Carter's War - 30. Chapter 30

He sat in silence in the passenger seat, almost impassive. They hadn't talked since they had left the party, the Volkswagen cruising along an almost deserted Don Valley Parkway. At nearly three am, there wasn't much traffic heading in their direction. It was quiet in the car, neither really saying anything to each other; the tension was so thick that Marc was sure it could be cut with a knife.

He stared out of the window and wondered how his life had become so messed up. But he had always been messed up, his mother and her life spilling over into his. In a way he hated her for the legacy of pain she had given to him. It was as if she had shed her life and gone on to happiness leaving him with the burden of carrying her baggage.

He bitterly tapped his knuckle against the window, staring out at the Don Valley beside him, and the lights of downtown Toronto just beyond. The CN tower dominated the skyline, a proud declaration to the world that Canada wasn't going to be overlooked. But it was overlooked, it was forgotten about by much of the world. And that made him angrier.

He looked over at her, her hands tight on the steering wheel as she stared ahead at the road. Refusing to look at him, her anger barely kept in check. And he knew she had every right to be angry with him. He'd betrayed her, he had let her down, and he didn't love her.

How many times had he tried? How many times had he found himself relying on her? And each time, he found guilt eating away at him. He resented her for the pressure she put on him, that need she had for him to be everything in her world. As if he could ever be that to her. She didn't need some unemployed bum leaching off of her life. She was so much better than that, if only he could make her understand that.

He watched as she accelerated around another car, continuing on in silence.

She was beautiful; her dark curls embracing her neck, the diamond earrings that stood out against her skin so perfectly. She had been born to be beautiful, she had been born to be successful. She was set to become a doctor, to cure the world of its ills. But she couldn't heal her own wounds.

What was he to her anyway? An emotional crutch for her in a moment of weakness? He wasn't a status symbol; Lucas was better for her in that sense. At least if she married him they would compliment each other. Whereas Marc sincerely felt wrong standing beside her, he would never be able to be the man she needed.

He swallowed back a ball of emotion in his throat as he stared back at the skyscrapers, then there was Will and all the confusion that lay there. He was another person that complicated his life. But Will didn't need him; in a way it was Marc who needed Will. There was no pressure to be more than who he was there, he could just be himself, and Will just seemed to accept that.

Marc's gaze drifted back to Libbet, she stood in the way. There was no avoiding that fact. He cared about her, and was desperate not to hurt her, but he was denying himself and what he wanted.

Was he saying to himself that he wanted Will?

Will was a strong and independent man, stuffy and set in his ways, but he had a strength to him that... Marc wanted. He was handsome in a tall dark kind of way, and the way his profile looked in the twilight at the party. The way he dealt with the world. It was strange, but Marc actually felt calm, safe when he was with Will, that the world couldn't hurt him.

Marc swallowed again and breathed a heavy sigh, his life was upside down. On the one hand he had a responsibility to the woman who loved him, on the other he had the man he loved. They were night and day, the complete opposites of each other, and there, in the middle was a scrawny, insecure young man afraid to live.

Libbet knew, what she knew Marc could only guess. But she knew something was wrong. She was angry with him for not telling her what was wrong when they had arrived. Angry at him for his fight with Lucas in the gardens, and she was angry with him now because she knew she was losing him and he wasn't even fighting to stop it.

He wanted to say something to her, to explain everything to her. She deserved to know what was going through his head, to have something to say about it. But he couldn't bring himself to say anything. She would be devastated and he knew that. If he had any sense he wouldn't have stayed in Toronto in the first place. He should have just kept on going down the road, alone.

She broke the silence first, "Why did you fight Lucas?"

He looked over at her, the only sound other than the engine since they had left her father's estate, and she had gone straight for the one question he didn't want to answer. He swallowed as he searched for something, anything to say, but anything other than the truth would only prolong the inevitable.

He rested his head against the car window and chose his words carefully. "He...I..." he struggled for the words and failed miserably, "He said things I didn't want to hear."

She looked over at him, her eyes searching his for some hidden meaning, "And you hit him because of that?"

"I hit him because he was telling the truth," Marc said as his head fell back against the seat and his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "Things I didn't want to admit."

She swallowed back.

Marc knew that it wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair to be feeling all guilty inside over someone else's emotional state. She was desperate to hold onto him for her own selfish reasons. She may have been in love with him, but was it really his fault that he didn't feel the same way? If it wasn't, then why was he still sitting there?

"What?" she asked, her lips were shaking. "What's wrong?"

"I..." he started. "I can't do this."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got into that fight, I'm sorry that when we got here I didn't tell you what was wrong. But it doesn't matter how sorry I am, it still doesn't change things."

She looked away from him. "You don't know why I'm upset. You have no clue. You're too busy fucking up your life to realize it. You're too consumed by whatever is bothering you to stop and think about how it's affecting everyone else. You're selfish. So what? Big deal. It's not as if you're hurting anyone else."

She blinked back tears, as she tried to keep her eyes on the road, "I don't want to be with you just because you feel like you have to be with me. I love you, and I know you love me too, even if you don't show it."

"Shit," Marc swore, "I'm not the one who doesn't understand here. It's always been about you and your needs. I've put you first ever since I got back. I've put my life on hold for you." He scrubbed a hand through his hair.

He hesitated again.

"Can you just listen to me, please? Can I just have some of your time to explain all of this to you?"

She had seen that look on his face before, the day before he had vanished from her life. That ashen look that said the world was caving in upon him.

"Will you, please?" Marc asked again. "I'm okay being an asshole to idiots like Lucas fucking Weippert, because he's one of the biggest out there. But I won't be an asshole to you anymore if you listen to me. Can you just give ten minutes?"

She stared ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel in disbelief, after everything she had done he was actually doing this, to her. He was going to leave her again.

She sucked in air. "You have nothing to explain to me, Marc. I'm no one to you. If I had been you wouldn't have left me in the first place. I'm sick of your games, why'd you come back if you didn't love me?"

She looked up at him and saw him push the hair off his face.

"I'm sorry," he said it all coming out in a rush, "I don't love you. You and I were a mistake. I care about you... but I don't love you, I'm sorry... I can't explain why. I just know I don't." He stopped himself, "I punched Lucas because he was telling me things I knew myself, I punched him because I couldn't punch myself. It's been killing me for weeks."

"You've felt this way for weeks?" her voice was painfully quiet.

For the first time, he was quiet.

No fast answers.

No hurrying to get out everything he wanted to say.

Just silence.

"Why didn't you say something to me? Why did you let me believe we had a future when you..." she fell silent.

"I didn't want to hurt you," he said desperately.

"Congratulations," she said with bitter sarcasm. "You sure dodged that bullet."

"I..." he began, "I'm sorry..."

He wished there was something he could do to get her to understand him, but if he didn't talk there was no way she was ever going to get it.

Then he did it.

He turned slowly, the anger was gone, the frown had faded and all that was left was a pair of sombre, blue eyes that couldn't contain emotion for much longer. He swallowed back his tears, and he looked around at himself then threw a quick glance over his shoulder.

"Are we..." she said as she sighed looking over at him. "Are we breaking up?"

"We've already broken up," he said sadly.

She nodded silently, "Oh."

She touched the brakes to slow down for the lakeshore exit, and pumped them in vain, the car's speedometer continuing to climb. She stared at it as she pumped again with her high-heeled shoe.

She looked at him desperately and it took a moment for him to realize the brakes had failed. He looked frantically as their exit shot past, the car cruising past it too fast for them to turn off.

"I can't stop!" she cried, her foot still working the brake.

"Put it in neutral!" Marc said.

"What?" she asked, turning to him with tear-soaked wild eyes; panic was taking hold of her.

Marc reacted quickly and grabbed the automatics leaver and slammed the car into neutral. Immediately the car began to coast, but showed no sign of slowing down to a safe speed.

On instinct he reached out again and slammed the transmission into Park.

The car fishtailed as one of the wheels locked the other continued to spin. Libbet fought with the wheel to keep control as the small Volkswagen slid to a halt spinning around a hundred and eighty degrees, grinding to a hand on the emergency lane of the expressway.

They both sat; staring in disbelief at the fact they were alive, as the car's engine purred menacingly in the background.