Teaching Nostalgia [Gumlee]

Chapter 17

"Wait wait wait. Go back. She was what!?" I asked in disbelief, spinning around in my desk chair so fast I almost fell out of it.

"Yep... you heard me." Marshall was laying on my bed, tossing a squishy stress toy up in the air. He was in the middle of ranting to me about all the shit that went down over the past month, but giving all the gory details this time.

"Wow. I don't even know what to say, that's so horrible! Oh, that makes me so upset." My hand was covering my mouth from how shocked and concerned I was. "She's okay right? Please tell me she's okay."

"She's better now. Hopefully being back with Marceline will help her more. But let me finish my story!" He proceeded to tell me about everything that happened, ranting about his selfish frustrations and then about all of the drama that went down this morning. Sometime during his rant, I came over to my bed and laid down next to him, listening intently, concerned and curious. He had stopped tossing that stress ball thing and was now fiddling with it as he talked. I rubbed his arm, absentmindedly pulling at his arm hair every now and then.

"...So then we hugged and said bye and then they left. And then I napped. And now I'm here," he finished and turned to face me again. I grabbed his hand and kissed his fingers, squeezing and rubbing them with my own hand.

"Jeez. Sounds like you had a really stressful couple of weeks. I'm sorry that you all have to go through that." I frowned and he pinched his cheeks together, giggling at my smushed face.

"It's all good. You don't have to worry about me, I'm fine," he said, but the dark circles under his eyes said otherwise.

"I always worry about you," I said with a pout after pushing his hand away.

"You're sweet. But you really don't have to, Bub. If I wasn't I would've already talked to you about it." He interlocked our fingers.

I frowned again. "You didn't the last time when things got really bad."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I promise if I ever start to relapse again, I'll tell you immediately. Got it?"

"You better. Have you been taking your medicine on a regular basis?" I asked, checking up on him. It sounds like he was so focused on Bonnie. I was afraid he wasn't catering to his own needs.

"...Not really..." He said shamefully after thinking about it for a moment.

"Marshall," I scolded. "You're supposed to take them everyday!"

"I've been feeling better, though!" He defended. "A lot better. I haven't felt this happy in a long time."

"No, you've been stressed and tired all month.  You literally just admitted that. That's not progress, my dear."

Marshall rolled his eyes. "Okay but that doesn't mean I'm depressed. I've made progress, I know I have."

"I-... okay, Marshall." I stopped my argument and just left it there. I just wanted to spend some time with my boyfriend, not fight about his mental illnesses. "Please just take your meds. I care about you."

"Yeah yeah," he dismissed with a wave of his hand. He stood up and looked around my room before his eyes landed on my bookshelf. He walked over to it and stared at its contents, skimming through all the organized titles of books and nicknacks. He shifted his weight to one leg and crossed his arms, turning to look at me. "Since you wanna talk about mental problems, when did you do this?" He asked with an accused raised brow, pointing at the bookshelf that was organized by color and in alphabetical order. "It wasn't like that the last time I came over."

I sat up on my bed and crossed my legs. I didn't appreciate him calling me out like this. "I organized it a few days ago, if you must know. It took me over three hours to do, but at least it won't bother me anymore." Lately my bookshelf has been giving me a weird yet familiar sense of anxiety every time I looked at it. And after trying my best to resist the urge to organize it, knowing it'd take forever, it just became too overwhelming to bare it anymore. I had to fix it, and so I did.