WHO Marcella WHEN Friday night WHERE Marcie’s apartment WHAT very slow processing WARNINGS depression and grief
She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, because she couldn't think of anything else to do.
This morning, she had managed to have a shower for the first time in a week, somehow motivating herself to get clean and to wash her hair, but she had only made it as far as her bed before she crawled back onto it and stopped moving. Her hair slowly dried around her face, but she didn't move, didn't speak, only existed.
The Parsonage had been helpful for her at first, but after the loss of Kaden, she'd gone back to her own bed, where she could mourn in peace without being bothered and reminded that sometimes she needed to eat, or drink, or talk to people. Not that she was starving. When she got hungry enough, she went through the motions and made toast or ordered a pizza that sat mostly untouched in her fridge to be slowly nibbled down over a couple of days.
Much still messaged her. He'd given up trying to call her because she never answered, but a text message she would reply to. Eventually. Emails sat unanswered; messages unopened. None of them were from Hecate.
Driving her car had been somewhat of a sanctuary for her to process and get out of her room for a while, driving for miles and miles. She would find herself on a beach somewhere south, and stand on the dunes and let the wind whip at her until she got too cold, the crashing waves vibing with her soul.
Only, yesterday, when she'd got down to the parking garage, her car was gone, as if it had never been there, and she knew who had done it and why. She called the police and reported it stolen of course, for insurance purposes, and had been completely unsurprised to be informed this morning that her car had been found burnt out on the riverbank.
She'd brought it on herself by attacking Ares' car. She shouldn't have done that. But it had felt so satisfying after everything that had happened. After finding out that Kaden-
Sometimes she considered contacting Apollo and offering herself up to him. Let him have his way with her, it didn't matter. Her body was empty and her heart broken. He couldn't take much more away from her than she'd already lost, and it reduced the number of Olympians she was watching over her shoulder for by one.
But of course she didn't. Tragos would've been so angry if she'd done that.
By all the gods, she missed Tragos, achingly so. Closing her eyes, she pulled up the memory of him: his surprisingly sweet smile, his strong arms, the warmth of him, the scent. And then Kaden, and the way the brothers had been around each other that last night, and Kaden’s mischievous smile, brazenly hitting on her despite everything.
Kaden, whose voice had gasped with fear over the phone. Kaden, whom she had left alone to die instead of going to find him. Kaden, who was too good and precious for this world.
So now she lay alone, hollow, brittle, empty, bereft. She had lost her lover, lost his brother, lost even her one means of escape. She was helpless and hopeless, her grief pressing down on her and suffocating and sucking the warmth out of everything until she felt cold and numb all the time. Tears dripped unhindered down the sides of her face and into her damp hair.
She knew that life must go on. But for now, she grieved so intensely that she felt like her heart must surely bleed out from the pain. And she lay alone, remembering how to keep on existing, inhale and exhale, put food in body, but not really knowing how to get up and keep on living.