Chapter 16

Shawna watched the party, knowing that Connor was around somewhere, but determined not to let it get to her. She had friends here, she knew, and drew her strength from them, smiling fondly whenever any of them came by, checking up on her.

And they were, she knew. Marcus would have arranged it, of course, but they did it for her as much as for him. The Gang was back together.

"You've had too much already!" She heard someone shouting from one of the other rooms, quieting the conversation in the room. Whatever the reply was, she missed it, but the words turned to anger quick enough, and the door was quickly slammed on someone without the sense to keep themselves under control.

She looked up, ironically enough, to see Connor across the room, dabbing blood from a split lip. Thinking about people that couldn't control themselves and seeing him at the same time brought tears to her eyes, and she rose to leave.

"You going to check on Marcus too?" Elspeth asked, rolling her shoulders to get her coat in place.

"Marcus?" she turned, eyebrows drawn. "Why, what's wrong with Marcus?"

"You heard them throw someone out, right?" she nodded. "Marcus."

"MARCUS?" That drew a couple of stares, and she quieted down a little. "Marcus doesn't drink."

"Well he does now, and word is he makes a lousy drunk."

"Shit!" she grabbed her own coat, buckling it on as she followed her room-mate out into the corridor. "Where do you think he is?"

"He's your secret lover, you tell me."

"Alright... he's only been drunk once before, that I know." Shawna thought back. "After his mum died, he downed about half a bottle of his dad's vodka, and then fell asleep on my couch."

"Our place, then?" Shawna shrugged. The other option was his place, and they had to go past hers to get there. They drew up slightly hurriedly, parked badly, and rushed up the stairs to the door, fiddling with the keys to get it open. It had taken her some time to convince Elspeth that he was trustworthy enough to have a key, but she'd done it eventually. Pairing Elspeth up with Briana had probably clinched that one.

"Briana, has Marcus been here?" Briana's shift had finished late, so she'd skipped the party and crashed on their couch, and she sat up bleary-eyed as they practically tumbled through the door.

"Wha..."

"Marcus..." Shawna clarified. "Has he been here?"

"Yeah, he left a letter. Didn't you get my texts?"

"Texts? No... my phone was off." Elspeth explained, pulling it out of her bag and seeing the row of missed calls — YOU NEED TO BRING SHAWNA BACK NOW!!!

"A letter?" Briana pointed towards the telephone table in the corner, and the neatly sealed pale blue envelope with her name printed on the front of it.

"When?"

"Couple hours ago..."

"Damn. Let's try his place." She turned to Elspeth, and they started to leave.

"Read the letter?"

"I'll get it later. If he's that drunk, I can read while he sleeps it off."

"You need to read it now." Briana sat up, and despite just having woken up there was a catch in her voice they both caught.

"What?"

"Look, you guys see him just about every hour of every day, you don't see the changes because they're sort of gradual for you. It's been two weeks since I was here, he's in bad shape."

"Well, he's been a bit pale, but..."

"Pale? Fuck girl do you even look?... Of course you don't, that's the problem."

"Briana, please, what are you talking about."

"He's more than pale, Shawna, he's wasting away. He's lost at least a stone since I was here, probably more. He's looking scruffy — Marcus... scruffy? — and... he was here for ten minutes, asking how I was, checking how things were going, but it wasn't him, really. He didn't crack a joke, he didn't call me Dumpling... it's like he's dead on the inside."

"He's been ill."

"He's not FUCKING ILL, SHAWNA!" Briana growled, flinging off the comforter and reaching over to the table. "Read the fucking letter." Elspeth picked it up off the floor from where Briana threw it, passed it to Shawna and moved to sit by her, but Shawna ignored them as she cracked open the envelope.

She felt the blood drain from her face, and saw Elspeth's look.

"What?" she asked, and Briana sniffled through the tears into her shoulder. "Shawna, what is it?" She stumbled to the couch, half-passing and half-dropping the letter.

"Wh... He... w..."

"You knew how he felt." Briana told her, getting to her feet.

"Yes, but we talked about it... there's just nothing there." Shawna felt tears welling as she struggled for coherent thoughts as they tumbled through her head.

"I know you talked about, and then you put it out of your mind and got on with life. He didn't."

"I've tried to help him."

"You've tried to set him up with girls, a few times, and then every time you have a break up or a set-back or anything, you're there crying on his shoulder."

"We're just friends."

"You are just friends, he isn't. To him you're a walking, breathing, living dream given form, Shawna. Even if, and I doubt it, he could forget you long enough to go out with someone else, how long is that going to last when you get dumped and turn up on his doorstep at three in the morning needing to be consoled."

"I can't just choose to be in love with him." She wailed, and Briana swallowed her anger.

"I know, I know you can't. But you can't keep using him as a crutch."

"What am I gonna do?"

"WE," Elspeth cut in, "are going to go find him." Briana grabbed the keys out of Shawna's hand.

"You are not fit to drive, right now."

They piled down the stairs at a run, and Briana had the car moving before the last of the doors was shut.

"Buckle up, sweeties." She offered from the driver's seat, and the other two hurriedly complied, as she pulled out of the quiet side road they lived in. The trip was short — it wouldn't have taken them much longer to walk it — and they stumbled up the stairs to the flat in a clump, beating breathlessly on the door, fear robbing them of their breath as much as the run would have done.

"OPEN UP, TONY!" Shawna screamed, when they didn't get a response fast enough, and sure enough his green-eyed face appeared around the side of the door.

"Ladies, this really isn't a go..." he managed, before Briana's hand slammed the door into him, knocking him and his towel-wrapped torso out of the way.

"Sorry, Tony, we need to find Marcus."

"He ain't here. My night..." He offered, turning to stare back to his room. Shawna managed not to blush as she remembered the couple of night she's spent back there in the early part of the year. "What's wrong."

"Marcus is drunk, and he's going to do something stupid." She managed, struggling for the words and then pushing the letter at him by way of explanation. Striding past him, she flung open Marcus' door, and stopped, stunned.

"Oh... my... God." She stammered, and Briana and Elspeth, fearing the worst joined her. The room was obviously Marcus'. Everything was neatly in place, books on the shelves, clothes away, bed made...

... and every square inch of wall and ceiling was covered with sketches and drawings, paintings and even a sculpture on the bed-side table — each and every one of them of Shawna.

"I didn't know he could draw..." Elspeth muttered, staring around slowly. There were princesses and queens, everyday drawings, even just an eye or a mouth, here and there, doodles and oils, pastels and paints, but they were each and every single one of them undeniably her.

"Where's his guitar?" Shawna, asked, suddenly, realising what was out of place in the room.

"He came in about a half-hour ago and grabbed it." Tony muttered, from his own door, talking to someone inside. A thin, feminine arm appeared, handing him a pair of shorts that he slipped into, so that he could finally surrender the towel. "Yeah, babe, Marcus." They heard. "I don't know, I'll tell you when I know something."

"Hi, Lorraine." Elspeth called, as the door almost closed.

"A half-hour ago?" Briana turned to Tony. "You let him go out that drunk? Is she that good?"

"Hey." He got a little angry. "Don't take this out on Lorraine."

"Sorry..."

"And anyway, what do you mean drunk?"

"I know, Tony, Marcus doesn't drink... well tonight he did."

"Well, I know he doesn't drink, but he wasn't drunk. He crept in — I only caught him because I was getting cream out the fr... a coffee. He said sorry, knew it was my night, but just had to grab his guitar. Then he left, stone-cold sober."

"What?" Elspeth was even more confused.

"Where is that little bullfrog..." Shawna muttered, staring around the room.

"Why do you insist on calling him that?" Tony asked, leaning against the door-frame, obviously disturbed by the events and trying not to show it. "You know he hates it."

"He does not. I've always called him 'bullfrog' — you've heard him sing. And he kinda looks like a frog... not... I don't know, just kind of... froggy."

"All gangly limbs, and the wart, and the spots." He nodded.

"Yeah."

"You really don't fucking look at him, do you?" Briana told her, bluntly.

"What? Why the hell is everyone on my case about this. I'm trying to help, too."

"We've all been trying to help for six months, Shawna." Tony put in. "All of us but the one person that actually could.

You don't see Marcus when you look at him, you see your fourteen year old next-door neighbour — a little, gangly, fat-faced kid with a wart on his nose and acne from hell."

"He's not a scrawny little toad-faced kid anymore." Briana confirmed.

"Hell, if I was straight I'd do him." Elspeth confirmed.

"He's bulked up a lot. He's taller than you by about six inches now," Tony continued, staring at her. "You go for athletic types, big guys, fit, you've been through most of the line of the football team so far this year."

"You make me sound like a slut!" Shawna's tears were flowing full on, now.

"That's not what I'm getting at... you keep telling everyone that there's nothing between you and Marcus because he's not your type — but you don't see the Marcus we see."

"I do go for athletic, there's nothing wrong with that." Why the hell should she have to defend herself, she thought, feeling her anger rise.

"DAMNIT, SHAWNA, IT ISN'T ABOUT YOU!" Tony yelled, flinging himself away from the door, running his hands through his hair. "You know about his job, right?"

"Sure," she replied, confused, "he's waiting tables over at Montague's."

"He told you he's working table so you wouldn't worry. He worked the door at Montague's, until he got fired for not turning up last week. And he did it damned well, too."

"Marcus couldn't break up a fight if he tried..." Shawna blurted.

"Right, second Dan in JuJitsu can't break up a fight if he wants."

"JuJitsu?"

"Every Thursday evening and every Sunday morning."

"No, that's ice-dancing."

"No, Shawna, that's JuJitsu. I went to see him compete, there's the trophy." He pointed to the window-sill where, tucked behind a little wood-carving of her — topless, she realised, blushing — as a centaur was a narrow trophy with what looked like a karate fighter on the top.

"Why did he tell me he was ice-dancing?" Tony leant in, pointing above the door. 'Familiarity breeds contempt' was spelt out in decorative letters above the lintel, and she felt sick.

"Because he doesn't think straight when it comes to you. Because you'd mock him for it. Because he wants to be the kind of guy that you go for, but he doesn't want you to pity him for it. I don't fucking know, but how the hell can you be this good a friend to him and not think he could do this."

"I know he could... he always could do anything he wanted to."

"Well right now he's looking to do something he doesn't really want to do..." It was anger talking, and they both knew it, but it still hurt.

"I KNOW THAT." The tears started afresh, and she slumped on the bed, weeping uncontrollably.

"Oh hell!" Lorraine shouted, coming into the main room as she struggled into one of Tony's jumpers.

"What?"

"Bleak Hill, he's going to Bleak Hill!"

"How do you know?" Briana asked.

"He establishes that he's drunk at the party, but he isn't really." She began counting on her fingers. "He can't throw himself in front of traffic and dump that on some poor unsuspecting passer-by. Then he heads up there, throws himself off, and over time you can all lie to yourselves and pretend that he wasn't going to go through with it, and he just stumbled or something. It gives you all a way out."

"It's the sort of thing he'd do..." Elspeth agreed, after a moment's thought.

Briana grabbed the keys again, and they headed for the door, but Tony called them to stop, throwing another bunch to them.

"Take the truck — you'll be able to get all the way to the top in that."

"You coming?"

"Only three seats — we'll follow." Shawna nodded, and they dashed out the door.

"Shawna!" She stopped, one foot in the flat-bed. "Do me a favour, when you get there in time. Look at him; don't remember him, don't assume he is who you know he is... Look at who he is now." Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded, and they took off with a squeal of tyres that would have had Tony wincing any other time.

They drove in silence, all of them willing the truck to go faster, willing it to get them there in time. The car would have been faster, they knew, and they were feeling the bite of that speed difference, but they knew the time they lost now would be easily made up by being able to get up the trail itself at the other end.

The truck plowed up the trail effortlessly, and when they reached the car-park at the end Shawna was out and running before the wheels had stopped turning. She stumbled as she hit the gravel, but didn't fall, and vaulted the low fence at a run.

"MARCUS!!!" she screamed into the wind coming in off the sea, reaching up to keep tendrils of it out of her eyes. "MARCUS!" She ran along the bluff, keeping the safe side of the railing until something glinting caught her eye. Leaning over the metalwork she grabbed at it, dragging the guitar out of the undergrowth, recognising the brass plaque that had caught her eye without needing to read the inscription.

"Oh, Marcus..." she sobbed, looking down into the water. Elspeth and Briana caught up to her, recognising what she had, and moved to hold her tight, but she shrugged them off. "Don't... don't... I don't deserve it... I fucked up again... fucked up someone else's life." She stared out over the sea, feeling a hole in her gut all of a sudden.

"He couldn't handle it, Shawna..." Elspeth tried, but Shawna shook her head.

"I didn't let him handle it. I couldn't let him go to get on with his own life. I couldn't sort mine out enough that he could get on with his without coming back to look after me..."

Another car pulled into the car-park, but they ignored it until the figures approached.

"Hey, Lewis, where is the little runt. I'm gonna kick the shit out of 'im."

"Fuck off, Connor." Briana told him, venom in her voice.

"He's dead, Connor." She told, him plain and simple, and for the first time in weeks she could look at him and not remember. "He's dead, and it's my fault. It's my fault for not being strong enough to make no mean no."

"Look don't bring that up again."

"He... you..." Elspeth looked back and forth between the pair of them, understanding dawning. Behind Connor, his friends had also heard, and their mood had shifted too as they started to back away.

"I was drunk, alright."

"Like that's an excuse." Briana snapped, looking past him. "We don't need this, right, will one of you take him home." A few of them shuffled forward, reluctance to interfere with a comrade conflicting with their own sense that this wasn't the right time.