fractures

abbey and marlene

Layne

Abbey insists on sitting down far away from the cliff edge because it's going to be a rather long story. I do so without much argument. Maybe I was a little too rash just now.

I wait as Abbey takes a deep breath. Then she starts, "If you haven't already figured, Marlene is my cousin."

Oh. Why did Marlene never tell me?

"We were close as kids, lived in the same neighbourhood, played together, grew up together. Right until our teenage years, when we went to different high schools and kind of stopped hanging out so much. But we always knew that the other was just there. We always knew we would never truly be alone. It all began when things started getting rocky between Marlene's parents. They were always fighting." - okay, at least now I remember Marlene telling me that her parents fought a lot - "We didn't even know why. Then a couple of months after they started fighting, that money scandal thing happened and Marlene's mother came to my parents to seek help. But my parents refused to lend them money because they were convinced that Marlene's father would just do it again. Our parents had an argument. And not the kind of argument that can be resolved when everyone calmed down and started thinking rationally. It involved money and debts and theft. What was done couldn't be changed, no matter how rational they wanted to be. There was a huge falling out and a wall was built between our families.

"At first, Marlene and I thought it would be okay, since we still had each other. But her parents' fighting intensified and my parents started warning me away from Marlene and her family. Day by day, Marlene retreated further and further into herself, dropping deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit of despair. I tried to help her, tried to cheer her up. But all that effort went down the drain the day her father moved out and my family decided to move away.

"My parents sat me down for a talk and gave me all the reasons why we should move away and severe our ties with Marlene's family. 'A leopard can't change its spots,' they said. 'Your uncle did this once, he'll do it again.' I tried to reason with them not to move. I told them Marlene's father moved out. I told them that Marlene and her mother needed their help. And I asked my mother, didn't she always say family help each other out? Is she just going to leave her sister like that? But my parents disagreed. They grounded me for talking back to them, moved far, far away from Marlene and her mother. I blamed Marlene's father. I blamed him for what he did, for how he broke us apart.

"But Marlene still loved him, despite what he'd done. He was her father after all. But I couldn't see why she did. I was stupid and I said stupid things to her about her father and about her, because I wanted her to see that her father didn't deserve her love. But when she didn't agree with me, I got angry. I said even more stupid things. Maybe even cruel things. She must have taken them to heart. I guess she kinda fell into depression after that. To this day, I regret every single word I said to her. You may have broke her bones, Layne, but I broke her heart," Abbey finishes shamefully, breaking into tears.

For a few minutes, all I do is sit there and try to wrap my head around whatever Abbey's just said.

Marlene, why did you never tell me anything? I know I was busy studying all the time and ignoring you, but if you'd just...who am I to blame Marlene? It's my fault I never paid much attention to her.

"You must think I'm a monster," Abbey mumbles wiping her eyes.

"If you're a monster, what am I?" I reply, looking down at my shoes. "Besides, you know you didn't mean them."

"But I still said them."

"Isn't that the same as me pushing her off the cliff? We messed up, yeah. We messed up big. But I'm sure Marlene knows we didn't mean anything, right?" I say, trying to convince myself more than Abbey.

Abbey doesn't respond.

Marlene didn't deserve either of us as friends.

Then as I look down at my shoes, another shoe appears in my peripheral vision. A translucent shoe. That has a translucent leg. That has a translucent body. That has a translucent-

"Marlene!?"

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2 more chapters to the end!
updating tomorrow haha.

-ohkayed