Øverturning the lies (a twenty one pilots fanfiction)

~Mari~

"Mari?" someone asks. "Are you okay?" 

Mari finds herself staring into the distance, her voice buried somewhere inside her, inaccessible for the time being. 

"I-" she finally finds it, "I was remembering something." 

She shivers. "He-he was happy..." 

"What do you mean?" 

She's shaken out of her thoughts and can finally identify who is there beside her. 

It's Tyler. 

That makes her feel a strange sense of relief. 

She doesn't know why, but something about him allows her to relax.

She swallows but tells him. 

"When I was really young," she says, "one of the bishops came for me. My family-" 

She shakes her head, remembering a blur of faces but nothing else. 

"They-I think they lived on the very edge of the city. So it was strange for one of the nine to come there, I mean, strange enough before adding the fact that they sought me out specifically." 

She sighs. 

"Which-" Tyler begins, "Which one?"

She realizes what he's asking but can't for the life of her reply. 

"I don't know," she says honestly. 

She shakes her head. "I mean, I really don't know. I don't understand why I can't remember..." 

"Wait," Tyler says. "How-how old were you?"

Mari thinks back. 

"I-" she says, "About...four or five, I think."

"Wait-" Tyler says, sounding concerned, "H-how old are you now?"

Mari bites her lip. "...Maybe sixteen? I forgot-or, no. I just stopped counting, I guess." 

For some reason the fact that Tyler's wearing a blanket wrapped around him, almost-and this thought makes her smile-almost like a cape, that small detail jumps out at her right then. 

It might be because in a moment, he places his arm around her shoulders in a way that-thankfully-doesn't make her uncomfortable, just safe. 

Mari finds herself remembering even more details she thought she had lost, details she wished she had lost. 

"I don't know what they did to me," she says, "Not exactly." 

That's not even a lie. 

She knows what they did but doesn't know if that caused her to be this way, or something else entirely.

She takes a deep breath. "All I know is that when I came back, something had changed. But it wasn't anyone or anything else. I had changed." 

This is something she's never said aloud before. 

"I don't-I guess I never really knew or thought that there was anything wrong with me," she says, "But I felt like I had done something. I just didn't fit in with it all anymore." 

She realizes Tyler is staring at her.

"All of this happened," he says, "When you were five?" 

She nods. 

"I-I wish I could say something to help you," Tyler says, "But all I can think of is-I'm sorry." 

She just shrugs, trying to ignore the tears that are forming in her eyes, hating herself for appearing vulnerable and human for one second, even if she's with someone she does trust.