Chapter Four #7

“I didn’t know you’ve been drinking,”

I said. It so wasn’t like him.

Marcus shrugged. “I haven’t been. It was just the one time. I had a couple of drinks by myself last night, and got carried away, because…”

Marcus trailed off, and didn’t need to finish. Because he got lonely, and he didn’t know how to deal with it, or reach out for help.

“I’ve seen this movie before!”

Kallie shouted. “You call me up, looking for a friend. We talk about things, we fuck around, then the next day you act like nothing happened, or worse, you get pissed off and purposefully act cruel, because you want to blame me that your life’s fucked up. But in reality, you don’t know what you want and you don’t know how to make yourself happy! It’s the same old story, Marcus, and I don’t want to keep playing the reruns!”

“You can’t keep shaming me for reaching out!”

Marcus yelled back.

“I’m not shaming you for opening up! I’m just tired of being your punching bag, your emotional dumping ground, and your fuck buddy who you think doesn’t deserve a commitment! I refuse to keep cleaning up your shit!”

“You're always trying to fix me and solve a problem, when I don't need a solution. I just need you to understand,”

he begged. “Asking for help isn’t easy for me, so I had to get drunk to do it. And every time I ask for help, you make me feel like shit about it. I try to get vulnerable with you, and you treat me like I'm a bad person for having feelings.”

“Oh, really?”

Kallie put a hand on her hip. “I make you feel like shit? I haven’t sat there and listened to you for hours without a word when you needed a friend? I haven’t held you when you needed someone to cry with? For fuck’s sake, I haven’t cried with you? I’ve done everything I can to make you feel better. Hell, I’ve done whatever I needed to just to get you through the night, and I’m still falling short. You act like I haven’t sacrificed whatever I had to in order to support you, and even with all of that, you keep telling me that it’s not enough. I keep trying to pull you out of this black hole of self-loathing that you’ve put yourself in, but you refuse to come out! What else do I need to do to prove to you that I want this, and that I’m not going to abandon you?”

“I know you’ve put in the work, but this shit is hard for me!”

Marcus exclaimed. “I know it hurts you to see me this way, and I don't want to hurt you, so I try to help myself, but that doesn't always work. You obviously don't want me bringing all my baggage to you, so I feel alone, because you're supposed to be the one person I can talk to about this stuff. But I can’t, so I haven’t figured out how to deal with it yet.”

“Oh my gods, Marcus, you’re just making it worse!”

Kallie screamed. “I can’t be your everything and nothing all at once! What do you want?”

She spun on her heel to storm out. Marcus reached out to grab her shoulder. “Kallie?—”

“No! I’m sick of this game!”

She wrenched herself out of his grasp, and left the room. Charlie, Oberi and I hurried after her into the hall.

“Kallie, wait!”

I cried out. My arms were burning trying to keep up with her. I could only spin these wheels so fast.

She paused to catch her breath. I brought my chair to a halt beside her. She hunched over her knees, quivering like she was about to cry.

"I can't… I can't keep dealing with him, Ava," Kallie said in a strained voice. “He’s killing me.”

I couldn’t blame her. I felt sympathy for Marcus, and for his pain. I didn’t know what side to take.

But I understood why Kallie wanted to give up, because watching someone you love fall apart without being able to do anything about it was basically hell.

I wasn’t sure what to say, but I forced myself to find the words. “He’s going through a hard time. The Institute left scars on all of us. He’s just… not sure of how to heal them.”

"I’m so tired of him putting me on a pedestal one moment and despising me the next!" Kallie yelled. "I'm either his savior or his devil, and I can't keep going in circles on this merry-go-round, because it’s making me sick!”

“I understand that has to be terribly frustrating,”

I said. “But maybe if you just talk to him?—”

“There’s no talking! The guy’s crazy! He’s either sitting here proclaiming that he wants to have this big future with me, or he’s screaming that I’m going to leave him and never talk to him again! There’s no middle ground.”

She huffed.

“He’s put you in the worst position ever, I agree. But I think there’s something else going on here,”

I said. “He acts like he doesn’t need you, but I promise you he does.”

“I need myself. I need to be happy, more than I need to keep him in my life if he’s going to act like this,”

Kallie said shortly. “I’ve dealt with this for over two years, and there’s still no progress when it comes to us being together. If anything, we’ve backtracked, and my patience is running out. I don’t want to be with someone who keeps accusing me that I don’t love him.”

“Kallie…”

My voice got weak.

"I'm sorry." She staggered away, holding up her hands before she turned tail. “I can’t handle him tonight.”

She walked away. I didn’t have anything else to offer that might comfort her, so I watched her go.

“I’ll talk to her,”

Charlie said. “Maybe she needs someone to listen.”

Charlie rushed after Kallie. I rolled my chair down the hall to return to Marcus. Oberi let out a coo as she settled on the back of my chair.

I found Marcus sitting on the ground, surrounded by his damaged paintings with his head in his hands. I rolled up behind him.

“She doesn’t mean it,”

I whispered softly. Rishi gave a soft meow.

Marcus sighed. “I'm just… I'm having one of those really hard days where I'm trying not to hate myself.”

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and laid my chin on his head. “I know.”

We sat like that for a while, before Marcus sniffed and wiped his face with his sleeve. “I think I need to talk to my Mom and Dad,”

he mumbled. “Catch you later, Ava?”

“Okay.”

I really hoped that’s where he was actually going. His parents might be able to do more than I could.

I’ll make sure he gets there, Oberi said, and she flew off after Marcus as he dragged himself out of the room.

All I could do was observe the mess Marcus had made, wondering if we’d ever find a way to fix it… fix him.

I couldn’t lose another friend. But it seemed like Marcus was determined to push all of us away. He was sick. All my healing magic wouldn’t do anything to cure him.

For as much as I loved Marcus, Kallie, and all my friends, I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t save anybody. No matter how much I wanted to take their pain away, I was helpless to stop their suffering.

That absolutely wrecked me. I couldn’t live with it. The world couldn’t go on when there were people who suffered so terribly in this way.

So I dared to think that one day, maybe it wouldn’t have to. I was a demigod. I had the power to change things.

I swore to myself right then and there, whatever it took to make the world a better place, I’d do it. That way, people like Marcus didn’t have to suffer…

And if there were consequences, I’d go through with them. No matter what they might be.