TMNT: We Don't play The Game
Capter 12: Sorry...
I sat on the couch in silence as everyone was gathered around the coffee table. Every now and then Ebony would glance up at me, trying to use her eyes to invite me down, or question why I was being so anti-social; I chose to ignore her. Mark was almost constantly immersed in deep conversation with Freddy throughout the night. I was less than pleased I'd received no attention from him; his girlfriend goes through some form of... Quarter life crisis and he returns with not so much as a second glance.
"Hi Mark." Silence fell, the kind of silence that falls when you're at a funeral reception, when the wife of the recently deceased enters the room. I couldn't understand why. "What?" I spared a quick glance at Ebony and Freddy before my eyes fell back on Mark.
"Hi-" He was shaking, only slightly, but noticeably. "Hi Adri-enne." here was a catch in his voice.
"What's wrong?" I focused all my energy on trying to put some emotion into the questions, sadness, concern, anything... But it remained an empty shell.
"Noth-" He cleared his throat gently. "Nothing... gimme' a minute." He stood up, still shaking, from the table and made his way into the hallway. Freddy's head followed him until he was out of view. Ebony's eyes hadn't left me. I looked down at her and noticed something frighteningly strange.
She was crying.
Silently, small delicate tears were dribbling quickly down her face.
I watched her for a while, her eyes held a pleading sadness, begging me to find something I was clearly missing.
"Ebony... What happened?" She swallowed hard, screwing up her eyes making black tears roll down her cheeks, black from her mascara. Something horrible must've happened if
Ebony wasn't smiling.
Something apocalyptic at least.
"His Dad-"
"Mark's Dad?"
"Mark's Dad..." She trailed before she could say anything else. I stood up from the couch and watched as Freddy shuffled over to Ebony and took her in his arms. I made my way into the hallway.
"Marky?" I waited in the silent hallway for a reply, I didn't receive one per se, but from my bedroom I heard quiet sobbing. I stepped lightly into the room to find Mark leant on my wardrobe holding a framed picture. "What's that?" He looked up at me with flooded green eyes, his usually charming smile bent and twisted into an unbearable grimace of anger and grief.
"I can see him," He turned the picture round to face me. I moved closer to him and noticed it was a photo, Ebony, Freddy, Mark and myself, on the night of our first gig. I couldn't help but stare at the way we were all smiling. It was painful compared to how we were now. And there, in the background, between mine and Mark's head…
His Father.
"Mark... What's wrong with your Dad?" I knelt down while holding his hands on the frame, resting them on my lap. He closed his eyes to clear them of the excess tears. When he opened them, the look he gave me sent a chill down my spine. I leant over and wrapped my arms round his shoulders, drawing him into me, his quiet sobbing was muffled by my shoulder. We stayed in almost silence for a while. There was nothing I could say, I don't think much was going through my mind at the time. "I'm sorry, Mark." I was, but what for?
I hadn't done anything. I was still sorry.
Only now did it seem strange to me that I'd only met his Dad once, that night, our first gig. He'd told his son he was proud of him for following his dream... And for finding someone to share it with. Me, he meant me. I made someone proud. Proud of their son. But now that someone was dead. So why was I thinking about myself?
I squeezed Mark's shoulder a bit tighter. He'd fallen silent over the past few minutes; now he was just trembling slightly. I angled my head so I could see his face; his eyes were closed and his mouth was hanging open, his bottom lip gently moving up and down every now and again. I could hear him breathing deeply from his throat.
"Mark?... You awake?" If he wasn't... What was I expecting?
I don't know.
I was still sorry.
