Mark's entire body began to shake as he lost his grip on the gun and it fell down onto the ground. A moment later, he collapsed onto the ground and curled up into a ball as he began to shake violently. Upon seeing this, you quickly crawled over to the pink-haired boy and began to gently rub his back.
"Mark, it's okay." You whispered as he continued to shake. "I know it may not seem like it, but you did the right thing. If you hadn't done what you just did, you would've been the one who got shot. You aren't going to get in trouble, I promise. Everyone's going to see that you did it to protect yourself and that you did it because you felt like your life was in danger."
"Pipsqueak..." You nearly jumped ten feet in the air when you heard Julian croak.
"Julian, you're alive?" You turned your head over to where the extremely tall and muscular boy was lying.
"Hardly..." He croaked once more. "Tell Pipsqueak to come over here..."
"He has a name." You instinctively reached to pull your phone out of your pocket and dial 911.
"What the hell are you doing?" Julian's eyes slowly began to close.
"I may despise you with every fiber of my being but I can't just let you die." You said to him right before your call was answered.

*****

"It's going to be okay." You were sitting with Mark in the waiting room and hugging him tightly. He was still shaking and crying silently from what he had done earlier. "They understood everything like I said they would. You aren't in trouble. I told you that you wouldn't be."
Your words didn't seem to help Mark in the slightest. He started to shake even more and you felt his tears escaping his eyes and landing on your shirt.
"You're fogging up your glasses." You moved his head slightly and carefully took off his glasses. He looked up at you with his bloodshot eyes and blinked, letting more tears escape in the process.
"I know you feel bad." You ran your fingers through his hair and set his glasses off to the side where they wouldn't fall onto the ground. "But if you wouldn't have turned the gun on Julian, you'd probably be dead right now. A-and it be all m-my fault." Upon realizing this, you felt tears forming in your eyes. When you blinked, you felt them escape your eyes and roll down your cheeks.
Mark shook his head and wiped away your tears. He opened his mouth and you felt your heart stop beating in your chest. You were going to hear what Mark's voice sounded like.
"Mark? Sweetie, where are you?"
Mark looked up when he heard someone call his name. He then stood up and ran in the direction that the voice came from. You looked over and saw him hugging his mother. You smiled a bit when you saw the two of them.
"Are you okay?"
Mark simply nodded.
"Oh, thank goodness. I heard about what happened and I rushed here right away." His mother hugged him tighter. "Where's (Y/N)? Is she okay?"
He nodded again and pointed to where you were.
"Good. Neither one of you look hurt." Mark's mother walked over to you, not letting go of her son as she did so. "Let's go home. You two have had a rough night by the sound of it."
You looked over at the hallway. There hadn't been any news about Julian and you at least wanted to know if he was going to make it or not. He may have turned into a total jerk over the years and you may have come to resent him during that time, but you still cared about whether or not he was going to live.
"Wait, I want to find out if someone is okay or not before we leave!"
"Who is this someone?"
"My... friend." You figured that that little white lie wouldn't hurt her. Besides, Julian had been your friend at one point. But he had been more than your friend at another point too, but that wasn't really something that you would like Mark's mother knowing. She'd probably be disappointed to find out that you and Julian had done things that you were much too young for while you were together.
"Well, if you insist..." Mark's mother still sounded hesitant. "Are you going to stay too, Mark?"
He nodded.
"Fine, you two can stay. But don't stay all night."
"We won't." You promised.
"You've gotta stop scaring me honey." Mark's mother pulled the pink-haired boy into another hug and softly kissed his forehead. "You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days." She let go of him and pulled a pink carnation out of her purse and gave it to him. "I saw another one of these today. I was going to give it to you when you got home but I want you to have it now."
Mark smiled as he took the pink carnation and held it close to his heart.
"See you two at home." Mark's mother gave the both of you a small wave before turning around and heading towards the exit.

"Your mom's always giving you pink carnations." You said to Mark as he sat back down on his seat and placed his dry erase board in his lap. "That's really cute."
Yeah, she's been giving them to me since I was really young.
"Is there any particular reason as to why she gives you pink carnations and not any other flower?"
Do you know what pink carnations symbolize?
You shook your head.
They symbolize either a woman's love or a mother's love. In my case, it symbolizes a mother's love.
You smiled. "That's really cute. You and your mom have a really close relationship and I love it."
We've been close my entire life. Perhaps it has something to do with me being the baby of the family and turning out to be a boy like my mom wanted when she was pregnant with me. She said that she always wanted two sons growing up and that she got her wish. Mark smiled as well.
You were about to respond when a nurse walked up to the two of you. "Are you two with... Ah shoot, what was his name? I've handled so many patients today that I can't keep track of who's who and who was waiting to hear about who anymore."
"Is his name perhaps Julian?"
"Yeah, that sounds right. I know that his name was something that started with a 'J' but I don't think that it was Julian. I think it was a name that was really old and basically ancient."
You sighed. "Let me guess, it was Julius wasn't it?"
The nurse's face lit up. "Yes! That's totally what it was! Anyways, are you two with him?"
"Yeah, we're with him. I'm guessing that you have news regarding him?"
"Yes, in fact, I do have news regarding him." The nurse paused for a moment. "He's alive but he has quite a bit of brain damage. He'll never be able to speak again due to the fact that the part of his brain responsible but he should be able to communicate by some other means in a few days. He's in critical condition and currently on life support so we can't allow anyone in his room right now."
"When do you think that we would be allowed to see him?"
The nurse shrugged. "Come back tomorrow and someone will update you on his condition then."
"Okay, well, we're going to leave now." You looked over at Mark. "You're ready to go, right?"
He stood up and nodded while doing so.
"Lead the way out to your car then."

*****

While you were sitting in Mark's car, you were staring out the window with so many things running through your mind. How did Julian know that you and Mark would be at the Halloween fair? You hadn't even known that you would be there until you had actually arrived there because Mark hadn't told you where he would be taking you and insisted on making it a surprise. There's no way that Julian would've been there by pure coincidence, especially since he had a gun on him and seemed to plan on killing Mark and making you feel guilty about it for the rest of your life. But it all didn't make that much sense. Before Mark picked you up, Julian had been at your house and said that he called the cops in order to get your parents arrested. That seemed like very odd behavior, especially when he had been an asshole to Mark from the very first day that you met the pink-haired boy. Julian had also ignored you for a very long time and the first time he had talked to you since the break-up was when he told you that Derek owed him money for steroids. Was it possible that Julian had only called the cops on your parents because he wanted you to let your guard down? Earlier you had thought that maybe Julian was starting to change back into the Julian that you knew and loved back in eighth grade before he got caught in the wrong crowd and started to care about things that he shouldn't have really cared about in the first place.
"I knew Julian had gotten bad, but not to the point where he was willing to murder someone." You hadn't realized that you said what you were thinking out loud until it was too late. "I know I shouldn't care that he's in the hospital hanging on a thread because he hurt me in the past by cheating on me and he's hurt me now by bullying you and nearly killing you. But I really can't help but care. I know that he brought this upon himself and that I should be saying, "Good riddance" but I just can't. I don't like it when people are suffering, even if the person is someone that I don't like." You looked over at Mark, who had stopped the car because he had approached a stoplight that had turned red. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling stupid nonsense. I'll just shut up now."
Mark shook his head.
"Wait, where you actually listening to all of that?"
He nodded.
"Did you agree with anything that I was saying?"
He nodded once more.
"Okay, good." You sighed with relief. You paused for a few moments. "I know Julian was absolutely horrible to you, b-but do you feel bad for him?"
Mark seemed to think about what you had asked him for a few moments before he slowly nodded.
"I mean, he's never going to speak again and he's probably going to be in the hospital for a few months so that he can recover." You sighed. "That is, if he even makes it to the point where he can get off life support."

*****

Once you arrived at Mark's house, you decided to push all thoughts of Julian to the back of your mind because you found that it only brought you down. You got out of Mark's car and went over to the back door so that you could get all of your stuff out of the backseat. Mark saw that you were starting to get all of your stuff out and opened the back door on the opposite side and began helping you get everything out.
"Oh, that's okay. You don't have to help. I can handle it on my own. Thanks anyways."
Mark shook his head and closed the door behind him before walking over to your side and picking up some of your stuff.
"Okay fine, I guess you can help take stuff in." You smiled as you picked up the rest of the stuff that Mark was unable to pick up.

After getting settled into the bedroom that would belong to you, you put the suitcases into the closet so that they wouldn't get in the way.
"Thanks for the help." You gave Mark a smile. "That probably would've taken much longer if you hadn't helped me."
No problem. Hey, do you maybe want to see my room?
"I would love to." You continued to smile.
Mark smiled back as he beckoned for you to follow him.

Mark's room wasn't really what you expected it to be.
His walls were painted a light pink color and he had stuffed animals all over his room. A giant stuffed unicorn sat right next to his bed. His bedspread had cherry blossoms on it and he had a white teddy bear holding a red heart lying on his pillow. Looking around, you saw that his walls were covered in butterflies and you couldn't help but focus on his dresser once your eyes got sight of it. There was a picture of someone on top of it, but you couldn't make out any of the person's features from where you were standing. Hoping that Mark wouldn't mind, you walked over to the dresser so that you could get a closer look at the picture. Upon taking a closer look at it, you saw that there was a girl with blonde hair, glasses, and a flower crown in the picture. She was smiling in the picture and was in front of the fountain that was at the park. You looked at the frame that the picture was in and noticed that it said, "Always remembered" at the top.
Your heart dropped when you realized everything.
The girl was in the picture was Mark's ex-girlfriend that he had taken to the Halloween fair last year and had said that he didn't want to talk about. It had to be her. Who else could it possibly be?
Looking around the dresser once again, you noticed that rosemaries surrounded the entire picture. Written on a small piece of paper right next to the picture was '05/16' and a broken heart was drawn underneath it. Near the edge of the dresser, there was another piece of paper but it was a normal sized piece of paper this time. A red carnation was lying right below it and you decided to see what was written on the piece of paper.

Pretty Boy, you're my everything.
Pretty Boy, you make me so happy.
Pretty Boy, I'm so glad I met you.
Pretty Boy, you stole my heart.
Pretty Boy, take my hand.
Pretty Boy, let's run away.
Pretty Boy, I'm nothing without you.
Pretty Boy, keep me in your thoughts.
Pretty Boy, keep me in your heart.

"She called you Pretty Boy." You whispered more to yourself than to Mark. "That's why you didn't like it when Derek called you that." You looked back at Mark.
Yeah, she started calling me that a little after we started dating.
"Who is she?" You continued to whisper.
She's the ex-girlfriend I promised that I would talk about later.
"Are you going to talk about her now?"
I guess I have to since I showed you my room.
"You don't have to if you don't want to."
No, I feel like I have to do this.
"If you say so..."
I guess I should start with the obvious. Her name was Amy and we met while I was living in Oahu. We were friends for a few years before I ended up moving here and we lost contact after that. It wasn't until two years later when she ended up moving here that we reunited and became friends again. We became really close over the course of about a year or so and I ended up really liking her. I kept this a secret from her until one day when I got the courage to tell her how I felt about her when she asked me to slow dance with her while we were at a middle school dance. She ended up telling me that she liked me back and I asked her to be my girlfriend and she said yes. Mark had ran out of space on his dry erase board so he erased everything once he knew that you had read everything that he had written. We dated for a total of two years before she... He started shaking and lost grip of his dry erase marker.
"It's okay." You went over to where he was and placed your hand on his back. "You don't have to go on if you don't want to. I understand that you're hurting and I don't want you to open up old wounds."
Mark laid down on the floor and started crying silently. While he was doing so, you started rubbing his back.

Just then, you noticed something out of the corner of your eye underneath Mark's bed. Upon closer inspection, it was a picture. The picture showed exactly what Mark's room looked like. The only difference between Mark's room and the picture was in the picture, 'Amy' was hanging on the wall while it wasn't hanging on the wall in Mark's room.
"Oh, now I see why your room looks the way it does." You whispered more to yourself than to Mark. "This is what her room looked like."
Mark nodded while he continued to cry.
A sudden realization hit you like a slap on the face a moment later. "Wait, do you wear flower crowns because she wore them?"
Mark nodded once again.
"Oh Mark, I'm so sorry. You must've cared about her so much." You continued to rub his back until he rolled over and sat up. When he did so, you noticed that he was wearing a small silver heart necklace.
"What's that?" You pointed to the necklace.
He looked down at where you were pointing. A moment later, he pulled his dry erase board and marker close to him and put it on his lap as he began erasing what he had struggled to write just a few moments before. It's the necklace I got her for her birthday. There's a picture of us inside the heart. After she... died, I started wearing every single day. I always keep it tucked underneath my shirt so that people don't make fun of me for wearing it.
"Mark..." You trailed off, not knowing what to say.
I'm sorry, but can you leave me be? I want to be alone.
"Of course." You stood up. "I'm always here if you ever need anyone."
Without waiting for any sort of response, you left the room and made sure to close the door behind you. It pained you to see Mark so sad. It seemed like he really liked this Amy girl before she died. Hell, it seemed like he still liked her despite her passing. You wish that you knew how to help Mark heal from losing her, but you didn't. You hadn't experienced anything like that and you didn't consider yourself someone who was good at giving people advice.
You felt so helpless.
You wanted Mark to be happy.
But it seemed like it would be a very long time before he was truly happy.