The Talk (4)

Mark was lying still, face down, with his head on a pillow. The pillow was at a funny angle, but he didn't want to move right then. Shannon was laying halfway on top of him, and it was one of those moments you don't want to disturb.

He didn't know what was next, so he didn't want to do anything. A nonchalant farewell on the way out the door was not the right answer. It was Saturday (was it Saturday?), so he didn't need to be anywhere until afternoon, he had time to kill.

His previous plan had been to spend the night, say some supportive things, maybe make her breakfast in bed, and then take off. Now things seemed to be a bit more complicated.

Last Saturday morning had been really awkward, for both of them. That much was obvious to Mark. There were forced smiles, and some uncomfortable looks, and then he left. He didn't want it to be that way again, but he had no clue what to say. He didn't know what she wanted. He didn't know how emotionally stable she was. She didn't seem about to kill herself, he was pretty sure she was going to be alright.

'Damnit, I don't want her to just say all of this was because she was needy.' The idea hit him in the stomach. It was followed up by an even worse thought, 'I didn't take advantage of her, did I? Was I supposed to back off, tell her the time wasn't right?'

He tried not to move, but his guts were squirming as he started thinking of worst case scenarios. He stopped himself. 'I've never been insecure over a girl in my life. What the hell is going on with me?'

Shannon rolled over, off of his side, and seemed to be getting up.

"What's up?" He thought it sounded stupid, but it was the only thing that came to mind. He felt nervous. It was very unsettling. This was not usual.

She stood up and turned to face him, standing by the bed. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"Well, you had a shower this morning, but I didn't, so...," she let the sentence trail off with a hint of sarcasm. It wasn't biting, more playful.

Mark smiled, and then rolled over and laid on his back, putting his hands behind his head, and watched her as she walked into the bathroom.

'Damn.' He thought appreciatively. He had been with many women but had no clue what was so different about Shannon. Well, maybe he had a clue. The feeling of insecurity seemed to get a little stronger, but he tried to put it out of his mind.

He listened carefully to the sounds she was making in the bathroom. The squeak of the handles as she turned on the water. The change of tone when she pulled the lever in the tub to redirect the flow up to the shower nozzle. After that, everything was muffled by the sound of falling water.

He remembered the idea about breakfast, thanks to a growl from his stomach, and decided to do something about it. He pulled on his t-shirt and boxers and headed into the kitchen to explore the supplies.

As he poked around the refrigerator he found some surprises. Bacon?! He smirked. She was off her training diet. There were eggs, some muffins, an uncooked t-bone still in the shrink wrap from the store. He was going to have to tease her about this.

He pulled out the bacon and eggs. He also found half a loaf of wheat bread on top of the refrigerator and set it down on the counter. He found a toaster in one cabinet, and then a frying pan in another.

Thinking for a moment, he looked back in the refrigerator, found a tub of margarine, and put it on the counter too.

By the time Shannon was done with her shower Mark had a pile of bacon draining onto a paper towel and was finishing up some eggs.

"Oh my God...," her voice was faint from the other room.

She stepped out into the front room and was walking across the hardwood floors to the kitchen. Her voice was louder this time.

"Oh my God! Mark, what are you doing?" The concern in her voice made him want to laugh. He couldn't help but smile.

"Really? Bacon and eggs? Shannon, this is hardly the kind of food you should have laying around the place. I can't believe this is on your meal plan."

He looked over his shoulder to see her standing behind him in the dark green terrycloth robe that he'd seen hanging from a hook on the back of the bathroom door. She wore a look of embarrassed distress on her face. She was constantly riding him about what he ate when they were out somewhere. To find out that she wasn't so perfect was a great opportunity for revenge.

"I'm not really... I'm riding a lot, and there isn't anything timed this month. It's fine...," she trailed off as she walked up behind him, then launched in again with a new tactic.

"Besides, you eat like a pig all the time, who are you...." she was abruptly cut off when Mark turned around and jabbed a piece of bacon at her mouth. She closed her mouth at first, but then gave a wry smile and let him feed it to her.

She chewed the bacon while he slid the eggs out of the pan onto the two empty plates he'd set on the counter. "Mark, don't tell Pamplin. Or Julia. Mark, just don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Sit. It's almost ready." She aimed a mock frown in his direction and stepped over to the table.

Hers was a very small one bedroom apartment, but she had a small dining room table with two rickety old chairs with a gaudy green swirling design covered in plastic. They looked like something from late 60's. She'd gotten the set for $20 from a store down on Main street. At first she thought it had been a deal, but then she realized that significant amounts of packing tape on the underside of each piece was almost the only thing holding them together.

Bacon was added to the plates, the toast popped up, and breakfast was served. Mark looked at the empty chair suspiciously.

"Isn't that the chair you told me not to sit in?"

Shannon was spreading margarine on a piece of toast. "Maybe, try it and find out."

He pushed on the back of the chair, gave it a shake. It creaked a little, but held together. Mark sat down gingerly, and looked over at Shannon. The two of them looked a little silly sitting at the table. It was very small and the chairs looked like they were made for someone larger than a child, but smaller than a full-sized adult.

"This table is tiny."

"Yeah, well, I don't have much space... and I'm usually eating alone in here." Mark realized that he was more than a little happy to have made breakfast for her, even something as simple as this. Once again, he felt amazed at how hard he seemed to be falling for Shannon.

They ate in silence for a bit. It was okay, nothing special. Since he was cooking, he made the bacon crispy. That's how he liked it. No jam for the toast, but that was fine.

"Oh man!" Shannon stood up and looked in the refrigerator. She only had to take a couple of steps. The table was really in the kitchen. There wasn't a real dining room, just a few extra feet of space... enough for a really small table.

"Damn, no orange juice. That would've been perfect." She came back to the table. Mark noticed that she sat down carefully as well. The chair he was sitting on wobbled whenever he shifted his weight, so he was trying to keep that to a minimum.

"Is that steak on your meal plan?" Mark was enjoying himself, and wanted one last barb.

The look she gave him was great, but she didn't dignify his question with a response. He noticed that her eyes looked dark, sunken in. She had been crying a lot and she was probably tired from not resting well the past few nights.

They finished eating in silence. It wasn't a lot of food, but it was filling none the less. A couple of times they would look up, catch the other's glance and smile. Mark felt foolish, but he was too happy to fight it. He wasn't 17 any more, flirting with a girl in the high school cafeteria, but that's how he felt.

"Thank you." Her head was tilted down a bit and she was giving him that same look... the one where she would look up at him and bite her lip. It really got to him. He was pretty sure it would get to anyone.

"For what?"

"For breakfast, silly. You made me breakfast." He could tell she was flirting. He smiled.

"It was your food."

"Yeah." She looked around for something and didn't see it, so she stood up and went to the cabinet up above the refrigerator. Mark thought to himself that a lot of women wouldn't be able to reach that high. He'd never really thought that he was attracted to tall women, but that was one of the many things he seemed to like about Shannon.

"You forgot napkins," she said while she was still stretching up to the cabinet. She brought down a tacky, green, plastic napkin holder with some napkins, and set it on the table against the wall. She sat back down, grabbed a napkin, and wiped her mouth.

"Nobody else has ever made me breakfast... except my parents." She looked down.

They were quiet again for a bit. They were both done eating, but Mark still didn't know what was next. He was always the one to take the lead in his other relationships. With Shannon he would feel uncertain, regularly. It bothered him, but when he looked at her, he just found himself smiling again.

She gave him a small smile back, but then something seemed to darken her face for a moment.

"Want to join me on the couch?"

"Okay."

The chair Mark was sitting in gave a creak when he stood up, so he was grateful to move over to the couch. It was not a normal living room, exactly. It was less than 10 feet from the kitchen, in between that room and the hallway with the front door.

They both sat on opposite ends of the couch, and turned to face each other. Shannon pulled her legs up and folded them underneath her. He put his arm on the back of the couch.

"I think we should talk."

Mark forced a small smile. The five words no man wants to hear.

"Okay, you first."

She gave a faint smile at his response, and then looked down for a moment.

"This last week has been really rough." She looked back up mid-sentence, but she didn't look at him. It seemed the sadness from last night was back in her eyes. She avoided making eye contact, looking at the blank walls of the room instead.

"I just think we should talk about it. That's all. I'm not springing any crazy shit on you. I hope you don't have anything crazy to tell me either. But I think we need to talk about it." Now she did look at him. She seemed a bit sad. Some of the vulnerability that she showed last night was back. There was something very attractive about that.

He nodded, hoping that she would go on. He certainly had a lot of feelings about the last week, but he didn't know that he had words for any of it yet. It was all still a mess in his head.

A hint of frustration flashed across her face, but then she started talking again.

"Last Friday I did something I never thought I would do. I betrayed my best friend." She squinted a bit and was biting her lip. "I introduced the two of you, I set you up...," Mark considered interrupting her here, but decided to let her go, and say something later. "... and then last Friday, we...," She looked Mark square in the eyes, and gave a sad smile.

He nodded again, raised his eyebrows and smiled back. Something told him to stay quiet a bit longer.

"I freaked out a little. I mean, the next morning. I was in shock, that I had... that we had done... that... and, well, I started feeling really bad about myself." She seemed to be looking at him oddly, he couldn't place what it was. A tilt of the head. Furrowed eye brows. Curiosity. Was she watching him for a reaction?

Suddenly her eyes went big, and she put up a hand between them.

"No, no... I'm not saying..." She seemed flustered. This time he shook his head and had to say something.

"It's okay. I get it." He tried to reassure her that everything was alright. They were talking over each other.

"... I mean, it was great. I loved it. You were great. But Jana. I felt horrible about Jana." She was continuing her previous sentence, but started to calm down as she heard what he was saying.

"Yeah... yeah... I know. I didn't think you were saying...," Mark let it trail off as he went back to listening to her.

She laughed a little, and he returned a smile to let her know that he wasn't upset.

"Anyway," she let out a big sigh before continuing, "I don't have an answer for that yet. I still haven't talked to Jana. I was going to, and then I got the call on Monday... the accident. I saw her at the funeral, but we didn't talk." Shannon was shaking her head a little as she was thinking everything through.

"I don't even know what happened between you two. I mean, I made some assumptions...," Shannon looked up at Mark with the same look of curiosity she had shown before.

Mark frowned for a moment, but then stopped. He took a moment to look around the room, then he looked back at Shannon. He remembered the fight. He remembered the yelling. He heard Jana's voice again. It hadn't been the first time a woman had yelled at him, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last.

"Mark, I need you to tell me something. I need to know... something." Shannon was looking at him intently now. He opened his mouth to talk, but was still speechless.

"Mark, are you going to go back to Jana? Are you going to try to patch things up? What do you want?" Her face softened. She had been straining before, but now she seemed open. He had to say something.

"Shannon. I want you." He had certainly said that to women before, but he'd never really meant it. Before he'd always said those words leaving off the last two, 'right now'. This time he meant them. It was his turn to feel vulnerable.

"I'm worried too. I know you've been through a lot more than me... I'm not trying say it's equal... but I lost my girlfriend, and I don't know what you want from me, right? We're kind of in the same boat, aren't we?" Mark was wondering how much things had changed. Clearly they were different than last fall. Maybe she had really changed her mind.

"I don't just want you to want me, Mark. 'Wanting me' isn't enough."

After hearing her say that Mark felt certain. He went for it.

"Shannon, I love you." He looked at her as he said it. Her face didn't change at first. Then she tilted her head, that same questioning look she gave earlier. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but took a deep breath instead.

"I've loved you for a long time. Before you introduced me to Jana, I asked you out. You were always... I've always had you on a pedestal." Mark was just going with it now. He hoped that he didn't say anything too stupid, but the words were just coming out on their own.

"You're just different. I still haven't got that figured out... at all... but damnit, you're different. I feel different about you than any other girl I've dated. I'm uncertain around you. I'm not smooth. I don't try cheesy lines on you...."

She was smiling now, but she interrupted him at this point.

"'Don't try cheesy lines', what the hell are you talking about?! What about the thing with the 'Are you busy later'...," she was smiling as she went on her mini-rant.

Mark started to think this was going to end really well.

"No, no, no, you're screwing up the line... it's 'Are you going to be busy later... say 3am?'" He chuckled at the memory.

"That was when I first met you, I didn't know you. I just knew that you were hot. Later we talked some, and after you shut me down...," he gave her a playfully wounded glance, "after we talked, I started falling for you, hard. I'm not saying it was love at first sight, I don't believe in that. I believe in lust at first sight, and in all honesty, there was some of that too. You have to talk to someone to fall in love with them..."

He left that hanging for a moment, his face lost the playful expression and grew serious.

"... and when we talked together, I did."

Her face looked intense, still watching him, but without the same curiosity.

"Mark..." she got up and wrapped her arms around him. They held each other.

Mark noticed two things while they were there, holding each other on the second hand (third hand?) couch in her tiny apartment. The first was how good she felt in his arms, and how right it seemed that he was with her. The second was how strong he was feeling his emotions right now. He chided himself again, he never felt this way about anyone. This was new territory for him, he was completely in love with this woman.

Shannon pulled back a little, and he could see that she was beaming at him. She was normally beautiful, but the look of happiness on her face just magnified that.

"Thank you."

"What do you mean?"

"Thank you for opening up, finally. I bet that wasn't easy for you. Thank you for telling me you love me."

Her eyes were tearing up again, but this time there was none of the sadness from before.

"And thank you for making me breakfast."

They sat there, close, and looked at each other for a few moments.

"Mark, I have a lot of mixed feelings about some of things I've done lately. I wish things had happened differently. But, in all honesty, I could feel myself falling for you for a while now. I tried to keep it under wraps. I tried to hide it..."

"You did a good job of that," Mark chided her.

She smiled. "Yeah, until last Friday night...."

He smiled back at her, and went back to listening.

"... anyway, I was staying away from you, and not just because of Jana." She looked at him seriously again. "It seems important that I tell you that."

Mark was not sure he followed her, he looked at her curiously, waiting for her to continue.

She paused and gave him a familiar gaze. It seemed that she was trying to look inside him from time to time, like she was now.

"I don't understand. What do you mean?" He tried to make it seem nonchalant. He was worried that this was going to be big.

"Mark," she drew out his name like she was frustrated with him, but she didn't seem angry. "Mark, you can be such a player." She looked at him like this was a difficult topic.

"Oh." He knew he had a reputation. Hell, he helped to cultivate it.

"Shannon, I don't know what to say, exactly. I mean... we talked about that. I told you everything. I don't know what else to say."

She seemed to think about that for a while. She was still trying to look inside of him. She seemed to be trying to read his mind. In a flash, he got it. She was trying to figure out if she could trust him.

"You remember the thing with Sarah?"

He nodded.

"Well, I didn't tell you this, but I went to high school with her older sister Angela. We were best friends back then." Shannon was watching him closely now, looking for something. "Angela came to talk to me, she wanted your head."

Mark was actually taken aback by that.

"Are you serious? What do you mean?"

"She came to me and told me everything that had happened. Then she told me that it would just take one call to her father, and 'Dad would come down here and take care of the problem.'"

Mark shifted in his seat, and looked around the room briefly. He looked back at Shannon. 'What the hell is going on?' he wondered.

"She sat in my bedroom... no, not here." Shannon noticed that Mark's eyes tracked down the hall to the bedroom of the apartment they were in. "This was what, 2 years ago... long before I really got to know you last fall. I was rooming with Julia back then, and Angela was crying in my bedroom, shaking with anger, talking about 'Mark Spencer', and how she wanted you dead."

"Damn Shannon, don't you think she was overreacting a bit? I mean, I know I hurt Sarah, I'm not proud of that. The really messed up part is that I don't have any excuses. I... I was awful to her. But she wanted me dead? That's ridiculous." Mark felt his discomfort growing. He played through some sort of paranoid scenario where the vindictive older sister 'Angela' was about to jump out of the closet next to the couch with a knife and attack him.

"Yeah...," Shannon nodded, "... she overreacted. But Mark, that's what happens when you hurt people. They overreact, or the people that love them overreact."

"Why are you telling me this? What's the purpose?" Mark was growing defensive. This was really not going well.

Shannon looked down. She furrowed her brow for a moment. When she looked up, the muscles in her face were very tense, her eyes narrow, her lips pressed together.

"I'm telling you this, God damnit, because I've fallen in love with you, and I don't want you doing to me what you did to Sarah." Shannon's face lost some of the anger it was showing, as her chest moved with a sob.

"If I'm going to trust you... if we're going to do this... then I don't want to be second guessing who you're sleeping with when you're not with me..." Shannon's voice was breaking a little, but she kept going. "I don't want you saying horrible things about me while we're still sleeping together." By this point she had lost her intensity, and looked wilted. "I don't want to be a side bet with your friends."

Mark had never felt as low in his life as he did right now. Not only was he re-living the guilt of being a complete loser to Sarah Bakerson, but it was coming back to haunt him, and it was hurting Shannon. That part was the worst. It was almost more than he could bear.

"I don't want you to play me like you've played the others. A part of me feels stupid for letting this happen." Shannon was mostly back in control of her emotions, and seemed to be talking to him with compassion. Perhaps all was not lost, but he felt like dirt.

"There are a lot of men in this world. Why am I going to get together with one who has your reputation? I don't know if Jana will ever forgive me. Angela won't speak to me again if we become a couple. Well, maybe she will now. I don't know. She hasn't mentioned you for a long time. I know Julia thinks you're garbage. She tolerates you because she cares about Jana and I, but she was there that night, and heard a lot of it."

Shannon paused, looking again for something. Her eyes seemed to soften. She reached out a hand and rested it on his cheek. It wasn't until that moment that he realized that he was crying. He could feel the moisture when her hand touched it.

"I want to take a chance on you. I just need to believe that you've grown. I need to believe that you really are the person I've seen the past couple of months... the past couple days."

Mark wanted to say something, but his throat was too tight to speak at that moment.

"And don't think that I'm not aware of the awkwardness of the situation I'm in. I'm not innocent."

Mark had looked down a while back and had been staring at his lap. He looked back up at Shannon, he knew what she meant... Jana.

"So now, I'm going to have a reputation... at least with some people. I screwed over my best friend for some guy. God..." Shannon looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then over at the walls.

Mark finally spoke.

"You keep beating yourself up because of Jana, and I understand why. I could tell you that we never really talked about commitment. I could tell you that Jana and I never really sat around and discussed our relationship at all. We had no plans to live together. We never actually said that we were a couple. I could say all of that, and I wouldn't be lying... but the truth is I would just be trying to weasel out of the fact that I cheated on her."

"You want to know if I've grown. Well, I'm not running away from this, like I did with Sarah. I went and talked to Jana. I apologized. I let her yell at me. I didn't lie. I didn't hide. I didn't do any of the stupid, childish, petty things that you heard about with Sarah."

"That's about all I can say." Mark thought about a couple of other things he could say, but he knew they would just make Shannon feel worse... then he hit on one

"Well," he started again, "there is one more thing I can say." He reached out and touched Shannon's chin to get her to look at him. He made eye contact with a very serious look on his face. "I won't cheat on you."

Shannon nodded. She didn't smile, but she seemed to accept what he said.

They both sat in gloomy silence for several minutes. What had been an amazing morning for Mark had turned into a kind of hellish emotional gauntlet.

"I think I need to go talk to Jana." Shannon's voice was quiet. There was nothing eager about the statement.

"What about us?" Mark asked.

"Well," Shannon sighed. "I'm going to tell Jana how sorry I am that I hurt her. I'm going to let her yell at me too." She looked up with a faint smile when she said that. "And then I'm going to tell her that I love you."

Mark held his arms out, she leaned into him, and they embraced again.

Shannon spoke quietly while her lips were near his ear. "I think we'll have more to talk about... which is probably the last thing you want to hear, after the way this talk went... but I've made my choice. I want to be with you."