"Marley, hey." Gage greeted, his eyes narrowing and looking passed me to April's car. "Is that April?"

            I followed his gaze to find her waving through the window. "It is."

            "You guys were hanging out?" he asked, looking surprised.

            Feeling the need strange need to defend her, I nodded, "Yeah, we went to the mall after our meeting tonight."

            He lifted his hand up in a half wave-half salute and April returned it then rolled down the window and turned her attention to me.

            "Thank you for tonight, Marley. I'll see you Monday."

            I waved and watched as the car sped off down the street. Gage, taking her departure as his cue to step out of the door frame so I could enter. Some part of me expected the apartment to be some small little hole in the wall out of sight. Maybe it was because the fact that Gage was the Mayor's son always seemed to slip my mind that it conjured up it's own home for him. This apartment was far from a motel six. The living room was huge, furnished with a black couch and love seat and a flat screen sitting on a short entertainment center, stacked on either side with movie cases. A glass coffee table sat inches form the couch, set with mahogany coasters surrounding a wine bottle.

            "It's super homey, huh?" Gage spoke again, reminding me that I wasn't in here alone.

            "Yeah." was my quiet, hardly audible response. He didn't seem to mind my quietness and began his walk down the long, dimly lit hallway. I followed slowly, keeping a safe distance behind so I could both keep my thoughts from slipping from my grip, and get a look at the picture frames on the walls. Most of them were of just Gage, from kindergarten to a more recent photo of him straddling the arm of the couch and flipping the camera off with a grin.

            "You done creeping on my baby pictures?" Gage asked from the room at the end of the hall, poking his head out with his eyebrows raised. "I begged her not to hang them, but you know how moms are."

            I continued to his room, ready to speak, but the words quickly died in my mouth when I stepped into the room. His entire room was covered from floor to ceiling in artwork, much of it extraordinarily dark. As expected by his fashion choices, all furniture in the room was black, apart from the navy-blue comforter disheveled on his bed.

            "Dr. Chao told me that drawing my feelings would help." he said, touching a palm to a large black circle above his bedframe. "So welcome to the inside of my head. Enjoy your stay."

            I wrapped my hand around the bed post, eyes roaming the room, but paused on the one decipherable drawing beside his computer desk. Wandering over, I was surprised to find the outline of a face, and by the looks of the hair he'd begun to trace the outline of, it was a female.

            "I'm not great with people." he leaned into the desk beside me, pulling at a rubber band around his wrist and letting it retract and leave a bright red mark. "I've been practicing, but most of the ones in my sketch book still look like ogres."

            I looked back at him. "It's good. The outline I mean. My dad was an artist and this is definitely a great foundation."

            "Thanks."

            "Who's it supposed to be?" I could tell my the anxious snapping of the rubber band against the same spot on his wrist that he was extraordinarily uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I care so much. Maybe it's because it reminds me of my dad."

            He pulled the band from his wrist and tossed it in the bin before walking back to his bed and pulling open his nightstand and pulled a bong from behind the lamp and packed a bowl as he spoke.

            "It's fine. I don't mind you asking questions, I'm just not used to people being in here is all." he said. "It's you."

            "Me?" I blinked, startled. "Why?"

            He shrugged, "You're in this dark abyss, I guess."

            Knocking on the side of his head, he smiled down at the weed. I crossed the room to him and sat to his left on the bed. "Is that a good thing or bad?"

            "What do you mean?"

            "Dr. Chao told me during our session today that she wanted me to make a list of the reasons why I don't want to be alive and on the other side the reasons why I do."

            He hit the bong, and this time he did cough a little, then cleared his throat and said, "If you're asking what side you're on, I'd say both."

            I wasn't sure how to take that, so I took the bong from him and let the silence fill the room until it was so horrifically interrupted by my hacking. He grabbed his bong before it could slip through my fingers and set it on the nightstand beside him, then fell back on his bed. I distanced myself so my side was pressed against the bed post and laid, rolling on to my side so I was facing him. "Your mom just lets you smoke in here?"

            There's a slight hesitation before he answers. "She told me she'd rather have me smoke it under her roof that run around behind her back doing harder drugs."

            That made sense.

            "Did April talk about herself at all when you guys were out?" he changed the subject, as if the prior conversation topic bothered him.

            I shook my head before realizing he was staring up at the ceiling and couldn't see me.

            "No. It was kind of awkward. Both of us so quiet."

            "She's only spoke a handful of times in the support group." he switched to his side so he was looking at me. "But you can tell she's been through some shit. I mean, we all have, but.  . . you know what I mean."

            I thought back to the conversation we'd had earlier tonight. "She said something weird. She said you told her your name was Maverick, what's with that?"

            "My name is technically still legally Maverick, but when my parents split, my Mom allowed me to take my nickname." he explained. "I mean, who the hell wants to have a name that sounds like a cigarette brand."

            I traced my fingers along the palm of my right hand. "I get it. My name is actually Marlene, but I hate it. Sounds like an old lady name."

            He started laughing so hard that it became contagious and a smile touched at my lips.

            "It totally does." he said breathlessly. "It's cool, even though when I hear Marley I think of the Golden Retriever from that movie. No offense."

            He said it as if I hadn't been tormented with that exact thing after that night. I'd been called a "bitch" and a "dog" amongst various other insults that had managed to get under skin I had deemed indestructible after my dad died.

            "Mar." Gage said after a few minutes of silence. "How about Mar? I like that. Reminds me of a Mars Bar. Mmm, that sounds good."

            He sat upright suddenly and jogged over to his closet. Sliding the door along the track he crouched down and grabbed a couple bags of chips and two large bags of chocolate. As soon as he reached the bed again, he dropped them between us and started to unwrap a kiss.

            "Want one?" he pushed the bag toward my side of the bed.

            I started to deny the offer, but my phone started ringing and I pulled it out and it immediately slipped through my fingertips and hit the comforter beneath me. My stepbrother's name lit my screen, as if there were any chance in hell I'd answer it. He was no doubt doing it to get a rise out of me.

            "Hey, what's wrong? Is it your mom?" Gage sat up, then grabbed my phone before I could. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and I prayed to God he wouldn't start to connect the dots on his own.

            "Gage, honey, your underwear and socks—okay hello!" a beautiful brunette woman appeared in the doorway, her eyes shooting from her son to me. "You didn't tell me you were going to have company over. It's been so long since. . . sorry, I'm Alyssa. Gage's mom."

            I sat up slowly, wiping my sweaty palms against the bottom of my shirt. "Marley."

            Alyssa set the laundry basket under her left arm in front of the closet and spoke, more to her son than me. "It's been so long since he's had anyone over. I'm just a little surprised is all. I didn't mean to just barge in."

            "It's fine, Mom." Gage was avoiding looking at his mother across the room, but her blue eyes remained on him. "You can leave now."

            The smile that she was so desperately trying to hold back extended across her face as she made her way back toward the door.

            "It was nice to meet you, Marley. Lights out by twelve, you know the rules."  Then Alyssa shut the door gently behind her, a wisp of her chocolate brown hair the only thing visible in the dark hallway.

            "Sorry about that. She usually knocks."  he opens the bag of Taki's in front of him and held them in my direction. I picked one out and rolled it between my fingers. "But are you good? Did Louis do something?"

            He destroyed me; he completely stripped away every part of me that made me who I was and held it over my head anytime I had the displeasure of having to meet those cold, dead eyes.

            "Your parents, they don't like me, do they?" he asked after a few seconds, staring down at the chip between his fingers. "I feel like that idiot has something to do with it."

            "He told them I was sneaking off campus with you." I replied, skinning a kiss of its foil. "And that you were a huge pothead."

            He shrugged his shoulder carelessly. "Eh, I'd rather be a pothead than an piece of shit. It's all good."

            It grew quiet again as we ate, him occasionally looking to the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing. But it started to gnaw at me, the quiet hum of my brother's heavy breathing in my ear.

            "I'm sorry." I blurted, "About the park. You shouldn't. . . I—"

            "It's okay." he met my eyes. "I understand, Mar. Don't worry about it.'

            I started to clench and unclench my hands. "You just seem more distant."

            "I've got shit going on with my dad."  he averted his gaze. "Has nothing to do with you. We're good."

            I looked down to my hand, and for a millisecond I saw the bruised ring Louis had left around my wrist that night that I'd scrubbed until it bled for weeks following. Turning my hands around I pressed my nails into the most recent cut and squeezed my eyes shut. Though the pain tuned out the voices and the memories, it didn't last long. I felt fingers curl gently around my own and opened my eyes to find Gage holding my hand, eyeing me, concerned.

            "Don't do that." he said, releasing my hands. "Promise me you're not going to hurt yourself."

            I waited a few seconds to see if he was going to add anything to the statement before I clenched my hands again.

            "I can't."

            "You can. You need to find another outlet. Another release."

            I looked to the drawings over his head. "I'm not an artist."

            "But you're good at something."

            "I'm good at hurting people." I breathed before I could stop myself.

            He didn't even try and think about and answer, he was just blurting whatever came to mind too. "I don't believe that."

            "You don't know me." I pressed my index finger against my chest. "You don't know who I am."

            "Maybe not." he stood, "But I want to."

            A cold laugh, as empty as the hole in my chest, left me. "Why would you want to do that?"

            "Because I don't see the same person you see when you look in the mirror, Mar." he crouched in front of me. "Just like you don't see me the way I see myself. We see everything that the naked eye can't detect, what's beneath the surface. And it's crazy because I see it in you."

            "See what?" I whispered, eyes searching his.

            He raked his fingers through his hairand looked up at me through his lashes. "Myself."