Paradise Blvd. Year One

Chapter Thirteen

Saturday

Marceline was still sitting in front of the washing machine. She told herself to take deep breaths, to try and comprehend what had happened, but after several deep breaths, nothing had changed. The tears had left her eyes and dried up. She didn't know why she was crying. Maybe it was because she'd almost become a killer or because she'd attacked Marion or because she didn't know if Veronica was safe from Esau. The fact that she felt that Veronica would only be safe if Esau was dead was incomprehensible on its own.

"Jesus, Marcy." Her mother was standing by the door of the laundry room. "It's 2am."

"Oh." She opened the machine and pulled her clothes out. "I just washed these 'cause I wanted to wear them."

"What's going on, Marceline?" Ms. Nguyen asked. "You missed your brother's performance and now you're doing the laundry at 2am, what's wrong?"

"Um, nothing." Marceline shook her head a bit too much.

"Okay." Her mother sighed. "Just go to bed, okay?"

"Yeah." Marceline nodded a bit too much. Ms. Nguyen gave her a concerned smile before leaving. Marceline hung up the clothes on an indoor clothesline and hugged herself in her nightgown as she went to bed.

She didn't sleep that night.

•

Lucia stared at Tulip's ceiling. She couldn't sleep. Neither could Tulip. "You okay?" Tulip asked her.

"I should be asking you," she replied.

"Well, I'm not the one staring at the ceiling, am I?"

Lucia smiled. "I'm fine. Just try to sleep, okay?"

"I don't know if I can," Tulip said softly. It was a hot, summer night, but she'd mummified herself in her bedsheets. It's either Lucia didn't notice it, or chose not to ask questions about it.

"Just try, okay?" Lucia pleaded.

She closed her eyes and whispered, "Sweet dreams."

Lucia didn't sleep that night either. That night, she had seen more emotions in Marceline's eyes than Marceline had ever let on since they'd met. It wasn't as if she'd opened up, Lucia knew that much. She had seen enough eyes staring in her general direction to learn how to read people's emotions through their eyes.

Marceline's moved from hate when she was burning Esau, to a terrible nothingness when she attacked Marion, and then to alternating between confusion, anger and regret when she realised what she'd done. Marion's were filled with only fear, fear for Marceline. Tulip's were happy after her performance, but that happiness was tinted with an anger and sadness that she'd chosen to suppress.

Before getting into bed, Lucia had searched her own eyes. They were empty. She wasn't surprised. It's easy to detach yourself from human emotion when you're always observing it in others. That's what she was. An observer. She cared so much to know what others were feeling, she forgot about herself. Maybe that's why she snapped in Marion's erased reality. Maybe it's because she turned her attention inwards and what she saw was too much to handle.

She decided it would be wise to not look inwards.

•

Forest stepped outside into the coolish air. It was too hot and moist to stay in bed. He was also too overridden with emotion to stay in bed. Getting a huge, and I mean huge, amount of money from Ms. Cheyenne King was one thing, but working for it gave him a sense of pride and warmth that dealing drugs had failed to give him.