Harbour Lights

It was a glare fest. Looking normally at each other just wasn't possible for Marilyn Day and William Banfield. It was either avoid eye contact at all costs, or try burning a hole through the other's head with stares of hatred.

As if by some unspoken consensus, the two started walking – not side by side, mind you; they kept quite a distance between themselves – along the beach, heading south. Both of them grew up in this town, so they knew that following the shoreline was the quickest and surest way to get back to civilization.

And so they trudged on. Neither of them spoke or even breathed in the other's direction. Any sort of "truce" that they may have established over the past week was no longer in existence, and as of now they despised each other passionately. They each had their own reasons for this hatred:

Will was mad at Marilyn because she had gone and fucked everything up again. After she left the hospital, he had been left alone with Evie – and then the shit hit the fan. She may have been acting all soft and hurt before, but that quickly changed; she immediately went off on a screaming rampage about how Will was cheating on her and how she felt so betrayed and how she couldn't trust him…and blah, blah, blah. True, she had the right to be upset about it (even though Will hadn't done anything, but that's not what Evie saw) but still, she was such a drama queen about it. And Will didn't want to put up with it, and thus he blamed Marilyn for his suffering.

Marilyn was mad at Will because…well, he couldn't really tell. She had had a reason for being angry with him before, especially after the concert incident, but she had never showed any rage of any sort. Instead she had just avoided him. But now – now he hadn't done anything wrong and she was pissed. He couldn't figure it out.

"How long is it until we get back?" Her question came out in a hardly audible grumble.

He shrugged. "Dunno."

They fell into silence again. It had hardly been a half an hour since Chante and Adam ditched them ("Those fucking assholes," Will muttered under his breath as he thought of them), and the sun was steadily declining in the sky. Purple-looking anvil clouds were slowly tumbling in. Violets and indigos were seeping into the sky, signaling that this sunset was going to be swift and painless; night would be upon them quicker than anticipated.

"We should probably find somewhere to sleep," Will said and Marilyn made a nonchalant sound in response. "We're not going to make it back to town before sunset," he continued, unsure of whether the grunt Marilyn made was a sound of agreement or indifference. "Finding a place to sleep would be a good idea."

"Yeah." She didn't even turn around to look at him. Maybe she didn't really understand what he was getting at.

"You know, before it gets too dark to see anything…?"

"Good plan," she responded monotonously.

He frowned. She was usually a quiet girl but being this concise and so ill-spoken just wasn't in her nature.

"What is your problem?" he finally snapped.

She was unscathed by the sharpness of his voice. "I don't have a problem, William."

"Like hell you don't," he seethed, and quickened his pace so that he was right next to her. She tried changing directions in order to avoid him, but he was quick; he stepped directly in front of her just in time, and she was forced to stop in her tracks. Now she couldn't do anything but to face him. "What did I honestly do to you, Marilyn?" he asked. She tried to step past him again, but he placed two strong hands on her shoulders and held her in place. Leaning down slightly, he stared squarely in her eyes before asking, "Why are you mad at me?"

"I'm mad because you're alive, Will," she let out in the form of an exasperated sigh. She began to walk away again and this time he let her.

He recovered from his surprise quickly and chased after her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Leave me alone."

"Tell me," he demanded.

"You messed everything up!" she finally blurted out.

"How did Imess things up?" he asked. If anything, she was the one that ruined everything.

"You just – You – It's everything about you, Will!" she cried. "One look at your face and I just…I can't do it. It's all your fault. You and your stupid laugh and your memories and your stupid cologne. Which doesn’t even smell that great, by the great."

"That, um…" Will said stupidly, confused beyond words, "that doesn't really make much sense."

"It was all supposed to fix itself!" she said, now speaking more to herself than to Will. She turned her face away from him and tilted it towards the sky, where the sun was proceeding to sink behind the ocean. "I was supposed to leave and then you and Evie could be better again. I wasn't supposed to stay, I wasn't supposed to wreck anything else. That was how the plan was supposed to work!"

She was on the verge of a breakdown, Will could see it in her eyes. Nevertheless he continued to push her limits, "Evie and I were supposed to be 'better'? Marilyn, did you think that leaving would be like putting a band-aid on a cut? Running away doesn't fix things."

"Yes it does," she retorted swiftly, sounding very sure of herself. "It worked the first time. It can work again."

At that, Will laughed bitterly. "It didn't work the first time," he assured her. He felt like he was talking to a child; she wasn't making much sense, and at this point it was fair to say that she was acting rather stupid.

"Yes it did," she said indignantly.

"Then why did you come back?" To that, she had no answer. "See?" he said. "Told you it didn't work."

Her eyes darkened and she cast a murderous glare in his direction. "Fuck you, Billy."

She had used the name his friends called him – the same name that she had once refused to address him by. She wasn't treating him as the same person anymore. But she was just acting like any other angry girl: she was being totally irrational and melodramatic. She didn't really think about what she was saying. Her words shouldn't matter to him, he shouldn't give a damn.

So then why did he feel so stung?

Deciding that the conversation was over, Marilyn turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving him behind. He let out a sigh; getting back to town was going to be a lot difficult if she wouldn't cooperate. And to make matters worse, not only would she refuse to cooperate with him, but now she probably wouldn't even look at him.

He turned his face towards the clouded sky and wondered, Could this get any worse?

And then it began to rain.