skinny || h.s. au [Rewrite Now Up!]

seventeen

When Marley walks back inside, she finally lets the tears spill. She locks the door behind her. But can't help it as she watches Harry out the window.

She stays out of sight. Doesn't want him to see her as he slowly makes his way to his car. But she still wishes he would come back and explain everything, say it isn't true. Yet at the same time, she wants him to leave and never, ever come back.

Harry runs both hands through his hair. He wants to punch something. Wants to go back to Marley and tell her over and over how he feels until she believes him. And wants to find Acacia and demand answers. All at the same time.

But he climbs into his car thinking maybe he will just take the rest of the day off, too. So he sticks the key in the ignition. It starts, but within a few seconds, shuts off.

Confused and already in a low mood, he tries it again but it doesn't start. Then he remembers how he needed to get gas after school. And curses.

Marley barely peeks around the heavy secondhand curtain-which smells like a musty attic-to watch as Harry beats his fist once against the top of the steering wheel.

His lips move but of course Marley can't hear him. She wonders for a moment why he would be so upset. Is it because of her? But then he gets out and walks around to the front of his Range Rover and opens the hood.

She feels so stupid. Of course he isn't affected by their conversation. He's just angry because his car won't start. He can't get away from her fast enough. Just like her brother. Just like her mother. Just like everyone else.

Marley tries not to feel. She tries so hard. But when she feels her tears hit her collarbone, she turns away from the window. And takes the stairs two at a time back to her room.

Outside Harry looks over his car. And just as he suspected, there's nothing wrong with it. Everything looks fine in the engine.

He would go back and ask Marley where the closest gas station is, but somehow he knows she won't come to the door.

So he rips a random sheet of paper from his english notebook and writes a note.

Out of gas. I'll be back for my car. -H xx

And sticks it between her screen door and it's doorframe before starting down the street, in search of a gas station.

Marley doesn't know how long she cries. She feels foolish. And insane for ever thinking a boy like him would care for a girl like her.

No. Boys like him go for perfect girls like Acacia. Marley is too flawed. Too broken for fixing. They want a girl who is confident in herself, not a girl with cold fingers and a half-crazed mind.

And maybe, she thinks, that he thought she was one of those girls. She tries to be. She tries so hard. But at the end of the day, Marley is just not.

She remembers that day in her room, when he told her what he liked about her. He said he liked her eyes because they reminded him of icicles and frost-bitten noses. But that isn't really her.

The Marley he saw was a girl with pretty eyes. Nothing else. If he could hear what goes on in her head, he wouldn't like her anymore-if he even did in the first place, that is. He would probably think she's absolutely insane, too.

So Marley cries because she has flaws. Like her arms that are too pudgy for her taste. And her legs which will never look like Acacia's long ones. And Marley cries because she will never be perfect. She cries because she will never be enough. For Harry, for anyone.

Not even herself.

So with wet, freckled cheeks and bloodshot, crystal blue eyes, Marley cries.