Marley

“Thank you, have a nice day,” I mumble, passing a couple their bag of pastries and sweets.

The woman gingerly takes the bag from me, giving me a slightly sad smile. Meanwhile, her husband (or boyfriend) only shakes his head at me with something close to a snarl on his face. He quickly puts his hands on the small of the woman’s back and leads her out, almost as if he’s trying to protect her… from me.

I sigh, biting my lip and moving back to stand behind the display case and reorganize. Though the goods in front of me don’t really need to be rearranged at all, it gives me an excuse to do something, to avoid people’s prying eyes.

I’ve been convincing myself that the incident would all blow over soon enough. But three weeks later, here I am, and I’m probably the most hated being in the world right now.
I mean, part of me can’t blame them. If I read about some person that, in the end, willingly gave up their best friend’s life to save their own, I’d probably think something pretty nasty too.

“Hello, how may I help you today?” Ben, my middle aged boss, says as he pops out from the back room. There must’ve been a customer I didn’t notice, or who I was trying to avoid, just to avoid the human contact as well.

I straighten up, trying to avoid looking at anyone in the room, but I feel the person’s gaze fall on me. When I finally dare to meet it, I only see a cold type of anger, maybe even hatred.

“I’ll have a bag of lemon meringues…” The person says unsteadily, and I can tell I’m still in their thoughts. They’re hostile, but they’re there.

I gulp and walk away before I can feel more hurt by the unfriendly stares. Passing through the soft curtain into the back room, I find the only other person in there is Ben’s wife, Clarissa.

“Marley dear,” she greets, a small smile warming her face. “How’re you feeling?”

Admittedly, it feels good to have someone smile at me. And not just a tight-lipped-trying-to-be-polite smile, but one that’s genuine. It feels just as good to have someone honestly want to know how I’m feeling too. If anyone else asked, they’d probably be hoping the answer is
something terrible, but not with Clarissa.

“Fine,” I say simply, knowing that most everyone knows that “fine” isn’t really fine in the slightest.

Clarissa’s gaze softens even more, if possible. “Want to take a break?” She asks gently. “Go to that place you always disappear to?”

I frown slightly. “What do you mean?” I ask.

She lets loose a small giggle. “What?” She asks. “You think Ben and I don’t notice that on your breaks you never stick around? You always run off somewhere, but we’ve never mentioned it because you always come back.”

I have to admit; I didn’t really think anyone noticed. I mean, I’ve always known Clarissa and Ben still care, even with all that’s happened, they let me have a job after all. But I didn’t think they noticed that I’d leave the shop completely and just vanish.

“I think I will,” I finally say, after thinking for a moment. I muster up the best smile I can manage, but even without seeing myself, I know it looks strained. “Thanks Clarissa… for everything.”
As I grab my coat and walk out the door, I hear her murmur something else, though it’s so faint I almost don’t believe it.

“It’s not your fault Marley…”

Instead of walking back in and asking her to repeat what she said, I continue on to my car, hopping inside and closing the door with a sigh.

As I drive to Leatherbound, my little getaway that she was talking about, I find myself still thinking about what she said.

I mean, talking about the incident has kind of been a silently forbidden subject. We all kind of knew from the moment they hired me, there’s no need to talk about it. That doesn’t mean we pretend like it didn’t happen, because then we’d only be fooling ourselves, but there’s not a lot more to say that I haven’t already heard.

When I pull up to the cozy little bookstore, I find a sense of calm and peace already beginning to radiate to me.

Leatherbound is absolute bliss; a place for serenity, where nothing ever seems to go wrong and everyone is judgment free.

It’s honestly my paradise on earth.

“On break Marley?”

I smile, recognizing the melodic voice of the woman at the front desk, Miriam. We only know each other on a friendly basis, but she’s as sweet and as wise as anyone I’ve ever met.
She never asks questions unless someone wants them to be asked, but you can always tell by the look in her eyes that she knows something’s wrong. She has some sort of sense I guess, superhuman almost, where she can read people as easily as the books she sells.

“I am,” I say, returning the smile, and here, it doesn’t have to be forced.
“Well you always know where I am,” she simply says in return, waving as I pass by.

I nod in response, wandering further into the small shop. I pass the drama section, deciding that I already have too much of that in my life at the moment. I continue doing this, passing by genre after genre until I don’t really know where I’m going or what my purpose here is anymore.

Maybe it’s just to get away.

But I finally decide to stop in the romance section. Something nice and happy would probably be good for me, a good escape on a good break. While I browse through the section, my thoughts wandering slightly, I spot a book that doesn’t seem like it would belong in a section labeled as ‘Romance’ at all. The spine is dark and has swirling lines and patterns on it, not in a
beautiful way, but not in an ugly way either.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I pull the book from the shelf and turn it over to see that it is indeed in the wrong section.

Hate List, Jennifer Brown.

I read over the little summary to see that it’s about a girl, Valerie, whose boyfriend went on a rampage at their school, shooting without any thought. And all the targets were people they put on a list called the Hate List.

It’s a story about moving on and making amends with everything and everyone, and something about it hurts my heart. Though our stories obviously aren’t the same, it’s similar in a very different way. Dealing with blame, hate, guilt, and everything in between.

I guess Valerie isn’t so different from me after all. Maybe she’s even an unknown personification of me, or vise versa. Being so absorbed in the book, I’m easily started when I hear an uncertain; “Hello?” come from the end of the aisle. I snap my head up and feel my breath catch in my throat unexpectedly. Though it could just be a freaky look-a-like, a
boy who looks remarkably like Harry Styles is standing there, watching me with a cautious gaze. As I take him in, scanning his curls, green eyes, and lean figure, I have to believe what I’m seeing.

“Is there something I can help you with?” I choke out, realizing that I’m gawking like a fool. What on earth could Harry Styles want with me?

“You’re Marley,” he breathes, and I feel my heart plummet and crash to the bottom of my stomach. “Marley Sorin, aren’t you?”

I should’ve known, there’s no other reason he’d know me except from the news and papers. I’m that girl, the one who gave up her best friend to slaughter by a crazed robber.

“And you’re Harry Styles,” I say slowly, though it’s much more dejected now. “Aren’t you?”

He nods slowly, but that’s all.

Even if he is a celebrity, he’s broken my paradise, my peace. This is supposed to be my place, as selfish as it sounds. But this is where I always go to escape people like this, people who will recognize me and give me those pitying glances or withering glares.

“Oh,” is all I find myself able to say for a moment. “Well, nice to meet you Harry. I should… go. I need to get back to work.”

I turn to leave, glancing down at the book again. Part of me genuinely wants to take it to read, but part of me also doesn’t want to put it back just because I’d have to stand in front of Harry Styles even longer, feel his eyes on me.

“Wait,” his voice is unexpected, though right now I find myself only praying that he won’t just want to ask me questions about everything that’s happened. I’ve had enough of people who pretend to care or people who just want to mock me.

“Yes?” I ask, freezing and barely even breathing.

It’s silent for a moment before he answers. And it’s not just the normal Leatherbound silence, but a type of silence charged with unspoken words, unspoken feelings.

“I don’t think you’re to blame you know,” he says quietly. “Not like so many others seem to. I’m sure most of them would have done the same thing in the end.”

I gulp, feeling a lump forming in my throat. I’ve avoided really talking to people about this so far, just like with Clarissa and Ben. But here’s Harry Styles, telling me he doesn’t think I’m to blame, and if I heard Clarissa correctly before, then he’s the second person to say so today… and I don’t know what to make of that.

“Would you have done the same thing?” I ask quietly, turning to face him again.

He seems slightly taken aback by the question, but also thoughtful. “Honestly,” he sighs. “I don’t know. I’d have to be in the moment to really know. It’s not something you can make an accurate guess on just by picturing it.”

That’s the most intellectual answer someone has even given me to that question. Everyone’s automatically said that they would obviously save their friend without a second though. So many people have said that in fact, that I’ve just stopped asking, trying to get people to see.
But this… pop idol is different. Somehow, he’s the only one who’s able to get past the surface thoughts and really give an honest, pure answer.

My mouth feels completely dry when I speak next. “Uhm,” I say tentatively. “Would you like to… grab coffee or something? With me?”

Though it seemed like a reasonable question when I asked it, a couple seconds later, I’m now regretting it. He’s a superstar pop singer, why would he want to even be seen with that girl?
“I mean, I know you probably don’t,” I say, the word vomit beginning to really come up. “I- I know I don’t look good right now, to anyone really. The public would probably think and assume bad things if they saw you so… I understan-“

“Honestly,” he cuts me off with a sigh and a small smile. “I’d love to.”

The answer admittedly takes me by surprise. He has a reputation to uphold, and if I were a celebrity, I probably wouldn’t want it to be tainted because I decided to get coffee with the sick girl.

“I don’t think people can say anything worse than they already do.” He gives me another smile.

But the smiles are strained, almost looking like a mask to hide something else, maybe even pain. I don’t want to think I’m an expert on reading people or anything, not like Miriam, but this is different. The only reason I can see this on him is because I’ve seen it on myself countless other times before.

So that, and everything else that’s happened in the past five minutes, makes me suddenly very curious about the superstar Harry Styles.

Notes