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Jack: Tuesday, 26 December
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I liked Mark's house. It smelt nice. His parents were nice to me, and it felt very cozy. What I didn't like, however, was waking up and realizing Mark replaced himself with a pillow.

I stretched out and looked around the room before getting up and stumbling downstairs into the kitchen to see where his mother was cooking breakfast. "Good morning, sleepyhead." She laughed when she saw me. "My, my, you have quite the bed head."

I laughed a little bit before bidding her good morning as well and asking where Mark had gone. "Huh, he's not upstairs with you?" I shook my head. "I haven't seen him, hun."

"Okay. I'll keep looking then." I said, my voice was scratchy from just having woken up. But I stumbled around looking for Mark to no avail. Where could he have gone?

Eventually, I heard the front door open and Mark came in with his father. He laughed when he saw me, here he was. Showered, dressed, ready for the day. Here I was, a mess, in pajamas, and still exhausted.

"You look cute." Mark commented as he kissed my forehead. I grumbled something incoherent that made Mark laugh. "Hey mom."

"Hi Mark." She said. "You didn't tell poor Jack that you were leaving, he looked all over for you."

"Sorry, I didn't want to wake up." Mark said to me and ruffled my already messy hair. "How'd you sleep?"

"Good." I mumbled.

"You still sound sleepy." Mark laughed.

"I am." I yawned as I leaned against him, his mother saw us and gave a smile but there looked like there was something underneath it that made me separate from Mark.

Mark's mother served breakfast to us, and I helped her clean up afterwards as all of the other people in the house were being reckless in the living room. Standing at the sink, she came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Thank you, Jack."

"No problem." I smiled at her. "I mean you fed me and so the least I could do is be here and be helpful."

"How is school going?" She asked me while she turned on the tap.

"Fine, I guess." I shrugged my shoulders.

"Are you really not going to go back to college?" She asked me.

I bit down on my lip. "I don't think so, sorry. I don't think it's a place that I'm going to like."

"Well there are a lot of different schools, Jack." She said. "Why don't you want to go?"

I took a deep breath. There was no way I could look at Mark's mother and say that I slept with all of my teachers to get my A's, there was absolutely no way I could. In my entire high school experience I never worked once for my grades. Going to college would drop my grades to almost zeros, I couldn't do it.

So I came up with a lame excuse. "I think I want to move back home and just be there." I said and this is when Mark's mother became confused.

"Back to where?"

"Ireland." I coughed.

"Ireland!?" Mark's mother shouted and I covered her mouth with my hand. "Sorry." She said quietly. "You're going to move all the way to Ireland?"

"Well I don't know for certain yet, I mean I have family back there that I would really love to be with and because I'm not going to college I thought it might be a good idea." I sighed. "But I don't really know because Mark's here. I think he'd be better without me though." Did I seriously just admit this to his mother?

"What? Why do you say that?" His mother replied, just as confused as I would have expected.

"I mean.. Mark's a great person, he's amazing and smart and kind." I sighed. "I'm just a bratty seventeen year old, he deserves better than what I could offer him." I paused. "Sorry I probably shouldn't be saying this to his mother."

"Mark really cares about you." Mark's mother told me with a sad expression. "You should see the look on his face when he talks about you, he loves you more than anything else in the world. Never in my entire life have I seen him so happy. He's different with you, and it's a wonderful difference. He's calmer and more carefree, I don't think I've seen him acting the way he has in a long time, Jack."

"And you really think that's due to me?"

"Well I don't know what it is, but from what I know about you and what I've seen I can say without a doubt that I think it's you." Mark's mother smiled and ruffled my hair with her somewhat wet hand. "Now go on, you've helped enough."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I can -"

"I'm sure, Jack. Sheesh, I wish my sons were as helpful as you were." She laughed and I took this time to walk out of the kitchen. When I was in the living room, I could see all of the men commenting on something they saw on the television, I looked at it too, but saw it as nothing important. Instead, it was just them bonding over sports, which I guess was a thing.

I sat down next to Mark who immediately snaked his arm around my waist. I leaned against him and then I felt him press a grape against my lips. "Here, eat it."

"Mark we just had breakfast." I said as I allowed him to toss the fruit in my mouth.

"I'm hungry though." He laughed. I rolled my eyes, he was hungry, sure, but that did not make me hungry. When he tried to feed me another one I pushed my hand down. Grapes were alright, but my mouth wasn't watering at the sight of them.

Eventually, both his father and brother had exited the room, leaving me alone with Mark as I laid my head on his lap. I looked up to see him intently watching whatever was on the television before I let out a sigh and spoke. "This is nice."

"What is?" Mark asked, his hand combing through my hair.

"Just sitting here, with you. Not a care in the world." I said, my eyes were gently closed but I could imagine that Mark had never even taken his eyes off of the television. "In a nice cozy house with a bunch of people who are really nice and loving."

"You never wanna leave, huh?" Mark laughed a little bit.

"But I will." I answered.

"You could just stay here with me forever." Mark said and I felt his lips press against my forehead.

"No I can't." I opened my eyes to him. "I definately can't, and you know that. You can't stay here forever either."

Mark gave a shrug. "Well then I'll just enjoy you for now." There was a long pause before Mark continued. "Jack where do you envision yourself in a few years?"

"I don't know, Mark." I said with a shrug. "Why?"

"Do you still think you would want to be with me after a couple of years?" He asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "What kind of question is that? Of course."

"So do you think one day we'll get married and live together?" Mark asked.

"We pretty much live together, and when that day comes I'll marry you." I said. "Why are you asking questions like this?" Mark shrugged and shook his head. I sat up and turned to face him. "Come on, something had got your head spinning, what is it?"

"I.." He paused. So there was something. "I heard you talking to my mom."

"Oh." I went wide eyed.

"I mean she was kind of loud." Mark said quietly as he picked at the end of his pants. "Were you really just going to get up and leave me here?"

"No." I said quietly. "You clearly didn't listen to the whole conversation. If you're gonna eavesdrop might as well do it right." My tone was cold now, and I had no idea why. He listened in on my conversation, I get it, but it wasn't the end of the world. He just was afraid of what he heard.

"I didn't sit there and listen. I just heard a little part of it." Mark sighed.

I took a deep breath and released it in a sigh. My phone went off and I looked down to see that my mother had arrived at the house to fetch me. "I've gotta go Mark."

"What? Why? Was it something I -"

"No, but my mum is here and I shouldn't make her wait considering she drove all the way out here." I said as I stood up from the couch. Mark sat there, pouring like a baby. I let out a sigh before kissing his forehead. "New Years, right?"

"Yeah but I'll be back at my apartment." Mark told me without meeting my eyes. "So I can come get you."

"Okay, babe." I said and before I could walk away Mark grabbed my wrist and pulled me down to him.

"I love you, be safe." He said as he pecked my lips once.

"Well of course, why wouldn't I be safe?" I laughed a little bit. "Love you too but I really have to go now, okay?"

"Okay." He nodded and I left the nice house. Looking back at it and thinking about how I managed to meet a boy who was so incredibly kind and his affectionate as well accepting family.

I didn't do anything deserve a good life, in fact I didn't deserve it at all. But I suppose this was the way it would fall.

~AN

I'm really stressed ah-ah-ah-ah. 

Rinny!