Marley glanced over at Lydia at her admission of Nashville being a part of her past. It was almost like the book of Lydia updating a new chapter, a part Marley wanted to read but didn’t have access to yet. The fact that the other was actually sitting down next to her and not just stopping for a moment only to walk away was an improvement. She knew it would take time but the fact that Lydia actually seemed to want to talk to her raised Marley’s spirits a little bit.
It was strange to see how much of herself she could see in Lydia. The old Marley who’d just come out of a relationship where she’d spent years cowarding and bruised. Broken. Marley had come to the Foxes lost and uncertain about her future. She’d spent so long reminding herself over and over again that she could have something better in her life and when she actually had it in the palm of her hands? Marley had been terrified. It felt so fragile. She’d spent so many nights on Wymack’s couch tossing and turning and worrying about being taken back home, back to the place that had nothing but horrible memories for her. Even after months of training with the Foxes, honing in her skills after three years of no Exy, she still felt like it was all too good to be true.
Now here she sat, a junior at Palmetto playing with the Foxes as a striker, and there were still days when she didn’t feel so certain but those were few and far between. She wasn’t scared anymore. She didn’t hate the world, didn’t feel like there was nothing but cruelty in the world. Marley wanted Lydia to see that she still had a life to live being happy and free from abuse. There was a new chapter waiting to be written but it couldn’t be if she held herself back. Marley did that enough to herself to know that.
Things would get better. Marley could promise Lydia that. The only thing she couldn’t promise Lydia was that it would go away entirely. Almost three years later now and Marley wasn’t sure if it did yet.
Letting out a deep breath, shifting to extend her legs out in front of her. A small laugh escaped from her, imagining poor Lydia having to listen to constant drunk ramblings from people. “I can imagine…” Marley mumbled, bringing her hand up to take another drag. She was quiet for another minute, staring out across the parking lot as her mind shifted back and forth, running through thought after thought after thought. “It was a few weeks ago, shouldn’t really matter anymore.” Marley brought her legs back up, curling into herself lazily. “It was the anniversary of my miscarriage when I was with my ex-husband. It’s the one thing that I’ve never really been able to move past. The abuse, the insults, the pain… I’ve gotten through most of that. I’ve accepted that it was part of my life but that I’m destined for better stuff, that my past is part of who I am but shouldn’t hold me back. But that miscarriage?” Marley paused, taking in a breath. “I can’t ever seem to stop blaming myself for that.”
For a moment, Lydia was certain Marley wouldn’t want to talk about it. Not with Lydia, at least, not when Lydia had already made it fairly clear that she wouldn’t have anything real to offer up afterwards: not advice, not her own feelings in return. Sure, she’d listened to plenty of people bare their souls in Eden’s, but more often than not, they were simply talking for the sake of hearing their own voices, and Lydia just happened to be there. This was different. This was Marley, who might walk away at any moment, and Lydia, who found herself truly wanting to know what the Fox was thinking.
It was hard to shake the idea that people interacted with her as transaction though, that connections were made based on what Lydia could give them—even with someone like Marley, who’d asked for nothing so far other than the potential for Lydia’s company, and even that had been framed as an attempt to help Lydia. So, it took her by surprise when Marley broke the silence. It was an even bigger surprise when Marley said the word miscarriage though, and Lydia consciously resisted the urge to stare at the other woman in the pause that followed. She’d pieced together enough of Marley’s past even before their first conversation, drawing her own conclusions from the bruises she’d seen when Marley first arrived and from the stories she’d heard afterwards, but that part? That was entirely new.
“Oh,” she breathed out, because as promised, she had no advice to give. Lydia was still trying to get over a shitty boyfriend, and she was failing miserably at that. She doubted she would’ve been able to claw herself back from whatever Marley had gone through. Hell, she hadn’t even brought all of herself out of Tennessee, and it’d been years—but some of Lydia was still back there, buried with her sister. She’d never buried a child. And yet, somehow, Marley still smiled more often than not.
Marley’s expression was sad now though, and she curled into herself in a position that read as defensive to Lydia. Despite the fact that both of those were Lydia’s own default settings, she hated seeing it on Marley. “I’m sorry,” Lydia said, even though she’d always rolled her eyes when people said that about Elizabeth. It had always sounded...stupid. Fake. Truth be told it sounded the same now, even coming out of her mouth this time around. “I don’t know what to say,” Lydia admitted, sitting very still for once. Her fingers itched to fidget with something, to hold a cigarette or a bottle, but somehow it seemed like mindless movement would be a disservice to the heaviness of the conversation. “I don’t know how to do the whole, y’know. Comforting thing,” she admitted. “But I would if I could,” Lydia said, clearing her throat. “It couldn’t have been your fault though. Whatever happened.” She didn’t know the story, sure, but from what little she knew of Marley, she could promise that much.
