to think, but she couldn’t do it with an audience. “Um, I have to call you back,” she said. And she hung up.

Marianne flicked the phone closed and chucked it on the table as if it were crawling with bugs. “I’m an icky leech,” she breathed. “I really am.” She stared at the phone and shook her head slowly back and forth. All that freaking out from before? That wasn’t melodrama; it was legitimate guilt. She fumbled for a cigarette, lit it, and smoked as ridiculously hard as she could manage.

Patrick wasn’t hiding his anger because he didn’t care; he was hiding his anger because he wasn’t allowed to care. In reality, Marianne was in love with him and he had every right to demand that she act like it. Too bad he didn’t know that. Too bad he was forced to pretend everything was fine when he was probably sick inside. When Patrick had told her that he loved her she’d said “thanks,” and then she’d told him to go love a rock. What the? How fun must that have been for him? Like a fricking fist in the face. Marianne would have died—died—if that had happened to her. The man was living on nothing. Marianne stared at the clove in her fingers and started bawling. Uncontrollably, hysterically weeping. She knew that it was partially from the chemical, but it hardly mattered. She tossed her clove down on the concrete and smashed it with her silver stiletto.

What the hell kind of twisted logic had convinced her that he was a happy bunny? How could she have thought that for one second? Being loved made people happy, not the other way around. It was too messed up. She lunged for her phone with both hands and dialed his number.

“What happened?” he said right away. “Are you okay?”

Marianne just sobbed into the phone. Simply hearing his voice pushed her even farther away from sanity than she’d been a moment before.

“Marianne, what’s wrong?” Now he sounded panicked.

She wished she could forge a nice bridge into what she wanted to say, but she hadn’t taken time to plan. Eff it. “Nothing’s wrong. I just...” She paused and got herself under control. “I just needed time. A little bit of time. I have to tell you something.”

“Okay,” he said so softly that she could hardly hear him.

“I just have to tell you... No, I want to tell you...” She started weeping again, and had to get through the rest in a high-pitched whimper. “It’s just that I love you, and I wanted you to know that. I didn’t want to go any longer without telling you that. It’s just hard for me, you know? But that was stupid. I’m stupid. I shouldn’t even be doing this over the phone, but—”

“Marianne...”

She answered him with another sob.

“I...” He whispered that, and nothing else.

The deed was done, and it was every bit as horrible as she’d always expected. Whatever. It was for his sake, not hers. She leaned forward, drying her face on the blanket and nudging the smashed clove with her foot while she waited for him to say something. When he still didn’t speak, Marianne grabbed the clove and relit it. “Are you there?” she breathed.

“I’m here.” His voice was stronger than before, and it startled her. “I’m here, I’m just so... Marianne, I love you so much, and I wish so badly that I was there with you right now.”

Marianne smiled, almost crying again. “Me, too.”

“I could be,” said Patrick. “I could come home right now.”

“You’d get fired.”

“Who cares,” he said.

Marianne closed her eyes. Shooting heroin couldn’t feel any