(BL) What If I Love You?

Chapter 9

After a couple of days, the ice starts to melt. I offer Mark to have dinner together. Chinese food from boxes. I do not start a conversation about our last talk. I think he has already realized that I was sorry. Or do I still need to say it?..

We watch a twenty-minute episode of TV show, laugh a little. I collect empty boxes afterwards, clean up the kitchen.

"We need to talk."

I flinch at Mark's voice behind me.

"Okay." I say, and we sit across from each other in the living room. I have no idea what it will be about. More precisely, my guesses scare me.

Mark puts keys on the table in front of me.

"What is it?" I ask.

"These are the keys to your apartment. The last tenant moved out a couple of days ago, and I didn't rent it out again. And this..." Mark places an envelope on the table and moves it closer to me. "This is your parents' will, bank accounts. I was in charge of these affairs, and I believe I haven't screwed up."

I pick up the envelope and examine it as if I can see right through it. The keys are clinking in my hand.

"Why are you giving it to me now?"

"Well... I think that you are old enough to have a say in it. Maybe you want to live on your own..."

There is a lump in my throat again. I understand that now I'll say something that I will regret later, but still I open my mouth.

"So... you decided to do it like this? Am I on my own now? Or you at least will wait 'till I blow out the candles on the cake before kicking me out?"

"Ray, why are you..."

"If you're so sick of me, Mark, why don't you say anything?! Why the silence?"

"I didn't say I was sick! Why are you making this up?!"

"I can pack things right now and get out!" I jingle keys loudly.

"I didn't say anything like that! Ray! What's wrong with you?! Can you explain to me?! You've never been like that! Why does every conversation turn into a fight?!"

I am ashamed of myself. I grab the envelope and keys and go to my room, where again damn anger stares at me from a dark corner.

The sleepless night goes on endlessly. I leave my room and go to Mark's room. I want to knock, but suddenly I hear his muffled voice. He's on the phone, but I can't make out the words.

Who can he talk to in the middle of the night?

Damn...

"I'm going back to the dorm," I say when Mark catches me on the doorstep with a bag in the morning.

"I did not insist on this."

"I know," I say. We stand and look at each other in silence. I should open the door, but I can't.

Finally I manage to grab the knob. Mark comes closer to see me off and to close the door behind me.

"Be careful." He says plainly. I turn and push him inside, pin him to the wall and kiss him. At this moment, I feel good. But Mark pushes me aside.

"You've been my pipe dream for too long. I'm used to the fact that this is impossible. We cannot even spend one evening without a quarrel. That's not how I imagined it at all."

His words hurt me, but he is right. Without saying a word, I leave.

Tears choke me. And in the subway car, I close my eyes, pretending to be asleep, but in fact, I try to restrain myself from bursting into tears.

My bed has become Ted's warehouse. He is not here at the moment. I take his things down and lie on the bed. I stare at the wall all day.

"What a surprise!" Ted whistles, having returned from class, which I again successfully missed. But when he sees my face, he loses all his gaiety.

"Has someone died?" Ted asks seriously. "You seem to have aged a dozen years..."

I just grin back.

Two weeks have passed. I barely made up for the lost time. But I think of Mark. I hate the way I talked to him. He hurt me but he was honest. I said things I didn't want to say.

I can't pick up the phone and call him, I'm afraid that things will be worse. So I decide to come by at the end of the week.

For a long time I stand in front of the door, not daring to open it with my key.
What if Ian is there?..

Of course, Ian is there.

First I knock, but nobody opens. Then I go in.

The first thing that surprises me is the mess. Mark usually didn't allow himself that. Or did he just give himself some slack when I left? Well, I definitely won't blame him for that.

At the table in the kitchen there is a couple of paintings that evoke an eerie melancholy, the floor around is spattered with paint.

No, I definitely haven't noticed this about Mark before.

And I also did not notice that Mark could drink so much alcohol. The whole living room is littered with bottles.

Did he celebrate my departure so wildly?..

I feel hurt again. I approach Mark's room, the door is ajar, and I am surprised to notice that Mark is lying sprawled on the floor. I hardly recognize him.

"Mark! Mark!" I shake him, he lazily opens his eyes. "What happened here? Did you have a party?"

"Ray!" says Mark and hits me with strong smell of morning breath and then his lips twitch as if he is about to cry. I put him on the bed.

No, he doesn't look like a person after a hectic party...

I should have come earlier... or called at least.

Why did I decide that I was the only one suffering?

Well, because Mark had Ian...

Where is Ian?

Or did he let Mark be like that?..

Trying to solve this puzzle, I tidy up the apartment, throw away the bottles, air the rooms, wash the laundry piled up on the floor. I can't wipe off the traces of paint.

I cook dinner, fill up a jug of water and put it on the nightstand next to Mark's bed. He is still asleep. I look around his room. It has never looked so messy. As if two years have passed, not two weeks.

Mark's phone catches my eye. Almost without hesitation, I take it. I look at the call log, which shows that the last time Mark called Ian a couple of weeks ago at two in the morning. And all other Mark's attempts to get through to Ian after that are marked as unsuccessful. Ian just didn't pick up the phone. In the messages I find only one. And when I read it, everything grows cold inside me: "I said it was over. Stop calling me."

This message is from Ian. I look at Mark again. At his tired face.

The puzzle is assembled into a coherent picture, where empty bottles, stains of paint on the floor and all this mess have a place.

And I finally get the answer to my question.

Mark loves Ian. He doesn't love him the way he loved me. And it confused him. It's my fault. I shouldn't have started all this. But in his heart, Mark began his parting with me when he told Ian about his feelings for me. It took him more than a year... and a couple of breakdowns: at night in the mountains and here... but he etched these feelings out of himself, because something else had already arisen in him.

Mark wanted to protect his new feelings, but he knew that there would be no place for both of us in his soul. And in making this choice, he suffered, giving up his dream. But what did he get in the end?

Ian's message came over a week ago.