Ever After

Rescue

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This chapter is in Mark's perspective.

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Hey, guys! Really quick note - I just finished writing this chapter and am so happy with the way it turned out... I can't wait for you all to read it! Also, thank you all so much for being so kind an so supportive - it's finally the long weekend and, despite my upcoming three project due dates and two tests, I will try my best to upload two chapters each and every day! Thank you all so much for being so sweet - all of your comments make me so, so, so happy. I am so fortunate to have readers like you.

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I couldn't look in the mirror as I splashed my face down with cold water, feeling it press against my hot tears like water against fire. They were hot because of the passion I'd been so stupid to feel towards Jack, the passion I'd been dumb to cling onto, the passion he'd stolen from me within one kiss within Naomi - it was all pouring out of me like blood from a fresh wound, a waterfall of pitiful emotion.

I sighed, placing my hands under the dryer, wishing that I had never seen the two of them in the closet, that I didn't have that horrifying image glued to my eyelids. No matter how hard I tried, they were always there, Naomi's lips rubbing against his, his body not repulsing in any way, shape, or form. I wish he'd done something - anything. Leaned back, tensed up, said something. He didn't even have his eyes open, didn't show any sign of shock. Had he been dating her since the day she'd arrived?

No, he couldn't be - Felix specifically said that she was his girlfriend, his meaning his only. But what if they'd set me up? What if Jack was just another part of Killian's group, just another person to laugh at my stupidity? There was a hell of a lot of stupidity I had to bring to the table - I couldn't believe how easily I'd managed to fall down the stairs this morning, - and my stupid backpack was just another thing to hate me for, especially seeing as Jack had bullied Felix into giving me his new one in exchange for it. I felt a sinking feeling arise in my gut as I exited the washroom, not having once looked in the mirror - Jack couldn't be bullying me with the rest of them, could he?

No, I told myself, walking down the hallway. He couldn't... he wouldn't. What reason would he have? I spilled coffee on him before the first bell of the year had even rung. He's done so much for you... "So much" as in "kiss the cute girl." He loves you. That wasn't what he said when he'd been dared to kiss me during the sleepover.

If Jack really loved me, he would've admitted it by now, wouldn't he? He would've said something... I could see it now, my innocent self walking down the hallway, only to be cut off by a dashingly handsome Romeo, one that grabbed me by my collar and pressed me up against the wall, his eyes the centre of my universe as he spoke.

"Mark," he'd say. "My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

"Oh, Jack," I'd respond, still in utter shock of his romantic gesture of pinning me against the cold, white bricks kissing my back. "Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs."

Imaginary Jack opened his mouth to speak, but quickly disintegrated when reality Wade clutched at my shoulders, shaking me free from my parallel universe (right in the nick of time, too, for I'd run out of Shakespearean quotes). His eyes were wide with excitement, as were his practical twin's (Bob).

"Mark!" he exclaimed. "We won! We won the contest - we get to go to Baysports!" Then, "Where's Jack!?"

I shrugged. "Hell if I knoweth," I said. I cleared my throat. "Hell if I know."