The Gray Case

twenty-six

It is unbelievable how eyes can transform. Not in color, but in the weight they carry.

And as Alexander walks straight in front of Marcus's face, Maya realizes that.

There is no shape in the words they prepare themselves to spit, no form in the quick sequence in which things happen.

"So here you are. Tell me, Alex, what does it feel like to be you? To have every single thing you want and even everything you don't want? What does it feel like? What does it feel like to know you can get away with anything just because you are the Alexander Gray?"

Approaching him, Marcus's being is stark. Desolate, even.

With him trail shadows that to them, are not understood but not unseen.

Behind Alexander, there lay Maya's hope. She makes eye contact with Marcus and for the duration of half a heartbeat, she has the impression he has been unraveled, freed, from all the rain that pours harsh in him.

"Marcus, please-" she tries to formulate words so strong in their gentleness that could go against his enclosed rage. But they don't.

No matter the wrong, she has been used to see the good. So, when she looks at Marcus, he is not just a stormy soul and a heavy, jealous heart.

"Don't worry, Maya. It's between us," Alexander says, glancing over at her, hand brushing light and soft against her arm as she takes a step back but still close enough to hear them talk, close enough to see their pupils transform.

Coal, ashes and smoke is the air Marcus breathes. On the other side, reign flames and glimpses of sheer realization.

"First of all, don't call me Alex as if we're friends. Second of all, what's your deal? What is this about? You are mad alright, but why?"

It is dim, outside. In the vacant streets of the neighborhood, there are stray lampposts spread across the sidewalks, from which emerges suffused light in the dark.

In front of Alexander's house, glimmers float around them bringing out even more the color of their skin while it throbs inside, red and deep.

"But we were cool with each other before, weren't we? Until something happened." Marcus takes a step closer, eyebrows severely knit together as their distance shortens.

"Until you became so caught up with your popularity that you just decided to be with the girl everyone at that time wanted. Until you completely ignored my feelings for her, because I guess you could never see me with a girl like Sofia. Until you came along and she never talked to me again because Alexander Gray has always been the better one."

Maya's mouth is slightly open as her irises shift, looking at both of them who now, are the main portraits of different pictures.

Alexander's eyes are little-squinted as he looks at the boy who stands in front of him, but he isn't really looking, as if he tries to remember.

"I ignored your feelings for her? That's bullshit. Yes, I knew you 'liked' her but everyone else in the team did! You all always treated her like she was some sort of prize that had to be won at all costs. And it was never anything more, nobody ever talked about her differently. How would I have known that for you it was something deeper than that? You never told me and neither Sofia did. Nobody in the team actually got to know her personally except me. And when I actually did, you just stopped talking to me. So I guess now I know why you did that and left the team too."

His temper cools down only to the sight, because through the ear are heard fragments of distant cholera.

"I don't think I will ever believe that you didn't know, Alexander."