Girlfriend On Mars

17. "Playboy bunny"

Seventeen.

"Playboy bunny."

Then Marley began to obsess. The kisses were on her mind constantly, when she was supposed to be listening in class, when she was in the shower, before she fell asleep at nights. All logic she'd had before Jen dissipated quickly, fizzled out like a glowing spark, and things went from dangerous to dull. Jen would often come into the locker room after practices and kiss her, or even in the car park, which was the riskier of the two. But the blonde had realised that Jen had become cautious, as if the younger girl was made of glass, and it strangely saddened Marley to think that Jen was becoming more friendly. Her usual flirty comments, the smirks, the heated kisses were fading, they did more sitting and talking than anything. Marley loved it all the same, she liked talking to Jen, making Jen laugh, listening to what her life was like, but she secretly longed to kiss Jen at times, on her own accord. She knew it had changed because of the day she told Jen to stop before going further, she felt embarrassed that she'd done so.

Jen was usually busy in the evenings and at night, most times she was at parties and with college friends. They rarely texted, only on the odd occasions, and they didn't hang out away from school—not since that day.

One night, Marley was lay in her bed, scrolling through Instagram at around eleven pm. She was feeling deflated and bored, dwelling a bit too much on Jen and where they stood as friends. She'd known the older girl then for only a couple of months or so, but she felt as if there wasn't an interesting moment before she'd arrived in her life. Not a single notable hour.

Her bare legs were tangled in her nested blankets, which she'd heated on the radiator for a half hour before getting into bed. Her hair was still damp and dark from her earlier shower. She remained typing messages back to friends and flicking back to Instagram, where she scrolled aimlessly.

When Jen was slightly distant, Marley wondered whether she was entertaining girls in the same way she was with her. She wondered whether their friendship was a tiny pawn in a huge game, whether it meant anything to the older girl at all. She wondered about it all because she knew it had become pathetically everything her life seemed to revolve around. She always seemed to draw her mind towards the day she saw Jen flirting at her workplace and her mind classed that as evidence for her worries.

Marley refreshed the home page—again, and then again. She noticed that Jen had uploaded something on her Instagram story, but only a few seconds ago. So instead of looking desperate, she decided she would come back and check it in ten minutes or so and carried on scrolling. A picture from an account she couldn't recognise made her slow her thumb swipes. It was Jen. She was sat on a sweaty-looking, black leather couch, grinning like an idiot, one hand in her dark, ruffled hair. There was a girl sat on her leg, back facing the camera, head turned to look at the photographer, scantily clad in small black shorts. Jen had her other hand gripped down on her ass, and another girl cuddled into her side.

Marley couldn't stop staring at the photo, eyes fixed on Jen's carefree expression and her squeezing hand. Then she looked down to the caption: "what a babe, love her @J.Arch6"

She quickly scrolled back up to the top and clicked on Jen's story, which was five videos long. The first was someone else filming Jen. She was jokingly frowning at the camera in her striped button down, before she put her hand over the camera, and it switched the black abruptly. The next two were just unfamiliar girls drinking shots with Jen's hearty laughter in background. Marley pressed onto the next, jaw clenching at the video. Jen was seemingly checking herself out in the camera, fixing her hair and baring her tiger teeth (probably to check for anything). A girl then appeared in the frame; short, bobbed blonde hair, face like a model, perfect cleavage visible in her low-cut top. Jen looked at her and smiled wryly, then the girl latched her lips onto Jen's neck, to which Jen only chuckled and the video ended.