You wondered how everything had managed to go to shit in so little time.
It's been exactly one month since that night where your father sexually abused you and one month since Mark said that you should just forget about him.
But you didn't forget about him.
It was because you couldn't forget about him.
It was also because he hasn't been in school since that day.
You haven't seen Tom around either so it wasn't like you could ask him if he's seen Mark.
You couldn't ask anyone at school because they didn't care.
Mark didn't seem to be missing due to the fact that he hadn't been reported missing by anyone.
Or maybe he was indeed missing and no one had noticed and/or cared enough to actually report him missing.
You've thought about going to look for him but you had no idea where to start looking. Plus, he could be all the way across the country by now if he decided on leaving Cincinnati.
You hoped that he was okay.

*****

"(Y/N), you need to share. Do you realize how much this shit costs me?"
"Shut the fuck up Troy." You snapped as you quickly seized all of the weed that he had. "I'll give you money tomorrow so that you can buy me some extra."
"You better. You've been stealing it all of it for the past month. You never leave any of it for anyone else."
"Well, I'm sorry that my life is bullshit and I just want to forget about everything." You rolled your eyes as you put some of the weed into our pipe and put the rest into your hoodie pocket.
"Look, it's been really nice having you stay with me but you can't stay here forever."
"I don't plan on staying here forever."
"How long do you plan on staying here then?"
"Until I graduate." You muttered right before you started smoking the weed in your pipe.
Troy sighed. "Fine. I guess I can put up with you until then. If I can't, I'll just send you to live with Derek."
"Please don't do that. Derek... He has a thing for me."
"Yeah, I know he does. Do you have a problem with that?"
"Do I have a problem with that?! Yes, I have a problem with that! I don't like him like that and I'm only sixteen! We can't have the kind of relationship that he wants us to have. And I know he won't be able to control himself if I live with him."
"Go live with Julian then."
You nearly dropped your pipe after you processed what Troy had just said to you. "I'll go live with Julian when we're the last two people on this goddamn planet."
"Wow, you really don't like him do you?"
"I loathe that fucker. I would say dickhead but I really question whether or not he actually has a dick."
Troy laughed. "If he does, it's as fake as his muscles are."
"What do you mean?" You asked as you took another hit of weed.
"He only has muscles because he's a steroid user." Troy sat down next to you. "Derek's following right in his footsteps."
"Wait, so Derek owed Julian money for-"
"Derek's been getting steroids from Julian for a while now. I've tried to stop him but at the rate he's going, he's going to end up addicted like Julian is."
You stood up and pulled your phone out of your pocket. "I have to talk to Derek."

*****

"Derek! You're making a huge mistake! You need to stop!" You were pacing around and attempting to calm yourself down by smoking weed. "Troy told me that you're getting steroids from Julian!"
"Troy, you motherfucking dickhead." Derek grumbled before sighing. "Yeah, I'm taking steroids. I've been wanting to achieve a more muscular figure and Julian's methods are working wonderfully. I want to be just like him."
"Derek, Julian's a fake." You sighed as well. "All he cares about is being popular and the biggest and strongest in the entire school. Do you really want to be like that?"
"I thought that you would be impressed if I became more muscular."
"Derek, how many times do I have to tell you that I don't like you that way?"
"(Y/N), it's hard accepting that. I've never cared about someone like I care about you. I can't and won't apologize for my feelings. Can we try and have a relationship when you turn eighteen?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"Fine. I guess we aren't friends anymore."
Before you could even respond, Derek hung up and when you tried to text him, you found that he had blocked you.
"You're just like my old group of friends." You whispered sadly as you blocked Derek back. "You only wanted me as your friend so that you can gain something for yourself."

*****

Later that night when the high you got from the weed had wore off, you decided that you wanted to go for a walk so that you could clear your head. You didn't care about what time it was since it was a Friday night and you therefore didn't have school the next day. You didn't have a destination in mind. You just planned on walking and seeing where that took you.

After about an hour or so of walking, you reached the park. It was the same park where you and Mark had talked for a while a little more than a month ago. You wished that he was here. You needed someone to vent to and he seemed like he was a very good listener. Besides, he seemed to be one of the few people who didn't hang around you in order to gain something from you for themselves.
"What the fuck do you mean you didn't get it?!"
You looked over in the direction that you heard the yelling coming from. The massive almost seven foot tall figure and massive muscular form couldn't belong to anyone else but Julian. Standing across from him was a smaller almost six foot figure with light pink hair and a flower crown on his head. That couldn't belong to anyone else but Mark.
Wait, Mark?
"I don't give a shit if he told you that he was out! You should've found another goddamn way to get it! I wouldn't have given a fuck if you had to steal the damn thing!"
"Julian! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" You decided to intervene at that moment and stormed over to where the two were standing.
"That little shit owes me!" Julian looked over to you but pointed at Mark. "We have a deal going on and he can't break it, no matter what!"
"What exactly is this deal?" You crossed your arms. "Are you the reason why Mark hasn't been in school for an entire month?"
Julian scoffed. "That nerd's been doing all of his work so he's kinda been there."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Yes, I'm the reason why he hasn't been in school." Julian also crossed his arms. "I've been having him do some dirty work in exchange for money that he claims he oh so desperately needs."
"Wow, I knew you were awful but I didn't know that you were complete and utter garbage. Mark's so kind and caring and yet you treat him as if he's your punching bag. And now you're sending him to do all your dirty work. You're absolutely pathetic Julian."
Julian scoffed again. "Pathetic? We'll see who's pathetic after this."
Time seemed to slow down in the moment that Julian's hand balled up into a fist. Once he raised his arm, time slowed down even more when Mark jumped out in front of you. Mark hit the ground a moment later when Julian's fist his nose.
"You better hope I don't see you on Monday you little shit!" Mark winced as Julian kicked him in his side. You wanted so badly to just beat the shit out of Julian but you know that there was no way in hell that you would be able to take him down. He would win with just one punch directed at you. "I'll make you so scared that you won't ever want to step foot outside of your house ever again."
Much to your relief, Julian walked off. You hoped that one day karma would be a bitch to him and he would have to pay for everything he had done to hurt Mark.

"Oh my God, he didn't hurt you too badly did he?" You asked Mark as you helped him off of the ground. His flower crown had fallen off his head when he had fallen down and you bent down in order to grab it. Upon picking it up, you noticed that the flower crown was missing one of the white lilacs that it normally had. You looked around for the missing white lilac but you couldn't find it no matter how hard you looked.
But that red daisy was still there.
"Here's this back. There's a flower missing. I don't know if you noticed it or not." You put the flower crown on Mark's head and adjusted it once you did so. While you were adjusting it, you noticed that another white lilac was missing. "Oh, there are two missing actually."
Mark hugged you tightly at the moment. Well, he tried to at least. You could tell that he was really straining himself to hug you as tightly as he possibly could.
But that's when you noticed that something was off about him.
He was skinny, much skinnier than a person of his height should be. He was at the point where you could see his ribs.
"Mark, why are you so skinny?" You didn't bother hiding the concern you felt in your voice.
Mark let go of you and sat down on the grass with his dry erase board in his lap. He had switched back to his purple dry erase marker that he had when you had first met him.
I've been with Julian for this past month. He made me stay with him while I did whatever I asked him to. He paid me and everything.
"What did he make you do?"
He mostly made me get steroids for him. But sometimes he would make me do other things for him.
"Like what?"
He would make me do his homework for him and there was this one time where he made me work out with him. I nearly passed out because he kept pushing me to keep going.
"That's horrible." You knew Julian had gotten to be awful, but not this awful. "I know that this is a really weird question and please don't take this the wrong way, okay?" You paused for a moment before asking, "Did Julian feed you?"
Mark shook his head. I had to sneak very small amounts of food so that Julian wouldn't notice that anything was gone.
"Where the hell were his parents?"
Julian said that it didn't matter because they were never coming back.
"Maybe that's a good thing. His parents were super strict."
Do you and Julian have a history?
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."
You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.
"Yeah, I'd rather not."
You felt such a hypocrite for saying this to him. You really wanted him to open up about things that were going on with his life and possibly things that happened in his past, but yet here you were not really wanting to tell him about what had happened between you and Julian three years ago.
Upon realizing it had been three years since everything that had happened actually happened, you wondered how the hell the time had managed to go by so fast.
I get it. There are things that I'd rather not talk about either.
You merely just sighed in response. After a few moments had passed and no attempts had been made at continuing the conversation, you stood up and decided to be the one to break the silence.
"Do you wanna go and get something to eat? You look like you could really use it. Not that I mean that in a mean way or anything! I just don't want you to continue to be starved!" You spoke really fast once you realized that Mark might actually get offended by you saying that he could really use something to eat.
I get what you're saying, but you really don't have to get anything for me. I'm going to head home in a little bit because I'm sure that my mom's been worried sick about me. Julian forced me to tell her, my dad, and my brother that I ran away. But that wasn't good enough for me so I told them that I was making money to help pay for, um, something and that if they reported me missing, then they would be sorry. The last thing I want is for Julian to go after my family. I had to sneak messaging my mom every single day just so that she wouldn't do it because she didn't want to listen to me.
"Mark, that's absolutely horrible. You need to tell someone what Julian did to you so that he can pay for everything he's ever done to hurt you."
I'm not really the kind of person who seeks out revenge when someone's hurt me. I just try to forget it ever happened.
"I would sit here and tell you that trying to forget that something's happened to you isn't exactly a good way to cope but I would be a total hypocrite for saying it and I absolutely hate hypocrites."
Me too. Mark stood up while he had written on his dry erase board. Can we go and get that food now?
You laughed. "I was just thinking the same thing. It's like you read my mind."
Maybe I did. Mark smiled a bit.

*****

"See? I told you eating outside was way better than eating inside." You smiled a little as you saw Mark not bothering to take his time eating his food.
Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't have doubted you.
"Yeah, you really shouldn't have." You teased and shoved him lightly.
Mark took a drink of water before pulling his dry erase board close to him. (Y/N), are we friends?
"Well Mark, I'd love to think that we are." You told him. "But I'll only say that you're my friend if you want to be my friend."
Mark hesitated for a moment before he started writing. I want to be your friend.
You couldn't help but smile widely when you read that. "Really?"
Mark smiled and nodded.
At that moment, you pulled him in for a hug. Mark only hugged back for a brief moment before pulling away from you.
You... You smell like weed.
You sighed, remembering that he had caught you the last time that you had tried to lie to him and knowing that you would have to tell him the truth. "Yes, I've been smoking weed. It's got worse after you left and it's just been this steady downfall."
You need to stop.
"I know I need to stop but I don't want to stop."
I don't want to see you end up in the druggie life. My brother's already heading down that path and I'm scared for him. I'm scared that one day he's going to move on from weed to a drug that's really dangerous.
"Well, you don't have to worry about me. I know how to control myself and when to stop."
Are you sure about that?
"Yes I'm sure about that! I'm not like Tom at all! I'm not even interested in trying out any other drug! You have no need to worry about me! Just worry about Tom because he's gotten ten times worse than I've gotten over this past month! He's talked about getting into other drugs on several occasions! I even think that he knows someone who can give him these drugs that he claims that he wants to get into!"
Mark flinched and moved away from you when he heard you yelling. He placed both of his legs up on the wooden table and hid his dry erase board from you by placing it on his legs and pulling his legs closer to his chest. He started to wrote, his eyes never looking up at you. He even hid his face with his dry erase board when he was done and had turned it around when he had finished writing.
You didn't have to yell. I was just trying to be a good friend and help you by giving you advice on what you should do. I get the feeling that deep down inside, you're terrified of falling into the life of a druggie.
"How'd you guess?" You asked quietly as you stared down at your feet.
Before moving here this year, I went to a school where almost everyone did drugs. I witnessed someone I cared about fall victim to that lifestyle before that lifestyle took her life away. You noticed that tears were forming in Mark's eyes. The last thing I want is to see that happen to someone here. It was already enough having to witness it happening to someone I cared about unlike I ever cared for anyone.
"Mark..." You trailed off, realizing that you weren't really at the point in your friendship with Mark to ask him just who this person he was referring to was. Besides, it seems like the last thing he wanted to do was open up about it.
It's fine. Everything's fine. You noticed that it was becoming hard for Mark to hold back the tears that had formed in his eyes.
"You don't have to hold back your tears just because I'm here. If you want to cry, then let it all out. If you need to vent, I'm here to listen. That's what friends are for."
Mark shook his head, still refusing to cry. No, I don't need to do any of that. I think I'd like to just go home.
You sighed, having been hopeful that Mark wouldn't hold back the emotions he seemed to be suppressing for a long time.
But maybe you could get him to open up at a later point in time.

*****

That's the one. Mark pointed to the house that belonged to him when you had arrived at it.
"Do you want me to walk you up there or..."
I guess you can if you want. Just be prepared for my mom to ask you a lot of questions.
"Okay." You followed Mark as he walked through the driveway and up the porch stairs to the front door. He knocked on the door and tucked his dry erase board underneath his right arm as he waited for a response.

After a few moments of waiting, a woman who appeared to be Korean and in her mid fifties opened the door wearing a pink robe and matching pink slippers. She appeared to be very tired and in a half asleep state when she opened the door. But once she looked up from the ground and saw that Mark was standing just outside the door, she seemed to wake up in less than a second.
"M-Mark? Darling, is that really you?"
Mark nodded.
"Oh my goodness, I thought that you were never coming home!" Mark's mother pulled him into a hug and rested her head on her youngest son's shoulder as he hugged her back.
Mark had written something on his dry erase board when he had ended the hug with his mother but you couldn't see what he exactly he had written due to the fact he had the board turned towards his mother and you didn't want to bother with leaning over in order to be able to read what he had written. You assumed that it had something to do with his backpack because he pulled it off of his back and handed it to his mother.When she opened the backpack, her jaw dropped down so low that it was a wonder how it didn't hit the ground.
"Mark, honey, how did you get all of this money?"
You assumed that the next thing Mark had written was him explaining how he had earned money doing Julian's dirty work over the past month and how he had only managed to escape because Julian had been fed up with him.
"What did he do to you? You look so much skinnier than you did when I last saw you."
Mark yet again wrote something that you couldn't see and his mother took a few moments to read what he had written.
"You need to stop insisting that you're fine when you're really not fine. You need to come in and eat something right now young man."
At that moment, Mark turned around and beckoned for you to come and stand next to him. You did so and you were glad that you were finally able to see exactly what Mark was writing.
(Y/N) and I went and got something to eat right before we came here.
"You already got a new girlfriend? It hasn't been that long since-"
Mark put his hand up and his mother fell silent when he did so. Once he knew that she would stay quiet, he explained how you weren't his girlfriend and you were a new friend of his. He then explained how you had met and how you had hung out at the library the same day you had met.
"I see. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you (Y/N)." Mark's mother smiled at you and extended her hand towards you.
"It's nice to meet you too." You smiled back at her and took her hand before shaking it for a moment.
"Were you the one who rescued my son from that horrible Julian kid?"
"Yeah, I guess you could put it that way." You let go of her hand and shrugged a bit. "I guess I was at the right place at the right time."
"It sounds like you were." Mark's mother laughed a bit and looked back over at the pink-haired boy. "Come inside and get some rest. You look like you're ready to collapse from exhaustion."
You also looked over at Mark and saw that he was staring down at the ground while allowing a yawn to escape.
"Your mother's right. You do look like you're really tired."
Mark looked up at you and you could see the tiredness in his eyes. A moment later, he stepped towards you and pulled you into a tight hug. As you were hugging him back, you felt him slipping something into your pocket.
"Mark, what the hell did you just put in my pocket?"
He hugged you for just a moment longer before releasing you and turning his dry erase board towards him and writing something. A moment later, he stopped writing and turned the board back around so that it was facing you. Relax (Y/N), all it is is a small piece of paper. But I want you to promise me something.
You usually didn't like making any promises because you found yourself unable to keep them. But you wanted things to be different when it came to Mark. You wanted to make sure that you never broke your trust with him because you knew that if you had ever done so, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to gain his trust back. You already felt lucky that Mark had accepted you as a friend.
"Okay, what do you want me to promise you?"
I want you to promise me that you won't read the note until you get home.
"I promise." You nodded to enforce that you wouldn't break the promise. Besides, it was an easy promise to keep.
Thank you.
"Aw, you two are adorable." Mark's mother gushed as she smiled and folded her hands together.
Mark then looked over at his mother and gave her a stare that seemed so full of hatred.
"Oh, right, sorry honey. I keep forgetting." She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a flower. Upon closer inspection, it was a pink carnation. "I almost forgot. I got this for you when you came back."
Mark went over to his mother and took the pink carnation from her hand. He studied it closely for a few moments before hugging his mother and resting his head on her shoulder.
"I'll take that as a sign that you love it." You watched as she ran her hand through Mark's hair, making sure not to mess up his flower crown. "I'm so glad you're back. Don't do that ever again. I don't think that my heart could handle something like that ever again."
Mark simply just nodded in response as he looked over at you and gave you a goodbye wave before taking a step forward and closing the front door behind him. You took this as a cue to leave and turned around before you started to head back to the place that you had avoided during Mark's entire absence.