Ever After

Coming Home

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This chapter is in Mark's perspective.

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I hated going home.

Do you ever get that feeling? You know, that feeling; the one where your stomach crashes against the floor, your soul escapes your very being, and your mind can't keep track of where you're headed. Your heart rate slows downs, speeds up, and sometimes stops, and you, yourself, can't even understand just why you're forcing yourself to go home, why you're putting yourself through this, why you can't turn back around and run to the only place you really want to be.

It's funny that I even call it that – home. Home is where the heart is, where you feel as if you aren't expected to be someone any different than who you are as a person. Home is a place where you can kick your feet up and ease back, feeling comfortable with those around you. Home is where you belong, where you feel you must always be, the place that you would choose to dig your grave if you could, and my "home" definitely wasn't just that.

My home – my house – was where I felt the least bit comfortable. It was where I dreamt up places I could travel to, people I could be with, for I would surely take sandy beaches and palm trees with Jack than anything else if I were given the choice. Even being in the same small, humble log cabin with him would be perfectly fine – it didn't matter, just as long as we weren't at my house, stuck in the stingy situation in which I was forced to mind my own business and do my homework whilst my father and brother "secretly" planned how they were going to go about my academic performances without making me upset, as if I couldn't always hear them whispering.

And yet, I had to return sometime. I couldn't stay in Jack's arms forever, couldn't always have the high he gave me, the sugar rush of a feeling that warmed my heart for as long as it could. Unfortunately for me, my home tended to make anything else unimportant, my woes petty and feeble, as if I were just a gear in cog work, spinning meaninglessly so that my brother and father could be appeased – along with my job, my academic performances had gone to waste, and I couldn't find a good excuse as to why, no matter how much time I'd been given to sit outside of the apartment building and think.

"You can't just sit out there all day," a neighbour (Warren) advised.

"I live here," I snapped, unsure of why I was giving attitude.

Slightly offended, he asked, "On the side of the apartment complex?"

I nodded, tossing a snowball I'd been practicing packing – clearly, I wasn't nearly as good as Jack.

"Why are you sitting out here?"

I shrugged. "Doesn't matter, really."

He sighed, clearly unimpressed with my lack of interest in the conversation. "Well, your dad and brother were worried sick about you yesterday. Apparently, some shit went down at your school, and when the police showed up, they –"

I rose from the ground. "The police came?"

"Hell yeah!" he exclaimed. "You didn't hear?"

I placed my hands firmly on his shoulders, unsure of how they could've gone to the school without either one of us noticing. I mean, Jack and I were on the roof, right? We would've heard the sirens coming from miles away... right?

But, if I remembered correctly, Jack and I wound up going back to his log cabin shortly after we'd shared our (fucking amazing) dance on the rooftop – there's no way the police took so long to get there, right?