(26) breaking point

When Luke first met Marie, he instantly felt that something wasn't right.

Luke always thought that his sense when it comes to making out people's true natures are more accurate than most. If he felt something odd or something he can't exactly make out, he keeps a good distance. He thought it better to be chose his friends carefully since he doesn't know when his father will be stationed next, he didn't want to leave the place without so much as a good memory after all. He first decided to adopt this mindset when he moved to a new neighborhood for the third time, it's already the fifth.

So, when Neil introduced them he thought it good to just be strangers, with somewhat friendly relations. She flashes him a smile and he hesitates to return the same, but eventually gives in, smiling back at her, albeit slightly abashed. He seems nice, he thought.

Against his expectation, he saw how friendly and outgoing she was, arrogantly playful in that childish manner. He began welcoming her company more than he thought he should since she seems to be genuinely interested in what he has to say. It was fun being with her enough for him to think that he might be wrong this time. That sometimes he just has to take that leap and get to know the person outside of what his first impressions of them are. And plus, it was Neil who introduced them so she could not be all that bad (it was later that he found them to be cousins).

However, that feeling of uncertainty never went away. And it shows itself in the small things. He didn't see it at first, after all, what's wrong with looking up to people? To have friends? To want to fit in? Such feelings aren't exactly new to him, he's always felt it in every school he transfers to. What he finds out later, is that she has a tendency to take it one step further.

…

Marie stops, her feet firm on the ground, her fists clenched at her side, "what?"

Luke catches up with her, his face tells her how he didn't even think things through and just followed her, or maybe he just didn't expect her to stop so soon. They meet eyes and he flashes this goofy smile in her direction. This is just Luke being Luke, something she's used to so much that it doesn't annoy her anymore. Or at least should on a pleasantly normal day. Today it only seemed to annoy her more, infuriates her.

She stares at him, her eyes bloodshot, only a second away from crying that it almost shatters his resolve. Luke hesitates, they have had fights before, bit this is the first time it got to this point. He tries talking to her, asking her what did Nathan tell her for her to storm off and telling her it's okay after. Honestly, he just wanted to calm her but knowing that this could be their first fight ever, not to mention seeing Marie like this, he is at a loss of words. Clearly, he should have thought this through more.

Marie cuts him off. “Oh, so we’re talking now?” She says in mock surprise. Seeing her reacting to him somewhat relieves him for some reason, "oh come on, don't be like that."

What does he get by acting like this? Like there's nothing wrong and he didn't just up and took a stranger's (he's only known Airi for a few months after all) side and practically abandon her. If he's going to be his usual gullible self, he should go do it with his new friends for fuck's sake.

Luke tells her not to be such a sourpuss, in the cutesiest, teasing way possible and she rolls her eyes. Luke was always like this when trying to make amends with her because it works and they usually make up after, mostly because she just gets too disgusted with the cutesy acts that often reach new disturbing (often disgusting) heights, or when Neil threatens them to make-up with his homework and school notes on the line.

Either way, he wouldn’t apologize, he never does. He is just the kind of person who he always stood by what he said, and she secretly envies him for that. “You’re the one who started it.” She retorts, “I told you not to talk to her but you wouldn’t listen.”

Luke pauses and looks away, his right hand scratching the back of his head as if searching for a solution to an impossible problem. “C’mon don’t be like this,” he tries to appease her, “Airi isn’t as bad as you think she is. You've seen what she's going for—”

“Enough, leave me alone!” she yells, “I don’t want to talk to you!”

Marie began to rant to him, how she feels betrayed by what him and Neil are doing, talking and getting along with Airi and how it’s destroying the friendship they built. How what he is doing right now isn’t helping because for her, no matter how you look at it, Airi is a terrible person who did terrible things.

Having grown up with her made him have an inkling about certain sides of her he knows he can’t win against. It was one of the things he finds out about her later on. How her admiration coincides with her obsession of fitting in resulting to her personality becoming distorted. It didn't mind them, heck it was even cute to a point until she started coming to school wearing the same exact clothing her popular friend was wearing, how she would lie to that same friend just so she could improve her image in her eyes. How she would expect and demand admiration from everyone by being "close" to her.

"Marie has a warped sense of self," Neil had told him one day, says that it's the result of her being abandoned and left with her aunt as a child. And how alone she feels now that her aunt has a child of her own.

She has come a long way since then, she learned how to display her admirations properly and even managed to make genuine friends. Only, that desire of fitting in never went away for her. She began to see the friends she made as the only people who accepted her for who was and directed all her admiration towards them, making sure she isn't hated, making sure they would stay her friends forever even it meant abandoning what she believes in.

Luke understands this so she stays by her side, because underneath the shallow waters, Marie is a genuinely kind person.

"You're a liar! You lied to me! I hate you!"

Hearing her now, he knows she is only saying this out of anger and frustration, punishing him for what he's doing. Nevertheless, he is stunned. Not because she was right, but because she was acting like a child.

She continues throwing a tantrum. "This is all Airi's fault! We should have never met her! We should have never talked to Zoey that day, it was all their fault!"

Not again he thinks, his frustration climbing higher and higher. He clenches his fists and makes a decision.

“Quit acting like a kindergartener, we aren’t kids anymore.” He yells, all the love lost in his voice.

She looks at him, bewildered. “I can’t believe you’re taking their side! We’ve been friends for so long! All of us! And you’re throwing it away for what? A girl you barely knew?!” she raises her voice, at this point, she doesn’t care who listens.

“Neil too! Stop treating this like some sort of childhood spat! You’re the one who made the decision, you’re the one who left me, you're the one who fired the first shot why the fuck should I have to listen to you—”

“Because you’re being stupid!” Luke raises his voice that it startles her.

“This isn’t about taking sides anymore. Do you hear yourself?! Do you even see yourself? At how you acted the other day at the cafeteria? During class? Every single fucking time you’re with those girls you claim to be friends with?

For God’s sake Marie, have you completely lost your mind?!”

He was serious. And angry, contrast to his usual outgoing self that it sets her in a horrific realization.

What she thought would be just a small spat (where she usually gets her way) at first is now blowing into new proportions that she starts to dread the repercussions of what she would do next. He wasn’t backing down and instead keeps pushing her over the edge and she wanted to answer back and defend herself but stops, shocked by her own thoughts. Luke notices her insistent lip biting, something she does when she stops herself from saying something aloud.

“Or are you telling me that it’s okay because she deserved it?” He could always read her like a book and she especially hates it during these times. At being shown her own reflection, she immediately felt the ground from under her crumble.

His words were spinning in her head that all at once, the reflections come in bursts. The times she should have spoken up against her friends for being mean to a person who did bad things and is probably trying her best to change. The times she ignored her and stays away from her like the plague, and the times she times she laughed and joked with them, regardless of being forced or not. She didn't want to see it.

Like a child caught in a lie, she was looking over all her mistakes and indecisions laid out in front of her, enclosing her so she couldn’t run and turn her back on it.

“I-I didn’t, they were…” She hesitated. She had no excuses, and conscious that she was about to blame someone again made her grasp just what kind of person she was.

“What?” Luke presses on, she fears the cold tone of his voice. She wishes he would just soothe her like he usually would. Tears were starting to form at the corner of her eyes and she wonders why everything had to come to this. She feels like breaking down, crying and screaming as the echoes of their argument hit the roof.

Marie decides to run away, it was the only she thought of to prevent their argument from escalating further. And anymore of this would only make her hate herself more.

It’s not like she’s confused, she thinks. She believes her friends, sympathizes with Lucy’s story and is smart enough to identify the right from the wrong, but despite having proof that Airi was as bad a person as everyone think she was, and contrast to how she was acting towards her, she is faintly aware she couldn’t find it in her heart to hate her entirely.

She weeps, asking herself: Why am I like this?