Anonymous

41

"So... I think maybe you were right."

Lady smiled. "That's the best thing I've ever heard. You telling me that I'm right. Wow. Marceline likes you back, then?"

"I think... maybe," Bonnie let herself admit, and then she flopped back down onto the sofa with a sigh, "I don't know. It's all the mixed signals again. We were kind of flirting the other day, but I haven't spoken to her since. Usually she just comes over, and she always replies to my texts within the hour, but it's just... silence. Maybe I freaked her out."

"Maybe she's just busy," Lady shrugged, "I can drive you to her house, if you want to see her. She might have had like, super songwriting inspiration or something and needed to shut herself off from everyone to focus on it."

"Ordinarily, I would say no," Bonnie said, biting down on her bottom lip, a sudden, unfamiliar urge of recklessness taking her over. "But maybe I should just go over there. If she's already weirded out, I might as well just tell her. It'd get it off my chest, right? Either way, I'd feel better eventually."

Lady nodded. "Yeah. Come on, let's go."

"I'm going to text her, just to let her know," Bonnie said, sending the text in question. She'd sent another text, a screenshot of a funny post she'd seen on her bi-annual Facebook scroll, but Marceline had yet to respond. "Alright. Let's go. Am I really about to tell my crush I like her?"

Lady bumped against her. "Proud of you. Do you want me to wait for you while you go in?"

"I don't know. I might just stay with her, if things go well." Bonnie considered. She didn't want to get her hopes up. Not when the radio silence from Marceline's end wasn't sending the best sign. "If they don't, then... yeah, maybe wait. And then I'll text you or something."

"If it means anything, I don't think it could go badly," Lady said as she followed Bonnie out of the house and towards her car, "like, even if she doesn't feel the same way, I don't think she'd be weird about it at all. It's obvious that she cares about you."

Bonnie thought about it, and if it hadn't been for all the ignored texts and the complete silence from Marceline over the last few days, she would've believed that. Admittedly, she had a bad feeling about going over there, because there had to be some reason for Marceline to ignore her the way she had.

All she managed to get out to Lady as she got into the car was, "Yeah. I suppose so."

-

Pain.

It had been the only constant in her last few days. She stayed curled up in bed, occasionally testing her movements, always getting that sharp shot of agony in her ribs. There was a crack in one of them – she'd felt it when she was feeling a little braver. The doctor she'd seen had said it would heal naturally in three to six weeks, and they couldn't do anything other than advise her to take lots of painkillers and make sure to attempt some movement.

All movement hurt. She'd forced herself to get up and grab her ukulele, something that wouldn't be heavy on her ribs but loud enough for her dad to hear when he walked past her bedroom door. She wanted him to know that he couldn't take that away from her. Whatever he did to her, she'd never stop playing music and doing what made her happy.

The bedroom door opened and as a reflex she turned over. A searing pain shot through her side and she let out a pathetic whimper, but it was nothing compared to the hurt she felt when she saw Bonnie, stood there in shock, with her father smiling his sickening smile.

"As you can see," Hunson said like she was some exhibition in a zoo, "Marceline can't do anything right now."

Bonnie rushed to her side once the shock wore off and Marceline just wanted to fall into her warm, gentle arms and never ever leave them. Bonnie was safe. She was always safe. She felt Bonnie's soft, gentle fingers touch the bruising on her ribs. "Oh my god, Marcy, what happened?"