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.
Sometimes Marley caught herself feeling stuck between worlds. Her body felt heavy, a weight left sitting on the curb while Marley felt some part of her lifting. She wasn’t in her body anymore, couldn’t feel a tether to it, but she could somehow still feel the heaviness. And like a rubber band, she would snap back into place just like she did in that moment. It left her feeling disoriented, a part of her missing each time it happened. She couldn’t help but feel like it happened this time because she took a weight off her chest, let something free that she’d kept restrained inside of her. There were certain burdens that Marley carried with her that she didn’t feel like she could ever get rid of no matter how hard she tried. She couldn’t find it in herself to let those burdens go, to forgive herself for not doing what she should have done.
If there was something Marley was good at though, it was bringing herself back to her safe ground. It was like a small clear circle with nothing but dark stormy seas all around her and Marley found her way back each time. It was how she kept going, how she kept smiling. She knew the world couldn’t be all bad, she knew there had to be things to hope for and things to live for. There had to be. If there wasn’t… that would mean everything was worthless.
And Marley did bring herself back, smiling at Lydia with a reassuring glance despite that fact that she’d just told Lydia about her miscarriage. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not expecting you to know what to say or even what to do. I wouldn’t if I were in your position.” Marley stretched her legs out, joint long forgotten and put out. “Telling you wasn’t about searching for comfort or help or understanding. It’s more about… helping myself by getting it out there in the world. Acknowledging it happened and what goes on in my head. And most importantly, it’s about trust.” It was a way for Marley to show her heart to Lydia, to show that she trusted the other woman.
“But thank you, really. I guess I like to try to blame myself because I let it go on. I should have just left after my father when Wymack gave me my first escape.” Marley pulled at the sleeves of her sweater, focused on that rather than anything else. “Don’t know if you knew that, but Wymack had asked me when I finished high school if I wanted to come on with the Foxes. After years of hell with my father, I had my out right there. It was what I spent years working for: all that studying, all that extra practices, the Exy obsession was to get me out and finally it happened.” When that contract was right there in front of her, it seemed too good to be true. “And when it was right there, I couldn’t believe it and so I refused. It felt like a dream, it felt like it couldn’t have been that easy to leave it all behind. So I turned it down and ended up marrying Samuel. I guess that’s why I blame myself… I could have ended it all there, I could have not gone through all that extra pain and torment if I’d just signed that first contract.”
