Safe Haven
Chapter Sixteen
One of the many perks of working at The Poisoned Pen was that it was a small place. Not many customers, other than college kids looking for a quiet place to study to avoid the heat of their dorm rooms or a cheaper version of the books required for classes, came in.
But what I enjoyed even more than the lack of customers that trickled in was the long lunch hour both Ray and I were able to take advantage of.
Usually, I spent most of my lunch break wandering the streets, exploring the stores I’d never felt the need to enter and eventually stopping in a local sandwich shop to get something to fill my stomach.
That was until I got the journal from Fletcher.
After I decided that writing – even the most pointless piece of information down – wouldn’t kill me, I started stopping in a café that sold fresh croissants and amazing pastries to doodle away in that leather bound book that I once never planned on using.
Sliding into my usual spot after ordering and getting a chai tea, I flipped through the pages until I found a blank page to begin on.
It seemed natural once I started. Words that I couldn’t say came to my fingers with ease. No restrictions were placed; no foul words or emotions were filtered out. It was just me and paper and ink.
That was, until I glanced up to see a figure sitting across the tiny table watching me.
Jumping, I felt myself pulling the journal away from onlookers’ eyes before meeting those irises again. “John. What are you doing here?” I asked, glancing around, wondering how in the hell he’d sat down without me noticing before. That and how long he’d been in my presence.
He shrugged, reaching over to steal a drink of my tea just like he used to. “I saw you and decided to stop in,” he stated honestly, sipping from the brightly colored ceramic cup. Within seconds of my tea hitting his taste buds, his face crumpled into an expression of disgust. For a second I thought he was going to spit the little bit he had in his mouth out, but he didn’t.
I watched as his Adam’s apple shifted with his swallowing motion before reaching for my cup.
“That is nasty,” he said, resisting the urge to cough.
“I didn’t get the chance to put sugar in it yet.”
“I don’t think any amount of sugar is going to help that,” John stated, pointing his long index finger at it. I rolled my eyes, forcing myself not to smile. “What are you up to?”
I glanced down to the journal resting under my now crossed arms. “Taking a lunch break – don’t worry, Ray actually knows that I’m out right now…” I didn’t mean for the words to come out sounding snarky, but they must have because I saw John’s eyes cloud with distress.
“Doesn’t look like you’re actually eating lunch though,” he stated, eyes skimming the table top, stopping only for a second on the leather book in my possession.
Sighing, I closed the cover and held it up to show him. “I’m journaling. My therapist recommended it.”
He visibly flinched, as if the thought of me having to see someone and the reminder that I’d tried killing myself was too painful for him. “I thought you weren’t using it, though.”
I felt my eyebrows furrow. “How did you know that?”
John leaned forward in his seat, leaning against the table. “I know a lot more about you than you give me credit for, Marlow. We’ve known each other since we were kids.”
I narrowed my eyes, thinking over all the possibilities.
When I said nothing, John gave in. “Sebastian told me. I called him the other day and had a few questions to ask him.”
“What kind of questions?” I asked, lifting an eye brow in his direction. For some reason, I felt like I needed to go into defense mode.
“Like why he hadn’t told me about you attempting…” He still couldn’t say the word.
“Suicide?”
He nodded, unable to look at me for a moment. “I mean, he told me that you were in living with your aunt after you left, he always gave me updates, so I just wanted to know why he didn’t tell me about such a huge thing like that…”
John kept getting updates on me after I went to Seattle?
“He just filled me in on everything that he forgot to mention…”
I frowned, not liking the fact that people were secretly going behind my back and discussing my life. But I guess they really wouldn’t get proper answers from me…
Shifting in my seat, I reached for the sugar packets placed at the far side of the table, and cut straight to the chase. “What are you really doing here, John? What do you want?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t want anything, but I guess I do need to apologize.”
I felt my body freeze up. My heart lodged itself in my throat, my stomach dropped and my joints locked up.
“That day I found you in the parking lot I lied to you. I said that I wasn’t heartless and that I don’t abandon people…” John stated, stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his black jeans. “I’m realizing more than ever that I lied, and I didn’t even know it until now.”
I felt my hands begin to shake. Had Halvo and Noel finally caved? Had they finally told him why I’d ran away?
“I think that you need me more now than ever, and I left you hanging so many times since you’ve been back… I was so angry about you leaving yet that I didn’t even want to bother with questioning you in a mature manner.”
“Where is all this coming from?” I asked, eyes wide with confusion. “Because if this is coming out of pity, you can save-“
“No, I promise you that it’s not like that. Sure, maybe that the whole… past few days have influenced my sudden change of mood, but I assure you that it’s not pity I’m feeling. It’s regret that I never bothered to ask you right away after knowing you were back in town. It’s confusion that I never knew why you left Tempe in the first place and it’s sadness that the only thing you left was a sorry note for me at Ravenrot.”
“You don’t know why I left?” I asked suddenly, mostly just to clear up my own confusion.
John stared at me, shaking his head. “No. Why? Was I supposed to?”
“No!” I exclaimed, a little more quickly than either of us liked.
There was an awkward pause between the two of us before it clicked in John’s head. “Someone else does know, though, right?”
I felt myself tense up once again, waiting for the explosion of questions, and they did come.
“Are you serious, Marlow?” I forced myself to look at him, to take in the angry expression playing out on his face and the way he was trying desperately to cling onto his calmness. “I was your boyfriend! Your family doesn’t even know!”
“It wasn’t like I just told them, John!” I whispered, voice shaking. “They found out all on their own.”
“They!? More than one person knows!?”
I cringed, knowing that I was just making everything worse.
The walls that I’d put up and hid behind for so long finally were crumbling down.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want anyone to ever know, but they just… they knew. They found out, and I was so ashamed, and I felt like I couldn’t stay in Tempe for another second when reality hit, so I just left. I left, and I hoped to god that I wouldn’t have to come back, but my parents made me after I was released from the hospital in Seattle.”
I was crying. I couldn’t help myself.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, John. I wasn’t supposed to come back here because I knew that everyone would want answers.”
There was a moment of silence. John looked like he was struggling with himself. I watched as he pushed his fingers through his hair, messing it, before an exasperated sigh left his lips. Reaching across the table, he took my hands in his and forced me to look into his eyes. “Marlow, I need to know. It’s literally driving me insane.”
“I can’t. Everything will change once you know, John. You’ll never look at me the same…”
“We’re not really a couple right now, Marlow. It’s not like we have anything to lose here… I just need to know. You were always my best friend.”
I stared at him through tear-blurred eyes before feeling the inside of my chest crack open with the rawness that’d I avoided so long.
Sliding my hands out of his, I reopened the journal and completed the last sentence that I didn’t get to finish in shaky handwriting before sliding it over to John.
“This will explain a lot.” I stated. “I need to go back to work…”
And just like that, my past was in the hands of John O’Callaghan with only one backwards glance.
But what I enjoyed even more than the lack of customers that trickled in was the long lunch hour both Ray and I were able to take advantage of.
Usually, I spent most of my lunch break wandering the streets, exploring the stores I’d never felt the need to enter and eventually stopping in a local sandwich shop to get something to fill my stomach.
That was until I got the journal from Fletcher.
After I decided that writing – even the most pointless piece of information down – wouldn’t kill me, I started stopping in a café that sold fresh croissants and amazing pastries to doodle away in that leather bound book that I once never planned on using.
Sliding into my usual spot after ordering and getting a chai tea, I flipped through the pages until I found a blank page to begin on.
It seemed natural once I started. Words that I couldn’t say came to my fingers with ease. No restrictions were placed; no foul words or emotions were filtered out. It was just me and paper and ink.
That was, until I glanced up to see a figure sitting across the tiny table watching me.
Jumping, I felt myself pulling the journal away from onlookers’ eyes before meeting those irises again. “John. What are you doing here?” I asked, glancing around, wondering how in the hell he’d sat down without me noticing before. That and how long he’d been in my presence.
He shrugged, reaching over to steal a drink of my tea just like he used to. “I saw you and decided to stop in,” he stated honestly, sipping from the brightly colored ceramic cup. Within seconds of my tea hitting his taste buds, his face crumpled into an expression of disgust. For a second I thought he was going to spit the little bit he had in his mouth out, but he didn’t.
I watched as his Adam’s apple shifted with his swallowing motion before reaching for my cup.
“That is nasty,” he said, resisting the urge to cough.
“I didn’t get the chance to put sugar in it yet.”
“I don’t think any amount of sugar is going to help that,” John stated, pointing his long index finger at it. I rolled my eyes, forcing myself not to smile. “What are you up to?”
I glanced down to the journal resting under my now crossed arms. “Taking a lunch break – don’t worry, Ray actually knows that I’m out right now…” I didn’t mean for the words to come out sounding snarky, but they must have because I saw John’s eyes cloud with distress.
“Doesn’t look like you’re actually eating lunch though,” he stated, eyes skimming the table top, stopping only for a second on the leather book in my possession.
Sighing, I closed the cover and held it up to show him. “I’m journaling. My therapist recommended it.”
He visibly flinched, as if the thought of me having to see someone and the reminder that I’d tried killing myself was too painful for him. “I thought you weren’t using it, though.”
I felt my eyebrows furrow. “How did you know that?”
John leaned forward in his seat, leaning against the table. “I know a lot more about you than you give me credit for, Marlow. We’ve known each other since we were kids.”
I narrowed my eyes, thinking over all the possibilities.
When I said nothing, John gave in. “Sebastian told me. I called him the other day and had a few questions to ask him.”
“What kind of questions?” I asked, lifting an eye brow in his direction. For some reason, I felt like I needed to go into defense mode.
“Like why he hadn’t told me about you attempting…” He still couldn’t say the word.
“Suicide?”
He nodded, unable to look at me for a moment. “I mean, he told me that you were in living with your aunt after you left, he always gave me updates, so I just wanted to know why he didn’t tell me about such a huge thing like that…”
John kept getting updates on me after I went to Seattle?
“He just filled me in on everything that he forgot to mention…”
I frowned, not liking the fact that people were secretly going behind my back and discussing my life. But I guess they really wouldn’t get proper answers from me…
Shifting in my seat, I reached for the sugar packets placed at the far side of the table, and cut straight to the chase. “What are you really doing here, John? What do you want?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t want anything, but I guess I do need to apologize.”
I felt my body freeze up. My heart lodged itself in my throat, my stomach dropped and my joints locked up.
“That day I found you in the parking lot I lied to you. I said that I wasn’t heartless and that I don’t abandon people…” John stated, stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his black jeans. “I’m realizing more than ever that I lied, and I didn’t even know it until now.”
I felt my hands begin to shake. Had Halvo and Noel finally caved? Had they finally told him why I’d ran away?
“I think that you need me more now than ever, and I left you hanging so many times since you’ve been back… I was so angry about you leaving yet that I didn’t even want to bother with questioning you in a mature manner.”
“Where is all this coming from?” I asked, eyes wide with confusion. “Because if this is coming out of pity, you can save-“
“No, I promise you that it’s not like that. Sure, maybe that the whole… past few days have influenced my sudden change of mood, but I assure you that it’s not pity I’m feeling. It’s regret that I never bothered to ask you right away after knowing you were back in town. It’s confusion that I never knew why you left Tempe in the first place and it’s sadness that the only thing you left was a sorry note for me at Ravenrot.”
“You don’t know why I left?” I asked suddenly, mostly just to clear up my own confusion.
John stared at me, shaking his head. “No. Why? Was I supposed to?”
“No!” I exclaimed, a little more quickly than either of us liked.
There was an awkward pause between the two of us before it clicked in John’s head. “Someone else does know, though, right?”
I felt myself tense up once again, waiting for the explosion of questions, and they did come.
“Are you serious, Marlow?” I forced myself to look at him, to take in the angry expression playing out on his face and the way he was trying desperately to cling onto his calmness. “I was your boyfriend! Your family doesn’t even know!”
“It wasn’t like I just told them, John!” I whispered, voice shaking. “They found out all on their own.”
“They!? More than one person knows!?”
I cringed, knowing that I was just making everything worse.
The walls that I’d put up and hid behind for so long finally were crumbling down.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want anyone to ever know, but they just… they knew. They found out, and I was so ashamed, and I felt like I couldn’t stay in Tempe for another second when reality hit, so I just left. I left, and I hoped to god that I wouldn’t have to come back, but my parents made me after I was released from the hospital in Seattle.”
I was crying. I couldn’t help myself.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, John. I wasn’t supposed to come back here because I knew that everyone would want answers.”
There was a moment of silence. John looked like he was struggling with himself. I watched as he pushed his fingers through his hair, messing it, before an exasperated sigh left his lips. Reaching across the table, he took my hands in his and forced me to look into his eyes. “Marlow, I need to know. It’s literally driving me insane.”
“I can’t. Everything will change once you know, John. You’ll never look at me the same…”
“We’re not really a couple right now, Marlow. It’s not like we have anything to lose here… I just need to know. You were always my best friend.”
I stared at him through tear-blurred eyes before feeling the inside of my chest crack open with the rawness that’d I avoided so long.
Sliding my hands out of his, I reopened the journal and completed the last sentence that I didn’t get to finish in shaky handwriting before sliding it over to John.
“This will explain a lot.” I stated. “I need to go back to work…”
And just like that, my past was in the hands of John O’Callaghan with only one backwards glance.