Page 122 of The Misfit

Like this moment, sometimes the most unexpected encounters bring the healing we need.

“You’re a long way from the gala.” Marcus steps back from the edge, his formal clothes matching my own state of dishevelment. “Lee finally drive you to the edge?”

The attempt at cruelty falls flat, his voice lacking its usual bite. We stand there, measuring the space between us—space filled with Chelsea’s memory, with shared guilt, with everything we’ve never said.

“Why are you here, Marcus?” My bare hands clench at my sides, but I don’t retreat. Not this time.

“Same reason as you, probably.” He turns back to the view, shoulders tight under his jacket. “Can’t stop thinking about her. About that night. About how everything went so fucking wrong.”

The words hang in the night air, heavy with the truth we’ve both been avoiding. Below us, water flickers like fallen stars in the moonlight, and I remember how Chelsea used to say this spot made her feel closer to heaven. Here, the jump is too dangerous, the edge of the cliff jutting out too far above the river. Every time I hear about people swimming down farther and jumping these cliffs for fun, it makes me feel nauseated.

“I didn’t see her text.” The confession spills out two years too late. “I was too busy organizing my stupid sock drawer, too focused on making everything perfect to check my phone. If I had just?—”

“Stop.” Marcus’s voice cracks. “Just … fucking stop. I’m so tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of blaming. Tired of surviving. I know I’ve led you to believe that night was your fault, but it wasn’t. None of it was your fault.” The words are almost begrudging.

“I don’t understand. You’ve been making my life hell since I came back to school, and now you’re saying it wasn’t my fault?” Anger curls through me, low and simmering.

This asshole.I knew he had his own guilt, that he, too, suffered from her loss, but to hurt me, to make me feel ten times worse than I already did … It doesn’t just hurt. It burns. It angers me. I clench my hands into tight fists to stop myself from lashing out at him.

He tilts his head to the side, and I spot the sheen of tears trailing across his high cheekbones. “I know you’re mad. That you probably hate me. No worries, I hate myself, too. When you’re lost in your grief and guilt, you have to do something to make it through the day. You have to find a way to survive.”

“And bullying me helped you how?” I demand.

His shoulders slump, and he shakes his head. “It didn’t. I just hoped it would. If I blamed someone else, then I could stop blaming myself.”

Again, I find myself confused. “What do you mean? You make it sound like this is your fault, and if it’s not mine, then it definitely isn’t yours, either. Bad things happen sometimes. She made a choice, and we all have to live with that.”

“A choice I could’ve stopped her from making.”

“I could say the same thing, Marcus.”

He shifts back and forth in the dirt, casting little billows around his feet. “You want to know why she really came here that night? Why she really did it?”

My breath catches. In two years, we’ve never talked about this. Never acknowledged the truth we both carried. Chelsea was beautiful, funny, and kind, but a darkness lived inside her. She talked about dying and death more than anyone I know. I thought she used it as a form of coping, but … “Marcus?—”

“The truth is she caught me fucking Amy Peterson behind the gym.” The words rush out like he’s been holding them in forever. My heart lurches in my chest. He cheated on her. He broke her heart and pushed her over the edge. “I was young, stupid, and way too fucking immature for a girl like her. I didn’t realize the impact it would have on her. I didn’t think she would find out. She wasn’t supposed to be there, but I found out later that she was looking for me. Wanted to surprise me. Instead, she saw me being the worst kind of asshole.”

Understanding hits like a physical blow. All this time, I thought … we all thought…

“She texted me almost immediately,” he continues, voice raw. “Told me she knew. That she couldn’t handle one more person betraying her. That she was done trying to be perfect for me and everyone else.” He laughs, but it sounds like he’s in pain. “She texted you because you were the only one who never expected her to be perfect. The only one who loved her exactly as she was.”

The truth of that lands harder than any blame ever could. He’s right. I know that. I never tried to fix Chelsea. Never needed her to be anything other than herself.

Not until that last night, when I was too busy fixing my own world to see that hers was falling apart.

“I always thought …” I swallow hard. “I thought you blamed me. For not being here. For not stopping her.”

“No, Salem. I blamed myself.” His voice breaks completely. “I still do. And even while I carried that truth around all this time, I never wanted to face it. It’s always been easier to be angry with you than to accept the part I played in all of this. Easier to make you the villain than admit I’m the reason she stood on this cliff alone.”

We stand there in the darkness, two broken people finally facing the truth we’ve hidden behind masks of hatred and guilt.

Neither of us is truly responsible for Chelsea’s choice.

Both of us are carrying a weight that was never ours to bear.

Both of us are finally ready to let go.

Maybe.

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