Dangerous: A Marcel Styles Fan Fiction

31: Vicious

Part Four: This is Us

31: Vicious

   The next day brought upon me a terrible numbness. There was no more pain, but sorrow remained. It was a different feeling, as if I were just some soulless corpse blindly living on earth without a conscious mind within.

   When I finally gained enough physical strength and mental will to pull my broken carcass from my bed, it still took me twice as long to get ready. Thoughts of school and work swarmed me. Sadly, today my two obligations were the only two things I wasn’t ready for, because, if he hadn’t disappeared into hiding again, Marcel would be at both.

   I had hurt him at the sake of my own protection. He knew popularity was all my conscious memory had ever known. I hadn’t thought my lies would backfire this badly. Not once had I given Georgia Rose the impression I was using Marcel. It was her blind, thoughtless wording in her bursts of fangirl peppiness which had gotten me into this!

   I felt guilty. That was what this feeling really was. The pictures from last night stayed in my mind of Marcel’s angered and fiery eyes piercing into mine, making him look as if he were going to break down through the rage and cry if he’d managed to stay a minute longer. His tone rang in my ears; both the voice so terrifyingly soft and gentle just bordering on serene and trembling, and the loud, scary yell he’d used to make it clear his feelings for me had vanished.

   “I loved you.”

   “Loved”: the past tense of “love.” It was almost foreign to hear that word used by him. So many times he’d poured out his heart to me in just three simple words, but, now, everything had changed. I was no longer his “babe,” or his “blue butterfly” or whatever the hell he wanted to call me. He probably didn’t even know me as “Veronica” anymore. I was just simply another fake friend. Even worse, I was the girl who had hurt him; the girl who had broken his heart.

   The walk to school was mostly blurred. I wandered through a blindness until I hit the building – later than I would usually arrive. I made my way to my locker, but not without noticing Emily Krista – some background girl from my science class last year – wiping blood from the chin of her boyfriend Johnathan Morgan, who had a split lip and purple markings all over every visible part of his skin.

   “What happened to him?” I asked Georgia Rose when I reached the blonde, who leaned against our lockers texting.

   “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend,” she suggested, “He’s been here seven minutes and he’s already beat the crap out of Johnny, Martyn Brendans and that weird kid from my English class.” She stared down when her phone buzzed. “And, apparently,” she added, “Now he’s in the gym using Daniel Cain as a punching bag.”

   “He did all that in seven minutes?”

   “I know, right?” she said, “Who sneezed in his English muffin this morning?”

   I wanted so desperately to scream it was a combination of the two of us, however, mostly me. I just stayed silent as Georgia Rose’s fingers flew on the touchscreen of her phone and turned to open my locker.

   “Hey, V!”

   I turned back at Kevin’s voice, and Georgia Rose looked up from her cell phone. The duo of morons I wished we could escape was approaching the two of us.

   “What’s up with that loser you’re sleeping with?” Lionel demanded. “He’s in the gym beating up our kicker. Danny’s probably not gonna be able to play Saturday’s game!”

   I honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck about this schools football team after all it’s players had done. Facing my locker and hiding myself behind a curtain of dark curls, I simply muttered, “I don’t know.”

   “Look, V,” Kevin began in a grunt, “You need to control your man!”

   He wasn’t “my man!” He was mad at me! My touch or my voice would do nothing but enrage him more!

   “Because if he keeps this up –”

   Who gives a shit!?

   “– and he keeps kicking the shit out of our team –”

   I don’t care about your fucking team!

   “– your boyfriend will be in serious tr –”

   “He’s not my boyfriend, okay!?”

   Not one of us four was expecting me to erupt. The two boys and Georgia Rose were taken aback by my shriek, eyes wide, all staring at me, the girl panting shakily trying to hold back tears of frustration with two clenched fists at her sides. A second longer and I could’ve sworn I would’ve gone completely “Marcel” on them. After all, there was probably an entire book just listing the people who wanted to take a swing at Kevin Heartwood.

   Before the tears could fall, I bolted down the silent hallway and ended up in a familiar place – the place which had caused all this trouble – the girls’ bathroom across from the office.

   I wanted to say I collapsed, but that really wasn’t the best word to describe it. I stumbled to one of the sinks, hands clasping onto either side and fingers trying to dig into the porcelain. I put all my weight on it and just cried. But I wasn’t alone. I had been followed.

   “V?”

   This was all our faults! I didn’t turn at Georgia Rose’s voice. I just wept.

   “V, what happened?” she asked.

   “He hates me,” I breathed. My fingers were turning white.

   “What? Why?”

   “He thinks I was using him.” Why wouldn’t my heart rate go down?

   “Really?”

   “Yes, really!” another explosion let me whirl around to pierce my friend with the same fire eyes I’d been forced to stare into last night. “He hates me!” I screeched. I watched her tremble with fear at my outburst. “And it’s all because of you, you stupid, fucking bitch!”

   And I left. I just…left.