Everything's Alright

Jack

I'm walking with Mark through the woods, heart beating out of my chest. The sun set hours ago, leaving us surrounded only by each other, trees, and the stars. I stare directly up as soon as I know everybody else can't tell. I look around in amazement, instantly able to make out multiple constellations. When you're in the city, you might be able to see three stars. I now know why Mark was so looking forward to this trip. It looked as if I could see every star in the sky and then some. It was a clear, cool night. I felt a pair of eyes on me and knew it was Mark. I felt my cap fall off of me as I was walking with him, but didn't care much. I felt something surround me and realized Mark put his arm around me. I surely knew that the other guys would see, but I didn't mind.
"It's pretty, isn't it?" Mark asked me, in a deep voice.
"More than." I answered quietly. We stopped walking. Mark led me to a grassy area, where the boys would no doubt see. Oh, well. Me and Mark just laid down and watched the stars. Fuck the wood. I rested my right hand on my chest and put my left hand on the grass next to me, on the side closest to Mark. I felt my eyes dart around, trying to drink in every star. I felt a sudden warmth spread over my hand, and knew it was Mark who grabbed hold of it. I looked at him unsurely. It was at this time I realized that this was my first actual, real boyfriend. I'd had plenty of girlfriends, but that was when I was confused about what I wanted. He looked at me. Neither of us were smiling, but we knew what was going to happen. Mark acted upon it first, leaning in slowly. I questioned myself, but did what I know I should. Right before we connected, Mark's glasses poked me in the eye.
"Haha, ow." I said, smiling. He smiled back.
"Sorry," he said to me. We tried again. We connected with no incident, and it was something I couldn't describe. I'd only ever kissed somebody else once in my life. This didn't last long, though, because I started hearing laughter not too far away. I felt my heart pounding. Were they laughing at us? The laughing stopped momentarily, and were replaced my music. Fucking hell, it's the sexy sax man song. I started laughing, and so did Mark, so we broke the kiss. I sat up, getting lightheaded from laying down so long. Mark helped me up fully and we walked back to the now-lit fire. The guys, closer than I remembered around the campfire, started cheering. I felt my face turn warm and tried to laugh it off. I sat next to Mark on a rock and he put his arm around me. Wade was the only one who looked shocked.
"Wait, so this whole time-?" Wade asked.
"Uh, yeah." Mark answered. I decided it was best to stay silent. Warmth radiated from the fire in front of us, roasting my jeans. I stared deep into the pale blue embers of the fire. I realized that I was ignoring their chatter, and they were all looking at me, silent. I felt my throat tighten and dry up. I swallowed deeply.
"Hum- what? Sorry." I said quietly. Bob smiled.
"Hah, that's okay! I was just asking how many subs you have now." He said to me. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Uh, like, 3 million I think?" I answered, unsure. It was as if all information left me. I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere around there.
"Oh, Mr Big Guy, not sure where he is? Too many to remember?" Ken said. He's obviously joking, but I feel myself start to curl into a ball. I feel Mark laugh against me and pull me closer to him, reassuring me.
"I-I didn't mean..." I stopped talking as I got drowned out by light laughter and more conversation. I made sure to listen this time. They talked about a wide variety of things, mentioned inside jokes that I didn't quite understand, but laughed at anyways, and constantly interrupted each other. Sometimes they looked at me, sometimes they didn't, but I never talked. Soon, we got tired and decided to sleep. We all had sleeping bags, of course, and we set up a tent, just in case the weather did a 180 on us. The ground underneath the small shelter was hard and dusty. Our bags were arranged in a line, going Wade, Felix, Ken, Bob, Mark, and Me. I was much closer to mark than Bob was, and I decided to make some sort of move. I read it in a John Green book once. I took my hand, freed it from the bag surprisingly easy, and grabbed Mark's in his bag. He looked at me trough his glasses in the dim night. I smiled.