Lachlan's unmarked and Chrissie worries: over coffee at breakfast; with a glass of wine in the evening; late at night when the sheets are warm, Robert's head is heavy, and he wants nothing more than to sleep.
"He's still very young, though, isn't he?" she says. "There's plenty of time yet."
The words are firmly spoken, but the gaze she shoots Robert across the mattress is tear-sheened and anxious; a plea for reassurance.
And: "Of course there is," Robert obliges, even though he and Andy had been behind the curve enough at thirteen to be of some concern to their own parents. Fourteen's practically unheard of. One for the medical books.
Despite his agreement, Chrissie's lips are still pursed together, and the lines deep scored across her brow do not fade. She's clearly unconvinced by it, so Robert changes tack and tries again.
"There was a girl in my year at school who... Well, her words were pretty much pornographic," he says. "I definitely wouldn't have wanted my mum to see them, if they were mine. Maybe Lachlan has got his mark already, but he's embarrassed, and keeping it a secret because it's something like that."
"Or like yours," Chrissie says, and though her slight smile suggests that Robert has been able to offer her some small comfort, at least, he can't take any pleasure in his success.
After their first time together, Chrissie had treated his mark like it didn't exist, her eyes glancing over it, her fingers dancing around it, above and below, but never once touching it, as though the words themselves are poison and she might do herself harm if she comes into contact with them.
This reminder that she hasn't forgotten, that she saw and she read and she knows, makes Robert suddenly self-conscious in a way he hasn't felt since that night. He shifts his weight, wraps his marked arm across his body, and presses it down so close and hard against his chest that his wrist and elbow joints start to ache. He nods tightly.
Chrissie's smile thins, trembles, and finally crumbles. "Poor Lucky," she breathes out on a quiet, wavering sigh.
-
-
For the first month or so after it appeared, Robert had managed to keep his mark hidden.
Even though the temperature had begun to climb as spring quickened into summer, he made sure to always wear long-sleeved shirts, he forged notes from his dad to get out of PE at school, and changed as quickly as he could at home, nervously listening out for the sound of approaching footsteps all the while.
At night and alone, he couldn't bear to have it covered. He would sit on his bed, back against the headboard and knees drawn up to his chest, and stare at the inside of his forearm until his eyes were gritty and dry from not blinking, willing some more words to manifest themselves there or others to fade away. Anything that might alter the meaning of the phrase.
His body betrayed him, nothing changed, and he began to resent this purely hypothetical person, this supposed soulmate, for being the sort of person who would, if they ever met, take against him to such an extent that they would be inspired to say such things to him.
Eventually, he was a little too careless and a little too slow, and his mum caught sight of it. She'd paled, let out a sharp, shocked gasp, and then said, in a soft, heartsick tone, 'Oh, Robert; I'm so sorry,' like she was commiserating with him over a bereavement or some other grievous hurt he'd been dealt.
She'd told his dad that night, who shook his head sadly and clasped Robert's shoulder, and he told Andy, who awkwardly avoided meeting Robert's eye. Victoria sought him out and hugged him, though she was too young to really understand what was going on.
For the next few days, they'd treated him as though he was something fragile they might break apart if they didn't treat him with enough delicacy. Cautious movements, gentle touches, every potentially harsh word bitten back, and it was unsettling enough to begin with, but very quickly became cloying, suffocating.
So Robert kept his arms deliberately bare, forced them to look, and eventually they became so used to seeing the words that they didn't seem to matter in the same way anymore.
As he grew older, he learnt how to take advantage of those reactions, how to exploit the initial moment of pity, the wince, the turned head.
He'd flaunted the mark, right up until he left Emmerdale and had to remember how vulnerable it might make him amongst strangers; had to teach himself all over again how to move with purpose and stand with care, arms crooked and palms in.
-
-
He can joke about it sometimes, with people who don't take the marks too seriously. Who don't think his own represents some indelible, damning stain on his soul.
People like Vic, who has started – hesitantly at first, but with increasing confidence of late – to tease him with suggestions of who might hold him in enough contempt to be his soulmate.
Tonight's had been Chas Dingle, who certainly does appear to be glaring at him as though he's some manner of vermin who's crawled up onto a stool and ordered itself a pint, but as Robert is inclined to believe her withering scorn – which, to the best of his knowledge, he's done nothing to deserve – is directed instead towards Ross Barton, seated on the table behind them, he dismisses it with a shrug.
"I still reckon my best bet's Andy," he says.
"Rob!" Vic cries out, horrified. "Don't be disgusting."
Robert chuckles. "It doesn't have to be about sex, you know. They say nearly half of all bonds are platonic."
"I know," Vic says, her nose wrinkling like she's caught a whiff of spoilt milk. "But still... God, I wouldn't wish it on either of you."
Robert holds his beer aloft in a toast to that, and after Vic's clinked her glass against his, their talk turns towards other matters. His mind, though stays fixed, though, thoughts circling endlessly around the idea.
Not that it's Andy, per se – because he doesn't want to entertain the possibility any more than Vic does – but that she could be right to look to someone from the village to answer the question his skin poses.
He may have mocked his brother for being parochial when he did the same, but he can't escape the knowledge that there's something about this place, or perhaps about the person he is when he's here, that makes him more impetuous than he is anywhere else, more thoughtless and abrasive; slow to endear himself, quick to make enemies.
That's why, after everything, he's still half convinced it must be Katie, and if not her then someone else who has an old grudge against him, or even a new one.
Like Chas' son, Aaron, with his rough hands and snarled words. There's certainly contempt there when he looks at Robert, but also something far from it in the way his eyes flicker towards Robert's mouth when they speak, and the gazes that linger just a beat too long.
It's something that Robert appreciates, enjoys remembering, but shouldn't want to encourage, because he knows better than to shit on his own doorstep.
-
-
There's a wide gulf between knowing what's right and doing it, though, and Robert feels trapped again, hemmed in by Chrissie's jealousy and her 'I know you's, but he can't flee from it, doesn't want to, so he does what he always does when circumstances conspire like this and steps out of the confines of his life for a while.
Steps out and into a garage, to Aaron, and the culmination promised by those looks and an aborted kiss.
It's almost like being sixteen again, cramped in the back seat of a car, half-clothed. Banged elbows, scuffed knees, and practised rhythms lost to desperation.
It's so far removed from an acre-wide bed and silk sheets that it feels like an escape, and liberating enough to return him to equipoise.
For the time being, at least.