It goes on for a minute, maybe two.
Then Marnie lowers the knife, lets her arm fall to her side.
She looks at me, then at James, and then at the mess of a room.
“You two figure it out,” she harrumphs. “I’m getting dressed.”
She backs out of the room, eyes never leaving us, and disappears down the hall.
We sit in the dark, breathing hard, the silence thick as syrup.
I glance at James. He looks at the floor.
Nobody won this, and we only have ourselves to blame.
It takesa full minute before either of us moves. The blood is sticky on my upper lip, drying in a crust that stings when I try to wipe it. James is hunched over, staring at his busted knuckles. The place smells like copper and sweat and, weirdly, the faint lilac sweetness of Marnie’s shampoo.
When the bedroom door creaks open, she’s back in the same state as before—nude except for a tiny towel hugging her frame, her hair a tangled halo, the knife still in her grip. She looks more composed now. Or maybe just drained.
She stands there, watching us with the flat, glassy eyes of someone who’s cried out every last tear.
James tries to speak first, but his voice is wrecked. “What do you want, Marnie?” It’s not a question so much as a plea, his handsome features lost.
She shifts the knife to her left hand and picks at the edge of the sheet. “I want you to stop fighting over me. I want you to act like grown men, not—” She laughs, hollow. “Not whatever that was.”
James gestures at the mess around us. “You made us like this.”
“Bullshit,” I cut in, my voice hoarse. “You’ve never needed a reason to go full animal, asshole.”
James rounds on me, teeth bared. “And you haven’t? You were fucking her behind my back.”
My stomach drops. “Okay yeah, so I was. So what? Shewantedit.”
Marnie cuts me off. “Stop. Please. It’s not what you think.” She slumps onto the edge of the bed, knife dangling uselessly. The towel slips a bit, revealing a big, ivory breast, but she doesn’t care. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I was just trying to survive my life and you two—” She breaks, tears starting up again, “—you two made me feel alive, and I didn’t want to let that go. I didn’t know what to do either, and I’m just so confused.”
James paces, a caged beast, then slams his fist into the already-ruined closet door. “So what, you’re just going to string us both along until you get bored?”
She sets the knife down, stands, and faces him, eyes rimmed red but steady. “I love you both, okay?” Her voice is a whisper. “Is that so hard to believe? But I didn’t know the rules, and I still don’t! So what was I supposed to do?”
For a second, there’s just the tick of the busted lamp bulb, the faint wail of a siren from the street below. Then I hear my own voice, weird and unfamiliar, saying, “I believe you.”
James’s shoulders sag. “Jesus, Marnie.”
She lets out a long, shuddering breath. “I’ve been confused, okay? I tried to ask whether it was okay for me to date you guys one on one but I never got the opportunity, and I didn’t even knowhowto ask it. I mean, how do you say, I already fucked your friend without you there. Is that okay?”
I smile wryly.
“Well, you just asked the question pretty good right now, sweetheart.”
She turns to me, eyes flashing, the knife lifted in her hand again.
“I will cut your balls off, Brent, so help me god.”
This time, it’s James who answers.
“None of this is your fault, Marnie. The problem is that both Brent and I are greedy fucks.”
I nod. “I have to agree with that statement.”
