Everything's Changed

TWENTY

Chapter Twenty:

In what seemed like a blink of an eye, the end of January was fast approaching. Only a couple of weeks back, Mark had recorded his last song with the help of Robbie. It had probably been the hardest song he had ever had to record. A number of times throughout the recording process, he hadn't been able to carry on singing, knowing his voice would break, and so Robbie had brought him into a number of tight hugs before he was ready to carry on.

It was only a few more days until Mark's birthday now and the only thing that Mark had asked for was that no-one treated this as his last birthday. All he wanted was everyone to have a laugh; to have a good time; to make the most of the last happy time they were going to have.

On the morning of the 27th, Mark awoke late and, slowly, made his way down into the living room. He was tired today – very tired. If he was honest, all he wanted to do was sleep, but if he was lucky, over the course of the day, he might start to build up some energy. Though, for the last week or so, he hadn't been feeling particularly hungry so Mark assumed that an increase in energy was probably off the cards.

He pushed open the door to the living room and was immediately taken aback by what and who he saw. He hadn't a clue what the time was, but on the sofa sat Robbie, Ayda, Emma and the kids; plus on the other sofa sat Gary, Howard and Jason. As he walked through the door into the living room, everyone smiled at him and in return, he smiled back at them one his winning smiles, despite how tired he was feeling. Mark then made his way to the sofa and sat down in the small space between Robbie and Emma.

"How long have you guys been here?" Mark asked addressing his three friends on the opposite sofa.

"About forty-five minutes." Gary answered.

"That long? Why didn't you wake me?" Mark asked. He felt bad knowing that his friends had been sitting here while he slept away.

"Didn't think it was fair if we woke you up." Jason told him. "We know that you need to sleep a lot more."

"I feel bad now, you should have woken me." Mark told them.

"Mark, honestly, it's fine." Howard smiled at him. Mark smiled back at him and didn't say anything else, but that didn't mean he agreed with what he was saying.

"OK," Mark said eventually with a smile.

"Anyway," Gary said pulling something out from the side of the sofa. "We got you this." He passed Mark a flat, small rectangular, wrapped present and smiled at him. "Happy birthday, mate."

Mark looked at the gift he had been given in surprise. He didn't really know what to say. He hadn't expected to get anything today with his life expectancy now less than a month.

"Guys, you didn't..." Mark started.

"We wanted to." Robbie told him. Mark looked at him. "Go on then, open it." Robbie encouraged. Mark did exactly what he said and began to tear the paper away. The paper landed on the floor and what was left in Mark's hands was a small picture frame with a picture inside. At one look at the picture, Mark felt himself brought to tears. It was a picture of all of them on their holiday back in July, on the boat, with a school of dolphins behind them. Each and every one of them had a beaming smile on their face and, looking at this picture, Mark felt like he was back there, on the boat with the dolphins, his friends and his family. It had been the best time spent together since he had become ill.

"Guys..." Mark found he suddenly had no words to say to his friends. "Thank you." He eventually said.

"Look at the back." Jason said. Mark looked at him for a second before turning the picture frame over and looked at the back. There, across the whole of the back of the frame, were a number of handwritten messages from everyone. All of them were different, but they all had one thing in common; they all expressed how much they were going to miss him in one way or another.