"You, my dear, have the soul of a writer."
I cringed before glancing at him with a scowl. "You mean the soul of a poet?"
"No. God, no. You're the furthest thing from a poet. Whereas a poem has the capability of designing a truth endowed with ribbo...
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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN ON EARTH AND OTHER CREATURES
"So," Marshall began. "They brought you in for questioning. Okay. They drove up to the house in their fuckin' cruiser, fuckin' lights on, just the whole goddamn bit, and..." he paused. "Andy just went all in, huh?"
"He started the questioning by killing a roach and picking it up with his bare hand." I said, moving a straw inside my water and clashing ice against the plastic cup.
"What the fuck? Ew." Marshall couldn't help a small laugh. "Shit, does that mean, like, that he means business or something?"
I chuckled with him. "Apparently."
"I was halfway expectin' you to say he was gonna eat it. What a weird fuckin' dude-"
"That wasn't even the worst part." I interrupted, leaning forward against the high top and gesturing for him to do the same. He glanced at the crowded bar before moving in closer. We were stopping for food at Merlotte's, sitting at a table towards the back, where it felt like dusk at three in the afternoon with just a dusty light fixture overhead. "Bellefleur said that I don't belong here."
"What?"
"Yeah, saying shit like how I'm an outsider, that I got Maud killed because I think I'm "better" than everyone else." I pulled up my legs onto the stool, wrapping my arms around them. "It was the craziest thing, he really tried to scare me into a false confession, like I was the one who laid her in the swamp."
"Wow." Marshall placed his elbow over the table top, resting his chin over his palm. "Well, you are sorta an outsider, but that ain't mean you don't belong. That's so rude."
"What did you say?" I looked at him, squinting.
His eyebrows pulled together with the same confusion. "What? You want me to lie? Cass, you're in a fuckin' town where people know what their neighbors had for Sunday dinner from generations ago. Gimme a fuckin' break. And, like I said, I don't agree with what he said."
"Just that I'm an outsider?" I clarified, narrowing my eyebrows. "What do you mean by that?"
"You don't feel like an outsider in Bon Temps, Cass?" He deadpanned.
Half of me couldn't believe what I was hearing, and from him no less. "I don't want people to see me as an outsider!" I snapped, looking away as I pushed a hand through my hair, the tears from earlier threatening to fill the brim of my eyes.
Marshall paused for a moment, gathering a rebuttal I really wasn't interested in hearing. Today has been long, I wasn't comfortable with this conversation, I just wanted to go to sleep. "It's not a bad thing." He finally decided on.
I was quick with a response, "Judging by how the police would treat one, I'd say it's pretty fucking bad."
"Hey, hey. That's not fair. Today was a fluke. Andy's a goddamn idiot, Cass, you just can't take a dang thing he says seriously. He-"
