Scar Tissue

“Well at least you’re still dressed. Get up. We’re going to the hospital.” 

Marlene’s stomach lurched. It all fell into place. The fact that Laurie wasn’t in his bed - she should have known. She pushed herself up from the bed, following her mother to the car.

The ride to the hospital was a blur. Marlene spent the whole time picking apart her memories of the past few days - had she noticed Laurie get any worse? Usually she could tell these things. He always came to her for help - she was the only one that took him seriously - but she’d been so busy the past few days. She’s sure she would have noticed. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing it for. Is she trying to pinpoint an exact time where she ignored him? Is this some weird self-punishing thing she’s got going on? She just couldn’t make herself stop doing it.

She went through her memories again.

And again.

And again. 

The harsh lights of the hospital sign weren’t  enough to pull her out of her trance. She slowly registered the small congregation that was her family in the waiting room. Various brothers were laying on cold metal chairs or buying food at the vending machines. Was that a scratch she noticed on Laurie’s arm the other day at breakfast? Her dad was sitting in one of the chairs, talking to Tony. Of course he wasn’t in the room with Laurie. Of course they had left him alone.

“Why is no one with him?” she almost shouted as she made her way over to them. 

“Care to not make a scene in the middle of a hospital waiting room?” Tony drawled, bitterly. Marlene thought to herself that she must not be a very good person, because in this moment she was honestly not above decking him full in the face. “Besides, they haven’t told us where he was.”

“Well have you asked?” Marlene responded in much the same way you would to a small child. Tony just rolled his eyes. Fucking typical.

She spun around and stormed her way over to the counter where her mom was talking to one of the nurses. Before she could get there, her mother turned around and nodded in the direction of the double doors.

“Room four.” she supplied.

It took Marlene four seconds to realise she was following her. Her stomach felt like battery acid. Her mother strode in front of her, black curls bouncing with every step she took as they made their way down the corridor.  Marlene saw the numbers one to three on the doors go by her in rapid succession, not really paying attention. She felt oddly like she did when she was a small child, following her mom around the grocery store or the mall or family events. She often felt that way with her mother, like reality was slightly dulled, all that was asked of her was to follow and help. It was comforting in a way, to revert back to the child that just needed her mom to show her the way.

They turned left towards the end of the corridor and into room four. It was filled with five other patients, each of them hidden to varying degrees behind a light green curtain. The white tiles on the ceiling were interspersed with square white lights. The floor was covered in that plastic material that was always in hospitals. Marlene hated it. 

In her ideal hospital, the walls would be dark blue, and the floor would be mahogany, like in the olden days. The nurses would also wear those cute little hats that they wore in the olden days, too. Her and Laurie always talked about it whenever he had to stay over. They would spend hours picking apart the room and replacing it with things they thought were much better. Laurie was surprisingly good at that, he had a very clear vision (just like Marlene) except his was much less eclectic. She always thought he would be good at interior design. 

They were pointed to the bed in the right-hand corner. She pulled back the curtains to reveal Laurence on the bed. He was so small - that’s what she always thought when she saw him there. His hands had been tied to the side of the bed with metal cuffs covered in foam padding. She could see the red splotches where he had scratched himself all over his arms, but the worst was on his face. Raw, Inflamed splotches of pink covered his nose and the area on the side of his eyes. 

He looked at them with such desperation, pools of tears in his eyes. 

“Please.” he begged in a small voice. 

“That’s enough, okay?” her mom interjected, her voice wobbled but she stayed firm, “You know what happened last time. We don’t want that to happen again.” 

“We don’t want what to happen again?” a voice came from behind them - her father. She rolled her eyes. Now he comes. 

“We don’t want them to sedate him like last time.” 

“Honestly, I wouldn’t mind…” came a small voice from Laurey in the bed. Of course he would. Was that really so bad? It probably was. It was probably Marlene’s fucked up brain that thought that pumping his system full of drugs would be the right response here, just like she thought that completely ignoring her brother for the past month or so wouldn’t lead to any harm. 

“I’m sorry,” Marlene’s mom started, moving over to Laurie to press a soothing hand to his head, rubbing in circles.

It was moments like these that she truly appreciated her mom. She was probably more overtly unkind than her father, but she was also more overtly kind. That made a difference to Marlene. And she knew it made a difference to Laurie too.

“Please don’t do that.” Laurie replied, smiling at her. She took her arm away quickly. 

How could Marlene not have noticed the scratches on his face? God she was such a bad sister. She looked down at him, his eyes closed shut in a way that reminded her heartbreakingly of Sirius. 

“Maybe the sedation isn’t such a bad idea…” she started. She would honestly do anything to get that look off his face.

“Absolutely not.” her mother looked at her, horrified.

“It’s compulsive.” Marlene enunciated, “he can’t help it. Look at him! He’s in pain!” 

“So you think sedating him is the right move?” her mom interjected, raising her voice. 

“I don’t know!” Marlene yelled, on the verge of tears. All the pent up anxiety she had been feeling for the past hour, hell, probably the past year since Laurey got his diagnosis, overflowing. The anxiety had probably been brimming since before then; since he would scream if you hugged him because it didn’t feel exactly the same on both sides, since the first scratch. “I don’t know what to do! I’m just… I’m just trying. Every time this happens it’s the same conversation. At least get him to a therapist or- or a specialist of some kind.” 

“We don’t need a specialist, you know that.”

That made Marlene want to scream even more. It was like a wound opening up again in her chest. The same old conversation over and over again: if they got Laurence to a specialist, it would be like admitting that something was wrong with him, and he would never be able to overcome that- he would be able to ‘fall’ back on his therapist, instead of working on it himself.

“Of course he fucking does!”

“Language.” her father interrupted.

“That’s enough. I’m going to go tell the others that they can go visit him if they like.” her mother broke eye contact, clearly ending the conversation.

“Please don’t…” pleaded Laurie from his bed, voice full of urgency, “I don’t want them to see me like this.” 

“Nonsense. They’re family.” her mother ignored, tearing open the curtains around the bed to let herself through and then shutting them behind her. There was a quiet lull in the room, the only sounds being Marlene’s heavy breathing, trying to recover her breath from her outburst.

“It’s alright, she’s not really mad.” her dad said in a soft voice.

“I know.” she let out through gritted teeth. 

“You’re just so similar.” he breathed out and, honestly, Marlene just wanted him to shut up. She glanced over at Laurence, who looked like he was holding in a laugh, “You both think you know what’s best. I just think it’s better when you don’t create a scene, hmm?”

Oh fucking do one, she wanted to say.

“He really needs someone who can help him.” she repeats instead, without looking at him. 

“I’m not really sure-”

“You can’t just let this keep happening to him.”

He didn’t reply. He never did. It was what she disliked most about her father. The fact that you felt his absence more when he was there than when he wasn’t. Her mom and her got into screaming matches, sure, but they were never silent with each other. They always knew where they stood. There were no awkward pauses, no meaningful silences. Her mom never forced her to read between the lines. Talking with her father made her feel like she was jumping through hurdles, and she hated it.

“I’m going to go find your mother.” 

Of course. She didn’t say goodbye, but instead moved closer to the chair next to Laurie’s bed.

“Sorry you had to see that.” she looked down bashfully. He always seemed to be the person who took the brunt of her strained relationship with her parents. Always having to be the go-between.

“It’s okay.” he gave a small smile, “I’m just glad you’re here.”

“Sorry I haven’t been around much lately.” two apologies in ten seconds, must be a new record for her. “I’ve been busy… forming a band.” a smile started forming on her lips.

“You and James finally did it?” she nodded and his face broke into a grin. He reflexively  flinched back.  

“Does it hurt?” 

He nodded, “The doctors say it’s going to scar over. I’m gonna have ugly marks on my face forever.” he looked down, tears forming once again in his eyes. Marlene could feel the exact form the fracture in her heart took.

“It’s not gonna look ugly. You’re going to look cool. Think about it, now you can just lie to whoever asks you how you got your scars. Like, you can say you got attacked by a shark. Or a bear.” She smiled playfully at him again, and he smiled back a little.

They stayed like that for a while, just making up fake scenarios that he could say about how he got his scars. She didn’t really know what else to do except to try and distract him. It seemed to work for a bit, until seven sets of eyes came striding into the room in order to talk to him. The nurses had to restrain him with a stronger set of cuffs so that he wouldn’t go back to scratching his skin. Marlene wanted to scream at every one of them.

She stayed with him all of the next day until late in the afternoon. It was the band’s first official practice. It felt awful to be away from Laurie, but, for all her faults, Marlene knew that her mother could probably handle this. She wasn’t an awful mother, she just wasn’t a particularly great one either. It had taken years for her to conceive a baby and when Marlene came out, all she wanted was a little doll to play with and to dress up. It often felt like her mother was punishing her for never having kept up her end of the bargain. 

The real problem was that they were too similar in the worst ways and too different in the ones that mattered. They didn’t have the same taste in movies, or clothes. They didn’t have the same humour. But they were both hot-headed and headstrong, a dangerous combination. They were both determined when they set their mind to it- though ‘hellbent’ was probably the better word to use. They both had a flair for the dramatics. She often thought that it was part of the reason why their relationship was so fraught; they both reminded each other about the worst parts of themselves. 

Already late, she picked up the pace when she turned into James’ street, the bus having been delayed by ten minutes. Her goal for this session was to be present enough that people weren’t worried about her, that she didn’t burden others. Because she knew that, no matter how hard she tried, some neuron in the back of her brain would be thinking about Laurie.

“Okay so I asked Fabian if he knew anyone who could set us up for a gig sometime in two weeks and he said that he would make some calls.” James was in the middle of announcing as she walked into the sitting room, taking her sunglasses off her head and flinging them onto the couch.

“That soon?” Lily asked, she was fiddling with the pegs on her guitar.

“Well we can just get started on covers and stuff until we write some proper songs. But I already have a few written if you guys want to see that. I think James does, too. Do you guys all write?” she pulled her notebook from where she had placed it in the waistband in the back of her skirt. Over the years she had gotten used to not carrying a bag with her, and so instead had taken to putting objects in pockets, socks, bras and waistbands.

“Fuck no.” Lily laughed, “I love playing, but I have no interest whatsoever in writing. Just make sure you write some good guitar riffs and I’m ace.” 

She grinned as Marlene made her way to the couch and started taking out some of her song lyrics and sheet music. 

“I can’t really do lyrics but I’m good at writing music parts.” Remus added. He moved over and joined her on the sofa, wafting through the loose sheets she kept tied up in her notebook. 

“Hey Marls,” he said quietly, under the general buzz of instruments tuning. Sirius, although he was not technically a part of their band, had already declared himself a groupie, and so was making snacks for everyone in the kitchen. You could hear the shutting of cabinets and clanging of plates. “Are you still wearing the same clothes from yesterday?”

Marlene didn’t have it in her to be embarrassed. She hadn’t had time to go home and get dressed this time, but there had been other times where Marlene hadn’t gotten changed out of pure laziness, generally preferring to just throw on a loose t shirt so that she didn’t look like as much of a whore as she went about her house in the morning.

 “Long story.”

Remus gave her a small smile before going back to sifting diligently through Marlene’s sheets. In the daylight, she could see that he had soft, pink scars across his nose and on his chin, as well as down his neck. She hadn’t noticed that before.

“Hey Remus,” he nodded and looked at her with expecting eyes. It would be a bit difficult to ask, but Marlene just had to spit it out. “My little brother has Obsessive-compulsive, and he picks at his skin. Yesterday he had to go to the hospital because his scratches started getting badly infected. He has some on his face and the doctors say it’s going to scar over and he’s - well - he’s a bit worried about it… I was wondering if maybe after practice you could come over and talk to him maybe? It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

His face softened at that, “Of course. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t really need to say anything more. It was one of the things she was beginning to like most about the boy. He didn’t try to put into words what he couldn’t.

James whistled them over to indicate that practice should begin. 

“Alright, band, first thing we need is a name.” he said with a sly grin. 

Marlene should have appreciated the calm before the storm, because as soon as everyone had been called over, song suggestions and guitar riffs and even costuming were all being thrown around. It devolved into each of them essentially having a conversation with themselves because no one was listening to each other.

“- I think we can’t go for too much of an old-school rock vibe because it’s all been there done that-”

“- And we can’t ever wear glitter because I once went to a gig where this girl got it in her eyeball and she had to be taken to the hospital -”

“ - I quite like the look of this song. Are we going for slow jams as well? Because that changes everything -”

“-  can I be your groupie in like a cool ‘I’m with the band’ way and not in a ‘I’m seventeen and being exploited by a bunch of old men’ way?”

“Enough!” Lily’s voice pierced through the cacophony. She looked around desperately, finally holding onto what Marlene was sure was the first thing she could find, because otherwise she would have chosen anything else. “If you’re not holding this pillow, you can’t talk, okay?”

“See, I agree in principle but I would also rather cut my own hand off than hold that pillow.” Remus provided, his voice completely monotone. 

“What do you mean?” Marlene asked, mock-hurt whilst grabbing the massive square pillow with James’ face plastered all over it, “You mean you don’t want to hold little Jamie?”

James gasped, scandalised. Marlene kept shoving the pillow in Remus’ direction, but he would move back each time, an unconscious smile forming.

“Well you’re not going to be able to speak, then.” Lily informed him. 

“I know sign language.”

“Yeah, but none of us can read that.” James pointed out. 

“Lily can.”

“Yes, but unfortunately you should have thought twice before giving me the ability to completely ignore you and/or misinterpret your words.” Lily sighed at him, and then the corners of her mouth turned up in a mischievous grin. 

Sirius stood up from the couch and snatched the pillow out of Marlene’s hands. 

“Anyways, as I was saying,” he began, ignoring Marlene’s cries of outrage, “what exactly are my rights as a groupie because I think-”

“None! You get no rights.” Marlene interrupted, snatching the pillow back and running to the opposite side of the room when she realised Sirius was chasing her.

“Fuck you!”

“Not until gay marriage is legalised in every state!” she shouted as she jumped over the couch.

The rest of the afternoon followed much the same way. The pillow became a bit useless in terms of granting people the right to say what they wanted uninterrupted, but very useful when they wanted to hit someone who wouldn’t stop interrupting others. They settled on a few songs they would want to play: Hanging on the Telephone, Love Her Madly, What Difference Does It Make? being just a few. 

Their first run through wasn’t bad at all. Remus and Lily were used to being in a band, and so knew how to play together, and James and her had practised together a bit as well. The tricky part was in combining the two groups, but it didn’t go too badly, even with Sirius having yelled helpful comments such as “Your E sharp is too flat, Mckinnon!” and Marlene having stopped singing in order to shove the pillow in his face. 

By the time practice finished it was starting to get a bit darker. Marlene’s brain wasn’t as fried as it probably should have been, having forgone sleep often during the school year and being used to running off of zero rest. But she still wasn’t in tip-top shape, so she almost took the wrong bus when going back to the hospital with Remus. 

They made idle conversation about bands they liked and bands they didn’t like as they sat on the flimsy wooden bench at the bus stop. Remus was becoming one of her favourite people to be a music snob with. He knew as much as Marlene did, if not more (although she would never say it out loud). It made her excited about the prospects of their band, with someone as obviously talented and passionate as him. 

“Marlene?” Remus asked during a lull in the conversation where the girl in question was squinting at one of the buses coming their way and trying to decipher whether the first number on it was a two or a five. 

“Yeah?”

“Has Sirius said anything to you… or…” his eyes flitted up to her, nervously.

“No.” she frowned, “Should he have?”

“No! No, it’s okay. Just forget I said anything.” Remus scrambled to reply. She looked back at him suspiciously. 

“It’s not really my place to say anything.” he finally let out. She just gave a tight smile back. 

Did Sirius do something? Now that she was thinking about it, she didn’t remember Remus and Sirius speaking to each other once during the practice. Last night, they could barely take their eyes off each other. It had been really quite annoying, but she preferred that to whatever this was. Marlene decided to put it in the back of her mind until she next saw Sirius, knowing that that would be in less than twenty-four hours.

Their journey to the hospital took them around twenty minutes, where they discussed the current pop-chart battle of Blur vs Oasis and their various merits, before unanimously deciding that Liam Gallagher was an asshole and Blur was much better. Remus was still going on a long monologue about his admiration for Damon Albarn which was suspiciously starting to sound like a thinly veiled crush when they finally turned down the corridor towards Laurie’s room. 

“Fuck, I hate hospitals.” Marlene breathed out.

“Really? I quite like them, they’re comforting.”

“Minimalism could never be comforting.” Marlene corrected, horrified, which earned her a small laugh from Remus.

“You think so? I find it comforting the way brutalism is comforting.” he carried on.

“You are one sick fuck, wolf-boy.” Marlene patted him on the shoulder.

“You don’t like brutalism?”

“I love brutalism, I just hate hospitals.”

The curtain around Laurie’s bed was drawn. When Marlene opened them, she saw that his scratches had been bandaged up, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking out towards the window. 

“Hey Laurie,” she sat next to him, “I brought a friend from the band. He plays bass guitar.”

Remus moved to lean on the windowsill, giving him a small wave. Laurie smiled back, cheeks turning a little pink.

They talked for a while. At first about nothing, but then Laurie asked him a question about how to make scars appear less noticeable. Marlene took that as her queue to leave. Laurie was fine with being emotional around her, but she wanted to make sure he got the most out of talking with Remus. She didn’t want him to hold back just because he didn’t want to appear weak. 

She made her way to the outside of the building and took out her cigarettes from her pocket, looking out at the view in front of her. The yellow glow of the lights illuminated the cars and the vans all stacked next to each other in the parking lot. Around her people rushed past, each in their little world.

She wondered how many times she would come back to this hospital; how many times it would be for Laurie or for someone else. She wondered how many times she would be at any hospital in her lifetime. Would she have kids? How long until she would be called to a hospital with news of death. 

Because the truth was that Marlene was growing up. She was starting a band, what she hoped would become her future, her career. When you grow up things start happening to you. You no longer sit around, dreaming of the future you could have, of all the different pathways you can choose. Marlene felt like she was being slightly suffocated at the prospect of narrowing those pathways, of choosing a singular road to go down. Because she didn’t want anyone telling her what to do but she also wanted someone telling her exactly what to do. She didn’t want everything to feel like some aimless void that she could shout into and not receive an echo. She wanted someone to tell her what to do with Laurie, how to make him feel less alone, how to magically take his pain away. She wanted someone to tell her how to make things easier with her parents. Not how to fix it, but how to make it more bearable. She wanted someone to tell her exactly how to fix the parts of herself she didn’t like. Because she thought she would be a much better person by now.

She took another drag of her cigarette. The figure of a man standing next to her wasn’t enough to bring her out of her thoughts. 

“You okay?”

Remus. She hummed in response.

“Just thinking.”

“Dangerous stuff,” he replied. “What you do for your brother is really nice. He told me about the therapist research and the leaflets with tips that you printed out for him and stuff. It’s nice.”

“It’s literally just normal big-sister stuff.” she rolled her eyes, and then caught herself in the act, realising Remus probably didn’t deserve her bad mood, “Sorry. I just think it’s normal. I don’t want him to think that he’s too much for other people - that he’s a burden. That’s an awful thing to live with. I want him to feel like he can manage it, or that other people will gladly help him to.”

Remus was looking at her closely.

“I told him I’d come and see him tomorrow, will he still be here?”

“No, they’ll probably let him out tonight if it doesn’t act up again. I’ll let you know.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back 

“Bye Mckinnon,” he waved as he turned to walk home. She gave him a wave back, before going back inside towards the hospital.