Girlfriend On Mars

14. "You and her"

Fourteen.

"You and her." 

Holding hands with Stephen in his car was weird to Marley. He'd taken on an 'affectionate best friend' character, and it was foreign but not unwelcome to the Rhodes' girl. His hands were large, rough with toil like sandpaper, his nails bitten down short. Stephen was funny, warm and quite the manly man. Marley had welcomed him on as her new friend, feeling quickly comfortable in his presence.

They'd spent the whole evening together and had even mentioned spending the night at Stephen's house (separate beds of course). Marley had found that he was much less problematic than her school friends but only a certain amount of time before their friendship would be contorted by the pressures of their parents.

Stephen wore a lot of stripes. His top on that day had blue in it, which to Marley was quite reminiscent of the top Jen had worn days earlier.

He glanced down at his phone, squinted his eyes then typed back a reply.

"Who's it?" Marley asked.

"Mom; wants me to buy a few things from the store. Do you mind?" Stephen looked backwards out the car, searching for a nearby store. There was one a few blocks behind them, illuminated by the huge yellow neon sign perched atop the building.

"Nope, not at all."

The left the car and in the cool evening air, Marley pulled on her hoodie, wrapping it close to her form. The streetlamps were only just starting to switch on and highlighted their route down towards the store. Stephen clapped his hands together and rubbed them in an attempt to warm himself up.

"It's freezing." He grumbled, tugging at his rolled-up sleeves.

"Should've taken your jacket."

The two entered the store and Stephen reached for a shopping cart, childishly leaning on it and pushing ahead. Marley hung back, watching the boy rush about.

"What do you need?" She asked, them extended out her arm to him. "Pass me your phone, I'll check."

He reversed into the blonde, pulling out his phone from his back pocket and passing it to her. The screen was unlocked and opened on the messages between him and his mother. There, a list containing: eggs, milk, a magazine, tomatoes and orange juice.

"Eggs and milk first, make a left." Marley ordered.

"Aye, aye."

Stephen spun the cart so that they were turning into the refrigerated aisle. Everything in between the rows was bathed in sharp white light from the overhead strip lamps. Their shoes clicked against the polished marble as they moved through, searching for the items on the list.

Stephen turned and tossed the milk into the cart.

"You better not toss the eggs, they'll break." Marley laughed.

Stephen smirked, turning and dropping the eggs into the metal trolley. Marley took a mental picture then of Stephen, her suitor to say. He was tall; wide shoulders, big front teeth, hands as large as saucepans, neat, curly, ear-length hair, small dimples. He'd told her that he played no sport, and that he wasn't athletic, but his form and general build spoke volumes about what he did in his spare time. She also wondered whether Stephen was popular with women, they didn't go to the same school, so it wasn't possible for her to slyly check.

The store was almost empty, sparse groups of people silently shopping. Stephen walked ahead, hand firmly gripped on the end of the shopping cart, guiding it through the aisles.

"What's next?" He asked.

"Tomatoes, oh and orange juice if you're close."

Marley went silent for a minute, thinking of a question to ask the tall boy. When one came to mind, she wondered whether she could ask it without him building up any suspicion to delve into her personal life.

"What are you parents like, Steph?"

He glanced back at her. "My parents? They're very professional, quiet, stubborn. They usually get their way if they want it."

"Same here." Marley mumbled.

Stephen then asked, "How are yours?" To which, Marley had to scramble for an answer. She couldn't repeat his previous phrase of 'same here' so how could she describe them? Manipulative junkies? Abusive narcissists? Usually, Marley would be getting defensive or quiet at that point- she hated people asking.

"They're... just parents. They worry but they keep themselves to themselves." She lied, leaning on the cart. "Tomatoes are there."

Stephen placed the tomatoes in and then asked, "Got a best friend?"

Marley thought long and hard about this one. A single person she would class as her 'best friend'. Stephen? Too early, they'd practically just met. Mya? She was a friend, sure, but pushy and untrustworthy. All the soccer girls could be labelled the same.

Marley shrugged. "Don't have one, I guess."

"Nobody?"

"Nobody."

Then she thought of Jen; perfect lips, cocky grin Jen. They were friends, that much was true, but her best? She couldn't imagine it; she didn't want to claim Jen was her best friend until she knew Jen would say the same. And the blonde was sure she wouldn't.

"Nope, yeah, no one. Have you?"

"Yeah." Stephen smiled, revealing his two large front teeth. "Got two close childhood friends: Pamela and Tyson."

"Cool," said Marley absentmindedly. She'd spotted something else as they'd turned the corner into the next aisle. Her eyes had narrowed into beadiness, bottom lip had been sucked into her mouth and clamped between her teeth. Stephen was occupied with flicking through women's magazines, humming contently to himself.

A dark head of hair, top knotted, tall and lean, a cheeky, toothy smile. It was Jen, clad in her new store uniform—which she'd personalised by rolling her sleeves and the cuffs of her trousers neatly. She had her silver hoop earrings looped into her ears and multiple glittering rings curled around her slender fingers. She was staring, quite obviously, at a co-worker, who was bent over retrieving something from the bottom shelf.

Marley watched as the co-worker stood and spun around, standing closely with Jen, so close that she would only have to extend her ring finger to touch Jen's arm. The co-worker was pretty, older, around 20-25. She was a brunette with shoulder length locks, obviously flat ironed.

Marley felt her stomach twist and contort when she saw Jen's face break into her usual, winning grin. Then it fell to a small smirk as the woman said something to Jen. She started to wonder whether the way she appeared to her was how she acted towards every willing girl; Marley began to feel like she'd been emotionally swindled. It was a foreign feeling that ripped through her chest, coiling up around her sternum and swelling. Her mood instantly plummeted.

She knew, of course, that Jen would think she was silly for feeling so bothered. She knew Jen wouldn't have inched her head in the slightest if Marley had done the same, because Jen was cool. She was relaxed and unbothered, and Marley felt like the complete opposite in that moment. Ridiculously, Marley compared herself, side-by side in mental image, with the woman that Jen was talking with

"You know her?"

She turned quickly to face a questioning Stephen, then hesitantly nodded her head. She then said, "Uh, Steph, can you take me home?" And visibly, he was confused as she watched his eyebrow quirk.

"Uhm, course, just give me a sec to buy all th—"

She interrupted with, "I'll wait in the car."

Then she fled from the store to the car, glancing only briefly at an oblivious Jen.