Heavy knocking on the single-stall bedroom jolts Mark and Maureen out of their serenity. Abruptly, Mark looks up. "Yes?" he calls awkwardly, a hand on the floor to help him get to his feet if necessary.
On the other end of the door is Collins' voice. "We're going," he drones.
The lock slowly clicks open. Maureen opens the door, peering up at Collins. "Is Roger gonna be nice now?" she demands, hands on her hips.
Neither Collins or Mark can stifle a laugh. "Roger!" Collins yells, beckoning his friend over. "Maureen has a question for you, man."
"Are you going to be nice to Mark?" Maureen inquires, her tone betraying the nature of the consequences should Roger choose to say no. She grabs Mark's hand, tugging him toward her. As for Mark, his eyes are on the floor, a blush tinging his cheeks. He mumbles something inaudible.
Roger looks Maureen up and down. "Why do you care?" he asks.
"'Cause Mark's my cousin and he's my friend," she replies swiftly, calmly.
Mark mumbles, "Maureen, let it go." He is clearly embarrassed.
Suddenly there is another figure behind Roger. Benny is there, arms crossed over his chest. "What's the problem now?" he drawls.
Maureen looks up at him sweetly. "I'm checking to see if Roger's gonna be nice to Mark. Are you gonna?"
Benny shrugs. "Maybe. Probably not."
"How blunt," Collins murmurs. "I say you should be nice to the kid. He's my friend. And I think you know what happens to people who go against my friends."
Stifling laughter, Roger repeats, "How blunt." Then he adds, "Sure, whatever. I wasn't mean to him anyway. Was I, Mark?"
All eyes turn to the blonde. Mark stares at Roger's stomach, not wanting to keep staring at the ground but too embarrassed to raise his eyes all the way. "Um," he mutters. "Um. Well. Mostly."
"What'd I do wrong?" Roger asks sharply.
And suddenly Mark is aware that whatever his response is, it will somehow open him up to endless taunting, and probably some sort of violent reaction from the assumedly homophobic Benjamin. If he tells the truth, that Roger may have just broken his heart, then Mark is guaranteed that beating from Benny. But if he lies, then there's always Maureen and her big mouth.
Still, something keeps Mark from outright turning away and refusing to answer. He wants to tell Roger the truth, if only just for the sake of saying it aloud, admitting it. Telling Maureen about his feelings for Roger did nothing for Mark's throbbing heart, which yearns to admit it to Roger.
I love you.
He imagines himself saying it in a thousand different ways. Mark is a filmmaker, or yearns to be, and pictures himself as any of a million different characters. A boy professing his love for a girl at a prom, a woman responding to a marriage proposal, a man admitting his feelings to a woman who is seeing somebody else. Each scenario ends differently – some sadly, some happily, some vaguely. Mark frowns. He wants certainty.
At last, he decides that looking at movie examples is not the best solution. He closes his eyes and thinks, trying to imagine how Roger could react.
"I love you," Mark would say.
Roger's eyes would widen. His knuckles would whiten, eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.
"Well," Roger would drawl, thumbs tucked into his belt loops while swaying from side to side, "I don't love you."
Mark shakes his head. It is far from the paradise he wants to imagine. He gulps and forces himself to think of a different scenario.
"I love you," Mark would say, his eyes earnest, hands splayed out on the table in front of him.
And Roger? Roger would stand there, a finger frozen in the middle of twirling his hair around it. "You love me," he would repeat in a monotone.
"I love you," Mark would repeat.
Slowly, a smile would appear on Roger's face. "Well," he would say, almost smugly, "you have good taste, then."
"Because of you?" Mark would ask tentatively.
Roger would smirk. "Because I love you," he would say, and a moment later, his lips would be on Mark's, his hands above Mark's shoulders as they leaned into the wall and kissed.
And as absurdly implausible that is, Mark blurts it out.
"I love you," he says. "I do. I love you, Roger. I think you're intelligent and fantastically handsome and witty and charming and as close to perfect as a seventeen-year-old can get, and I know I love you. And the only thing I don't think you are is the kind of person who would love me back. But that's okay. Because, well, because I love you."
All eyes in the Dairy Queen were on Mark.
Cashiers stare at him, frozen in the middle of counting up change. Numbers slip out of their minds as they watch this gay kid professing his love for a boy who is obviously straight. Rather than calculating the change they must give, they are suddenly focused on deciding what they will tell their friends when they get home tonight.
The patrons, mostly strangers, stare at Mark as well. There is no buzzing, no whispering, no shriek of delight as some other kid named Roger makes his way through the crowd and says, "I love you too." There is none of that. As he turns back to face his own group, Mark feels hopelessly alone.
Maureen's eyes are on him, so earnest and willing to help him feel better. Her arms are wrapped tightly around Mark's leg, daring anyone to mess with him.
Then there is Collins, also standing close enough to Mark to get the message across, to convey the message that anyone who dares so much as to look at Mark the wrong way will immediately be swiftly and violently removed from the establishment.
Mark glances up at Benny, too afraid to meet Roger's eyes. Benny's are cold, with a smirk playing at his lips.
At last, Roger seems to focus.
"Well," he says, clearly aware that everybody else in the ice cream store is staring at him, "We should probably get going, then. Benny, I think I'm gonna relax for the rest of the ride – do you want to drive?"
And suddenly everything is back to normal again. Everyone is talking, faces red as they try to blurt out everything on their minds.
Everyone, that is, except Mark.
It's a ten-minute drive from here to his house, and he doesn't know if he can manage it.
"Roger?" he whispers.
But the babysitter ignores him, merely walking to the door and proudly marching through.
The hands on Mark's shoulders are not enough to keep him from hating himself, the world, and everyone who he has ever come into contact with.
Except Roger.
He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and pretends he never said anything at all. He is still pretending when he slides into the backseat of the car, eyes closed as his fantasy world swirls around him, but never quite touching.