99 Steps

Step 47: Know Secrets

Jack fiddled with his camera, changing a few settings and flipped through the pictures that he had taken before. He looked around the living room, spotting a few dried out roses in a dusty vase on the shelf in the corner. Jack leaned on the back of the couch, framing the flowers so they were slightly off-centered, and snapped a few pictures.

The front door unlocked, and Mark walked in. Jack turned off the camera, setting it on the coffee table.

"Where did you go?" He asked, standing to meet his boyfriend at the top of the stairs. "You were gone when I woke up, and you forgot your phone here." Mark kept his eyes on the ground, and he kept a tight grip on a paper bag in his hand. "What did you get?" He brushed by Jack, walking to the kitchen. Mark set the bag down on the counter, and he turned, grabbing a single wine glass out of the cupboard.

"Mark, why do you have wine glasses? You don't even-" Jack paused as Mark pulled a full bottle of wine out of the bag. The sight made Jack's face fall, the slight smile he held crumbled away, dragging his heart down to the floor with it. His gut twisted as he watched Mark top off his glass, and look up to him.

"Your flight home leaves in the morning." He might as well have hit him upside the head with the bottle, and stabbed him in the chest with the cork screw. At least that would have been normal from Mark.

"What?" It came out as a gasp. He grabbed for the counter in front of him to hold himself up. Mark drank half the glass in one go, meeting Jack's eyes as he set the glass back down.

"I had a meeting this morning with the head of staff, and they don't think keeping you here for the winter will help you anymore. They don't think it's worth the 'extra effort'." He had time to practice what he was going to say, Jack could tell. "They said that it's best you go home, and if you come back, you come back, but you have to enroll all over again. And there's no guarantee you'll even get back in, or that you'll be assigned to me again." Jack could feel tears welling in his eyes, trying to make sense of it all.

"But, but look at me, you've helped me so much since I got here. What is that? Is it just a pile of horse shit to them?"

Mark shrugged his shoulders, and kept his eyes on his glass when he spoke, so smooth, and so calm, Jack wondered if he actually cared. "I wasn't good enough. They said in order to keep you, you should have made a lot more progress by now. I wasn't good enough." He repeated, more broken and sad. "Jack, since you got here, I've changed. That's not your fault. And you need to remember that. When I was helping Blair, I had issues controlling my anger, and myself in general. She never did anything, but I didn't realize I had a problem, because she never said anything." His voice cracked, and it shoved Jack further into a pit of hurt and confusion. Mark took a drink of wine, and cotinued. "I should have been taking classes then too, but I wasn't." He gestured to the bottle, "This shit was a big deal too." He took a deep breath, still keeping his eyes down. "That night, with Blair. You brought it up the other night. She didn't rape me. We were both drunk, like I said. I said it wasn't a good idea, because of that. But she kept kissing me and then I didn't want to stop. But then she agreed with me, and she didn't stop. So I, I kept going, because I was drunk and she was drunk and we were both turned on and we loved eachother." He topped off his glass again, and Jack could just watch, he could only watch as his ex-alcoholic boyfriend got himself drunk, and bled his hopeless tale of broken love across the counter and all over the floors and walls. "She kept saying it was a bad idea, but she wouldn't stop, so neither did I. It confused her and she ran to Kloee afterwards, just for advise, or help, or someone to talk to, or something. I was confused too, and that's all it was, confusion and lust. Kloee opened her mouth and it came back around and bit me in the ass. Blair was hurt more than anything, she wanted to get away, so she just left. After that, in order to keep working here, I had to stay at an AA camp for the winter." Mark tipped the glass back against his lips, drinking the glass full of wine like a shot, wiping tears from his eyes when he set the empty glass down. "It's happening all over again. But this time I don't get a chance to keep my job. I'm not good enough." He met Jack's eyes, and he felt like he was being tore in two, like it was his fault that this was happening.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Jack." Tears rolled down Mark's face, and they rolled down Jack's, because everything was falling apart so fast. And so Jack hugged him, and walked them both to the couch. Mark sipped off the bottle as he cried and Jack held him close to his chest. He held him and cried, and had some wine too, and he could feel another hopeless tale of broken love flooding onto the couch and floors and walls. The sobbing stopped and the sun started to rise, and the bottle was empty, but they still sat and didn't say anything, even though Jack would be sitting on a plane in a few hours, without making a plan or trying to compromise, and Mark would be packing his stuff into his car and driving a few states over. The two of them still a little buzzed and still very heart broken, but they wouldn't talk to eachother for a few months.

They both still hurt but despite every thing, they held themselves together.

What the fuck am I doing ? I don't know.