The Time Taken to Understand (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Eighteen~ Mark

The party began at noon, so Mark had exactly one hour to get his sister alone and confront her about the picture she had taken. This was much harder than he thought I would be, since Cassy had yet to leave the living room the whole morning.

He wasn't mad about the picture. He just wanted to know what she had to say about his sudden gayness, and the idea that it could be something bad had him fidgeting all morning. On multiple occasions Alec had to reach over and steady his hands, or stop a tapping leg, and even went as far as to pull Mark's lip out from between his teeth as he chewed on it nervously. His family hadn't noticed any of this, but his mother continued to grin at the two of them regardless.

"Just ask her if you can talk to her alone," Alec said, making it sound so simple and Mark shook his head.

"But then she'll know".

"Know what?" Alec asked, and Mark just looked at him. "You know what," Alec stood and walked out of the kitchen, entering the room with the rest of the family in it and Mark hurried after him. He watched as Alec sat down next to Cassy on the couch and said in a very collected voice, "could you show Mark your polaroid collection". Cassy looked at him like she was not fooled, but nodded and rose from the couch, looking directly at her brother as she did so.

She turned, just then breaking eye contact, and Mark turned his attention to Alec, glaring at him. Alec only shrugged and scooted into the spot that Cassy had just recently been occupying, putting distance between himself and Casey, and bringing his attention to the television. Mark groaned, slowly following his sister upstairs, deciding then that he didn't actually want to talk to her about it but excepting that, because of Alec, there was no way out.

She was sitting on her bed reading when he entered her room. "You wanted to talk?" She said, not looking at him.

"No, I actually wanted to look at your polaroid collection," he snapped, and then immediately said, "sorry".

"It's fine. You're nervous". Mark collapsed on the bottom of her bed, letting out a loud huff of air. "I don't know why though. Did you think that I'd be angry at you?"

"I don't know what I was thinking, Cassy," He said simply. "Why didn't you say anything to me about it. Why'd you give the picture to Alec and not me?"

She shrugged. "I thought he'd appreciate it more. I also knew that you would probably freak out about it. How long has this been going on? A year? Two?"

"A month," Mark said, and she looked surprised. "What?"

"It's just," she eyed Mark carefully, "you've been acting like a couple for much longer than a month".

"Why'd you even take it?" Mark said, ignoring her previous statement, although he knew it was true. Cassy sighed, finally setting her book down.

"I've been doing this project for art. It's for our final and we get the whole semester to do it, and we're supposed to find our own way to represent human emotion and such-"

"So you decided to take a picture of us kissing?" He asked, raising his eyebrows in question. Cassy shook her head.

"Well, not exactly. You see, I went down to get a glass of water and saw Alec sitting on the counter and you holding the ice pack against his face and I thought, that's a really good representation of compassion, so I went back and got my camera and when I came back your tongue was in his mouth". Mark grimaced,

"I'm sorry. You weren't supposed to find out until after your birthday". Cassy looked at him like he was stupid.

"Are you kidding me? Mark, this is the best birthday present ever. I love Alec, he's like a brother to me. So's Adam but I'm really happy you're not dating him. Also, you being gay means that I'll always be for favorite girl, and I'm kind of okay with that". She grinned at him and he sat forwards, wrapping his arms around his sister and hugging her, pressing a kiss against the top of her head. "I could have gone without you having obnoxiously loud sex at one in the morning though". Mark pulled back, extremely embarrassed and his expression sheepish.