Your Mark on Me

Chapter 31: Crossroad

It was after midnight when the TV downstairs turned off. Soon after, the shuffling and noises below me quieted down and I figured Mom had gone to bed.

As for me, there was no way I could sleep. My brain was buzzing with all the things that had happened in one day, from the morning at the hotel, to the drive back to DC, the argument, the kiss, the unbelievable happiness and then, the fear of losing it all so soon after it had finally happened. I still couldn't believe that I had sex! In the context of everything, it didn't even seem that important anymore. 

I had just opened my diary and penned a nice flowery title reading "My first time" when I heard the tap in my window. I ignored it, thinking it must have been a moth, or some other large insect that had bumped into the glass attracted by the light. But then the noise repeated, once, twice, and the third time I pulled the curtain and looked outside. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Mark, throwing pebbles at my window.

I opened the window and poked my head through. When he saw me, he stopped.

"Come out", he said, a bit too loudly for a clandestine midnight adventure. "I need to speak to you."

I shushed him frantically, not knowing if I felt panic at the thought of Mom hearing him, or immense joy that he hadn't abandoned me.

"I can't. I'm grounded."

"Right. Can you really not come out at all? Not just for ten minutes?"

"She's keeping an eye on me. Crap." I stopped to listen out for a rumble downstairs. "It's nothing, just the boiler making noises."

Mark started pacing along the wall, eyeing carefully the layout of the house, examining with what I thought was too much interest the tree growing nearby my window.

"Okay. I think I can pull this off."

He'd changed since the afternoon and the shirt and shoes he was wearing now were definitely not suitable for what he had in mind. I watched with my mouth open as he grabbed the lowest branch and pulled himself up on top of it. He was actually doing it.

I immediately turned around to examine the state of my room: it had definitely seen better days.

Frantically, I picked up three days worth of dirty socks and underwear off the floor and shoved them under the bed. The empty potato chip bags and old dried banana skins on the desk didn't seem like they could've possibly fit in my already bursting bin, but somehow I managed to push them in, then, at a second thought, I took the whole waste basket and shoved it in the wardrobe. Thankfully the bed was made, so I only had to smooth out the creases. At another inspection of the room, I decided to lose the Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco posters and left up Tori Amos and my vintage Martha Argerich poster. I then grabbed Mr. Scribbles off the shelf and shoved him under the bed, next to the dirty laundry.

It was perfect timing because I was just done with hiding the posters in the drawer when Mark's head poked through the window.

"Could've been worse", he said, panting with the effort. "Could've been the second floor."

"It is the second floor", I replied.

He gave me a confused look, then sniffed. "Oh you, bloody Americans."

"Well I'm sorry we're actually making more sense than you, Brits."

Mark chuckled, and I did too. It was the weirdest thing, having him in my room. He looked around with unconcealed curiosity, as I involuntarily tensed up, preparing for the exam.