She is my Sin - A Marjumn Story

2: Oblivious

Wednesday, the next day at work, Marjorie and Aut were working in silence, Aut liked the quiet, she'd grown accustomed to it, even the smallest whisper could have set Roger off when her and Reece were young heirs to Roger's empire.

Silence. An effortless substitute to the madness that was being Marjorie's friend.

Marjorie.

Why was she so quiet?

Annoying was something Marj had always been called growing up, especially after her mother married into the Van Gould family. Her dad had, before he passed on, always been a loud, social butterfly, much like Marjorie had turned out to be, however, her step dad, Victor, was the polar opposite, requiring quite to work and only enjoying social settings if it meant making deals with the Knight family to grow his wealth. Marj is trying her very best not to annoy the younger woman, she always tried her best to be friendly but for some reason she felt so nervous around Autumn. Was she scared of her?

Not wanting to annoy Autumn was what kept the office in a deafening silence. This silence comes to an abrupt stop when Marj starts apologising, seemingly out of nowhere, worrying that something she may have said the day before had offended Aut. She didn't mean to push, she just loved learning things about people she loved.

Loved?....Cared about.

Aut is confused at this sudden uproar and watches Marjorie intently, her eyes almost spiralling watching Marjorie move frantically to try to soothe herself. She'd never seen Marjorie like this, they were not really friends until recently so she'd only ever witnessed this behaviour come from the older woman when she was panicking about something to Charlotte or Sorscha.

Aut shushes Marj, a comfort the older woman could get used to, it made her blush. Aut finally gets a chance to speak and tells her to slow down, repeatedly asking what she is apologising for when eventually Marj goes back to being quiet, worrying Autumn. The silence beforehand had been peaceful but now Autumn understood that the reasoning was a lot more serious. Overthinking was common from Marjorie, however, It was never usually something to do with Autumn, they didn't exactly get along with each other and there was certainly no love lost between them.

Back then.

Slowly, Marj starts explaining that she felt a tension in the air after she made comments about Aut liking someone in the nursery and worried she upset Aut. She speeds up again while explaining, the panic settling back in as Aut remains silent.

"She felt tension?” Aut thought to herself. She smirks slightly, an almost inaudible chuckle leaving her lips, completely unheard over Marjorie's unwavering rambling. You would need subtitles to understand what she was saying. Autumn places a hand on Marjorie's knee to help roll her office chair closer to her. Marjorie jolts at this touch and her rambling slowly simmers to a halt, finally noticing the smirk on Auts lips. It was a gentle touch. She wasn't used to gentle touches. Especially not used to a gentle touch that leads to comfort. Usually it leads to a night of drinking to forget about another man.

Her lips. They weren't so close that it could be a cause for concern, however, Marj felt drawn in, wanting to lean closer to her colleague. She didn't. She listened instead.

Why did she want Autumn to stop talking? Months of complaining that Autumn didn't talk enough and now she was here wishing her lips were sealed….why? What did she want out of that?

"Marjorie, I am not and WAS not mad. I found your feeble attempts at inquisition into my love life quite humorous. Please stop worrying yourself."

Marjorie was again taken back by Aut's niceness towards her.

"Aye?", that is all she could muster, confusion didn't even come close to what she was feeling right now. What WAS she feeling right now?

"Marj I know we have had a rocky start to this whole friendship thing, and I am known to get quite mad-"

"Quite? ha." Marjorie interrupts, regretting her interruption as she once again looks back at her colleague and notices her darkened eyes.

“s-...sorry uhm- carry on” a flustered Marjorie mumbles.

"-however, on this one occasion, that you have managed to ruin once again with your usual incompetence towards social interactions, I am not mad at you. Now, can you please go back to being quiet? I was really enjoying not hearing your voice" Her voice stern by the end.

In actuality, Marjorie’s voice was the closest thing to comfort compared to silence for Autumn. Sure, she hates the overly dramatic reactions and overly pronounced and high pitched words, but deep down Autumn knew that she wasn't at home if the house wasn't filled with an adequate mix of comfortable silence and Marjorie’s voice.

Marjorie's sounds.

Quickly fixing her behaviour at Autumn’s will once again, the pair went back to a comfortable silence for a few hours, nothing too notable other than a visit from Char and Mia, in which Marj watched Autumn intently to see if she could catch any shifts in her attitude that would imply her feelings for one of the girls had changed.

Sure Mia and Char were dating, however, Autumn didn't strike Marj as a woman who was against sharing. Paying more attention to her reactions towards Mia, after learning about the *Mrs Autumn Roberts" notebook entry from Miss Amelia Roberts herself.

Although Marj hated to admit it, the two had grown closer in the last few months. Amelia and her grew up very similar, no siblings, no dad, no money. Humorously, this meant that their attitudes were almost an exact match, explaining why the two women sounded more like argumentative teenage siblings rather than grown rivals. The pair had came to depend on each other a lot more in ensuring that Charlotte was doing okay after her messy divorce with Nick and their bickering actually brought a warmth to them, an unspoken understanding of each other.

That didn't stop Mia from receiving a good few full namings from Charlotte however. Mia liked it though and often acted quite sheepishly towards it.

Nothing stuck out to Marjorie about Auts attitude.

That was until Aut finally turned around and caught a glimpse of Marj, her head rested in the palm of her hand, her other hand fiddling with a pen, effortlessly spinning it through her fingers, which Autumn watched intently, she had never wished to be a pen before and yet here she was.

She also noticed the reflection of her computer screen in her glasses, clearly showing that she had been observing homes for sale in the nursery area. Why? They looked quite far out of Marjorie's manager's salary price range.

Mia, who had turned around before leaving to make one last quick quip at her friends, noticed the way the two women were now looking at each other....what? surely not. For the first time since Aut was a small girl, in love and hopelessly obsessed with Kyle Killerman, Mia saw Auts nerves get the better of her, causing her to look away and focus her attention on some paper sitting on her desk. Mia shook her head as once again, Marjorie was completely oblivious to something happening right in front of her eyes.

Mia, for the first time in years, saw that nervous girl she called a sister….before she inevitably had to raise her the best she could. Both growing up too quickly.