Re: Phone Call: Seven/Marta
[The only thing that he's got between the cavity under his ribs and the other end of that phone line, it's just a trench carved out with fingers through flesh and filled in with gravel or shards of glass. It fucking hurts and it's taken years to build up again and if Seven tells himself that it's anything but shaky ground, he'd be lying.]
She used to be ours. She could have been ours. [His voice breaks like a branch in a windstorm on the emphasis, and he feels the sting of salt at the corners of his eyes and he hates that, hates the heat that prickles up the back of his neck and the pressure behind his forehead. Furiously, he rubs over his closed eyelids.] I asked you. I asked you a year ago, what you were going to do. And you said you were getting better, working to try and be better so that maybe you'd be okay to see her again one day.
[He takes a deep breath, scrubs at his eyes with the back of his sleeve so that it comes away damp.] I'm not taking that off the table, yeah? But that's not for you, that's for her. She deserves a better shot than you or I had.
[He doesn't blame her for shouting. He wishes that he felt like shouting, like screaming until his voice was raw, but all he wants is to hold Sawyer in his arms, the two of them crowded into her tiny little princess bed until she falls asleep and his legs cramp and he stays through the pain, anyway.] I loved you so fucking much, Marta. No matter how much you doubted or denied it, I did. And that's why I can't come say it to your face - because I don't fucking trust myself to get it out. So I'm sorry, but no. I don't love you now. You hurt me and I can't ever trust you not to do it again. But I really want to hope that one day I can trust you not to do the same to her.
[And as much as he hates that his voice is still shards in his mouth and his lashes are brimming damp, he has to get out the last:] If you want to go into transitional housing, tell your doctor and she'll call me. Take care of yourself, okay? [A pause, while he swallows.] 'bye, Marta.