Page 4 of Missed Steps
Mark glances at my face and we stare off. His brow furrows, thin lines forming. Mark slowly retracts his hands, and I breathe out in relief.
“Okay. Sorry.” Mark drops a knee to the ground, changing the stance of his crouch but not leaving it. “I wasn’t going to grab you or hurt you,” he says calmly.
I reign my feelings in. Easier said than done with the pain rocketing up my leg. “I didn’t mean to snap.”
Mark meets my gaze. “Can I?” He gestures to my leg.
“No.”
There is an awkward pause. I clear my throat. “You can…go.” I gesture toward the car park. His car is visible from here.
“Not happening, Kyle,” Mark says. He’s eyeing up my leg, trying to assess the damage.
With the jeans and sneakers, there’s nothing visible for him to inspect. My leg looks like a normal leg. “I’m going to rest for a few minutes,” I say. “You go. And be careful; there’s ice on the roads.”
“I just saw a demonstration of the ice,” Mark says wryly. He abandons his crouch and sits next to me on the bench. And he just sits there. Sits there…
“Will you just go?” I ask, annoyed. I can’t go until he does.
“No.”
“Fuck off, Mark.” I try for aggressive.
“Don’t waste your energy getting mouthy with me. It’s not going to scare me off.” Mark leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He stares right at my face, a serious expression on his. “Does it feel broken?”
I could mouth off; but I suspect Mark is sincere that it won’t have the desired effect. “It’s fine,” I say. And then I sigh. “I’m just going home now, anyway; you don’t need to stick around.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“The bus stop is two feet away,” I point out. It’s even closer than Mark’s car.
“So? You expect me to leave you to hop over there?” Mark asks.
“I’ll call a friend.”
“What friend?”
“You don’t know my friends. Even if I—”
“Bethany? Louis? Tommy?”
“Yes, stalker, one of them,” I say, vexed. I dig out my phone from my pocket, angling my face away from Mark to hide that it’s going red. I’ve always been aware of Mark, but hearing that he’s been aware of me, too, has my heart skipping. “Why do you know my friends’ names?” I grumble, hiding that the thought excites me.
“You know the names of mine.”
“Hardly,” I lie.
“And you knew it was Eddie’s birthday on Saturday. And I know beyond any doubt that you two haven’t had so much as a conversation before,” Mark says.
I send a fake text to my brother’s phone—who is currently well out of cell range—and ignore his Eddie remark. “There,” I say. “Help is on the way. You can go now.”
Mark leans back on the bench, resting his arm casually behind me. He makes no move to go anywhere. Was he always this annoying? Have I been seeing him through rose-tinted glasses for two years?
“Mark,” I say, exasperated.
“I’ll wait till they’re here.”
“Mark.”
