#c16. sturgis podmore

[marlenethemenace]

WHEN: 9 December, 1979, between Dueling Club and dinner WHERE: Transfiguration corridor

“Not looking for me, I hope.”

Marlene’s feet -- which had carried her to the empty Transfiguration corridor of their own volition, propelled by the last few scarlet threads Vivian Travers had shrouded her in -- came to an electrified halt. They might have been looking for Gilbert Selwyn, but the rest of Marlene had not been. In fact, half of her had thought he wouldn’t be there when she came looking, but the other half of her had hoped it. Being alone with Gilbert ever again was one of the last things Marlene wanted for herself, if she even wanted it at all. But now, in the wake of his voice---

Marlene kept her back to him as the panic set in, more familiar to her now than she wanted to admit, especially as she realized the power it wielded had never waned. It spanned across the wide, gaping chasm between want and need that she had always wrestled with, especially where Gilbert was concerned. As she found herself inching closer towards the latter -- and closer to the wizard who had happened upon her with loud, ferocious steps -- Marlene wondered if this thing she dreaded didn’t fall neatly into that category.

“I need to talk to you.”

Unsurprisingly, Gilbert stayed silent. But he nodded. He nodded, and then he opened the door to his favorite unused classroom with well fabricated kindness. He stepped to the side, allowing for Marlene to lead the way in before he closed it behind them.

Before she could lose the nerve, Marlene opened her mouth to speak, loose ends flying about as she searched for the precise ones that had haunted her on the way up the stairs---but the attempt proved fruitless when the lock clicked in her ears, and she was forced to confront, at long last, a face she had only seen of late in dreams and nightmares. This was the first time in months that Marlene had taken note the details of Gilbert’s face, and how they had changed from the way she remembered him. Glimpses of dark hair and cheeky smirks in the corridors had hardly made a picture, and Marlene found now that the pieces she had drawn in from memory were strangely shaped, deformed and discolored when held up for comparison. The bags that had once dangled beneath his eyes were gone now, replaced by a new breed of confidence that had changed the angles of his mouth when it was at rest. And yet, he looked the same---just as patronizing and misunderstanding as he had ever been before. Maybe even, somehow, more. Worse, Marlene dared to think as she grew brave enough to meet Gilbert's eyes. Flat, plain, monotonous eyes that had once stretched to such depths. Or had they? Marlene wondered as a dissatisfied scowl slunk its way onto her face. Maybe there had never been any real depth there to begin with; or perhaps it had always been Marlene’s, skillfully projected and refracted back at her where he lacked by the both of them. She felt especially lacking now, hollowed out and useless everywhere but the eyes that had been burdened with this new, uninviting image of an older and just as unwise Gilbert.

“I haven’t forgotten your birthday.” It was simultaneously the most and least surprising thing to come from Gilbert’s mouth. He had always managed to exist just beyond the periphery of understanding when it came to Marlene, a point only proven further when he pulled from his bag a long, thin box that boasted an obviously expensive piece of jewelry inside. He extended it, but she did not take it. Even when waved in her face, it was the dimmest of details in this vibrant nightmare of a moment. “No matter which owl I try, Brian’s not been very receptive.”

“That’s not what I’m here for.” Marlene snatched the box from between them. She turned the unopened box over in her hands, stunned into silence again by the attempt at an olive branch that felt more akin to an unpotted cactus in her fingers. But Gilbert knew that. He had to know, in some capacity, why it was she had come here, even if she was later than expected. Her anger didn’t feel so erratic and loud anymore, like it had when Vivian had first swaddled her in it; it instead rattled impatiently beneath her feet. Once her eyes had adjusted to the way the shadows that hung from Gilbert’s shoulders had shifted, Marlene still didn’t know how to begin.

“I know I said you didn’t have to say anything.” She had hoped he would at least pretend to concentrate on setting up his cauldron, the same way she hastily stuffed the gift into her bag with great intent, but the weight of Gilbert’s unoccupied gaze stayed, weighing down her every movement, coloring the anxious breath that controlled her every word. “Or even that you had to acknowledge it.” She would be glad to be home at Number 5 an hour from now, she told herself as she zipped her bag shut, freshly scrubbed clean and bundled up with thick socks and a wool blanket. “And I meant it then. I really did.” Maybe a little lighter with the truth of her tangled and torn feelings discarded from her shoulders. “But it bothers me that you didn’t.”

A far more long and treacherous silence than the others stretched beyond the time Marlene had allotted herself for this poorly budgeted interaction. Silence was unsurprising with Gilbert, but what did surprise her, once Gilbert had walked around the room only to land on the edge of the table in front of her, was his continued nonchalance, the same perfectly practiced pretending that had driven her to the brink of insanity in these lonely past months. It took, this time, the form of another long silence, and more disappointing words.

“It bothers you that I didn’t do what, exactly?”

“Don’t.” The world was suddenly crimson again, this time without Vivian’s help. But this was not so vibrant a crimson. It was dark, certainly, but not nearly so fleeting. Instead of filtering Marlene’s vision like a thin scarf around the eyes, it colored the earth at its very roots, seeping up through the quaking foundation in a toxic haze. “Of all the things to be a cunt about, Gil.” Two furious and fiery tears cropped into the corners of her eyes, sprouted not from sadness, but the irrevocable anger that longed so desperately to escape that it cracked her voice on its way to freedom. “And now you want me to be the one to say it out loud---”

“Say what?”

“The letter,” Marlene hissed back at his impatience. “The one that Rosalind found.” She watched Gilbert’s face carefully now, with no inkling of a clue as to what it would reflect back at her next. “About me being pregnant.” Unsurprisingly, Gilbert remained, again, silent. But Marlene sensed something different in this silence---a certain lack of intention, an air desire for a loud response to crack it open with, an unpreparedness that she, ironically, had not been prepared for at all. When she allowed the truth to sink in, accompanied by the memory of Rosalind’s satisfied smirk as she had slunk away that night on the beach, Marlene felt as flatly ironed out as the eyes that stared back at her.

“You didn’t know.” The twin tears in her eye slid down her cheek, taking with them every last exhausting ounce of anger that Marlene had clung to. Just as she had when she had written him in June, she clung now to the simple facts. “She found the letter,” Marlene said slowly, eyes widening with every word. “And she didn’t tell you. She didn’t tell you I was pregnant.” But it was all for naught. No words came to break the silence; no emotion colored the blank expression on his face. Even with the truth laid so largely and plainly between them at last, Gilbert gave Marlene nothing in return.

“But you took care of it, didn’t you?”

Nothing but disappointment.

“Yes, Gil.” Her teeth clenched behind the words, making it all the more impossible to get out the next, even as she deadpanned them. She thought she understood him now, after all these years. Even one drop of emotion from her now would have unleashed an unforgiving, messy flood. Maybe Gilbert was simply an old neglected dam, ready to burst at the first sign of minor disrepair. But then came the relief in Gilbert’s eyes as she uttered the words, “I took care of it.” They gave Marlene enough pause to retrace those steps. Maybe there really was nothing there to be held back.

“Good.” Good. “Great.” Great. It was the only sincere smile Gilbert had dared to give her in those moments alone. And Marlene, taking a page from his book, refracted an insincere one right back. “And you’re alright, aren’t you?”

She was---physically, at least, which was all Gilbert cared about, if he even had the sense to do that. Anything else--- Marlene was too numb now to recognize anything she might have been feeling, much less to reconcile it with him now. The blood that had beat the war drums in her ears earlier had returned, this time with a much more melancholy symphony than before. It didn’t beg her to fight anymore; perhaps because she knew now that there was nothing there for her to fight for.

“I’m alright.”

Marlene smiled through the lie; he wouldn’t know the difference. And if he did, he wouldn’t care enough to let on. “It just seemed important that you knew, is all.” And now, it just seemed silly. Like a defunct firecracker, she shot past him for the door, nodding through the echoes of whatever parting words Gilbert was offering her now. When she could stand them no longer, she slammed the door in his face, and kept walking.