"Hey Jubes, what were those places you said you saw Marie?" Logan asked resignedly. He had finally given up on trying to reach Marie by phone, he didn't know where she lived; she had never given him the address of her apartment, and he had never pushed for it because she hadn't ever suggested taking Emily there. He was regretting that decision right now.
Jubilee rattled off a list of places she, or others, had seen Marie over the last few months. "Why are you asking, I thought you didn't want to know?" she asked curiously.
"I don't want to know but she won't answer my calls, and Emily's birthday is in a week, she wants Marie at her party and I promised to do my best to get her there, that means I need to find her," Logan said with a tired sigh.
"Well, do you want me to track her down for you so you don't--" Jubilee offered.
"No, this is something I have to do, maybe I should have done it already... Would you come over and babysit Em for me though?" Logan asked.
"Of course, I'll be there at seven!" Jubilee replied with a grin, she loved getting to spend time with her honorary niece.
--
With a frustrated growl Logan walked into yet another overly loud, overly crowded club. The music - if you could call it that - was almost unbearable, those who weren't drunk were high, and behaviour ranged from near catatonic to making out anywhere and everywhere.
"The fuck do people find enjoyable about this, hell, what's the point of getting laid if you don't even remember it the next day... fuck, I sound like Scott," he groused to himself, chuckling as he surveyed the crowd. This place was number four on the list he had from Jubilee, there were only three more places to check. He did two circuits of the room before he saw a flash of blacklight on a balcony.
"Finally!" he muttered, heading as quickly as he could for the stairs to the more private area upstairs, where he had caught sight of Marie's streaks.
Stepping into the booth, crowded with six other people, he was about to apologize and leave again when he realised that the girl he had seen, was actually Marie. A gaunt, washed out, heavily pregnant, Marie.
"Logan, what the fuck!?" she exclaimed, leaping to her feet. "Where the hell is Emily?" she demanded.
"Emily? Oh, now you give a fuck about Emily... We need to talk... about Emily... alone," he growled, glaring at the other occupants of the booth when they didn't take his initial hints and scram.
Marie looked momentarily panicked, and instead of waiting for her spaced-out companions to stumble out, she climbed over the table to get herself out. She was surprised when Logan reached for her, and carefully lifted her down, before she grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the booth, toward a fire escape.
"What's wrong with Emily?" she demanded, as soon as they were alone. Well, as alone as you could get with two drugged up twenty-something year olds fucking on the stairs.
"Well, where do I start, aside from the fact she cries herself to sleep most nights and is convinced her mother doesn't love her, no matter how many times I tell her otherwise, I guess she's doing alright," Logan snapped irritably, turning away to take a deep breath and calm himself down some before he did something they both regretted.
"I'm sorry," Marie murmured.
"Sorry? I'll make sure I tell Emily that, again, next time she asks why you still won't come to see her. Three months Marie, it's been three months since you've seen your daughter... I assume this is why you didn't want to come, what, did you think I would be pissed?" Logan asked, gesturing to her swollen abdomen. "Well, yeah, I am, but that's your life for you to fuck up so whatever... but this is Emily's life, stop being so goddamn selfish, if you want to spend your nights out getting drunk and high go for it, but the one's you're ultimately hurting are Emily, who isn't asking for much, just her mommy to come see her one goddamn day a week, and that baby, what fucking damage are you doing to that kid? Do you even care...?"
When Marie didn't make any attempt to respond - she wouldn't even look at him - he shook his head sadly, running a hand through his hair just to give himself something to do. "... I waited, I waited so long for you, I waited for you to grow up, I thought you were better than this, what the fuck happened to you Marie? When it was just me whose heart you were crushing I could live with it if it was making you happy... every night this week I've had to hold our daughter while she cries and asks why her mommy doesn't love her anymore, every night I tell her that her mommy does love her... I'm not lying to her any more, because you don't love her, do you? You don't give a shit that what you're doing is tearing her heart to pieces, you don't care that what you're doing is hurting the baby growing inside you... I want to not care about you any more, I do, go do what you fucking want... Emily's birthday party is on Saturday the twenty seventh, she wants you there, if you turn up make sure you're goddamn sober and off the drugs, I don't give a fuck if it's her birthday you turn up high or drunk I'll throw you out."
Without another word he turned and stalked away before he did something entirely inappropriate, like throw her over his shoulder and drag her home, or even worse, broke down and begged her to come back to him.
--
Marie stood in silence for several minutes, Logan's words reverberating through her mind. She felt the carefully constructed walls she had built in her mind begin to crack, the roar of a motorcycle in the street below finally snapping her out of her thoughts.
She needed to leave.
Rushing back to the booth she had been in with her 'friends', half of whom she didn’t even know their names, she grabbed her coat and bag, disappearing as quickly as she appeared, ignoring the shouts behind her from people wanting to know where she was going. She hailed a taxi and directed it to her apartment, holding back tears the whole way, desperately clinging to the mindless numbness she had been living in for the last few months.
When she finally stumbled into her apartment, tears streaming down her cheeks, she felt the dam break, and sheer devastation collapse over her. All the love and longing she had been suppressing, since she woke up from the haze that had been her stress addled brain, and realised what she had done on walking out on Logan, crushed her.
She hadn't wanted to leave him, she remembered that period through a cloud, a fuzzy haze. She hadn't been in control, truthfully, she didn't know who, or what, had been in control of her. She had hoped their relationship could be salvaged but when she had gone home, to visit Emily, Logan had let her in and then disappeared. After a while he didn't even come to let her in any more, sending Emmy to get the door, or she simply let herself in with her old key, he never changed the locks. With no way to talk to him the pain had begun.
When she found out she was pregnant, she had at first been terrified that in her haze she had betrayed Logan, that she had slept with another man. So far though she hadn't uncovered any memories to say that was the case, and on finding out her dates she knew for certain this baby was Logan's.
That revelation had started her on another dark spiral, one that was so painful she couldn't hide behind the walls, that's when she had started drinking. She knew she shouldn't but she couldn't bear the pain, she had progressed into street drugs not long after, seeking a high that would let her simultaneously feel something, and nothing. When she had stopped going to visit Emily, terrified Logan would find out she was pregnant and throw her out, she had spent that weekend in a bottle. She came so close to ending it then, all that saved her in the end was the fact she couldn't see straight enough to find her wrist with the razor blade... and Emmy's soft voice that night, telling her about her visit to the aquarium, and how much she missed her, and wished mommy could come with them next time. She had whispered something about that sounding nice, then cried herself to sleep on the bathroom floor.
Now though, she struggled back to her feet, stumbling blindly to the bathroom she ripped open the medicine cupboard, and fished around for the bottle of pills that would help her forget. Twisting the cap off she tipped two pills into her hand, pausing momentarily as a brief, almost forgotten feeling emerged from the quagmire that was her mind.
Love.
Specifically, Logan's love. For her.
'But he doesn't love me anymore,' she thought, swallowing against the bitterness that rose in the back of her throat.
~I want to not care about you any more...~ the memory of Logan's words filtered back to her, the look on his face telling her he still did care.
~When it was just me whose heart you were crushing I could live with it if it was making you happy...~ he had said... but she wasn't happy...
Glancing up at the mirror in front of her, Marie took in her raccoon eyes, mascara stained cheeks, the pallor of her skin, her sunken eyes that looked dead even to her. She felt her baby move gently inside of her, and caught sight of a photograph reflected in the mirror, of Emily, and Logan, and her... She wanted to look like that again, she wanted to look happy, she wanted to *be* happy.
With a decisive flurry of movement, she swept all the pills, everything, out of the medicine cabinet, pouring the whole lot down the toilet. Following that, she forced herself to vomit up the drugs and alcohol she had already consumed that night, whatever was left in her stomach at least. Feeling physically weaker but still mentally resolved, she stepped into the shower and scrubbed herself clean, crying the whole time. Once she was feeling a little more refreshed, she dried herself off, and went in search of water, chugging a bottle she took a second with her and headed to bed.
She had one week to be ready for Emily's birthday.
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