Heart Of Marley

by Leigh, T. K.

  “Doug…” I said in warning as I slowly untied my linen skirt and let it pool at my feet before stepping out of it, wearing just a tank top and my underwear. I pulled the legs down a bit to make sure it covered the secret I had kept from everyone. “You’re not sleeping outside.”

  His chest began to rise and fall in an increasingly arrhythmic pattern. “Damn, Marley Jane,” he said quietly. “I really like your legs.”

  I giggled and allowed him to pull me into his body. “You still owe me,” I murmured against his neck.

  “Owe you what?” he whispered.

  “A kiss. You said you would get me later. Now’s your chance. I’ve been waiting all day for you to get me, Doug.”

  He groaned and I felt his body grow rigid against me. I also felt something else become hard. His lips brushed mine and I could taste chocolate and Doug as he slipped his tongue into my mouth. Deepening the kiss, I ran my hands through his dark, messy hair as he pulled me closer to him, shivers running through me at the sensation of his strong hand placed on my lower back.

  “Doug,” I exhaled, pulling out of the kiss. “We should probably sleep. I’m not ready to…”

  “Marley, I have no desire to sleep with you. I mean, not that I don’t want to, but…” He sighed and, even in the darkened tent, I could see his face turning red. “Dammit. Do you have any idea how tongue-tied I get around you?”

  I giggled. “I have an idea.”

  “What I meant to say is that I’m one of the good guys and I have no intention of rushing you into anything.”

  I placed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.” I crouched on the ground and unzipped one of the sleeping bags. “How about we snuggle, though? Can we do that? I’ve always wanted to spoon with someone.”

  He unzipped the other sleeping bag and flattened it, placing it on the ground. “Of course.”

  I lay down and he covered both of our bodies, wrapping his arms around me. For the first time I could remember, I fell asleep surrounded by the comfort of a guy’s caring embrace.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  NIGHTMARE

  AFTER WATCHING MARLEY DISAPPEAR into the tent with Doug, I turned to Brianna.

  “Cameron,” she said sweetly, sensing my unease. “You’re also not going to be sleeping outside.” She winked and grabbed my hand, pulling me into the tent with her.

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping you’d say that.”

  She beamed as she wrapped her arms around me, crushing her lips against mine, her kiss sudden and unexpected. There was something about kissing Brianna that was so pure and perfect. I knew that it was a high school romance and probably wouldn’t survive our first year of college, but at that moment, as I felt her body against mine, I didn’t want to wake up to another day where I couldn’t look into her smiling eyes or feel her soft lips against mine.

  She pulled away, panting. “Sorry.”

  “What are you apologizing for?”

  “I had been wanting to do that all day. It’s been pure torture.”

  “You’re telling me.” I lowered myself to the ground and slipped into one of the sleeping bags. Brianna followed suit. We lay there, a breath away from each other, our eyes locked. “I promise I don’t snore. At least I don’t think I do.” I grinned and inched toward her, my adrenaline spiking when she closed the distance between us even more. The only thing separating us was the down of the sleeping bags.

  “It’s okay if you do. I don’t mind,” she said. “I want to get to know all your little quirks. I already know some of them.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked, brushing one of her brown tendrils behind her ear. She closed her eyes momentarily and basked from the contact.

  “That’s one of them,” she said, her voice contemplative. “I remember when you first arrived here. You and Marley were new and interesting. I noticed how you always took care of her. One day, when we were all standing outside after school, waiting for our parents to pick us up, a piece of Marley’s hair fell out of her ponytail and you pushed it behind her ear. It was sweet. That was the first time that I saw you do it. I think you had only been here for a month or so. I like how you take care of her. How you don’t try to be someone you’re not just so that guys at school won’t make fun of you. I think it shows that you’re comfortable in your own skin. I wish I could be more like that.”

  “Well, I guess I had to grow up pretty fast after my dad died all those years ago.”

  “It shows,” she responded. “You don’t act like the typical seventeen-year-old. Hell, I know some twenty-seven-year-olds who act less mature than you do.”

  We shared an intense look and I sensed that there was something going on with her. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I had an awful premonition that she was trying to hide something…maybe even from herself. Or maybe I was just so accustomed to Marley hiding everything that I had begun to expect it from everyone else, too.

  “So,” I said, lightening the mood. “What are some of my other quirks that you noticed?”

  She wrinkled her nose as if she was deep in thought and I wished I had a camera so I could snap her photo. She looked absolutely beautiful, the playful expression on her face reminiscent of the Brianna I knew in middle school.

  “The way you sneeze,” she admitted.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can always tell when you’re about to. And I’m not just talking about the usual, opening your mouth and waiting for it. You close your eyes and rub your nose in the most adorable way, like there’s a genie in there that you’re trying to release.”

  “My nose is like a magic lamp?” I asked, laughing.

  “Well, yeah. And it’s the cutest thing ever.”

  I planted a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll try to sneeze more often then, especially if you like it.”

  “I do,” she admitted. “I like everything about you.” Her voice grew quiet and pensive as she toyed with the button on my shirt, avoiding my eyes.

  “Bri…” I cupped her chin and tilted her head so she was gazing into my eyes. “I like everything about you, too.”

  She smiled in response.

  I gently caressed her graceful face, savoring the feel of her creamy skin on my hand. Lowering my head to hers, I hovered over her lips, readjusting both of our bodies so she was lying on her back.

  I pressed my lips against hers, coaxing her mouth open as my hand found its way into her sleeping bag, roaming her stomach. I heard an unzipping sound and broke away from the kiss to see Brianna opening both of our sleeping bags. She grabbed my head and forced my mouth back to hers as she wrapped one of her long legs around my waist.

  “Cam…” she exhaled.

  “Are you two making out in there?!” I heard Marley shout from the other tent.

  I groaned. “Ignore her, please,” I said softly, crushing my lips back to Brianna’s.

  “You totally are!” Marley giggled. “I can hear your sloppy kisses all the way over here, Cameron Michael. Girls don’t like it wet. They like it soft.”

  “I’ve got it under control, Marley Jane!” I shouted back before returning my attention to Brianna. “Now, where were we?”

  “Right here,” she responded, pulling my body flush with hers.

  “Oh, Bri,” I moaned, my hands grazing her frame. I moved from her lips to her neck, tracing my tongue against her collarbone. My fingers poised on the button of her shirt, I peered at her, silently asking permission. She nodded and I nervously began to unbutton it, my heart racing the entire time.

  I lowered my head back to her body as she kept her legs wrapped around me, her hands clawing into my back as she gently thrust against me. I made my way down her stomach, her body throbbing against mine. I began planting kisses on the arm she had wrapped around me, stopping abruptly.

  “Bri, what is this?” I asked urgently upon noticing a dark bruise on her bicep.

  Her eyes grew wide in shock. “It’s nothing, Cam,” she responded quickly.

  My eyes
went to her other arm and I saw another bruise in the same spot.

  “You can tell me, Brianna.”

  “I did tell you, Cameron,” she hissed, lowering her sleeves and buttoning her shirt, her fingers trembling. She zipped up her sleeping bag and turned her body so she was facing away from me. “It’s nothing.” Her body continued to shake as she tried to muffle her sobs.

  Lying back on the ground, I ran my hand up and down the side of her body, thankful when she didn’t push me away.

  “I’m sorry, Bri…”

  “Me, too.”

  I comforted her the way that I used to comfort Marley all those years ago, wondering what happened to her to have resulted in two dark bruises on her arms. Her breathing finally equalized and I knew she had fallen asleep. I kissed the top of her head and wrapped my arm around her, drifting off to sleep.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  I HAD NO IDEA how long I had been asleep before a loud scream woke me. I bolted up in my sleeping bag, scanning the tent.

  Brianna rolled over. “What was that?” she asked drowsily.

  “Cam!” I heard Doug shout.

  “Fuck. Marley!” I ran out of my tent and into the other one to see my sister screaming and crying. “What happened?” I asked him, wrapping my arms around her quivering frame as she sobbed into my chest.

  “Nothing! I was asleep and then she started flailing and shouting something about leaving her alone and to get my hands off her! I wasn’t even touching her!”

  “Can you just give us a minute?” I looked at him, trying to assure him with my expression that I believed him.

  “Okay.” He dejectedly turned away before glancing over his shoulder at me. “I’d never hurt her or touch her if she didn’t want me to.”

  “I know you wouldn’t.”

  He shook his head and left the tent.

  “I’m sorry, Cam,” Marley said through her tears. “I didn’t mean to tear you away from getting laid. Gross, by the way.”

  I chuckled at her sense of humor even when reliving the nightmare of her past. “Marley, I wasn’t getting laid. And you don’t need to apologize to me. I’ll always be here for you. You know that. To the moon and back.”

  She wiped her cheeks. “From the stars to the ocean.”

  I rubbed her back, feeling the grooves of her scars through the thin fabric of her tank top. “Was it the dream again?” I asked after several minutes.

  She nodded. “Yeah. He was there,” she whispered. “In that bedroom. But he looked like he does now and not like he did back then. And that woman he was with was there with him, and she was pregnant, Cam. She watched as he did those things to me. The whole time, all I could hear were a baby’s cries.”

  “Shhh…” I soothed her. “It was just a dream. He can’t hurt you, Marley.”

  “But what if he hurts someone else? Is he going to tell them that he’s not to blame and he has to do it because he was born that way? Like he told me? That it was my fault?”

  “It wasn’t, Marley. What’s it going to take for you to see that?”

  “A miracle,” she mumbled.

  “I know things haven’t turned out the way you would have liked, but it will get better. One day, you’ll wake up and realize that you’re a stronger person because of what you had to go through.”

  She took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m glad that I can talk to you about all of this and you don’t judge me. You should become a shrink. I think you’d be good at it.”

  I laughed. “I don’t know about that. I think I’d get too attached to my patients.”

  “Think about it, at least. The world doesn’t need another lawyer. You’d waste your good soul. And your incredible heart.”

  “Okay, Marley Jane. For you, I’ll think about it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NO GOD

  “ARE YOU READY TO face the music?” Cam asked, turning to me as he pulled the Wrangler into the driveway of our house, the street peaceful in the pre-dawn hours. After I woke up screaming, we all decided that we should probably get home and try to sneak in before the sun rose.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” I responded. “They ground us? Go ahead. We start school tomorrow anyway. We won’t have time to go out with our friends, not with all of the crap we have to do.”

  “Well, I hope it was worth it.”

  “To be normal for a day? It was definitely worth it.”

  We both remained in the car, neither one of us moving just yet.

  “Hey, Cam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “No matter what, promise that you’ll always stand by me.” My eyes met his.

  “When have I ever not stood by you, Mar?”

  I shrugged. “You always have. I just need to make sure that you always will.”

  “It’s you and me against the world. To the moon and back.”

  “From the stars to the ocean,” I whispered, my voice empty. Inhaling slowly, I placed my hand on the door and opened it. “Better get this over with.”

  Cam nodded and followed me out of the car and up the front steps of the house, the sky turning a pink hue as the sun began its slow ascent. We walked into the eerily silent, darkened house, and I thought maybe Aunt Terryn and Uncle Graham hadn’t noticed that we never came home last night. It wouldn’t have been the first time but, normally, Cam and I snuck out after they had already gone to bed. This time, not only did we not come home, we ditched church. I wondered which would be seen as the graver offense of the two.

  As we tiptoed past the front entryway and saw no one sitting in the living room, we almost thought we hadn’t been caught.

  “Shhh.” Cam placed his finger over his mouth, trying to hush my heavy steps.

  Suddenly, a light turned on in the kitchen. We both snapped our heads in that direction to see our aunt and uncle sitting there, severe expressions on their faces.

  “Cam. Marley,” my uncle said. “Have a seat.”

  Glancing at Cam, he gave me a reassuring nod and we took several cautious steps into the kitchen, sitting down at the table across from them.

  I looked deep into my uncle’s sapphire eyes, his brown hair disheveled, as if he had just woken up. “Where were you?” he asked, his tone as calm and soothing as ever.

  “Charleston,” Cam replied quickly. He found my hand beneath the table and squeezed it, letting me know that he would take the blame for everything.

  “What were you doing there?” he asked, his irritation starting to show. I contemplated whether he was simply putting on a show for my aunt.

  “Helping Marley forget for a while.”

  “Did you even think what kind of effect your actions would have?!” my aunt inquired, her face flashing red in anger. “The entire congregation was staring and whispering after you both left! In the middle of the service, I might add! How could they look up to your uncle as a leader when it now appears that he can’t control his own family?!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, lowering my head. “I just needed to get away for a minute. I had a memory and I couldn’t be there.”

  I could feel my aunt’s judgmental eyes on me as she glared, then turned her attention back to Cam. “Mrs. Dumond told me what you said to her before you left. Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was? Not only did you both leave church, making all of us look bad, but now one of the elders thinks that Marley was…” She trailed off and the silence in the room was excruciating.

  I raised my head and could tell that she was trying to find a way to finish her sentence. “You can’t even say it, can you?” I asked quietly, my entire being seething with anger and frustration. “Why can’t you? Neither one of you have ever been able to actually say the words…not that I can remember, anyway. Maybe if you finally say it, then you’ll realize that it was a horrible thing! That I should have been put in therapy years ago to deal with it! Instead, I was forced to be paraded around like another freaking home grown beauty queen!” I quickly shot out of the chair and leaned toward both of
them.

  I was done keeping it all inside. I had kept quiet for ages. Something inside of me snapped and the anger, rage, and agony that I had been keeping at bay, only allowing Cam to see, was raging over me like lava. It burned me, and the only thing that extinguished the fire was letting the words flow from my mouth.

  “Say it!” I screamed, my face not even an inch from hers as she stared at me in shock. “I was molested! Raped! Beaten! Ruined! At the age of eight! How would you feel if that were Meg?! Or Julianne?! Would you brush that under the rug, too?! Would you get them the help they so desperately needed?! Or would you be too concerned about what your friends would say then, too?! Would you destroy any chance they had at a healthy, happy future so that you could save face in front of your tea-drinking, past-their-prime teen beauty queen has-beens?!”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Cam standing next to me, his eyes soothing as if trying to put out the flames inside of me. But they were lit. Nothing could stop it. The fire was spreading with each passing moment.

  “Mommy?” I heard a quiet voice say. I tore my eyes from Cam and saw Meg and Julianne standing in the doorway in their pajamas, clutching their bears. They looked scared and I knew it was because they had overheard my screams.

  “Meg,” my aunt said, attempting to regain her broken composure. “Please take your little sister upstairs. I’ll be up shortly to help you change into your play clothes.”

  “Is Marley in trouble?” Meg asked.

  “That’s none of your concern. Now do as you’re told and I’ll be sure to take you both down to the pier later for ice cream.”

  All she had to do was mention ice cream and the girls quickly followed her demand.

  The tension in the kitchen could be cut with a knife as we all glared at each other. Wanting to be the bigger person, I looked deep into my uncle’s conflicted eyes and said, “I’m sorry I left church. It’s my fault. I convinced Cam to play hooky with me. I had an ‘episode’,” I explained, using air quotes. Heading out of the kitchen, I knew it was now or never. “Maybe if I got the help I needed when I needed it, I wouldn’t have these ‘episodes’. Instead, the only people I could ever talk to about it was Grams and Cam. They’ve been my therapists, but it still doesn’t make up for not getting professional help.”