Mark
It was late. Natalie stared at the glow of the computer screen, scrubbing lingering tears from her eyes. Her best friend, the boy she was madly in love with, had run off with another girl after months of senseless flirting and sex filled nights together.
She was staring at a personals page, clicking down through the men listed there, sending random emails to the guys who sounded to her, like they just wanted somebody to hang out with. She wasn’t in the mind-set for a new relationship; she just missed her best friend, and jealousy was tickling at her nerves. Things would never be the same between them, she’d think about the passion he had shown her on all those countless occasions, the nights spent snuggling on his couch, the fact that someone else now shared that with him.
All her life she’d loved the best friends turn out to be soul mates story, it had been her dream, but it failed, movies were a lie. “New to Town” caught her attention on the screen, one mouse click later and she found herself reading the ad.
“Just moved here, don’t know anyone, looking for somebody to help show me around a little, hang out, that sort of thing.”
“Perfect!” Natalie sent this stranger a quick email, already planning all the best places to take him. Within minutes he had already sent a reply. He was a metal head, a smoker, a fantasy novel writer, and jobless. He did have a car, and had attached a photo of a rugged shorthaired dreamboat, the photo set in a dark room so that the camera would set dramatic shadows upon his face.
Before she knew what was happening he had told her they were to meet at the mall the next day, and that he wanted a long term relationship, something that lasted much longer than a few months. Natalie had, had no intention of dating anyone, but he was so dark, so mysterious, so handsome, and for once in her life – wasn’t a complete pushover, she wanted to date him too, so what if he was 5 years older than her?
All of Natalie’s past relationships had been flops. Failures, just like the one between her and her bestie. None of them could drive, none of them had jobs until she put in the effort to find them one, and they were all over-weight. Easy to date guys that were so desperate for love from a girl they’d do anything she wanted. Her first relationship started when she was 14 and she’d dated 4 boys since. She was now 16, almost 17.
When the next day came she did her long dirty blonde hair up in a ponytail with a pink bow that had hello kitty imprinted on it. She’d gotten it off of a gift bag. She then pulled on her cutest unicorn themed t-shirt and blue jeans with white stitching down the sides and arrived a good thirty minutes early.
They were to meet in the bookstore, her heart was racing as she wandered through the meaningless rows of books, her eyes darting and judging every man they landed on.
“Hey you.” She jumped and turned, heart in her throat now, to see the owner of the deep smoker voice. Mark was wearing a black band t-shirt, she never could read the font most metal bands used when writing their names, a black belt and tight blue jeans. He’d gelled his hair into little spikes, had giant sideburns, and gauged ears.
“H-hi!” she held her hand out awkwardly to shake his but found herself embraced in a tight hug. “What do you wanna do?” Mark stared at her, his green eyes holding hers so tightly she found herself blushing and staring at the floor. “Oh uhm we could uh . . . whatever you want to do I suppose.”
“No, you choose.”
“Ah, uhm . . . Well . . . we could uh I guess just walk around? I don’t know where to go really. . .”
“. . . .” He started walking.
Natalie didn’t know what to do, he wasn’t anything like anyone she had dated before, for one thing, he wasn’t fat. She slipped her hand around his arm only for Mark to violently jerk it free. She felt crushed until he slipped his fingers through her hand. The first of the two times he would ever hold it.
“Don’t do that, it’s too awkward.”
They wandered aimlessly, Natalie trying desperately to think of things to talk about that would be of interest to him, he loved video games so she found herself rattling off the ones she liked and pretending to know what he was talking about when he mentioned his. She told him her dream of playing an online game with someone and he told her about the one he played. When the date was over they walked out into the hot summer air, he walked to her car and as she turned to get into it, he grabbed her and pressed his lips against hers. She found herself blushing violently and stumbled about. “D-do you need a ride to your car?”
Mark accepted and crawled inside; he ignored the wadded up McDonald’s bags and piles of textbooks in her back seat. Instead he pointed out the spider crawling along her dashboard. “Oh my GOD! Kill it kill it!” Natalie grabbed her lint brush from under the driver seat and thrust it at Mark. He quickly killed the intruding spider and proceeded to begin laughing. She drove him to his car.
Natalie saw Mark again to go to the movies, they saw a comedy that Mark ended up hating, Date Night. The next night he came to spend at her house. They ate taco bell for dinner while she forced him into watching one of her sitcom marathons. Her mother was out of town, she felt incredibly rebellious.
As the night wore on Mark began to think it in his best interests to try to put the moves on Natalie. She shrunk away from him quickly, thoughts of her best friend flashing into her mind. “I’d rather wait, I don’t want to rush into it . . .” Mark pretended to understand and settled for cuddling her while they slept. Just as Natalie was dozing off Mark proclaimed, “we’re a couple now.” She was startled by his forwardness at first but consented, as she felt rather infatuated with him. The next morning Mark wanted to go home before Natalie had time to brush her teeth.
A week passed and Natalie was getting ready to go on a trip with her grandmother to Oregon to play on the coast. Mark requested she visit him before she left. He lived an hour away from her house, she found herself constantly worrying that she had taken the wrong road on the drive.
Natalie arrived to be greeted with a kiss at the door and to instantly meet Mark’s mother. She was short, large breasted and had a mess of brown hair piled on top of her head. They lived on a farm that only had two chickens and rooster on it. His mother also collected pig figurines, which adorned every inch of free shelf space in the entire kitchen and living room. “We also have a cow – but it doesn’t live here. We’re saving that one up for steaks,” Mark boasted.
Natalie felt panicky and couldn’t bring herself to speak much in front of Mark’s mother. He led her up the stairs and she tripped on one, falling into a painting of Jesus on the wall, it wobbled back and forth violently but did not fall.
“Heh, looks like you had a brush with God!” shouted Mark’s mother from her perch on the couch. Natalie died of embarrassment and ran up the blue-carpeted stairs as fast she could.
Mark plunked down at his computer and loaded up a game, Natalie sat on the floor next to him and stared at the screen as he put a menthol cigarette into his mouth, the smoke trailing up into his nose as he used his hands to play.
Hours of this passed and Natalie grew extensively bored. She wanted to play the game with him, but didn’t own it. She’d buy it tomorrow. After waiting for five hours for his attention he finally quit the game, turned on some death metal music and led her to his large flower adorned bed. “It was my mother’s. . .”
While on her trip Natalie received a constant stream of text messages from the boy who seemed to hate phone calls with a fiery passion. Mark grew angry with her when she wouldn’t respond to his texts within 2 minutes, and would swoon and tell her how happy she made him when she did respond quickly. “You make me so happy, I’m thrilled we’re together.” “Haha, I love you.” “You can’t have sex with me and then leave for a week!” “Hopefully we can have a place together someday <3.”
When Natalie returned home she began a cycle of driving to his house three times a week, playing their online game together everyday (they were both fairies, he was a dirge [musical scout] and she was a conjuror), finally, Natalie returned his I love you.
All the while that Natalie had been dating Mark, she had not spoken to her best friend. When he finally checked in on her in the middle of the summer, Natalie only told him what she thought he didn’t need to know.
“How are you doing? What have you been up to?”
“Oh well, I have a boyfriend, he’s super sexy and hot and we play video games together!”
“Oh well hey, I’m really glad for you.”
“Ya and he’s got a huge penis and we have sex all the time too!”
“I’m sure you do, can I watch?”
“Ugg NO!” He was always perverted when possible. He had also informed her that he had broken up with the girl he was with.
She eventually took Mark to meet her friend, they played Mario on the Wii, Natalie lost miserably, she played as Toad. She didn’t dare tell Mark that he was hanging out with the last guy she had been sleeping with. On the drive back to Mark’s house, he spent the drive telling her of his ex-girlfriends and how they had all cheated on him, the last one with his best friend.
“I wanted to be a writer, I had already written novels that were going to be published. But then that bitch stole all my shit and I lost everything! I don’t want to write anymore. You don’t know what it’s like losing all your writing.”
“Well you’re only 21, I’m sure you have plenty of time to start again.”
“ . . . You just don’t get it!”
The next day Natalie asked to come over, Mark told her no as his mother was cleaning the house. She called her best friend and asked to go out instead. She told him what Mark had said.
“Oh well it’s obvious, he’s cheating on you. He’s probably got another girl over there right now.”
“He wouldn’t cheat on me, he’s been cheated on by all of his exes, he knows how bad that feels.”
Natalie went home and couldn’t forget the idea that he might have had another girl over when he told her she couldn’t come. The next time she saw Mark she asked him.
“So uhm remember when I couldn’t come over. . .”
“Ya, what about it?”
“Well my friend thought maybe you had another girl over or something . . .”
“. . . fuck your friends. If that’s the kind of shit they’re going to say about me I don’t want anything to do with them!”
“. . .Do you want me to stop talking to them?”
“No, you can keep talking to your friends. Just don’t tell me about them.”
Natalie felt nervous that he wouldn’t give a real answer but she hugged him and muttered that she loved him, listened to his death metal music with him and went home. She was learning all about every metal band ever, it was overwhelming but she felt like she could pretend to be a pro.
As the month passed Mark grew more and more distant, he quit answering text messages, only talking to her when she went to his house or talked to him in their game. When he texted he grew furious when she didn’t respond right away and refused to respond when she responded late. On a Monday night Natalie was at work at her ice cream parlor, she was the supervisor and worked solo shifts, business was usually slow.
Her phone buzzed. “I’m not happy.”
“What’s wrong?” she texted back.
“I’m just not happy. There’s no spark in our relationship.”
“How can you say that? I love you!”
“Don’t tell me you love me. I’m not breaking up with you, I just thought you should know.”
Natalie left work early in tears and fled to her best friend’s house. He let her stay the night in the guest bedroom. It was adorned with dozens of porcelain dolls, all of them stared at Natalie with their beady little eyes. She had to read the most boring book she could find to fall asleep that night. It was a research book written in 1958 about conspiracy stories. Normally she would enjoy a book like this but this one – was particularly dry.
Natalie resumed spending time with Mark a week later, everything went as it had been and even picked up a little. He allowed her to come over more, and visited her at work, he also took her to music stores. She had to pay for everything as he didn’t have a job, but so long as she could light a smile on his normally down-turned face, she didn’t care. She bought him a Drudkh cd, an Edguy cd, an Alcest cd and a Stratovarious cd. She also bought herself a David Bowie cd, he didn’t want to listen to it. He refused to download music, which had caused his room to be cluttered with thousands of cd cases. She felt proud to ad to his collection, part of her reveled in the knowledge that every time he listened to those few, he’d know she bought them for him.
July was coming to an end, the heat was blaring near 100*, Natalie invited Mark to go float the local river with her. She didn’t own any floating devices so she planned to rent some. As they neared the counter she realized she had forgotten her ID so they made the hot treck in their swimsuits back to her car and retrieved it. When they made it back to the rental window she was told she needed a visa card. Another treck later and they were sailing down the river.
Natalie had brought bunjee cords so they could hook their tubes together; a prior floating experience told her this was a good plan. He refused though and spent much of their trip laughing as she flailed her arms about in the water to catch up to him. As they neared the end of the float a boy jumped off a rope and splashed water into his face. He cursed and swore that his sunscreen was in his eyes and that he couldn’t remove it. He rubbed his eyes furiously, trying to remove the damned sunscreen – forgetting he had sun screen on his hands. Natalie began to scream frantically, “does anyone have anything dry?!” Unable to find anyone who’d lend any sort of cloth for Mark, they suffered through the last minutes of the trip.
Back on the grass Natalie waited patiently for Mark to retrieve his car keys so they could drive back to her car.
“Shit.”
“What is it?”
“I left my keys in your car.”
“Oh well, I have a couple of dollars, we’ll just have to take the bus up and come back for your car . . .”
They crowded onto a tiny school bus and sat their wet butts down on plastic seats. It made a squeak that made Natalie shiver. She sat still as a stone the entire trip up; Mark continued to grumble about his eyes.
The next day Natalie received a text from Mark stating, “I should have put sunscreen on my legs.”
“You didn’t?!”
“No I thought they were hairy enough to block it . . . Now I have bright red legs.”
Natalie got a second job at this time and only saw Mark when he went downtown or needed her to pay his phone bill. One August night her phone buzzed at 10:00pm.
“I am really depressed, there’s all this shit going on – let’s do something.”
“Alright any suggestions?”
“Pick something.”
“Uh ok, you on your way over?”
“Yeah be there in like 40 minutes.”
Natalie’s mind raced, she had learned by now that he wouldn’t make decisions about what to do, always falling on the excuse he hadn’t lived here long. She grabbed a paper and began writing down ideas. She reflected on how her friend Mario often talked of heading to the hot springs – she put that at the top of her list and looked up driving directions on her laptop.
When Mark arrived she jumped in the car and told him she wanted to go. “Well I haven’t got my bathing suit.” He muttered, she promised to buy him one if he’d just stop at Walmart.
One bathing suit and one towel later they were on their way, Natalie giving him the best directions she could based on the little map on her laptop. They had driven for three hours, it was getting very late, “do you know how many miles it was supposed to be until we got there?”
“I don’t – it just says it should be a short distance from the city we’re in. We’ll turn right!”
“This would be way easier if you knew how many miles!”
“Look there’s a sign! I think maybe it’s over there?”
“Well look for people or some shit. Not an ominous bridge.”
They continued to drive doubling back and forth several times. “Let me see your damn map!” Natalie reluctantly handed her computer over. “Fuck Natalie it says the miles right there!”
“I didn’t know what those were!”
“Geez. If only we knew when those miles started from the town!”
“I’m sorry . . . “
“Well we’ll keep driving, I don’t want to risk giving up too early.”
The car continued down the highway, eventually Natalie persuaded Mark to pull over at a motel and ask directions. The only motel they could find looked abandoned although there were lights on. The doors were locked.
“This looks like some shitty place you’d see in a horror movie. We might as well go home.”
“Alright . . . I’m really sorry . . .”
“. . .”
They got back in the car and began driving back, the sun was starting to come up now. As the car rounded a corner Mark suddenly slowed down. “Steam. I bet it’s right there.”
“We wouldn’t have ever seen that in the night time, I guess we’d just have had to know to drive across that bridge.” It was the very bridge Natalie had pointed to hours earlier. The car ambled over and they found a parking spot, grabbed their towel and swim suits and ran out to look at the hot springs. Mark ran over and shoved his hand in the water, “shit that’s hot!” He then ran to the river running beside it, “COLD!”
“Well what did you expect? It’s a river.”
“I thought maybe it would be warm.”
Natalie laughed and they changed as discreetly as possible and spent two hours in the hot springs. Mark had no problem changing in the open but Natalie was too embarrised as other people had begun to sit in other parts of the springs. She decided to leave her wet swimsuit on and pulled her dry clothes over it. This caused her to be completely soaked the two-hour drive home.
“That sure did get us away, no phone reception even,” Mark pushed buttons on his phone as they drove. Natalie only smiled, she hated his phone.
As August came to a close Mark invited Natalie to a metal concert. She had put on a black t-shirt with a pretty star design. He advised her to take it off and wear a plain black shirt instead. “People judge you by your shirt at these things. That’s why I’m wearing a rare band shirt. I’ve had people take photos of my shirts before.”
The concert was completely outside of Natalie’s element. Men screamed into microphones, words she could not understand. Large men, small boys, people throwing beer everywhere, jostled, shoved and pushed Natalie all about. Her foot got stomped on so many times it began to bleed in her shoe. Mark was lost in the crazy mob and she spent the entire concert trying not to get further injured.
The next day Mark sent her an instant message stating a guy from the concert was looking for him on craigslist because of his shirt. Natalie encouraged him to try and make a friend.
The next time she saw him he had brought over a dildo. “I want to have a threesome I think. Two girls preferably, remember – she’d be a tool for us to use and not anything else. You can pick her out ok. For now I want to try something new.” He handed Natalie his shiny blue dildo and plopped himself down on the bed.
Natalie did not want anything to do with his threesome wishes but found herself consenting; she wanted to make him happy and to keep him liking her. She missed him telling her he loved her. Perhaps doing this would change things around. The only problem was she couldn’t find any girls anywhere. Couples yes, old couples that was, she talked to him about it and he decided that would be ok. They began to set up a day.
It was three days before the meeting and Natalie was browsing personal ads, the old lingering feeling that he had other girls over still nagging at her. There it was.
“Tired of it all.” She felt compelled to click the ad, “I’m tall, mysterious, fit, and attractive.” That was the same line he had given her to look for threesome partners. “I just want a girl that’s tired of it all too, and wants a good honest guy.” Rage filled Natalie she couldn’t believe it, but she didn’t have proof. She made a fake email account and responded, being very honest as she described herself. If it wasn’t him she’d laugh and never respond again, if it was him . . . she couldn’t think about that now.
The next night at work she opened the email inbox, “1 new from Mark.” At first it didn’t register in her mind that this was her Mark, but the email address was the same. “Hey, you sound fantastic, do you have a picture?” Natalie burst into tears and almost threw her computer at the same moment. She wrote the angriest email she could think up, and then took a photo of herself holding a sign that said jackass. She contacted her best friend before sending it though, told him what happened.
“You shouldn’t send that. That’s childish, calm down, and then respond.”
His advice was wise she realized, and erased her email and re-wrote it.
“Hey Mark, this is your girlfriend. I didn’t realize you disliked me so much that you had to go looking for other girls online! I can’t believe I was going to have a foursome just to try and earn your smile. Unlucky for you, I have learned your writing habits well enough to recognize your ad on a whim. – Natalie.”
Natalie called up some of her friends and went downtown with them, clutching her phone and sobbing at every thing that reminded her of Mark. It was in the middle of a heartfelt sob that her phone buzzed with a text.
“On the record I didn’t dump you. I told you I was unhappy, I thought maybe I would see if I could find the spark we’re missing in another girl, or to discover if its just me that’s fucked up.”
“Oh Mark, I love you so much but I just can’t take this.”
“It’s not that I don’t love you ok, it’s just that I am still in love with my ex girlfriend.”
“I don’t understand Mark, I gave you everything I had, I bought you everything you wanted . . . I did whatever you wanted.”
“No you didn’t, you didn’t even try!”
“Yes I did! Everything I did was trying!”
“Fuck you, you never loved me. You don’t even know what love is!”
Natalie burst into a new wave of sobs and shoved her phone in her pocket. She had been dating an asshole and hadn’t even realized it. She refused to look at his texts until she got home. “Silent as a fucking rock,” was the last text he had sent. She erased his number so she couldn’t respond to him.
A month passed and she still felt anxious whenever her phone wasn’t on her, her heart still raced a million miles a minute when it buzzed, but she was more confident now. Natalie had set standards for herself and realized she didn’t need a man in her life. Her new goal – pay off her credit card debt he’d caused her to go into.