Marilyn knew it wasn't her heart. She knew it was just the feeling of her blood dropping in her body, and that what she has experiencing was mild shock. But shock isn't something you imagine. It's something real, and so knowing what's happening doesn't do much to help it. Marilyn felt lightheaded and something that could be best described as a faint sickness. As if some strange hand had reached right into her body and had taken a good grip of some of her vital organs, and now she was standing very still in fear the hand might decide to rip them out.

"The man that we saw Josie... with... last week..." Michael wet his lips. "I'm not like him!"

It was a firm statement. As if he were putting his foot down on the matter. His face was serious, and he was looking straight at Marilyn.

She found herself shaking her head desperately. "Of course not! I know that!" Was he worried that she would expect him to do with her what the waiter had done with Josie? "I know that! We are just friends."
"Yes," he said, "we are friends."
She nodded, and his expression softened, but there was still a tightness in his jaw.
He wet his lips again.
"Do you trust me?" His voice was soft - there was worry in it and maybe even a bit of hope.

Trust wasn't Marilyn's strongest suit. Every teenager had trust issues, but she had the feeling her problems with trust were on an entirely different level. She had promised herself that she wouldn't trust anybody ever again. Because she had had too many bad experiences. But surely that was what every teenager promised themselves somewhere along the line. And she wanted to trust Michael. She wished so much that she could trust him...
"Yes, of course! Of course I trust you." She wasn't sure it was entirely true, but she said it still.
"You do?"
She nodded again.
"Because I wanted to show you something. Some place. It's nothing spectacular; it's just a place I like to go. I'd like to go there with you. But we can't walk; it's too far. I'd like to take you," he indicated the pick-up with his head. "Not now. Maybe tomorrow." He looked down at the keys between his long fingers, and his voice became lower. "But it's a lonely place. Most places I go are lonely. So maybe it's inappropriate to take a girl there. And I'm sure your parents wouldn't approve - You know? - just us going alone. But I'm not like that! I'm not like that..."
"Parents don't always approve." Marilyn was sure her parents wouldn't approve of her arrangement with Michael as it was. What with her being up half of the night on school days. Not to mention her being out with him alone after dark.
"Yeah... So... tomorrow?"
"I'd love to," Marilyn nodded some more. "I'm curious."
"It's nothing spectacular," he said again. "Maybe you won't like it."
But Marilyn was determined to like it. Because Michael liked it. Whatever it was.

From the opposite side of the street, she watched him start the engine. When he turned to check that the street behind him was clear, he saw her standing there and smiled. She smiled back. He made a fist and with a grin held his smiling smiley ring against the window, then, with a wave, he pulled out into the street and drove off. Marilyn watched the car leave, then turned towards her house. Between her fingers in her pocket, wrapped in her handkerchief, she could feel her share of what had remained of Michael's purchase of fizzballs. And one of them, she knew, was raspberry-flavoured. She remembered his breath smelling of it.
Tomorrow.

But before she would see Michael again, there was school. Her ankle hadn't developed into a problem, and so she had to go. Her mother expected her to be excited and happy about it, and Marilyn was both, though neither had anything to do with school.

"What in Heaven's name happened to your book?" Ms. Richards' voice gained a handful of unpleasantly sharp overtones at once. Marilyn had wanted to answer the question quietly, but wasn't given a chance. The teacher had snatched the book from Marilyn's desk and started to parade it through the classroom. Marilyn put her pen down. It wasn't like she hadn't seen this one coming.

"Do you know how much money and resources are used to provide you with these books for free? Do you know that in other countries children would be very grateful to be given a book to study with? How can a girl treat a book so poorly?!" By now she had reached the opposite end of the classroom, and accordingly her voice had gained in volume, so Marilyn, along with her the rest of the class, could hear her. "Marilyn, can you explain this to me, please, if you don't mind?"

Marilyn didn't mind at all. Maybe Thomas could splash water on her and her belongings without facing any consequences, but he had damaged the History book, too. School property. And that meant he now would have Ms. Richards to deal with. And Marilyn was sure as hell going to let him take the can for it. It served him right!

"Thomas happened," she said simply. "Thomas happened to my book, and my notes," here she lifted the dirty papers, "and my shoes and my dress, too, actually."
"What?" asked Thomas from two rows behind her. Marilyn ignored him.
"Your cryptic answer isn't helping. Could you please provide us with an answer that we all can understand?" Ms. Richards ignored Thomas, too.

Marilyn doubted that anybody but the teacher largely cared, apart from it being a welcome distraction from a dreary lesson. Well, the teacher - and Thomas, obviously. He could certainly see unexpected trouble coming his way.

"Yesterday, when I was walking home after the rain, Thomas thought it would be extremely funny to drive right at me in the street and splash me with the dirty water from the gutter. That's how the book got like that. I tried my best to dry it off immediately, but it was a lot of water, so that's the result."
"What are you saying? Is there something wrong with your head? I'm responsible for your stuff? You must be dreaming!" came Thomas agitated voice from behind.
"No, but you're responsible for your actions!" Marilyn said, not turning around.
"Well, Thomas, let us hear your side of the story, then," Ms. Richards raised her dark, drawn eyebrows at him.
"There was a lot of water on the street yesterday, Ma'am, and I had some problems with aquaplaning. And she was standing there gawping at my car. Maybe she would have liked for me to take her home?" At this point, a low giggle drifted through the class. "And then she dropped her book and stuff in the dirt. That's not my fault."

Now, Marilyn did turn around. Of course Thomas would try to throw shade on her to distract attention from the fact that he had damaged school property, but she was not going to let him get away with it. Not like that!
"And then you splashed me and my stuff with the water from the street! You were coming straight at me! I thought you were going to run me over! That's why I dropped my things! I thought you'd cause a freaking accident!"
"That's not true, Edmond! Come off it. Gee..."
"It is true!" Anger at his audacity to straight-faced lie to the teacher was starting to flare up in her. "Which part of it do you deny?"
"Are you calling me a lair?" Thomas asked, not answering her question.
"Well, didn't you just call me a lair?"
"Why wasn't the book in your book bag, Marilyn?" Ms. Richards asked. "That's where it should have been. If it had been, it wouldn't have become dirty. Nothing would have happened. You will have to pay for the book."

Marilyn couldn't believe this was happening. Why wasn't the book in your book bag? Was that what mattered now? Why it hadn't been in her book bag? Thomas had poured dirty water on her and her things, and Ms. Richards asked about her bag?
"It wasn't in my book back, because it just wasn't! I was still carrying it from my last lesson. If Thomas hadn't thought it were funny to splash me with dirty rain water, nothing would have happened, either. And my book bag isn't some kind of armor that I have to apply to protect school property in case Thomas wants to spill water over me! It's just a help to carry my things in. If I choose to carry them differently then that's up to me to decide. It's not wrong to carry a book in my arms! It was Thomas, who did wrong, not me! And I'm not going to pay for this!"
Thomas scoffed.
"Thomas said he didn't do it on purpose."
"Did you expect him to admit it?"
"Well, actually, yes, Marilyn. I don't expect him to lie."
"And why do you expect me to lie, Ms. Richards?"

For a split-second, Ms. Richards seemed taken aback. She had probably expected Marilyn to argue that Thomas did lie, not that she, Ms. Richards, would be faced with a question to answer, instead.
"I'm not expecting you to lie," she said finally, "I just think you are so upset with yourself, that you blame it on someone else."
To say Marilyn was angry, would have been an understatement. But there were other feelings beneath it, and she was well aware of them: She felt offended and hurt. Offended and hurt because there was no support from Ms. Richards, not even now. Offended and hurt because Ms. Richards sided with Thomas, despite the fact that he had so obviously done her, Marilyn, wrong. Offended and hurt because she was treated so unfairly yet again. And those feelings were dangerous, because with them came tears. But there was no way Marilyn was going to cry in class. Absolutely not! And so she let herself feel wrath to drown them out.
"No, that's not how it is!"
"I didn't do it intentionally," Thomas said again. "You can ask Peter. He was in the car, too."
"Yes! And we all know Peter would never tell on you!" Marilyn didn't know why, but she knew from experience that for whatever reason of his own, Peter would have sold his grandmother for Thomas.
"What? Now she's calling me a lair, and I haven't even said a word, yet!"
"Well, Peter, what did happen? Tell us, then." Ms. Richards sighed at the matter becoming increasingly complicated.
Peter shrugged. "I don't really know what she is talking about." He didn't look at Marilyn, and Marilyn wondered, if it was out of contempt or out of fear he would be caught lying. "Thomas had problems with the car. I didn't even notice her standing there. I'm sure, Thomas didn't either. He was too busy driving."
"Thomas just admitted that he saw me standing there!" Marilyn said loudly. "And you leaned out of the back window cursing and looking straight at me! But now you're saying you didn't even see me?"
"I was just scared we'd cause an accident," Peter said.
"Well, thank you, Peter! So was I!" Triumphant, Marilyn leaned back in her seat.
"I didn't do it intentionally!" Thomas said in a sharp tone. "She has a crush on me, so she's making things up. She's jealous because I have a girlfriend."

That stung.

It stung because there had been a time, back in 5th grade, when Marilyn had indeed had a crush on him. And then she had told another girl, just like 5th grade girls do, just like all the other 5th grade girls had been doing, talking about which guys they liked best. And then someone had told Thomas. She had never found out who had told him, but she couldn't remember trying to, either. Just that one day - she had forgotten the occasion - Thomas had leaned back on his chair in the cafeteria and had called out loudly for everyone to hear, "I hate Edmond! Because she's in love with me! Ugly-Edmond!"

What a pathetic thing to say. Marilyn didn't recall if the other boys had been hooting or sneering or if they had expressed their sympathy for Thomas. She had just been sitting in her seat, trying to shrink into nothingness, feeling embarrassed and betrayed and hurt. And that was how it had been ever since with Thomas. She despised him for it, and in an odd way she was afraid of him. Because he had been able to hurt her so. She was afraid of him, the way one was afraid of a venomous animal. She didn't want to be near him.

"Honestly, Thomas," she said into the silent classroom, "I don't know how anybody could be in love with you."

Thomas laughed, reaching for Josie's class ring that was hanging from a silver chain around his neck and played with it, as his friends and some, who would probably have liked to be friends with the captain of the football team and every year's prom king, joined in. Of them all, Peter laughed the loudest, and Marilyn suddenly found herself wishing that she had stayed and watched - had watched closely, as the waiter from the Indian Elephant had been giving it to Josie behind see-through curtains for the whole neighborhood to enjoy, cuckolding Thomas. And she so wished she could tell him that. Tell him right there in front of all his admiring wannabe friends. But she couldn't because she would have been telling on Josie, and of course Josie would have denied it. And then she, Marilyn, would have been left being called a lair and being blamed of trying to break up the couple of the school. It wasn't as easy as that.

Marilyn watched Thomas' hand, waiting for the laughter to die down.
"Well," she said, when it did, "I guess no-one can."
Another jolt of laughter. But it was short lived for Thomas.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, while his friends were still chuckling.
Marilyn didn't answer. She just looked at Thomas and thought of the waiter. The captain of the football team, the prom king and one half of the couple of the school had a waiter doing his girlfriend. Honestly, if that wasn't a sorry story, Marilyn didn't know what was. And Thomas deserved every single moment of it.

To her relief she didn't have to come up with a good reply because Ms. Richards had had enough of it.
"Please settle your private issues after class!" she said. "All that is of interest here is this ruined school book. Marilyn, it should have been in your book bag. Thomas, you should have been driving more carefully, because the street was wet. That is dangerous. As it is, I believe it's fair that you both pay half each towards a new book."
"No," said Marilyn with suddenly new-found confidence, "I will not pay for a book that Thomas ruined. I won't."
"If the book had been in your book bag..."
"No!"
"For God's sake, Marilyn!" Tammy, a girl with a perfect perm much like Marilyn's had been before the chewing gum incident, looked back from her seat in the first row. "It's just a book! Pay for it, and let's all move on. Gee!"

Momentarily, it caught Marilyn off guard. She had been prepared to take it up with Thomas and possibly Peter. She had not expected an attack from Tammy.
"Well, if you want to pay for it, go ahead," she said, defiant.
"It's not my book."
"So then why don't you stay out of it? No-one asked for your opinion."
"But you are taking up all of our time in class with your business. And some of us want to study!"
"I didn't choose the time for the discussion, Tammy. Ms. Richards did."
"It was your book. It should have been in your book bag. Ms. Richards is right, you should pay half of it. So, that's all settled."
"I will not!"
"Gosh, Marilyn, what is it you're after? Attention? Okay, so you had that. For the last ten minutes everybody was listening only to you and how you ruined your book. And now you're blaming it on the teacher? You should really let it go, you know!"

Marilyn didn't know what to say to that. Actually, she knew there was a lot she could have said to that. About how she was certainly not looking for attention, and about how she didn't blame the teacher, only stated a fact, and about how it wasn't her who had ruined the book, but Thomas, and about how it was possible that Tammy had listened to only her for ten minutes, as she claimed, and still missed the point, and that she should probably consider listening a little closer next time, but suddenly the words wouldn't come out. She looked down at her pen on her desk. "I'm not going to pay for this," was all she could say.
"Well, but you should!"
Marilyn just stared at her pen.

"Well, Marilyn," said Ms. Richards, "you say Thomas splashed you with water on purpose, but Thomas says he didn't. And Peter says the same. There are two people claiming your version of what happened isn't true. What do you want me to do? Is there anybody who can confirm that what you say is true?"
So that was what it all came down to, wasn't it? Thomas had friends and she did not.
"No, there isn't. Because I was alone when it happened. But this is the United States, and here truth is not determined by the number of witnesses one can present, but by how believable those witnesses are."
"We aren't in court, here."
"No? Feels a bit like it, though!"
"This isn't getting us anywhere. If you don't agree, I'll have to call your parents about the matter." Ms. Richards sounded annoyed.
"Fine. Do that, then! Call my parents! And call Thomas' parents, too!"
"I will, Ms. Edmond," she said sharply, as she marched through the class and put Marilyn's book back down on her desk with a heavy thud, "I will."
Then Ms. Richards took an audible and clearly disapproving breath and continued with the History lesson.

Marilyn stared at the dark houses on the opposite side of the street, as she sat on the porch. She had been sitting there for quite some time. She couldn't lie still in bed, and although she told herself that it was the excitement about Michael wanting to show her something, she knew deep down that that wasn't all.

It had felt good to oppose Ms. Richards's proposal to pay half of the price for the damaged History book. But now, the consequences bothered her. So far, her parents hadn't said anything about it, and she assumed therefore, that the teacher hadn't contacted them, yet. But Marilyn was sure that it was only a matter of time. Would her parents believe her? Would she be scolded for being impolite to the teacher? Would it have been better to just pay for half of the book and move on? Should she maybe go back to Ms. Richards, tomorrow, and agree to pay her share? The longer she thought about it, the less confident she felt about it all. But to go and agree to pay after all would mean backing down and admitting that she had been wrong. And she wasn't wrong. Or was she? No, she had decided to go down this path, and now she would see it through to the bitter end.

She had come to this resolution half a dozen times, since she had sat down in the dark, and yet after a while she started the debate with herself all over again. And so it went on, until a pick-up truck came rolling along the street and slowed in front of her parents' driveway.

Excited, Marilyn got up. Leaving her parents' house at night had by now become a routine for her. Never had she encountered any problems, and so her fear of being found out had faded. Now, she just wanted to get away and leave all her troubles behind for a while. And Michael was her ticket to that.

The smiley ring was the first thing Marilyn noticed when he cranked down the window and leaned out.
"So, you still wanna go, or...?"
"No, I still want to go. I definitely want to go!"
He smiled, "Alright. Get in, then!" and leaned across the seats to unlock and open the passenger door for her.

Sitting in the pick-up next to him felt - odd. She rubbed her hands as if they were cold, though they weren't.
Michael looked at her buckling up her seat belt. "Good girl!" he said with a grin.
"My mom's a doctor. People, who go through the windshield... I don't want to end like that!"
He looked at her for a moment, then without a word reached for his own belt.
"You don't normally use it?"
Michael had already had his head turned to check the street behind them, now he looked back at Marilyn with a shy smile. "I forget sometimes," he said. But something in his eyes told her that wasn't the perfect truth.
"I wish you wouldn't."
"Yeah," he said, making a face, "I won't forget it again."

The streets they drove through were empty at this time of night, and it didn't take long until Marilyn recognized one of them.
"This is where we first met," she said as they passed the tall gates at the fatal turn she remembered so well.
"Yes, I fell off my bike, here."
Marilyn kept looking out the window, recalling his accident. How frightened she had been seeing his motionless body on the ground. And how - different she had felt being in the bathroom alone with him. How she had wondered where he had been coming from and had been looking for him the following night and had got lost. And then she remembered the shadow man following her through the dark streets, and she shivered.
"Actually, I'm kinda glad I did," Michael said, naturally unaware of Marilyn's drifting thoughts.
"Pardon?"
"I said, I'm actually kinda glad I fell off my bike that night."
"You are?"
"Yeah. Because, you know, I met you. And I'm glad I did. I really am, you know?"

In the dark of the car, Marilyn looked at Michael - who was looking at the street ahead - at his fluffed up afro, at the dark silhouette of his full lips against the light behind his window, at his shoulders on the back of the seat, at his flat chest and his slender arms, and at his long hands and fingers that held the steering wheel securely. She wished one of those hands were holding hers.
"I really don't want to say that I'm glad you fell off your bike," she said, "because I was so scared and worried for you," - here, Michael briefly took his eyes off the street and, when he found Marilyn looking at him, gave her a surprised smile - "but I'm actually really glad I met you, too."
"Yeah?"
"Um-hm."

And there was the moment. Marilyn wasn't sure she wanted an answer to the question, but if she wanted to ask him, then this was probably her only real chance.
"Where were you coming from that night? - You don't have to answer, though, if you don't want to. I'm just curious, you know? Because it was really late and - you know. I'm just curious. It's really okay, if you don't want to answer. I don't need to know." Marilyn actually bit her tongue to shut herself up.
A wide grin parted the full lips of his mouth as he tossed back his head. "Actually," he said, joy resonating in his voice, "I'll show you!"

The street was climbing up into the Encino hills. There had been no houses for a while, and the smooth tarmacked street had been replaced by the uneven, dusty surface of a gravel road. Bushes seemed to line the side of it, while everything that wasn't caught in Michael's headlights was lost in the all-consuming dark. It truly was a lonely area.
"Are we even allowed to drive here?"
"I don't know. Probably not. Are you worried? Do you want to go back?"
Marilyn shook her head. She wasn't worried. After all, she wasn't alone. She was with him.

"Here it is," Michael said, pulling over to the side of the road and turning off the engine.
Marilyn looked around, but couldn't see anything of interest. Just dark bushes against the sky. "Come on," he opened the driver's door and got out.
She followed his example. It was remarkably quiet, peaceful, even. She could hear the hum from L.A., but it seemed far away. A soft wind was blowing and pulling on her flares, that hadn't been felt down in the streets of Encino, and the dark was velvety. The only source of light was the dim, yellowish glow that illuminated the passenger compartment. Marilyn closed the door and it went out. The darkness wrapped itself around her like a blanket.

"Over here," Michael called.
She could hear the crunching sound of his shoes on the stones from the opposite side of the road and saw his black silhouette against the sky, as she followed him.
"It's down here," he said, already standing in the bushes.
"It's pretty dark."
"Yes. It has to be dark."
"What are we here for, Michael?"
"To see the stars!"

The ground was uneven. It was overgrown with small bushes and their roots snaked around and over the rocks and sharp stones beneath. There was no moon in the sky, and the rough terrain was almost invisible, even now that her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. It hadn't looked that difficult when they had started out, but now Marilyn found it increasingly complicated to keep going. Her sandals weren't fit for this activity. She had little hold in them, and the hard soles didn't allow her to feel the ground under her feet. Michael was climbing a bit farther to her left and was already farther down, too. He was agile as a cat. She imagined how his sneakers hugged the stones underfoot. Nothing seemed to obstruct his balance. Clawed to a tiny tree, Marilyn watched his lean shadow with slight despair. There was no keeping up with him.
He halted and looked back at her. "Are you okay?" he asked, and his voice was surprisingly small in the vast of shrubbery.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Marilyn said loudly, trying to think of how she could best proceed from where she was. The harder she clung to the tree the harder going on seemed to become.

Michael's dark face was invisible in the missing light, but he hadn't moved. Neither had Marilyn. Not because she didn't want to, but because she really didn't know how. Every time she wanted to let go of the tree, she felt like she was going to fall down the slope.
"Oh, there are lots of loose stones over there. It's much better over here. Wait, I'll help you." And with a few carefully picked steps he climbed up to her again. Finding a secure footing slightly below Marilyn, he reached his arm out to her. "Give me your hand."
"What?"
"Give me your hand!"

Ugh! Ugly-Edmond touched me! I'm sure to get warts, now!

~~~~~
Hey, lovelies! :)

First things first, I REALLY want thank all of you, who keep coming back to this story, even though updates are decades apart by Wattpad standards. I can't tell you how much that means to me. I wouldn't be writing this story, if it weren't for all of you! Thank you so, so much! <33

The last part of this chapter, where they are climbing down the slope, down to the cliffhanger - I wrote that about two years ago! Can you believe that? It's one of the oldest parts of the story. It's been sitting on my shelf forever, and I have wondered many times, if the story would ever make it there. :") I'm so excited to finally share it with you all! :D

About 3 months ago, YazzieProductions made this awesome comment on 'The Elephant in the Room':

"your welcome! I love that you have written this so realistically! I know Michael thinks Josie is beautiful, but idk if he would date her because she was cheating on her boyfriend and idk how he would feel about that AND she was having sex and I thought Michael was into innocent.. ? idk but I love this story . it has a fragile feeling to it. Update soon :)"

Of course I knew this chapter here was coming up, and I just thought: Yes! Yes, that's exactly how it is!

Sadly, that comment was later swallowed up by Wattpad or something. :( But nonetheless, throughout writing this chapter I was thinking about the comment she made!

So, please do leave comments! I read all of them, and they mean so much to me! :)

Or maybe vote? <3

And if you really want to make my day, please do both! :D

Alright! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you all for reading! Kisses, I love you, have a lovely day! :)

Always, Birdie <33