Re: Phone Call: Seven/Marta
It means that it’s not your fault that you did fucking shitty, selfish things when you were in active addiction, okay? [And if he snaps it at her just a little, jaw ticking tight, it’s because he’s fucking annoyed by the push-back. It’s not all bad, because it’s Marta, and somewhere subconsciously he’s glad to hear her, but also hearing her pisses him off because it reminds him that he hasn’t, for fucking years.] For hurting people, and hurting yourself… all that shit you did while you were using? None of it’s your fault.
[He takes a breath, and pulls the phone away from his mouth when he exhales because of how unsteady it comes out. When his voice comes back, he sounds a little closer to calm. Restrained.] Yeah, it’s your responsibility to make up for those things. Make fucking amends, I guess. And yeah, the rest of it, that’s your fault. The shit you did before you started using. When you weren’t being controlled by an active addiction. [And he’s talking about himself, about them, about Sawyer, but he doesn’t sound angry now. Hollow, maybe. A little sad.] So you need to figure out how to live with that, without self-destructing. That’s your responsibility now, too.
[Listening to her shakily list off the bare bones sketch of a plan, there’s something that he’s waiting for, and even though he doesn’t think it’ll come, he still hates that it doesn’t. She doesn’t say a single fucking thing about Sawyer. He gets, intellectually, that her plan needs to be one day at a time, immediate-future stuff instead of making grand statements of expectation. But he was still waiting for her to say something about wanting to get to a point where they could at least fucking talk about it -- and in that moment, right there, he has to hold onto the same understanding that he’d reached, or thought he had, around the time Marta called him that night: that her leaving, not being a part of Sawyer’s life, was the best thing for her. And it was inevitable that following behind that came the knowledge that it was better for Seven, too.
He needed to let the fuck go.]
Look, Marta. I’m proud of you, yeah? Of what you’re doing. I’m happy for you, and I want the best for you. I don't want you to hurt anymore either. [Steadier, now.] And I don’t want to tell you what to do. If you decide you want to go to a sober living house, I will help you with whatever I can, yeah? And, okay, no I don’t think going straight from rehab to living somewhere that isn’t equipped to help you make that transition is a good fucking idea, but you need to do what you think is right for you. [A pause then, and he has to swallow before he can say the rest, even with the memory fresh of Marta’s doctor making her recommendation on how he could try to do what was right for him.]
But after this, I can’t help you anymore. I need to take care of myself, and my daughter. That’s my responsibility. I’ve been holding onto you, when I shouldn’t have, and that’s my fault because it hasn’t helped either of us. And I’m sorry for that.