“It’s you! It’s totally you!” I was quite hysterical now. “Oh my God. This is unbelievable. You were my favorite one. I had such a crush on you, to be honest. More than a crush. I mean, I once signed my name Frankie Taylor in my diary, God, that is so embarrassing to admit to now, especially to the actual person. But I had such a crush on you guys. I even have a STT tattoo on my back . . .” I paused for a moment. “Wait! You saw the tattoo the other night? Is that why you stopped . . . Oh God, of course it is. How embarrassing!” I reached around and touched my tattoo. It was an image from their album artwork, a heart with the letters “STT” in curly cursive through the middle of it. “I can’t believe this! I mean, what are the chances? They must be a million to one. Billion to one. How many people are there in the world? That’s how much the chances must be . . . to one. Oh my crap!” I stopped walking for a moment and put my hands on the sides of my face and shook my head. I was in physical shock. “Wow! Wow!” I started walking again. “You know you totally broke my heart when you left the band and it all fell apart? And it was weird that only you left, and your brother didn’t leave too. I cried for an entire month, because the band wasn’t the same without you. I was gutted when the band finally fell apart and even more when . . . when . . .” I stopped talking and gasped as the memory hit me on the side of the head.
“Oh shit,” I said flatly, stumbling to a standstill. At that, Mark finally stopped walking and turned around slowly. His eyes were no longer icy. This time they looked like they were filled to the brim with pain. My heart broke.
“Oh shit. I’m so sorry. Crap! That was so insensitive of me.” I shook my head, tears forming in my eyes. I took a step closer to him. “I’m so sorry, Mark. I would never have gone on like that, I wasn’t thinking . . . your brother.” I said that last part in a whisper and wished I could go back in time and stop myself from opening my stupid mouth in the first place. I felt so bad now.
Mark cast his eyes to the floor.
“I should never have gone in there and gone through your stuff. I thought I was helping you because you were busy, but it was wrong of me, sorry.” My voice cracked. “And I’m so sorry about your brother.. When I heard what happened to him I . . . it was terrible.”
There was a long, silent beat between us and it was filled with so much tension that it made the air feel sticky and thick. Pressing down on us. Finally, Mark looked up from the floor and made eye contact with me and, shit, his eyes were shining as if he was fighting back tears. My heart doubly broke.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered again.
He shook his head at me and then forced a small smile. God, that broke my heart even more. This man was killing me.
“Thanks for trying to help, but you really shouldn’t have.”
I nodded. “I know.”
He looked at me for the longest time and then let out a sigh. As if he’d just resigned himself to something.
“I always knew someone would figure this out. I’ve been waiting for this day to come for years.” He looked down at the box in his hands. “But you can’t tell anyone who I am,” he said softly. “Please.” His plea came out desperate-sounding. “I put that behind me sixteen years ago. That’s not me anymore.”
“No one knows?” I asked and then a thought hit me. “Of course no one knows; well they don’t know consciously.” It made total sense now. Why half the town was in love with him and didn’t know why, as Samirah had said. They probably also had had his poster up on their walls, or had looked at him longingly when they were younger. And when they met Mark, something about him stirred that up inside, even if they weren’t sure what it was.
“No one knows. And I want it to stay that way.” He said this rather emphatically and I nodded quickly.
“I won’t tell anyone. I swear.” And then I made a stupid joke that I shouldn’t have made and it immediately tanked like a lead balloon in the space between us. Tanked so hard that I swear it should have actually made a noise. “Cross my heart, hope to kiss.”
Mark looked at me and simply shook his head.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to, that was just one of my favorite songs.” I shrugged at him apologetically. “God, that was lame, and so inappropriate. Sorry. I’m totally failing at this moment right now, but I got to be honest, I’m a little star struck here.”
He shrugged back, and I swear I saw the tiniest smile flicker across his lips. “That’s okay, baby girl.”
I smiled back and then giggled a little, but tried to stop myself. It was a particularly stupid girly-sounding giggle too. Embarrassing. But I was just so fluttery inside. “Say you forgive me,” I said back, naming yet another song title in this little game we’d suddenly found ourselves playing. I was relieved that the mood had lightened a little between us.
“Only if you go,” he said, and my smile faded.
“You don’t mean that really, do you?” I asked, a little worried that maybe we were no longer playing the song title game, even though that was the song from their second album,Step Up To Me.
He shook his head. “No. Don’t go.” He smiled at me and I was relieved. “Want something to drink?”
“That’s not a song title,” I said.
“No. It’s not.”
“So, you’re actually asking me if I want a drink? IRL.”
“IRL?”
“In real life,” I quickly qualified.
“I guess I am.”
CHAPTER 56
I sat on the veranda and waited for M.J., uh, Mark, to bring me a glass of something. He finally came back and passed me a beer. I took it and we sipped in silence for a while. I was grateful for the silence, to be honest. I had a lot to let sink in. This revelation that Mark was quite literally my childhood crush was just the strangest thing that had ever happened to me. But what else did I expect?
