Nate felt the overwhelming need for a drawn-out eye roll. Really? She was going to pull this? Of course. The woman who could have done anything with her life with the parents she was blessed with, who threw everything away, blames him for not inviting her into his home? Quite frankly, he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, and despite her beauty and the nostalgic feeling she aroused within him, his mind was on the practical: the logical. 

“Marlene, what the fuck do you want? I haven’t seen you in years!” he knew this had ultimately been his decision, but he didn’t regret it. He made the right choice to pursue his aspirations. She always would have held him back, and when he began to see himself as so much better than her, as so much more noteworthy and top-drawer, she began to lose the hold she had over him. Was that supposed to change fifteen years later when she decided his resources were useful to her? 

Why did he come? He knew she hadn’t changed. The only reason she wasn’t right back where she was the day she got locked up was because he wasn’t allowing it. “All of a sudden you want me to bail you out and you want to tongue lash me in the process. I’ve got priorities now, Marcy. You aren’t the center of my world. Eventually I had to fucking grow up and take care of shit. Work hard and make something out of what I had. While I busted my ass, you partied. We made our choices and it’s not my fault you’re just now realizing yours were the wrong ones.” Nate was harsh, but she[i] really[/i] needed to hear it. She was a royal but loyal fuck up and they both knew it. And it was way too late for her to change. 

She said she’d come to see him? As in, before St. Elizabeth’s? It mattered little now… Obviously fate had used him to get her some help.