The Stargazer

Chapter Three

I felt my eyelids snap open. My hand groped in the darkness. I felt the edges of the shadows and grasped something cold and hard. Three in the morning. I set my clock down. 

I whipped off my covers and put myself on my feet. Why would I still do this. Why did I do this. What was I doing this for...

I pulled a gray hood over my head, whipped on my glasses, slipped my keys into my pocket and slithered into the hallway. I snuck away, past my family. They were so pure. They were so... Normal.

I tore my glance from them, and stepped out the heavy house door. The fire escape door moaned behind me. The narrow hallways mocked me, the white walls turning black behind me as I ascended. I would have said the walls swallowed me and pulled me down with their skeletal fingers, but the numbers on  the floors said otherwise. 17, 18, 19...

The roof.

I turned the round knob on the thin metal door, and it noiselessly swung open. 

"Hey." A voice muttered.

"Hi, Marcus."

He sat there, on our spot.  White hands gripping the pipes, scars intertwined across his bare arms and bruises on his neck. His legs were covered with sports pants and he was wearing his beaten converses. He didn't turn at my company. He just faced the horizon, eyes closed.

I bit my tongue and sat next to him.  When he was done, he just stared at the sky. It was a while before the both of us spoke.

"What did you wish for?" I mumbled hesitantly.

A crooked smile took over his face. "If I told you then it won't come true now, would it?" He turned his face towards me. 

"Oh my God. What happened to you this time." I was shocked. A purple bruise framed his lower jaw. Part of what I said was a question. But I meant it as a demand. 

Marcus's eyes hardened. He stared down. He parted his lips as if to say something, but closed it again. When he turned again, he said the same line that had been repeated over and over again. 

"It doesn't matter."

I looked him squarely in the face. "What. do. you. mean. You have to tell-" 

"Amber, It does not matter." Marcus's voice snapped me out of my trance. He said it firmly, and I bent to his ferocity.

I slipped my fingers underneath my black frames. My hands were clammy, wet with sweat and cold with the winter wind.  Why did Marcus always cut me off there? I don't understand that. Why would people reject any kind of care? Didn't he know I felt really bad for him? He's always hiding something from me. Not like it's my business, but doesn't he ever feel alone? I know Marcus enough to know he doesn't go online, doesn't read and doesn't talk to his friends. Except for me. And I don't know why.

Ever since that day when the facade was shattered, he turned miserable. For a couple months I didn't even see him. He was nowhere to be seen. When I found him again on the roof at night again, I found scars on him. Everyday when I came to do my chores, he would have other scars that were not there before. He would have blood on his shirt, or bruises everywhere. 

On bad days, I would pour my heart out and sob my fears out to him. He was better than Roger. Roger never seemed to have time for me. Roger was one of the best brothers you could ask for, but then again Marcus listened. He was a shoulder to cry on. He understood the darkness of my fears. Roger's sunshine repelled that. I didn't want to break Rogers facade.

Marcus had a mysterious glow around him, he was the kind of guy people will tell you that he's not good for you. Although I wondered many times over what were the story behind his scars, I dare not risk our friendship for it. As far as I knew, he led a bad childhood, and is deemed weird at school. For what, I don't know why. On our rooftop, it was I who did the most talking. The whiny one complaining about her sucky life.