MARIGOLD |H.S. AU|

CHAPTER TWENTY

SORRY FOR THE SONG I WAS IN MY FEELS AND I'M REALLY VIBING WITH SOFT BRYARRY ATM!!!

When I wake up in my bed the next morning, it takes me a while to process everything that happened last night.

We found it, and I never wanted to acknowledge that it happens, but it does, I've always known that it does, and I hate it. I know Martin was into some weird business shit, but I didn't think it was that bad, that violent, and it's stupid for me to have tried to ignored it for all this time, but it was just easier for me, pretending it wasn't happening. But now I've seen it, and it's different.

Martin would never do anything to me if he found out I knew, or that I'd seen something, he couldn't, he would never do that to my Dad, they're best friends. But Harry, Harry is a different story.

Martin has power, a lot more than you expect him to have when you first meet him, and he can get away with most things if he needs to, and I don't want to know any of the stuff he's already gotten away with, especially after what I saw tonight.

I also don't want to think about what he would do if he knew Harry saw what he saw last night, that's why I was so fucking panicked when he wanted to do something about it, he can't do that. Martin would probably 'deal with him'.

Martin doesn't care if I find anything, he knows I would never do anything, I'd be too scared to find out the truth, the truth I've been denying myself for a long time, the one I really don't want to know. The thing that I'm beginning to believe is true, and it's something I really don't want to think about.

When I realise that I've just been laying here for at least 20 minutes going over the events of last night I decide to stop being so fucking dramatic and to go and have a cigarette to calm myself down. I'm now a full-blown smoker again, ah well, it's necessary.

I grab my cigarette pack and my lighter, and slip some sliders on. Today I'm wearing just an oversized grey t-shirt, matching my other varieties of coloured oversized t-shirts that I own, and I like to sleep in a different colour every night. It's just something I've always done, can't explain it.

I walk out onto the balcony and I feel like I'm subconsciously looking for someone, hoping to bump into him, see him smoking, just be in his presence again, but he's not there. I don't know if it's just me being weird, but it just feels lonely up here without him, and the not the good kind of lonely.

The good kind of lonely is when you feel at peace with yourself, where you're enjoying your own company, choosing to be alone, knowing that you need it. It's healthy and it's necessary. But the bad kind of lonely is different. It's something that you feel like you can't control, something you don't know how to get rid of. It's scary, and terrifying. You don't understand how or why you feel like that, and it's not something you could ever articulate to anyone, to try and tell them that you need help, but knowing that they wouldn't understand, it wouldn't make sense to them. It's not something that can be 'solved' for you, it's only a feeling.

I remember what happened when we got back to the hotel last night while I smoke my cigarette, starting to understand that he has unmistakeably had an impact on me that is becoming extremely difficult to ignore. And every time I think about him, and just exactly what his presence means to me, I get this overwhelming prickling feeling travelling throughout my body, warming me, which of course scares the shit out of me, but for some reason I don't want to fight it. Not anymore.

I feel happy when I'm with him, and I forget everything that's supposed to be important, and I feel like I can focus on myself, in the right way, and I feel like I need that. He doesn't even realise he does that for me, and I won't ever tell him that, I don't want to scare him off.