Third Shred of Love

Chapter 3.3

After sticking the plaster onto his face you held up the ice pack.
"Do I need it?" He quizzed.
"I dunno, does it hurt?"

There was an awkward pause.
"I-I can hold it myself." Marc said taking the ice pack and holding it up to his face.
Uneasy silence accompanied the two of you. You swore you could hear yourself blinking.

You cleared your throat, but instead of saying something you got up and left.

Marc's eyebrows furrowed.
"What the fuck?" He thought.
He glanced at the mirror. Steven shrugged.
He sat there like an idiot waiting for you.

You were back in no time. Shoving a tub of Ben&Jerry's into his free hand, you sat back down and struggled to open a bottle of Pinot Noir.

You noticed Marc's shocked confused expression.

"What? There was no more Rosé." You shrugged popping the cork off with your hand.

Even after your statement Marc continued staring at you.

"What? You wanna switch?" You took the tub of ice cream and handed him the bottle.
That was definitely not what he meant, but he certainly didn't mind.
He took a sip of wine and you swallowed a whole spoon of ice cream.

You were going to give a huge apologizing speech, but you decided to hold that thought.

"Marc, are you ok?" You said looking over to him.
He turned to you and put down the ice pack nodding. "Yeah it's nothing, really."
"That's not what I meant."

After taking another sip he sighed. "Yeah."
"Really?" You struggled to believe him.
"Y/N, why do you always talk to me like I'm damaged?" A sarcastic smile escaped his lips that made you feel stupid.

You took another spoonful of ice cream.
After that you didn't want to say anything, even if you apologized he'd probably respond with something that will flare up another argument.

Marc glanced at you. "Why'd you ask me that?"
"Cause I want you to talk about how you feel. And I don't think you're damaged, I just think that you always feel alone, even when you're around people."

"What you gonna psychoanalyse me?" He chuckled.
"It's not hard to tell if someone's not okay, especially when they have dissociative identity disorder."

Marc tensed up after hearing the second bit, he wasn't quite used to hearing people calling Steven and Jake a disorder.

Okay maybe Jake was more on the side of the word disorder, since he was absolutely out of his mind, but even seeing him with you made Marc understand that he wasn't all crazy.

You knew the whole mom and little brother story from Steven, so you understood the reason why Marc is the way he is.

You knew he didn't like to talk about it, and it was obvious why.
Marc was about to take another sip, but you managed to grab the bottle.
"Switch." You gave him the ice cream.
He looked at it for a second. Then scooped some up and, without much amusement, swallowed.

"Marc, all I'm asking is for you to trust me."
"I tru-"
"No you don't. You don't. You never tell me anything and you're always so closed."
"I have nothing to tell. Everything's aces." He said mimicking Steven.

"You do realize that other people, besides Layla, can love you. I love you."
As happy as Marc was to hear that, he couldn't accept it and he didn't believe it.
"Y/N you're in love with Steven."
"Steven is a part of you."
"He's part of my disorder." He used your own words against you.
"Marc." Your voice softened. "You need to understand that I'm not here to hurt you."
"Well that's ironic." He referred to you slapping him earlier.

You let out a sigh.
Yes he was right, but was that really necessary? You're over here trying to help his ass and he's not willing to cooperate at all.

"You're emotionally draining, Marc. I hope you know that." You get up and head for the door. There's only so much you could endure from him that evening.

"So it all just comes back to this huh?" Marc managed to say before you left. You turned around.

"You just walking out." He shrugged. "Then both of us not talking for days, constantly waiting for each other to fuck up somewhere."
"Yeah well you don't even try to do something about it."

He was going to say something else, but you cut him off.
"Good night."

That night you couldn't sleep at all. You kept thinking about Marc, obviously.

You finished the bottle of wine in a few hours and at about 3am you left your room to go to the bathroom. On your way back you noticed that there was light under Marc's door, but you decided to just ignore it.

You kept rolling around in bed. First it was too hot, then it was too cold.

Next door Jake was getting ready to leave.
He sometimes took early cabs when Marc or Steven couldn't sleep. Would be a shame to waste such precious time right?

He could hear constant noise coming from your room while he was changing. The sound of your footsteps, the cupboard creaking, or the beeping of the a/c.

Jake pulled on his cap and before leaving he decided to check on you.

You sat up to the knock on the door.
Was it Marc?
"Toc toc." Jake said as the door creaked open.
"Oh Jake it's you." You breathed, a mixture of relief and disappointment filling your words.

"Sí. Are you ok, mi amor?" He sat down on the corner of your bed.
"Yeah it's just," you did a weird sign with your hands "It's just I don't know what to do with Marc."

"He's quite a pain in the ass." Jake chuckled.
"Can be." You mumbled.
"Man's been through a lot. You gotta give him time, he'll come around himself."
"You think?" Doubt filled your words.
"He has too. Ain't no way he's gonna miss a treasure like this." He squeezed you covering your face with small kisses.

You giggled screwing your eyes shut from the tickling sensation.
"You gone all night?" You tried to catch your breathe as Jake let go of you.
"Probably."

"Mkay." You sighed watching him walk backwards to the door. "Don't do anything stupid!" You called out.
"I won't. Adios, mi tesoro." He bowed closing the door.

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Translations:
"Toc Toc"- knock knock
"mi tesoro"- my treasure