Finding Marnie: Heartless Few (#4) Read online

  Finding Marnie

  Heartless Few (#4)

  MV Ellis

  Finding Marnie © 2019 by MV Ellis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any written, electronic, recorded, or photocopied format without the express permission from the author or publisher as allowed under the terms and conditions with which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  Finding Marnie is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and places found therein are either from the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons alive or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For information, contact the publisher, Hot Tree Publishing.

  www.hottreepublishing.com

  Editing: Hot Tree Editing

  Cover Designer: Claire Smith

  Formatting: Justine Littleton

  ISBN: 978-1-925853-26-1

  Created with Vellum

  Blurb

  They're hiding in plain sight. Can they find each other without losing themselves?

  He is everything I want but know I can never have.

  Every fiber of my being has ached for Luke from the very first moment we met. However, with my parents’ legacy of toxic obsession woven into my DNA, I know love is pain and should be avoided at all costs. I'm unloved and unlovable. Still, in moments of weakness, I allow myself to imagine what it would be like if I was the kind of woman who deserved the love of a man like him.

  She is hiding in plain sight, waiting for me to find her.

  Marnie has had my heart from day one, and always will. It's just a shame I couldn’t muster the words to tell her so when we first locked eyes. It's a failing I will live to regret for years to come. However, I'm determined to make things right, even if it takes me a lifetime. I need her to know she is enough. In fact, she is more than that. She is everything.

  Their love is a legacy of broken hearts and shattered dreams. Can they find each other without losing themselves?

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Books by MV Ellis

  Acknowledgments

  Finding Marnie Playlist

  About the Publisher

  “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

  —Alfred Lord Tennyson.

  This one is dedicated to all the lost lovers. May you find yourselves, and each other.

  Chapter One

  Marnie

  I didn’t know if everyone could pinpoint the exact moment their life changed forever, that one defining moment that sealed their fate and made them who they are. I could.

  It was a Tuesday in April, just after Easter. I was thirteen. I had woken up and gotten ready for school alone and in silence, as usual. I wasn’t sure if my parents were home. Silence meant they’d be out cold, sleeping off the effects of the night before, or they were still out, and as far as they were concerned, the new day hadn’t even started yet. It made no material difference to me either way, so I never concerned myself with their presence or, more likely, their absence.

  I’d been seconds away from leaving when I remembered I’d left my calculus book in the kitchen the previous evening, as I puzzled over my homework while I ate. Alone. And in silence.

  As I rushed into the living room on my way to the kitchen, right away I’d known something was wrong. There had been an eerie stillness, and the air felt thick or heavy. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something definitely felt off. I edged cautiously into the room, and then I saw it. My mom’s skeletal arm resting on the side of the couch. I knew then that something was very badly wrong. On the rare occasions that my parents were home and functioning, if it could even be called that at this time of day, it was always chaos. Neither could keep still for a moment. There would be pacing, cursing, yelling, and general high drama. About money. About drugs. About money for drugs. About each other. I never knew the exact details—I tried to make myself as scarce as possible. The TV would often be blaring, along with music, adding to the confusion.

  Silence in this circumstance could only mean no good.

  “Mom?”

  No answer.

  “Mom?” I continued my slow, wary approach toward the couch, knowing I shouldn’t, that I wasn’t going to like what I saw when I got there. However, I found myself compelled to approach regardless. Stupid. It was like when I saw a quick movement on the other side of the room from the corner of my eye, and even while my brain told me not to look, my eyes automatically headed that way before I could stop them. It was always something gross like a roach or spider that I would much rather not have seen but then couldn’t ignore.

  I edged closer.

  “Mom?”

  I was now level with the couch, but I avoided turning toward it, fearing that what I saw would be far worse than an insect or arachnid. When I dared to look, my suspicions were confirmed. I gasped, closing my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, the vision before me would have disappeared as though it had all been just a terrible mirage. Sadly, when I dared to peek through half-closed eyelids, the horrific scene remained. I didn’t know it then, but it was to haunt my sleeping and waking dreams for the rest of my life.

  My mom and dad were dead. I knew it as sure as I knew my name was Marnie. My mom’s right arm gripped the side of the couch tightly—I guess that was the true meaning of a death grip. Her left arm was linked with my dad’s. Her spindly fingers were intertwined with his equally starved digits. Her head was tipped back, bloodshot eyes open and rolled back in her head. Her skin was a lifeless gray color, her lips were blue, and there was a thick, dark brown substance below her nose. Dried blood? My father was slumped forward, the hand not holding my mom’s resting on his knee, his head between his legs. Both arms were ashen. I was glad to have been spared seeing the ravages that death had wrought his face, but I knew he was dead.

  From their linked arms protruded empty hypodermic syringes. My first conclusion was the most obvious one, and the risk for any junkie every time they shot up, snorted, or smoked: an overdose. A pace toward them brought me one step closer to the truth. A piece of paper lay on the floor between their bruised and bloated feet—a folded “final demand” from the electric company. One word was scrawled on the top in eyeliner in my mom’s scrat
chy handwriting. ENOUGH. Realization hit me like a hundred-pound weight.

  I sucked in a huge gulp of air—I seemed to have forgotten to breathe—and kicked into survival mode. I rushed past them and into the kitchen, grabbing my calculus book from the table where I’d left it. Instead of heading out of the front of the house as normal, I took off through the back door, slamming it shut behind me.

  If I sprinted, I’d still make it in time for the school bus. I ran like the devil was on my back, then slowed to a normal pace on the corner of the block where the bus stopped. I reached the pickup point at the same time as the bus, breathing back to normal, nothing but red cheeks to signify anything was different about this Tuesday to any other. I took my normal seat in the back corner, hoping to be left alone, as I mostly always was.

  I moved through the school day on autopilot. I was there but not there, just going through the motions—not that anybody seemed to notice. I was thankful to fly under the radar. Every second, minute, and hour that passed took me further away from the terrible scene I’d witnessed earlier, and made me believe that maybe the whole thing had been nothing more than a bizarre dream.

  Maybe I’d wake up any moment at home in bed, tangled in my sheets, covered in a sheen of cold sweat. Or maybe the whole thing had been a waking hallucination. After school, I’d return to a deserted house as normal. I’d eat, do my homework, and go to bed, before starting the whole routine again the following day.

  * * *

  As I walked down the hall, a strange feeling came over me and settled in the pit of my stomach. It felt kind of like when I’d eaten a bowl of the gross ambrosia that my grandma Mia had insisted on forcing on me, despite my protests, when I’d stayed with her in New York one summer when I was little. The thick, gloopy mess had sat congealed in my gut like a lumpy stone, threatening to come back up if I didn’t sit still and concentrate on keeping it down.

  The thing was, apart from the unmentionable, I had no reason to be called to Principal Moreton’s office. I shuffled through my mental index cards again just to be certain, but there really was nothing. Sure, I had made out with Dean Jacobs behind the cafeteria after lunch yesterday, but that was hardly a punishable offense in the grand scheme of things. I had also skipped gym last week, feigning stomach cramps, and instead taken myself to the mall for window-shopping and a soda, but if I was going to get in trouble for that, it would have happened already.

  Plus, I had seen the expression on my history teacher, Mrs. Anderson’s, face when she saw the note that was handed to her, summoning me to the office. She had recovered quickly, but not fast enough to avoid putting the fear of God into me. She had spoken kindly when she’d told me to pack up my things and leave. Normally taking our books would signify a suspension or expulsion, but I was super sure that wasn’t the case with me. I had done nothing. If I didn’t know better, I would have said she’d had tears in her eyes as she spoke, but that couldn’t be. Teachers didn’t cry, did they? Even if they did, they didn’t do it in class.

  I walked slowly, knowing that I was only delaying the inevitable, and that doing so wouldn’t make the outcome any less painful. Still, I wanted to take a moment. With hindsight, I would be glad I had. As I pushed open the heavy, ugly brown door of the Principal’s office, I could tell by the look in her secretary Marie’s eyes as she greeted me that there was something wrong. Very wrong. It was that same look of sympathy I had seen on Mrs. Anderson’s face. Marie motioned with her head, indicating toward the second drab door.

  When opened it, my life changed forever. Along with the principal, there sat Ms. Arnott, the school guidance counselor, and a woman I didn’t know. I would later find out she was from Children’s Protective Services.

  Oh shit. I hesitated in the doorway, not wanting to enter, as though holding back would somehow undo whatever drama was about to unfold. Of course I knew that was impossible, but in that moment, however illogically, the thought gave me comfort and hope.

  Principal Morton looked up when she heard the swish of the door across the fugly carpet of her office. The fear and dread built in me even further. You didn’t get called to the principal’s office for her to smile at you, or be nice in any way. You were summoned there because you had fucked up—you’d been caught smoking, or fighting, or your grades were slipping and you were flunking out. All sorts of bad shit. You didn’t expect sympathy, unless something really awful had happened—like the time when James Gravlinski’s sister had been hit by a police cruiser and killed. He had gotten sympathy. Fuck.

  “Come in please, Marnie, and take a seat.” She motioned to the one empty chair in the room. I sat.

  One look at her face, and I knew. I just fucking knew.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  All day I’d been hoping it would magically go away, but it hadn’t. Deep down, I’d known it wouldn’t. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  At least that’s what I wanted to say. In reality, what came out was a string of garbled words, each one tripping over the last and completely unintelligible to anyone else in the room. Through my tears, I saw that Principal Morton looked like she would rather be anywhere else on Earth but there. She wasn’t alone in that. We were all in the same boat.

  “I’m so very sorry, Marnie. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m going to have to come right out with it. There has been an… ummm… incident at your house. Unfortunately, both your parents have died.”

  I felt my features literally crumble and turn on themselves, as though my skull had caved in, leaving not enough bone structure to carry my skin, sinew, and cartilage. Big, heavy tears spilled spontaneously from my eyes, and my whole body started to shake.

  She went on to explain. “Ahhh… we don’t know the full story yet, but the police who attended the scene have confirmed that your parents suffered apparent drug overdoses.”

  Up until that point, even though deep down I’d known it wasn’t going to be the case, for some stupid reason, I’d still held out a glimmer of hope that she had some other bad news to deliver. Like the house had burned to the ground and all my worldly possessions had gone up in flames with it. Like my parents had taken off for Vegas, never to return, finally admitting to the world what I already knew—that they didn’t want me. Like I was being expelled from school for missing gym, or kissing Dean. Like my whole life had been part of some Truman Show-style movie, and now was the time for the grand reveal. Although in truth, if my life was to be any movie, it would probably be The Hunger Games.

  “Sadly, it would appear that they took their own lives.”

  Now it was real. I don’t remember much of what happened next. Just that it was chaos. I was crying, screaming, and convulsing with the emotions I’d been suppressing all day, in the hope that it would somehow make the situation less real. I remember Ms. Arnott offering me a Kleenex and trying to slip a comforting arm around my shoulder. I’d shrugged her off—I may have even cursed her out. I couldn’t remember the last time either of my parents had hugged me. I didn’t need to be shown that kind of affection from a complete stranger.

  Amid the unfolding drama, I was overtaken by a strong feeling of nausea, and I knew I was going to hurl. I grabbed my dirty old backpack and ran out of the principal’s office at high speed and into the girl’s bathroom. I stumbled toward the first stall, flinging my backpack behind me at breakneck speed and banging the door shut.

  As I heard my bag slap against the wall and thud to the floor, I lurched jerkily to the bowl, just making it in time to watch my lunch spewing out of me and into it. The door swung and hit me on the ass. I shifted my weight onto one leg, using the other to prop it closed. I stood like a deranged flamingo heaving until I was empty of every last trace of food and a whole lot of bile. Though my throat burned and my eyes watered, I felt almost numb as I slid down the heavily graffitied stall wall. Numb was good. Not thinking or feeling was… perfect.

  Chapter Two

  Luke

  Of all the life-changing even
ts I’d experienced, one stood out. The day had started off unremarkably, apart from the fact that Arlo had woken up covered in spots and would clearly not be joining the rest of us at school. It was weird; I could have sworn that we had all had the chickenpox already but apparently not Arlo. He got the shitty end of the stick, catching it as a teenager. Watching him suffer with it—he had spots in his ears, and even in his mouth—made me feel lucky to have had it when I was a preschooler.

  I’d left the house with a feeling of dread about navigating school life without Arlo running interference. It wasn’t that I couldn’t make it through the day without him. It was more that I wasn’t comfortable doing so, due to a combination of crippling shyness and total laziness. Plus, it was the way things had always been. Even when we couldn’t stand the sight of each other at home or anywhere else, at school Arlo was the voice for both of us, whenever possible. A person didn’t need to be an expert in twin psychology to know that we were a weird bunch—identical twins even more so.