Page 147 of Mark

I will not cry. I will not cry.

“I’m not following. Please, stop talking in riddles and just tell me.”

Summer drops down next to me, placing her hand on my back. I keep my gaze on Nanna, expecting her to be the one who answers. Instead, Mum does, and her tone is surprisingly soft.

“I’m not sure what her plan was or how much was improvised. I’m not even sure how far she was willing to go. Whatever her plan was, it may have been messed up by Mark not being interested, but the end result was still what she wanted,” Mum begins. “I can run you through what happened though. Mark found her loitering outside your room.”

“Well, they bumped into each other,” Nanna interrupts.

Mum gives her a pointed look to shut up before turning back to me. “Which resulted in her cutting her leg on the glass that had been broke.”

Nanna leans forward. “But Mark didn’t break it bumping into her. She had that planned and had previously smashed the glass on the doorframe and cut her own leg.”

“I was getting to that bit, Mother.”

Nanna holds out her hand. “Then continue.”

“Whilst he didn’t want to help her or invite her inside his cabin, he couldn’t just leave her in good conscience because of her being your sister.”

“His sister, Lily; she, um, she was treated badly by her mother as an infant,” I whisper. He would never want to be the reason a woman is hurt, despite who she was.

Nanna’s face crumbles. “You let me dine with that woman? Teagan was so sweet. Why do they still allow her to be around them?”

“Not Teagan. She’s not Lily’s birth mother. Lily’s dad is biologically her brother, but that’s a long story and I really shouldn’t be telling you this,” I groan, closing my eyes.

Why did I open my mouth?

I just needed to voice my reasons as to why Mark would help her. I don’t know why, but I needed to explain why he is like that.

“And Esther hurt her,” Mum whispers. “I thought they were being overdramatic. My gosh.”

Nanna surprises me by taking Mum’s hand. “It’s okay, Maggie.”

Mum shakes her head gently. “He helped her because blood was running down her leg. He handed her the stuff she needed, but then she got squeamish, so he knelt down and helped. He didn’t know she had taken her bikini top off. He went ballistic when he looked up and saw she had removed it. She told him it had slipped off, but he knew without a doubt what she had done. She tried telling him you were flirting with Danny the night before, and that you were trying to make him feel guilty about breaking you up.”

“That’s a fucking lie. I heard…” I glance down, not wanting them to witness my embarrassment.

“We know what was said but I’ll get to that after. She thought she had something over him, something he didn’t know, but he knew you,” she replies, then lowers her voice. “He knows you better than any of us. He didn’t believe her.”

He didn’t touch my sister.

He didn’t betray my trust.

He is exactly who I thought he was.

I bow my head further, tears rolling down my cheeks. He believed me over Esther. And I couldn’t even give him a chance to explain what happened to me. I just ran.

God, I am so stupid. So fucking stupid.

How can I face him after this? Do I approach him and be like, hey, I know my sister fucked up and I ran away, but can we go back to fucking? It sounds ridiculous in my head. I also don’t see how he can forgive me for running away without an explanation or confrontation. He had faith in me, and whilst I didn’t know the full story, I immediately jumped to him cheating. That isn’t fair on him.

“He didn’t cheat on you, lovely,” Nanna adds softly.

Yet it doesn’t make any of this better. “It’s too late now. I ran away. I didn’t even give him a chance to explain.”

Mum’s gaze goes to the gift basket on the table. “Seems to me he’s not ready to give up.”

“Then he has more screws loose than I thought he did. For fuck’s sake, my sister… God, I don’t even know what to call what she did. But it certainly doesn’t make me attractive. What happened is so messed up.”

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