Dear Mark Fischbach

waving through a window

Mark stands near the cold wall of the busy hallway, looking around at all the new Freshmen and already wishing he could just get up and leave and start college, or just work at McDonalds for the rest of his life. Ethan Nestor, a short vibrant blue haired teen, makes his way to the anxious Senior. After standing next to the young adult for over two minutes, he finally speaks up.

"So, how was your summer?" Ethan perks, a wide, almost too-inviting grin plastered on his face.

Mark looks around in order to try and find the person that the other may have been talking to, but no one else seems to be standing around him. He looks back to Ethan and swallows down his near voice crack before speaking. "My..?"

"Mine was busy! I did three internships and ninety hours of community service! I know: wow." Ethan explains and Mark goes to reply but is quickly cut off by the pitchy voice again.

"I mean, even though I was so busy I did manage to make some new friends too, or well, I guess you could call them acquaintances." Ethan finishes, his grin still shining through the room. Mark shakes his head from his trance and starts fidgeting with his backpack, trying to reach the same marker his mother had handed him this morning. Courage.

"Do you want to...uhm, you're not really...Would you like to sign my cast?" Mark manages to mutter out although it' filled with plenty of harsh voice cracks and broken sentences. He pushes the marker towards the younger male, who seemed to maybe be a Sophomore.

"Oh my god. How happened to your arm?"

"Oh. Well. I broke it. I was climbing a tre-"

"Really? My grandma once broke her hip getting into the bathtub around July. That was the beginning of the end, the doctors said...I think. She died right after."

Mark sits and stares in an awkward silence, unsure of how to respond to the younger one's sentence. He just chooses to ignore it until he finally walks away. Mark goes to head to his next class before he is approached by his childhood friend, Tyler Scheid, a tall teen with a mess of brown curls sitting upon his head.

The first thing from Tyler's mouth is his loud, intoxicating laugh before he spoke.

"Is it weird to be the first person in History to break their arm from jerking off too much? Or do you consider that an honor?"

Mark's eyes light up and he shakes his head furiously, "What? I didn't, I wasn't...doing that..."

"I can already paint the picture. You're sitting in your room, you have Amy Nelson's Instagram up on your weird, off-brand cell phone...No, but seriously, what happened?" Tyler quits with his jokes and looks over to his friend, who seemed to be sweating at this point.

"I was climbing a tree, and then I just...fell."

"What are you? An acorn?" Tyler questions, he can see the worry from Mark's face subside just a little from the joke before it quickly returns when.

Mark looks at the passing people and pushes his head down towards the ground, swallowing the hard lump in his throat as his anxiety began to skyrocket and sweat started to bead along his forehead.

"Well. I don't know if you know this, but I, this summer I..I worked as a park ranger at Clear Lake Park, I guess, I mean I don't want to sound like I'm bragging but I'm definitely a tree expert now." Mark gives a weak smile to Tyler, who says nothing in return.

"Anyway, I tried to climb this forty-foot-tall tree."

"And then you fell?"

Mark panics again but manages to nod to the young man's words as he eagerly searches for another excuse. "Well, except..It's a funny story because for like, a solid ten minutes after I had fallen, when I just laid there on the ground waiting for someone to come get me...And I was like...Any second now, I kept saying that to myself! Any second, here they come!"