chapter 8: soulmate who wasn't meant to be

 Mark and Anne were lying on Anne’s bed looking up at the ceiling of constellations with his hand around her, gripping her so tight like she was the mirage in the deserted land he longed for. He didn’t want to say anything to ruin this moment, but he couldn’t control his tongue, so he slipped out the words and said “What now? What after this?” Anne looked up at him and half smiled “I don’t know Mark, I love this…the moment right now and I have no clue of the second after but all I know is that I don’t want this to be over” Mark exhaled with assurance but still fear crawled upon his neck like this was fake and not for long. Mark crawled down to kiss Anne as this feeling stroked him and his eyes turned watery again, Anne sensed his fear through his lips on her, by his eyes, by the sigh, and by his skin all over her. She pressed her forehead to his, while their noses intertwined “Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine, I am right here” Anne whispered those words and Mark’s pupils dilated just as soon Anne’s parents came slamming the front door of the house calling out Anne’s name in anger, she started to worry and told Mark to leave by the balcony. But when Mark asked her about it, she just told him to leave and said that she would text him. Mark, still anxious and worried to death, crawled out of the balcony without saying further. The good thing was that he parked his car far from her home so her parents wouldn’t have noticed, but unfortunately, he left his car keys in Anne’s room and had to walk home, even though it was still drizzling. While he was still ecstatic something just didn’t feel right, but he ignored his negative feelings and played repeat to the part where they kissed and giggled all the way.

Mark was just outside his house when he heard his mother screaming in pain and crying while his stepdad was brutally hurting his mom and making grunting noises in anger. Mark rushed into his house and followed the noises; they were in the kitchen and his stepdad had a hot pan in his hand and his mom was on the ground facing towards him and told Mark to stop, and be there where he was with her eyes but he wouldn’t do that, he grabbed his step-father and aggressively snatched the pan from his hand and punched him in his guts as hard as he could, this stalled him for a while. While he helped his mom to get up, his stepdad managed to get up too, with raging red eyes he came on to Mark grabbed him by his shoulder, and tried to attack him in his face, but Mark was fast and steady with his actions and countered back the punch, which seriously hurt his stepfather. He was lying on the ground again, groaning in pain. Mark crouched and looked at him with anger and tightness, “Get out of here, because I won't mind having your blood on my hands”. His mother told him to stop and leave as she claimed, ‘it was a personal matter’. He didn’t even look at his mom when she said that absurd thing and ignored it, “get. Out. Of. My. Dad’s. house, Uncle Jeffery” he said in a passive-aggressive tone. His “uncle” managed to get up, grabbed the car keys, and left the house slamming the door behind him. 

“You didn’t have to do it, baby, I was handling it. What if you’d get hurt? Anyway, it was my fault, I made him angry. I will call him in morning and apologize, you will too” his mother said to him while he was nursing her. “Yes Mom, it was your fault, for marrying him, and I will never apologize to that man”. His mother looked at him tensed and said “I think we have gotten over that Mark, it was for you only. You needed a father.” “I didn’t NEED a father, Mom. Admit it, he tricked you into marrying him because from the start he always liked you and when will you understand that he was the one who killed Dad, stop being so delusional”. There was a brief pause and the air between them started to seem heavy “not everything is like your little stories that you read, not everything is a Shakespearean play, Mark. This is real life”. “Whatever Mom, I hope you are right too, but it’s not the truth.” Mark kissed his mother’s forehead and tucked her in her bed, his mother said to him while was leaving “I don’t think I can ever accept the truth, because the day I did, I will die” “you are already dying mom and killing me too” he said that and left the room quietly. 

He went to his room sat on his chair at the study table and glanced upon the old bookshelf of his dad, where his name was carved beside his dad’s, he grabbed “War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy” which his whole life, never even touched because of the size of it. As soon as he opened it, he saw that all the pages were cut to make a square in between, where there were all the letters his mom and dad wrote to each other. He spent his whole night reading them, how they loved each other so dearly and obsessively. Even after all that love, he wondered why it all happened that happened? Just because his dad died, his mother’s love died too? he thought that he could never stop loving Anne, even after he died or she, will still hang around her like a ghost in her shadows, "maybe my dad does too?"