Mark walked back into the room that he shared with Nick, putting the water bottles, down near the beds. "You're gonna need these." he said. "Nick... I need you to be straight with me if you really want my help. I need to know if what I found was it. If that's all you have."
Nick nodded. "That's it. That's all."
"This isn't gonna be easy" he said. "This isn't going to be like the few days in the hospital. This is going to be you, completely dry." He paused. "I have the door locked. I don't have a key. You don't have a key. We are locked in here, got it?" Nick sighed, nodding. "So I guess... you just make yourself comfortable, we're gonna be here for a while."
Nick fell back on his bed with a sigh. "Why are you doing this? I mean... we're not like the best of friends or anything. Why do you even want to do this for me?"
"Because we were friends, Nick." Mark said. "Before any of this. I don't want who we are to get in the way. And... no matter how you look at it, I do still consider you a friend. We've already spent close to three months together. We're all pretty much like family."
Nick sat up a bit. "You know..." he said. "We have spent all that time together, half of it in the same room and... I don't really... know anything about you. Nothing at all."
"I never thought you'd be interested."
"Well we're gonna be here for a while," Nick sighed. "I'd like to know. It'll keep my mind off everything."
Mark knew that it wasn't going to be that easy, but he was willing to try everything to keep Nick calm for now. "OK" he said. "OK, I... grew up in Mississippi, spent the whole beginning of my life there with my folks, my brother..." Mark's voice trailed off at the end of the sentence.
"I didn't know you have a brother." Nick said.
"Yeah... he was... my twin. It was like looking in the mirror everyday."
Nick looked at him. "What happened?"
"He uh... he went out to celebrate with a bunch of his buddies after graduation. And all I remember is... waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and just knowing something was wrong." He paused. "And then the phone rang and I heard my mother scream and... I knew." Nick was silent. "The car he was in... stalled on the train tracks and... Jack couldn't get out..."
Nick couldn't speak for a moment. "I'm sorry" he said "Mark..."
"It's been four years but... I still can't really go home. My parents don't look at me the same because when they see me, they see him. And I can't stand the look on my mom's face. The pain in her eyes... I don't think I could see that again."
"So you don't go home at all?"
Mark shook his head. "Holidays are the worst" he said "And can you just imagine now, them finding out that I'm gay? Talk about throwing their whole life into ruin. The only one who can carry on the name and that is not going to happen." Mark paused. It was the first time that Nick hadn't had something to say about his being gay. Mark looked at him. "So that's pretty much it... in a nutshell." Nick leaned back in bed again as Mark unscrewed the top from the Poland Springs. "Here, you'd better have some of this." he paused. "It's gonna be a long night."