Blameless ✔

Chapter 21: ❝Mark, please listen❞

Chapter 21: ❝Mark, please listen❞

♡Mark's POV♡

"You're not serious about this, are you?"

The scraping of cutlery against the white, glass plate stopped immediately as her blue eyes stared directly into mine with confusion burning in her gaze.

"What do you mean?" She asked, slowly setting down her knife and fork on the white, folded napkin beside her.

The restaurant I had reserved for Evelyn and I wasn't packed but I still used the conversations surrounding us as an opportunity to keep my mouth shut and choose the words I had planned on saying next carefully.

The reason I had asked in the first place was because after Evelyn and I had 'made up' and began talking again like normal, I felt something was off and after days turned into weeks with no utterance of the uncharacteristic behaviour I had displayed, I realized that I was right. It was like she wasn't curious. Either that or she didn't care and I wasn't sure which one I preferred.

It was clearly neither though as I kept questioning why she wasn't curious or why she didn't care. I had avoided her and she had clearly been concerned back when she had repetitively asked Luke about my unacceptable conduct so I didn't understand why she hadn't taken any opportunity to ask me herself.

"Serious about what?" She asked again, still staring at me.

I returned my gaze to her and opened my mouth to respond straight away since that question seemed much easier to answer than the other one. "Our relationship."

She looked appalled and quickly shook her head. It made me feel bad because ironically, I was the one who wasn't serious but at the same time, I just wanted some kind of reassurance. I selfishly wanted to make sure she still cared.

"Of course, I'm serious about our relationship, Mark," she said, reaching out to place her hands on top of mine, making me stiffen. "I don't know what makes you think-"

"You never asked," I interrupted, using my fringe to cover my eyes as I stared down at our hands, finding the size difference amusing. "You never asked why I neglected you that time." I slowly removed my hands from hers. "You just avoided it."

She dropped her gaze and retracted her hands before placing them on her lap and in the quintessence of her silence, some sanity had slapped me unkindly in the face.

Why do you care so much about her uncaringness?

Before I could come up with an excuse to dismiss the question, she spoke. "It's not that I didn't want to ask," she began, nervously wringing her hands together under the table. "I was just scared to hear what you would say."

My eyes softened at her words as it was a feeling I wasn't unfamiliar with. I felt empathy for her so with a sigh, I also dropped my gaze, ready to put the pointless matter behind us after saying, "don't be afraid to ask about what's on your mind. Over time I've learned that doing so was just pointless and frustrating."

Letting her eyes focus on mine again, she nodded and watched as I picked up my fork and knife to take a bite out of my untouched food.

Dessert was served twenty-five minutes later and it was on the house due to the simple reason we were, "students and new customers." I didn't complain as I watched the waiter carry away our meals and replace them with chocolate covered strawberry brownies topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. The strong aroma of the strawberries was strangely the only thing I could distinguish despite the fruit being adulterated by different ingredients but it wasn't a scent I despised.