Housemates

Chapter 117

Ellie went home, and got a beer, and sat down on the couch next to Mark. It was late, but he was still up playing his games. He usually stayed up later than Ellie.

“Hey,” he said, but didn’t look away from his game. “You haven’t been around much lately.”

“No,” Ellie said, and sipped.

“Is everything okay?”

Ellie nodded slowly. “Yep.”

“Cool,” Mark said, and kept playing.

Ellie sat there for a while watching the screen. She thought about Mark, and what Mia had just discussed, and whether one of them ought to tell him. Mia was right, Ellie thought, Mark didn’t especially needed to know. Not for his sake, and not for Mia’s. It just wasn’t his business.

Ellie didn’t want to tell him for his sake any more, she wanted to tell him for her own. So she had someone to talk to. She’d like someone to talk to, she thought, someone who knew Mia. And unless she tried to befriend Tasha, that someone was Mark.

She needed to talk to help her decide, but that wasn’t entirely why she wanted to tell Mark. It was more complicated than that, and simpler too.

She needed to try this out.

She needed to say she liked Mia, and find out how it felt to say. She needed to see how someone else reacted as well. She needed to know she could say those words, and be sure she could, before she pretended she could tell the whole world.

She needed to know how much it would scare her, to say something like that out loud.

She didn’t think she’d be scared, but she needed to be certain. She needed to know now, not later, after she’d made Mia promises she couldn’t keep.

She wanted to push herself, to say something she couldn’t take back, to put the words out there, and let someone else know, and pressure herself a little to decide. With Mark she could try the idea out, and see how it felt. She could say it out loud to someone who wasn’t Mia. That would be easier, she thought, and didn’t know why. It didn’t completely make sense when she thought about it too much, but it made complete sense if she didn’t.

She decided she would. She decided she had to. She needed to try the words out.

“I think I’m in love,” she said, before she could change her mind.

“Oh,” Mark said. “Cool. Who with?”

Ellie looked over and decided he was serious, and that was funny, and it being funny made it much easier to say. It wasn’t all grave and earnest any more, instead it was only teasing.

“Mia,” Ellie said. “You dick.”

Mark paused the game. He put the controller down, and looked at Ellie.

“You hadn’t noticed?” Ellie said.

“Um, no. Shit.”

Ellie waited.

“Are you…?” Mark said.

“Not until now.”

“That must be…” Mark thought for a while. “Complicated?”

“Yeah.”

“Does she know?”

Ellie was a little surprised. She tried not to grin. She made herself not. “I think so,” she said. “I’m pretty sure she has some idea.”

Mark nodded slowly.

“I kind of almost told her,” Ellie said. Saying enough, but not too much, deciding to keep Mia’s secrets, if not her own.