Marlowe's Massacre | ;

CHAPTER 16

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[.20.7.10]

It's a St. Kathrine Academy blazer that is left in his swimming locker, it's folded neatly and smells nice —like it had been hand washed by Ardie's touch using the most traditional method his family had passed down to him. He doesn't know why he placed a perfect blazer in his locker until it registered in his brain that the article of clothing belonged to Marlowe.

This is scary for Max, anxiety has never been kind to him because he's on the floor now heaving and trying to breathe. The only thing he thinks about is how he has to get up and act natural before anyone else comes in to find him in a pitiful state. He grasped the locker on his way up, sitting on the bench behind him might make him feel better.

Max knows he needs to be stable so with eyes closed he tries to rekindle where Ardie could possibly want to meet him. His barn? No. The park they first met? No. Perhaps his parents' estate? No, couldn't be. Ardie hadn't been there for years on end. He thought some more and then it hit him, Ardie had shagged his hand through his hair at the pool. He had intentionally done that before and then the literal meaning behind it tugged on his brain.

Ardie had used to do that to them when they were kids, a way of showing them he was here. He had done it mainly to Raymond, back when they were young and he still had his European blonde curls, back before Raymond had decided to stay with his buzz cut to detach himself from whatever had happened to him long ago.

Raymond and Ardie had a past before.

It hadn't been brought up for years and to be honest no one had thought of it as anything serious. They were close friends, they played by the river and in the gardens when Ardie's parents stopped by on their way to Malaysia. When Raymond turned eleven, Ardie gave him a toy car that was controlled by a remote, something new to the world at that time—and when Ardie turned sixteen he kissed him on the cheek.

Ardie had been kinder then, full of quirks and cow-licked fine hair.

Their type of relationship was innocent and light-hearted. Back when they still all lived in the mansion, Ardie would take Raymond to the libraries, ponds and they'd go canoeing. Since Ardie's parents often came from Canada on their way to see them Ardie took up a second home there and learned French when he was little, maybe this was the reason they got along well?

His head hurt from thinking but Max was sure that Ardie wanted him to go to the hospital. And when he got there, Ardie's eyes were only trained on Raymond. Perhaps tonight would be the night Max could get to the bottom of how Raymond came to be how he was now: Unresponsive.

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"I see you've figured it out." Ardie said turning to face Max, his hair had been groomed in his eyes. Max could only make out his eyelids through his choppy strands. "Sit." And Max sat right next to him waiting for something to unfold but he hadn't been sure what. What exactly was happening and how did Ardie end up with Marlowe's blazer?

"What's on your mind?" Max decided to approach the conversation unbiased, he didn't want to argue.

"When me and Raymond were a thing," he started. "we talked a lot."

"About?"

"A lot of things but since then he's always been so faithful with this haircut." He replied, getting up to glide his hand through it in the same motion he did before. "I remember when he first got it, I think we all do and I remember he told me about the incident back in France."