If I Make My Bed in Sheol…Psalms 138:8
I don’t sleep much at the best of times.
Tonight, there’s no chance.
Somewhere in this school, there has got to be some teenager with enough guts to stash some beer, and I’m about five minutes from going and looking for him. Or her.
I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t have the first fucking clue. Christ. I thought it was all right. This morning, when I saw the paintings, I thought she was all right. I have never felt more like running in my entire life.
But I can’t. That much I know. What Jeannie told me, in that few minutes she stole for us in the lab—that would keep me here if nothing else would.
It’s good you came back. She needs you.
I just don’t know what to do about that. In what fucked-up universe am I supposed to know what to with a suicidal teenager?
That’s another thing. She’s not a teenager any more. She’s not the same girl I left here. And I don’t know her. I don’t know anything about what’s been going on here, what she’s been going through all this time. I never thought when I left that this would still be following me around, five years later. I don’t know anything.
But she does. She knows more about me than I do.
Don’t assume you know what she was thinking. What she is thinking.
Jean must know about these things, right?
I know you want to talk to her. Give her a chance to catch her breath, all right? Just take it slow.
So I try. But patience has never exactly been my strong suit. I last maybe an hour before I can’t take it any more. The walls of this room are closing in on me and I have to get out of here. I left the truck out front; maybe I’ll go drive for a while, or if someone moved the damn thing I can walk. I grab my jacket and head out into the hallway, but there’s one thing I have to do first.
Marie is not waking up and thinking I walked out on her again. I have to talk to her first, at least let her know that much. If she wakes up, if she comes looking for me…I can’t let her think that.
It’s more than that, if I’m gonna be completely honest here. After what just happened…I know she needs some time. But I can’t leave it like that, even for tonight.
Yeah. Trouble is, I still don’t know what to say to her. Christ, I’m still going in circles and I haven’t even gone anywhere.
Jean put me in a room down the hall—the first one that wasn’t being used, she told me, and she was a little embarrassed when she said it. She came in for a minute, she said to make sure everything was all right, but that was bullshit—it was just an empty room, you could see from the doorway nothing was wrong. She just looked around, and then before she left she came up to me and said a couple more things, real fast.
Those are what are still spinning around in my head now, as I’m standing in front of Marie’s door. I knock, which is kind of awkward. I mean, she’s probably asleep. When she doesn’t answer, I knock harder, and then when there’s still no sound from inside it starts to worry me. I should wait, I know. She isn’t going to try anything stupid again tonight.
But before I can stop myself I reach for the doorknob, and the door isn’t locked, and I open it. And she’s standing there, dripping wet, in nothing except a towel, which would just be embarrassing except for the look on her face. She doesn’t look shocked, or angry, or even surprised. She looks like something bad just happened, and I have to shut the door because she’s standing there half-naked, but somehow by the time I do I’m standing on the other side of it. And it’s just the two of us.
“What’s wrong?” That’s all I can think of. She doesn’t answer, doesn’t even move, and I take a step towards her. “Marie!”
A startled look does come into her eyes then, and she holds the towel more tightly around herself. “What do you want?”
“What?” I shake my head. “I just—are you all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be all right?” Now her voice is stronger, but there’s an odd note in it I’ve never heard before, and a new look in her eyes as she adjusts the towel again.
“You didn’t answer the door,” I point out guardedly. Her head tilts a little, and then she comes a step closer to me. “What’s going on?” Somehow I’m the one off-balance here.
“I don’t have to answer your questions,” Marie snaps. “You answer one of mine for a change. What do you want?”
She may act out. She may be angry with you. Just remember…
She was angry with me before, in the lab, and this time I make sure my tone stays level. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I was going out for—”
“You leavin’?” That strange note in her voice is still there, and she shifts her weight a little from one foot to the other. “That the idea? I should ask you to stay? I won’t.”
It feels like the breath is knocked out of me. There’s something so cold and calculating about the way she said that. “I wasn’t leaving,” I tell her. “Just going out. I couldn’t sleep.”
“So? Just go. You don’t have to give me an itinerary.” She takes another step towards me. “Unless this is what you’re going out for.” And she lets go of the towel with one hand, and it falls a little, and thank god her other arm is still holding it in front of her. “That it, Logan? Is this what you want?”
I look away. I can’t help it. It’s not that nudity bothers me, but this—
“Look at me,” she demands, and I start to turn back toward the door, because if this is what Jean meant by acting out, I’m not playing into it. “Am I that bad? You can’t even look?” I stop, and when I look back she’s let the towel slip even further. Her eyes are too bright and her words come out as if they’re under pressure. “What do you want? Just admit it, Logan. You came back for something.”
“Get dressed. Then we’ll talk.”
Marie laughs, a shrill, forced sound. “You don’t want to talk. I know. I know what you want.” And she lets the towel fall to the ground entirely, and she’s standing there naked in front of me, and all I can do is make sure I don’t look away from her face. I can’t leave, not now.
Just remember. Don’t let her throw you, whatever she does or says.
“I’m not here for that. You gotta know that.”
“God, you’re such a liar.” She laughs again, shakily this time. “But you can’t have it. Because I’m poison, Logan. Untouchable. You can look but you can’t touch.” She’s shaking, but she doesn’t move to cover herself, and she even takes another step forward. I have to force myself not to back up.
Fuck. Just…fuck. And just like that, here I am, smack in the middle of what Jean warned me not to let happen. “Just…calm down, will you? I never—” I never wanted that, is what I’m about to say, but I break off, because something finally occurs to me, something from what Jeannie said and from what I never really thought about and that Marie never told me, because I didn’t ask. Because I didn’t want to know.
She’s never talked to anyone about what happened to her.
I thought Jeannie meant about what happened when I touched her, when the Professor had to fix whatever I did to her mind. But that’s not what she was talking about.
This time I take a step towards her. “What’d he do to you?”
Marie goes completely still, and she doesn’t answer.
You can apologize for leaving, but you can’t let it all be your fault. Because it’s not, Logan. I know it would be easier for you, but if you let her blame you it’s going to be worse in the long run. Find out what’s really going on.
I keep my gaze right on her face. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you. But this ain’t all about me.” Her eyes change again, one more time, and the hard, cold look melts out of them. “You gotta talk to me. That preacher—he touched you too, didn’t he?”
Smoething in her gives way then, and I see it, but then she realizes what she’s done and what she isn’t wearing, and instead of answering she scoops up the towel and clutches it against herself, stumbles back and reaches for a pile of clothes that’re still all jumbled up on her dresser. The pile just falls to the floor and she kneels down, scrabbling through it frantically. Her shoulders are shaking, and she has one long black glove in one hand and she’s searching through the pile for the other.
Maybe I should back off, let her get dressed and pull herself together, but instead I move toward her. I slide out of my jacket and drop it on the floor, and by the time I get to her I’ve gotten my flannel shirt unbuttoned and I kneel down behind her, put it over her bare shoulders.
Marie goes still again as soon as I touch her, but I see her hands move, pull my shirt closed around her body, and I let my hands rest on her shoulders. “Easy there.”
“Logan…” She shifts nervously, almost shaking my hands off.
That hurts a little, but I just stay where I am, try and let her feel that this is all I’m going to do. “This okay?”
“Just go,” she tells me, and then she doesn’t move at all. Except one hand, and that just tightens on the glove she found.
I ignore that. “Tell me. Tell me what happened.”
She takes a deep breath, and I feel her relax just a little. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says weakly, but I’m not letting her get away with that and I think she knows it now. I don’t answer, I just slide my hands down her arms and help her get into the sleeves of the shirt, and I even wait while she finally finds the other glove and gets them onto her hands. Then she’s covered enough to lean back into me a little, and at last she breaks the silence herself. “It’s stupid. Nothing really happened.”
“Tell me anyway.” I squeeze her shoulder a little. “It’s okay, baby.”
“I don’t want to,” she repeats, but I don’t think she means it this time. She does want to, she just doesn’t know how after all this time keeping it inside.
I know how that is. “It’s okay,” I tell her again. “You can tell me.”
She doesn’t answer again for a long time. “Then can I ask you something?” she says finally.
Offering me a deal. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? What the hell. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
There’s another long pause. “He didn’t rape me. He couldn’t. He just—he touched me.” Marie raises a hand and lets it fall again. “That’s all.” That’s not all, and I wait again, giving her that chance to breathe. “He thought I could stop it if I wanted to,” she whispers at last, and I hold her a little closer and wait some more. “He said he was doing it to save me. But he didn’t. He wanted to make me do things, he wanted to fuck me, and whenever he touched me I knew he’d wanted to do that ever since I was a little girl. And he thought it was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know, but—”
“It wasn’t your fault.” She shakes her head and I tighten my arms around her even more. “Listen to me, baby. It’s not your fault.”
It takes her a couple of tries before she can speak. “You don’t understand.”
Just remember. Don’t assume you know what she’s thinking. And don’t tell her you understand if you don’t.
But I do.
“I understand.” I swallow hard myself before I can go on, and it’s a good thing she isn’t looking at me right now. “Don’t you…you know that, right?” She shivers and I lean in closer, my mouth brushing against her ear. “You still got me up there too, right?”
“I don’t know.” She sounds so miserable. “It’s so strange, you know? I hear people, in my head, but I don’t really know if that’s what they’re like in their own. I don’t know anything, I don’t know whether it’s them or me.”
Them. I’m just one of ‘them,’ I guess, but it doesn’t matter. “Like what?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Anything. I think I know things but I don’t know if they’re what you really…” Marie breaks off that thought. “It’s just voices. And they all hated me.”
“I never hated you.” That much I’m sure of. “Never.”
“It wasn’t you. It was—someone else.”
Oh, christ. When she touched me, I know what she got. I know him, I know that voice, I know exactly what he can do. I should. I’ve dealt with him for twenty years now, and I can’t live with him. She’s been fighting my demons for five years, and I left her to do it alone. I want to get up and leave, because I can’t fix that one. But then she’s talking again.
“No. No. That’s not right. It was you, Logan. I thought it wasn’t, but it was. When you touched me to bring me back, I realized—there was so much anger there, and I thought he was angry at me, but he wasn’t. He was angry about being held back, and I thought if he got out he’d destroy what was left of me, but he wouldn’t. He wanted to protect me and I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t know.” This really isn’t making any sense to me at all, and I just want her to calm down.
“Shh.” She’s trying not to cry now, and trying to hide it. “You do know. I know you do. Remember, back in New Orleans, you had that nightmare?” She nods, so quickly it tells me something. “Still have it?”
“Sometimes,” she admits.
Shit. “That...I told you, that was real. That happened. I do understand. I know it’s not the same thing, but…I get it.” I can’t really find the words. I can’t say it. “I know what it’s like. The worst thing is when they get in your head.”
And somehow, that was the right thing to say, because she turns in my arms and just dissolves. She’s forgotten all about being careful, so I just try and make sure she doesn’t slip and nothing bad happens, because she doesn’t need that right now. And it doesn’t. She just cries herself out and finally she’s quiet, just still and heavy against my shoulder.
And then she remembers, and she pulls back, making sure she isn’t touching me anywhere she shouldn’t. I hate that—always did, but I let her, loosen my hold on her and let her sit back. She sniffles and rubs one hand under her nose. Christ, she’s a mess. Her eyes are all swollen and she’s trying to keep snot from dribbling down her face and my shirt from coming open across her chest. This is enough of a start, right? Jean said not to push her too hard. “You want to go wash your face? I’ll wait here.”
Marie nods, accepting the out, and she fumbles through the jumbled clothes to find something to wear before she gets up, still clutching my shirt around her, and disappears back into the bathroom. I get up too, and go get my jacket from where I dropped it earlier, put it over the back of a chair. I look around.
I guess she couldn’t sleep either, because the place isn’t quite the wreck it was when we left her here a few hours ago. The paints and stuff are straightened up, anyway, and there are other piles of clothes and junk, but it looks sorted out.
She looks more sorted out, too, when she comes back out. Her hair is still damp, but it’s combed back, and her eyes and nose aren’t as red. She’s buttoned up the shirt and put on some sweatpants, and she has gloves on again, adjusting them as she stands there in the doorway. “You still going out?”
“No.” Simple question, simple answer.
She nods, and wraps her arms around herself like she’s cold. “So what now?”
Fuck if I know. “What do you mean?”
She doesn’t look at me. “I know you think I should already know, but I don’t. I don’t know why you came here in the first place. When I woke up downstairs, I could hear…all these things from you, but I don’t know if that’s…” She swallows hard and then, finally, she looks up. “I’m not hearing you now. You said I could ask you whatever I wanted. So please, just tell me.”
I knew—goddamnnit, I knew I was going to pay in blood if I came back here, but I just didn’t count on having all the chits called in at once. And you know what? Fine. I turn towards the dresser.
“Logan—”
“I’m gonna answer. I just need to show you something.” Sure enough, she follows me over. I pick up my jacket and dump the items from the inside pocket out onto the dresser in front of her. “This. Look.” I pick up the picture and the postcard and hold them out.
Marie takes the things I’m giving her, and I can feel her hands trembling a little. She slowly sets down the postcard and the picture on the dresser, her gloved fingers tracing over both of them. “You remembered that.” It isn’t a question. “In my head, too, I mean.”
Every fucking day for five years. “Yeah.”
“You saw it? The show?”
“This morning.” Christ, it seems like a week ago already. I watch her face, and her brow knits a little as she compares the two pictures.
“Was it like you remember?”
I’m not sure, but I think I get why she’s asking. “Yeah. Exactly like I remember.” She’s still staring at the pictures like they’re a puzzle she’s working out.
“Is that why you came back? You saw the show?”
Jesus, she’s not making this any easier. “I came back to see you. The show was just a good excuse.” She’s so close to me, and I want to put an arm around her again, but I don’t. Marie sets the picture and the card down carefully, side by side, and then one hand goes toward the other thing that fell out of that pocket. I pick up the tag and put it into her hand, close her fingers over it. “Hey. This is yours.” She draws her hand back from mine. “Sorry. I shouldn’t’ve taken it back.”
Marie opens her hand and lets the chain slide along her fingers, and for a second I think she’s going to put it down. I don’t want her to.
She doesn’t. She looks down at it, dangling from her hand, and then she takes a step back, and holds it against her chest. “You have to tell me,” she says firmly. “Just…stop trying to get me to understand without saying it.”
“Sorry.”
“And stop apologizing.” Her mouth is trembling a little, and I can’t tell whether she’s trying not to smile or trying not to cry.
Personally, that smartass tone in her voice makes me want to smile. Because that’s all her, just like I remember, for the first time tonight. “I won’t if you won’t.” I reach towards her then, but she backs away and the fear comes back into her expression.
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t touch you,” she says bluntly. “I can’t touch anyone.”
I close the distance that’s left between us slowly, and this time she doesn’t move. “I know.” It does give me pause to think. But it doesn’t matter, not really. There’s no way I can stand here and let her think that would matter. I reach out and brush her hair back from her face—carefully, but without making any big deal out of it. “That never worried me any.”
“It worries me.”
“Shh.” I brush a finger over her lips. “It doesn’t matter.”
She wants to believe me. I can tell she wants to. I’ve seen this look before, when she was a kid and I’d just told her something she’d never heard of before. Not in my town, must not exist. But she’d get that look on her face, and then I’d tell her again whatever-it-was was true, and she’d accept it, just like that.
Guess I gave up that level of credibility when I walked out on her. Just as well, too. I got no interest in having the answer to everything. She’s going to have to decide whether she can accept that or not. I just wait to see what she’ll do next.
What she does is to challenge me. Figures. “Why’d you leave?” But even as she says it, she brings one hand up and rests it against my side—almost like it’s an accident, maybe even almost so she could push me away if I try anything. But that’s not what it means. Not with her.
For her to reach out, even with gloved hands, means she wants to so badly she can’t stop herself. I still know that much, and I know enough to take my time before I answer, to make sure she knows I’m aware of how much it means. Almost five years—you’d think I’d have the answers for her by now.
“I don’t know.” That’s not what she wants to hear, I know, but it’s true. “Listen. I know you probably thought it was about wanting to get rid of you. That wasn’t it.” I reach down, casual as I can, and get her other hand in mine, and I can feel the way she’s gripping that little piece of metal. “I figured you’d think that, and I thought that’d be the best thing, for you to just get mad at me and get it over with. I couldn’t stay here, and I couldn’t take you with me.”
“Why not?” It comes out petulant as all hell, just like it used to when she used to argue with me all that time ago.
You know why not. I almost say it, and then it sinks in, what she’s been saying all night. Maybe she doesn’t, or maybe—like she said—she just needs to hear it. For real, not filtered through whatever happens when she absorbs my thoughts. And this is going to be tough, because I’ve never said what I’m about to say, even to myself. “Because. Look, you know and I know that there was nothing going on between us, not like…not like some people thought. But if I’d taken you with me, there would’ve been.” Probably sooner rather than later, too. And I see her expression change as she takes in what I’ve just admitted, breathing on the edge of hope that it’s true. “I couldn’t do that, not then. But I shouldn’t’ve left without talking to you. I screwed that up.” Okay, that’s the understatement of the year. “You got to try and understand, this wasn’t a real great place for me to be, back then. I thought it was the right place for you. That night—I just had to clear out. By the time I realized maybe not talkin’ to you first wasn’t such a great idea, it was too late. Already done. Figured you wouldn’t even want to talk to me.” And hell if I’d ever know what to say to someone on the phone, anyway. This is bad enough.
“I would’ve.” There. Little bit of pressure back, her fingers against mine, little motion of her other hand where it’s resting against my shirt—that’s good.
“I know.” Very deliberately I move even closer, and she gets nervous again.
“Be careful.” She tries to pull back, but by now I’m too close for her to get by me, and I bring the hand I’m holding up to rest with the other against my stomach before I put my hands on her shoulders again.
“I just got through telling you. I don’t give a shit about that. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to.” I watch her, and finally she nods that she understands. “What this was about, baby?”
She takes a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t—it was all so clear, in my head, when I did it, and now it just seems so stupid. Pointless.” Another quick breath. “It wasn’t because of you.”
“I wasn’t here.” There’s nothing she can tell me about wishing it were all over, that’s for sure. But she’s not me. I know this had to be about me, in some way. “Don’t tell me that wasn’t part of it.”
“Not just you,” she whispers, and I feel sick, even though I’m the one who pushed her into admitting it. “It was—I didn’t feel like me any more. I thought if I could just record it all…all the good things, then it wouldn’t matter so much when I…”
“It mattered.” I still can’t believe how near it was.
“I know, but it didn’t then,” she says tonelessly. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, and there just wasn’t anyone else who knew me.”
That doesn’t make any sense. “That’s not true. Everyone here knows you.”
“Not me,” she insists. “Not really me. Not Marie. She was alone, and there were just the voices.” She looks worried. “I’m not crazy.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think I can explain any more. Not tonight.” She sighs, and lets her head fall forward so it rests against my shoulder. “But I’m glad you came back. I mean, here. Tonight. I mean—”
“I know what you mean.” I tell her, and I feel her relax just a little. “Me too. Nothin’ on TV anyway.” And thank god, she laughs, and a little more tension goes out of her. Christ, she’s skinny as hell.
“Logan?” she asks. She tilts her head to look up at me, and she looks different now. She doesn’t look scared. “Am I like you remember?”
I study her for a long time before I answer that. “Yes,” I say finally. As soon as I say it, I’m sure it’s true, but I really didn’t know that until then.
She just keeps looking at me questioningly. “Are you sure? Because I think I kind of forgot, for a while.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” She is. She’s the same girl, just not quite as young, not quite as innocent. I guess I had my part in that.
“I don’t know how much I really knew you. I knew things about you, but…” She kind of trails off. “You look tired,” she tells me.
No fuckin’ shit. “Yeah.”
“Me too.”
“Okay.” She reaches up, and one silk-covered hand brushes against my face. And just like that, it is okay. Not all of it—I know that’ll take a while. But it’s okay because I’m here, and she’s still here, and she knows why I came back. As long as she understands that, the rest we can figure out later. “Come on.” I take one of her hands and tug her towards her bed.
She’s practically asleep on her feet, and she lets me pull back the covers and gets itno bed without another word. I settle the blankets over her, but when I come around the bed and sit down next to her she raises her head from the pillow. “Logan…”
I don’t want to go, and I know she’s about to tell me I have to. “Just go to sleep,” I tell her. “I’ll stay till you fall asleep.”
She’s too tired to argue with me, or to bargain, or to warn me off. After a second she puts her head down again, and I lean over to unlace my boots before I stretch out beside her. I put an arm over her, over the covers, and she sighs a little and moves just a little closer to me.
Yeah. Good decision. It’s not five minutes before she’s fast asleep, her breath coming soft and even and her body relaxing under my arm, and I know I’m supposed to go now, but I don’t. I lean in close enough to catch her scent, under the perfume of soap and shampoo, and I breathe that in for a minute before I lie back next to her.
I can be careful with her without leaving.
I don’t want to leave.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Wherein we learn what is on the other side of the door, and Artemis demonstrates her classical Greek roots by displaying the incredible hubris of going up against the Super Bowl for your attention.