Sucks to Suck – Chapter 5

By the time she arrived home, she was expecting to find her guest utterly bored, perhaps sitting on the steps leading up to the apartment building with her chin resting in her hands and a few choice words about making her wait out in the drizzling rain for that long. She had texted her explaining that she would be a few minutes late and apologising, but there had been no response. And by the time she came into view of her own building, there was no sign of the other girl anywhere. And that was when Logan began to really worry.

There were many explanations for why Marion would not be there yet, even though Logan was forced to stay back at work for an additional thirty minutes helping her boss with the inventory. But most of them were not good. She unlocked the building's front door and typed on her phone with both hands while using her shoulder and hips to push it open. She texted casually, letting Marion know she was home already and asking where she was. Was she close? Did she want to order something? She typed as she climbed the stairs and unlocked the door to her apartment. Lights were turned on and the door behind her was closed, and the next thing Logan did was to toss herself on her couch, in a perhaps dramatic fashion, with a long sigh of relief. With her eyes closed, she lay there for a moment, knees bent over the armrest with her legs and feet hanging out. And then she heard the muffled buzz and felt the dull vibration of her phone, and scrambled to reach into the pocket of her somewhat oversized coat, almost dropping the device in her eagerness to pluck it out and see what Marion had responded. The small rectangle escaped the control of her fingers and flew upwards as she overreacted to it slipping out before she was finally able to catch it just in time to prevent it from landing on her face. She smirked for a moment, wondering why there was never anyone around to witness those sorts of last-second, incredible saves. But she didn’t turn on the gadget to look at the screen yet, staying put for a full three seconds. There was a chance that the text was Marion ditching her off, thanking her for her help but saying she had to go back to… Wherever she came from. Logan had her concerns, of course, but she had not insisted; her experience taught her that it would only push Marion away from getting help if she was made to feel pressured or pried on. And now Logan felt a certain dread in checking her phone because she knew the odds. And if Marion had decided to go back to her ‘roommate’, as she had put it, then likely that would be it. And while it wasn’t Logan’s job to help everyone, she really felt she could help that one, at the very least.

Delaying it would do her no good though, whatever Marion had said, she had said it, and she had to see what it was. She turned the screen to face her and let out a grunt of exasperated impatience realising that it wasn’t a response from Marion at all, but Sam asking about whether or not they would have a session that week considering that the group would be one short. She rolled her eyes and wrote back, before navigating to the screen of her messages with Marion. It made no sense, she had said she was on her way forty-five minutes ago. If she was really ditching Logan to go back to her… Former situation, then she would probably not have said that. She would just have ghosted Logan earlier. Right? Maybe Logan was playing it too casually after all, and if she had a concern there was nothing wrong with letting the other girl know about it.

‘Hey, are you okay?’

That ought to do it, Logan figured as she extended her legs and used her feet to push her boots off, one at a time, turning her attention to the rest of her social media as she waited for a response. And after a brief moment of scrolling and quickly losing interest, she rotated on the couch, sliding her legs off the armrest and getting up to walk on her rainbow socks towards her kitchen.

She had time to make herself a sandwich – sliced chicken breast with mustard, lettuce and tomato – and she walked by her desktop computer, turning it on and letting the machine boot itself up while she walked around, finishing her sandwich as she pretended to be putting things back in place and doing some minimal organising with her free hand when in truth she was mostly just fidgeting and worrying. She was done with her snack and cleaning her fingers with her lips while pushing one of her RPG rulebooks in place between the other two when, through the large windows facing the street, headlights shone into her place briefly. That wasn’t unusual in itself but something about it caused her to turn. The way the light had lingered, someone was parking in front of the building. Through the headlights she couldn’t see much of the car, it was dark outside and the vehicle seemed to be black, but as it left and the beams pointed away, she could see the silhouette of a van, she thought. And then she saw a silhouette standing on the sidewalk and recognised the hoodie it was wearing almost instantly.

The sight of Marion brought a sigh of relief to her, but just as she finished sucking her smallest finger clean of smeared mustard, plucking it from her lips, she watched Marion simply stand on the sidewalk and then bend over, hands on knees as if she was struggling to breathe. Logan's heart shot off in a mad dash and a fraction of a second later she was doing the same, scrambling to stick her feet back into her boots and grabbing her keys from the bowl to rush out of the apartment and race downstairs, nearly tripping on a couple of steps. As she came out the building's front door, Marion was still there, on the sidewalk as she was left, seemingly struggling to breathe. Logan didn’t need to see more to know she was having a panic attack.

She closed the distance between them and reached out with one hand, touching Marion’s shoulder to let her know she wasn’t alone. A light touch with a gentle squeeze before she called out the girl’s name. Marion turned to face her but there was something in her eyes, a certain lack of focus as she kept heaving awkwardly. How did they handle it with Dave? Breathing, breathing was the key. She called Marion’s name in the hope to get the girl to focus on her more than her thoughts or whatever feelings had sent her on a spiral, and then she remembered how Lisa and Marcus would handle Dave’s panic attacks. She could almost hear their voices as she tried her best to relay the same instructions:

“Marion… Slow down… Your breath, slow and deep… Come on, slow and deep.”

It seemed to work, to some degree, and so she continued, trying to keep a slow pace and soothing tone to match the desired rhythm of breathing. Gradually, she could tell Marion was coming out of it. Being there for them, was what was most important, Lisa would say, and making sure they knew you are there too.

“There you go… In and out… Easy,” Logan continued, with her hand on Marion's shoulder delivering another soft squeeze before moving to the girl’s back.

And she stood there doing that thing, being there for her and trying to just let her presence be of some comfort. In time, it seemed to do some good, as it took a long moment but Marion did normalise her breathing to a point where Logan couldn’t hear it anymore, and once the black-haired girl seemed a bit calmer, Logan asked:

“Fuck… Marion, what happened?” she heard herself say, softly, but feeling the words might’ve come off too aggressively, she added, “I was texting you like crazy… Did you…” How to say that without being all up in her business? “Did you run into someone on your way from work? Someone that scared you?”

Marion nodded slowly and Logan felt a rise of concern and anger boiling together inside her. She wasn’t sure if Marion’s abuser was a family member or perhaps a partner – hopefully, an ex-partner – but it was clear that whoever they were, they were dangerous if they were stalking her on her way out of work and intimidating her like that. She would love nothing more than a chance to give them a kick in the proverbial balls for such blatant shitty behaviour. But her concern for Marion outweighed her anger at her tormenter. For now.

“That’s fine… You took a while, I was worried… I was looking out of the window and saw you standing here. Seemed like a bad time.”

Marion didn’t say anything, she just nodded meekly and looked back at Logan with an expression of being utterly lost. Maybe she had come out a bit too strong and the girl was still disoriented in the wake of her panic attack. And, Logan realised then, they had both been standing in the drizzling rain all that time. She tossed an arm around the girl and tried to guide her back toward the building.

“Come on in then. You’re safe now.”

And then, as she took the first timid steps back home, Marion suddenly pulled her into a hug. A tight hug, wrapping both arms around Logan’s and squeezing her tight. It wasn’t just how hard she squeezed but the ease with which Marion had just pulled her close. And the way the pale girl’s face buried against her neck for a moment before she shifted to rest her chin there. It all brought forth a slight tightness in Logan’s chest. She felt like she could cry, but she didn’t let her voice show it, as she patted the other girl’s back. She could feel the gratitude in the hug, and that made her feel really good. But Marion’s strangely strong hug also caused her to feel something else swirling in there with her feelings. Something that also felt good but came with a smidge of guilt.

“Oof… You’re strong… Okay,” Logan said, knowing the hug was Marion’s way of saying something she could not put into words then and there. “It’s okay. It’s okay… We all have our demons.”

She turned to guide Marion back to the entrance of her building and then further inside, to the safety of her apartment. Or at least the impression of it. Once the door was locked behind them, Marion seemed to be fully back to her old self, timidly moving with her hands stuck in the pockets of her hoodie and pacing around the living room restlessly. The awkwardness was palpable and it was not difficult for Logan to decipher why. ‘She’s worried that I’m going to ask questions about what just happened,’ she told herself and that much seemed very clear. So the best she could do was ask nothing at all, even if she had a few questions burning in her mind.

“You know you can sit down without being invited, right? I mean since you are crashing here and all.”

“Oh… Right,” Marion said simply before moving to sit a bit too prim and proper on the corner of the couch.

Logan normally would’ve chuckled about her friend's stiffness and mostly tense posture but, in that situation, it was a bit understandable. She went into the kitchen to grab herself a glass of water and as she looked from the fridge into the living room, she asked:

“Do you drink anything?”

“No, thanks,” Marion replied simply, with both hands resting over her knees, pale against the dark jeans.

Logan finished pouring herself a glass and sticking the bottle back in the fridge as she walked toward the living room. She considered tossing herself on the couch and putting her legs over Marion’s lap. That was something she did with her friends pretty casually but, in a moment of self-awareness, she realised that it would probably not help the other girl with her awkwardness. So instead, she wheeled on her heels and sat on the armchair next to her, drinking a sip and letting the silence fill the room for a moment. Marion awkwardly looked from side to side and Logan tried to follow her gaze and see what was drawing her attention. Placing the cup on the coffee table and shrugging off her oversized coat, her arms were bared again and she noticed how near immediately Marion’s eyes went straight to her tattoo for a second, and she figured it was as good a hook as any for conversation.

“Cool, right?” Logan nodded to her arm to make sure Marion knew what she was talking about.

“What’s that?” Marion asked.

“Oh… I guess I read you all wrong,” Logan confessed, “I thought you for sure would know about Vampire.”

“Wha-… Why would I know about vampires?” Marion shifted on the couch.

“I know, right? It’s like ‘duh, Logan, stop stereotyping people. Nobody cares about your weird hobbies',” she mocked and snickered. “Mostly because you have that ‘all black’ vibe. And a bit geeky.” Suddenly though, she realised that not everyone took that word as a neutral descriptor as she did, so she added, “I mean it in a good way.”

“I, uh… I strike you as a geek about vampires?”

“Well, no, I didn’t mean vampires… I meant Vampire. You know, the game?” She made a gesture to the book collection on her shelf.

“Ah… I wasn’t aware there was a game with that name.”

“Well… There’s not, it’s more the franchise name. Like Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: Requiem and…” Logan started but the confusion in Marion’s eyes seemed to only be increasing with her examples, so she just shrugged it off and dropped the listing. “Anyway, it’s a game franchise about pretending to be vampires.”

“A pretend game? Like Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Yes. Very much like that… But it’s less about being in a dungeon fighting dragons and more about trying to hunt for mortals and dealing with vampire politics.”

Marion had a bit of a sceptical look about her at the description of the game and Logan felt like she wasn’t doing it justice, but it was hard to explain to someone who did not play what was so appealing about it. And then an idea popped into her mind.

“You know what? We are going to have a session on Thursday and we are down one player because of ‘drama’.” She put air quotes around the last word. “Why don’t you join us? Pretend to be a vampire for a bit.”

For some reason, Marion reacted to that invite as if Logan had asked her to jump off a bridge into a river full of crocodiles. Maybe it was pushing the girl's social anxiety a bit too far.

“Uh… I don’t think so. Plus by Thursday I might have already found a new place,” she commented.

“So?” Logan lifted an eyebrow, wondering why that would be relevant.

Sure, it wouldn’t be as convenient to attend a game at her place if Marion was no longer living there but unless she moved all the way to Tacoma, it shouldn’t be a daunting thing to come over and participate. And then she noted how expressionless Marion had become upon saying it, and she realised the girl was withdrawing. She was shoving her feelings to the back of her mind, likely because she was feeling something now that she didn’t want to show. It took Logan a second to piece two plus two together but once she did, she felt stupid that she did not realise what Marion was implying. She didn’t think she’d still be friends with Logan after she moved. And for some reason, that thought filled Logan with a little bit of panic. Probably because she didn’t want the girl adrift and vulnerable with no one to help her. She clearly had no support network when she stumbled all cut up into the convenience store.

“Oh… How’s the apartment hunt going?”

“Well, it’s really hard because I can’t really look during the day.”

“Because of your job? I mean, you can probably get up a bit earlier, right? To catch people at six or seven and I have a friend who was apartment hunting recently, she could pass on some leads to you too. Maybe we could meet with her tomorrow around six and…”

“Since I might stay here a couple more days, I need to tell you something, Logan,” Marion interrupted albeit timidly.

“Uh… Okay?”

“I have a very rare thing… I can’t deal with sunlight. At all,” Marion explained, “it’s why I work night shifts and why yesterday I basically kept myself shut in my room from sunrise to sundown.”

“Wait… For real?”

“Yes, I’m being very honest. I just can’t handle it.”

Logan didn’t know what to say. She knew that some people did have especially vulnerable skin, even to minimal exposure to sunlight, and some people might be prone to migraines in bright light, but she didn’t know anything more about said conditions except the fact they existed. It was strange to meet someone who actually had such a rare condition. She would be inclined to doubt anyone that said so, at first, but the way Marion spoke was just painfully honest like she even thought the very admission of it was something bad that she should not have done. Logan gave a nod of her head and grimaced briefly in self-chiding:

“Ugh, it’s like, ‘Logan, shut up’, right?” she offered apologetically. “Sorry, Marion. I had no idea.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s very rare so… Not expecting you to know about it.”

“It must make everything hard, not just apartment hunting.”

“It does. Everything is hard.”

Logan then had an idea. But she shifted in her seat and didn’t say anything because she knew it was a terrible idea. As she looked at the disheartened Marion, she knew it was a terrible, really bad, just awful idea. And she couldn’t possibly do that in her right mind.