Chapter 21: Love Bites Or Bruises?

            The sun glared into my eyes and made me squeeze them shut when I poured out of the closet first thing Saturday morning. Marshall tumbled out right after me with my underwear on top of his head, hanging off one side more so than the other.

            I didn’t ask. I had no idea how it got there and I had no intentions of finding out. Besides, some things in life are better left unknown and I had decided the moment my eyes made contact with the undergarment on his head that this was probably one of them. I’ll just burn it or something later. No big deal.

            Marshall released a huge groan as he sat dumbly on the floor. “Sleepy,” he murmured, and stretched his neck until I was sure I heard a tiny crack from each side. My own body ached from being folded inside that cramped closet all night, but I wasn’t going to complain in front of him as he so easily was doing in front of me. “I feel like I’m eighty Camila,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes childishly. “And my tummy hurts. If being eighty feels like this, I want to go young and stay beautiful.” I scowled at him, and I wasn't sure if he felt it internally, but then he opened his eyes and blinked at me with a sheepish looking smile on his face. “Just kidding.”

            After checking the time, I made my way over and closed my bedroom door – which my dad had left opened from the night before. It was already close to nine and he would probably wake up soon for his morning coffee. I had to get Marshall out of the house before then. “Marshall?” I turned around just in time to see him tugging at the hem of my underwear on his head.

            “What is this?” He mumbled. He pulled it off the side of his head, stared at it groggily and then lifted it up into the light, stretching it out so that it was in the shape of a triangle. He laughed when he realized what it was and then turned to me, his mouth wide opened. “Isn’t this your…” Before the word came out of his mouth, Marshall must have thought of something more meaningful or indecent than the fact that it was underwear because his cheeks instantly lit up from a faint pink to a Chinese lantern red. With one hand holding the garment out to me, he bit his lower lip and turned away shyly. “Uh… Here. I think this is yours.”

            “Just keep it,” I said.

            “What?!!”

            I broke into giggles when he turned around to me with the most exaggerated expression I had ever seen in real life – the most befitting look for the king of idiots. “You should see your face,” I laughed. “I was just joking Marshall!”

            “Well you’re not very good at it,” he shouted, throwing my underwear on my bed. Instantly, I raised my hand and threatened to hit him with it.  

            “You just don’t have a good sense of humour!”

            “I wouldn’t call what you have humour,” he mumbled. “It’s more like sadism.”

            I wrinkled my nose at him briefly to show my discontent and then started pulling my top off. “My dad’s going to wake up soon so you should probably get dressed. I don’t want– ”

            “What the hell are you doing? Are you changing?” At once, Marshall twitched, his eyes darting around the room for a place to go. “I’m right here Camila! I’m right here!”

            Throwing my shirt aside, I started unbuttoning my pants. “So?”

            “You can’t just change in front of a guy!”

            “You might as well be a chair Marshall,” I cried. “I don’t care.”

            “Well you should care! This is why you can’t fall in love with anyone. There’re no girls and guys for you. To you, they’re all chairs!”

            “It’s not like you’re touching me or anything,” I mumbled, stepping out of my pants so I was only in my bra and panties. “Why does this bother you so much? Is it because you’re a pervert?”

            “I’m a teenage boy Camila,” he shouted. “Of course I’m a pervert!”

            I laughed and turned to my closet for something to wear. Even though Marshall said that, he had long turned his back to me and opted out of peeking for staring at one of my bedroom walls. I wasn't sure if it was because he had seen enough naked girls on his own time not to find this particular instance any more fascinating or if it was because he had a lot of self-control, but either way, it made no difference to me. What did matter to me was that he was wasting his time staring at my wall instead of changing and I told him so as I fumbled through my messy closet.

            “Well are you done?” He muttered.

            Slipping on an orange tank top over my white denim capris, I did a small twirl in front of my mirror. “Yes I’m done,” I grunted. I grabbed a brush and ran it through just the ends of my hair. It was naturally pin-straight so the upkeep was bare minimal and it almost never tangled no matter how messy I slept the night before. Miracle hair, my dad called it; apparently I took after my mom. “Marshall what are you doing? Dress already!”

            “I’m trying to.” I slammed my brush down on my dresser and turned around to watch Marshall crawling around my room on all fours. “I didn’t have a shirt last night, but I came with pants didn’t I?” He peeked under my bed, but then looked up at me with a hopeless expression. “I can’t find them anywhere. I could have sworn I took it off and left it right… here.”

            “Are you sure? Your pants wouldn’t have just walked out of my room Marshall.”

            “Well then who has my pants!”

            “I have them.” The moment the more masculine and deeper voice rang into my ears, my heart stopped and I spun to the direction of the sound. The door instantly swung open and the doorknob slammed into the wall because of the strength of the force. My dad stood ferociously on the other side, holding up Marshall’s jeans with one finger through the belt loop. “You scoundrel you!” He barked. “What did you do to my daughter?!”

            “Nothing,” Marshall cried.

            “I knew something was off last night! I thought these jeans were part of Camila’s costumes or something! And all along it was you! What did you do to her?!”

            “I swear to god nothing happened!” Marshall insisted. “I was drunk last night and Camila was just giving me a place to stay for the night! You have to believe me!”

            My dad frowned, but he knew me better than the next person and must have figured that was enough of an explanation for what happened.

            Almost. He almost let out a breath of relief and let the whole thing slide when he noticed the trail of hickeys on Marshall’s neck, courtesy of the unidentified college girl. Hell blew up then and my dad zoomed in on Marshall demanding to know what they were.

            At first Marshall was clearly confused, but when it finally dawned on him that my dad was talking about the hickeys, his face darkened and his jaw fell apart. “Uh… It’s… It’s not what you think they are!”

            My dad cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah?” He mused. “Then what are they?”

            “They are uh… They are… bruises! Yes! Bruises!” Marshall heaved a sigh of relief as the words came tumbling out of his lips. He must have not wanted my dad to find out he was an indecent boy; otherwise I didn’t understand why he didn’t just admit that they were hickeys, but that they were from another girl. “Yes! See, last night I was drunk and Camila was pissed off that I was acting like a turd so she uh… she uh… strangled me! Yes! She strangled me! So these aren’t hickeys. They’re bruises from Camila digging her fingers into my neck!”

            My dad just blinked at him before he turned to me with a questioning look. I responded with a simple shrug, nothing to say I did and nothing to say that I didn’t. I mean, it could have happened. It didn’t, but it could have very possibly happened.

            Throwing his pants back at him, my dad turned for the door. “Let me grab Waffles first,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.”

            When his footsteps faded away down the stairs, Marshall patted his own beating heart to slow it down before giving me a meek smile. “Well, that wasn’t too bad,” he said. “Your dad’s treating us to waffles. That’s kind of nice of him.”

            I shook my head. “He’s treating you to Waffles,” I corrected. “That’s the name of his favourite handgun. I’ve got nothing to do with this, but if I were you, I’d run.”

            Eyes big, Marshall only spared a split second glance at me before he stuffed his legs inside his pants and ran out of my room. I rolled my eyes and then looked back to the mess that was my closet. I’d have to clean it up, but quickly decided to leave it for later instead. I had to be at the downtown theatre for arts before noon today since I had two performances, and we had to do one more run through with the lights and the sound before the first performance time at four. I just didn’t have enough time to do it now.

            Leaving my room, I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth. That was when I heard it: three loud gunshots that rang and echoed through the house.

            BANG.

            BANG.

            BANG.

            I dropped my toothbrush in the sink. Raced down the hall.

            No he didn’t! He didn’t actually do what I just heard him do!

            My feet pounded on the floor. My heart thundered inside my head. My legs almost gave out at the bottom of the stairs. I almost tripped. I was running so fast. My heart was pounding.

            “Dad!” I screamed when I saw him by the opened door. His smile was crooked. He turned to look at me with amusement, but I pushed him away. I pushed him away. Marshall was just lying on the ground. On the front lawn. I didn’t know if he was breathing. There was blood all over the place. There was blood. There was blood. “Dad, you killed him,” I cried. “You killed him.”

            A hand fell on top of my head and stroked my hair, but it brought me no suggestions of comfort. My entire body was shaking and I couldn’t take my eyes off of Marshall lying facedown on my front lawn. “Baby,” my dad whispered. “He’s fine. He’s just an idiot.”

            “He’s dead dad!” I cried. “He’s not fine!”

            “He’s fine,” my dad grumbled.

            “No he’s– ”

            Just then, Marshall rolled onto his back and then leisurely sat up. If anything, it made my heart pound even faster than before. There was so much blood! How can he not be dead?! Marshall must have been wondering the same thing. He rubbed his back – all the places he got shot – and then smirked before getting up on his feet. Before he ran off down the road, he showed off a cheeky victory sign with his hand. Then he’s gone like the wind.

            I was left standing at the doorway, dumbstruck over everything that just happened until my dad gave me an uneasy smile. “You okay Mila? Do you want to lie down for a bit?”

            I shook my head. “What… What just happened?”

            At that moment, my dad showed me his paintball gun. “Isn’t she a beauty?” He cooed. “Custom made. I had the sound installed so that there’d be a realistic gunshot sound every time I fired.”

            “And let me guess. The paint was red this time?” He nodded and I let out an animalistic shriek. “You almost scared me half to death dad! I thought I was legit having a heart attack!” But now that I thought about it, it didn’t really look like blood, the weird splatters and all. It was more like my mind had jumped straight to the conclusion that my dad had shot Marshall and Marshall was dead.

            My dad made a face at me. “It’s not my problem that he’s an idiot,” he retorted. “I was just joking around, but the moment the paintball hit him, he thought he was really dying and did this dramatic fall to the ground.”

            I heaved a sigh and took in a deep breath to calm myself down. “As weird as this is for me to point out,” I mumbled, “you guys are sort of alike.”

            “Please,” my dad muttered. “I’m nothing like him.”

            The theatre production finished smoothly and close to half past nine, my dad, Diana, Todd and I were sitting at a table inside Ambrosia’s Garden, some new Greek restaurant that Diana had been dying to try out. My dad always made sure to show up to every one of my performances and it was sort of tradition for us to go out and have dinner after a production ended in its finality.

            This time, the production was only two performances – both on the same day, one at four and the next at quarter to seven. It was a simple play of Shakespeare’s Tempest and though I wasn’t exactly fond of the play, I took up the role of Miranda since the production manager begged me to. I had told them it would be my last production at the theatre since I wanted to concentrate on my post-secondary applications, but really, it was just so I could have more time to hone my emotions via Marshall. I had nothing to worry about in terms of post-secondary since I had already confirmed my attendance to Juilliard when they offered me an early admittance and a scholarship several months prior.

            So more than all the other dinners before, this dinner actually meant something. It was something like a minor, informal graduation ceremony from performing small town productions to something greater. So I was there, with my hair still damp after taking a shower in the theatre locker room, my dad was there because he was my dad, and Todd was there because he was basically my only friend. I just didn’t understand why Diana had to be there too.

            Why was she there?

            However informal, this was still my moment, was it not? It was like inviting a chicken to a tiger’s birthday party, and I was seriously about to chew her up and spit out the feathers. It pissed me off to see her face and it pissed me off when she went on about how everyone’s been complimenting on her pregnancy glow. It wasn’t even about me anymore, but since I wasn’t the attention seeker most people made me out to be, I just shoved lettuce after lettuce in my mouth.

            “So do you guys know if the baby is a boy or a girl yet?” Todd asked politely during the meal. I’m not sure if he was generally interested or he was just being polite, but unlike me, he was rather fond of Diana and was ecstatic when he heard about my dad’s soon-to-be bride so it could definitely be the first.

            A small chortle came out of Diana’s ruby stained lips as she glanced over and placed her hand on top of my dad’s. “I’m only two months in Todd,” she said to him. “We won’t know until I’m at least four months.”

            Taking a sip of his ice tea in between bites of his moussaka, Todd only issued a lazy shrug. “That’s too bad. What do you think it’s going to be though?”

            My dad beamed at Diana and placed his hand on top of hers so that they made this disgusting hand sandwich on top of the table where I had a clear view of as I ate. “Well… I think it’s a boy,” my dad said.

            “And I think it’s a girl,” Diana said.

            “And I think it’s got two heads,” I said.

            Immediately, my dad shot me a look, but was interrupted by the flow of excited laughter bursting out of Diana. “You mean like twins,” she giggled.

            “No,” I said.

            About the only useful thing that came out of that dinner was when Diana decided to tell me the verdict the school decided about my incident with Brooklynn. Apparently, good old Brooklynn’s father had connections to the superintendent who threw a fit when Diana had decided to write me off once again. “One week suspension,” Diana said, “that’s what they decided yesterday after school, but I got a call early this morning and something’s happened.”

            Apparently, Brooklynn had begged for the suspension to be lifted and that I received something minor instead because she was also at fault. So instead of the suspension, I got a week worth of afterschool detentions instead. “Isn’t that great?” Diana bubbled, but it wasn’t great. If anything, I knew for a fact Brooklynn didn’t do things for people if she got nothing out of it in return, and for her to go to this extent after I punched her in the face, let’s just say it wasn't going to be good.