Mark

What Mark didn't know when he woke up far too early in the morning, before the clouds had come back out, and found her still lying next to him was that she'd already been awake for quite a long time. He tried not to look at her while she slept, but he couldn't help but notice that most of her hair had fallen out from her plait and some of it was caught on her mouth. In fact, she looked a mess, with most of her make up rubbed away and all of her clothes still on. He moved the piece of hair away and turned over. She took a deep breath in her sleep.

He didn't wake again until the alarm went off right by her ear. She didn't start, but shifted slowly, stretching a little and sighing before closing her eyes again. He hit the snooze and put his chin on her forhead, where it seemed it would fit, and it did. In his tar clogged, beer puddled, sleep soaked head, the thought was only gradually occurring to him that letting her sleep in his bed hadn't been the best of plans. He probably should have gone and slept somewhere else after she passed out, but then another thought nudged its way through the mess and it occurred to him that, all things considered, he hadn't slept so well in weeks.

The alarm went off again and he silenced it without even thinking. He put his arms around her and held her there, all folded up, and briefly hoped that she wasn't taking his affection to mean the wrong thing. He wanted to hold her, to have her, but he didn't want her. He had thought he did when he kissed her first but now he definately didn't want her. A fleeting cloud of nonsense made him wonder why, but he brushed it away because he didn't know himself.

He hoped she was alright. He had assumed she was once she started speaking to him again but it always bothered him that it had taken the accident to make that happen. It had taken the accident for her to be frank, and only now did he wonder whether she had expected something in return, but it didn't bother him. He had made himself clear, he thought.

The alarm rang again, and she did start this time. She sighed and rolled over onto her back. Mark buried his face in her shoulder and thought back to the night before, from when she had come into his room while everything else was going on downstairs. She'd sat at the end of the bed and said, 'We are okay, aren't we?' Mark had wondered what the right answer was, and then what the true one was and then decided to go for the latter, because it was the only one of the two he knew.

'I don't know,' he replied.

He knew she was drunk because she was using a lot of 'like's and making hand gestures that he could see even in the dark. He wished he could see her face. He also knew that she was drunk because she'd drunk a bottle of wine. He knew he was drunk because he'd had a lot of beer. She was asking what went wrong, telling him that she'd thought it was going to be fine. He never cought the reason why it wasn't fine, which was a shame, because he'd been wondering that himself, but by the time she'd finished talking he realised that she had assumed that she wasn't going to get any answers from him, which was a fair assumption because she usually didn't, and lain down next to him. He'd put his arms around her and realised that her face was slightly wet and all her hair was in it. He moved it all away and tucked it behind her ears. He wasn't annoyed that she was upset. She wasn't sobbing. If he'd taken them for tears of frustration, he probably would have been right.

He had wondered last night if he ought to tell her something to indicate what he felt about her, but when the alarm was going of again this morning, he realised how relieved he was that he hadn't. Besides, there were no words. She had begun to float the tips of her fingers back and forwards on his elbow and he felt himself drifting off again.

When the alarm went off the next time, he knew he was going to have to get up. She'd opened her eyes and was staring at the ceiling. Then she turned over to look at him and closed them. 'Do you have something on today then?' she said.

'Do you think I'd be getting up if I didn't?'

'Good point,' she replied, in the kind of derisive voice that she seemed to save for him.

He left her lying there and went to retrieve his jeans from the dirty washing, stopping to pick last night's shirt off the floor on the way. When he got back she was sitting cross legged on the bed putting her hair back where it belonged. 'I'll let you get dressed' she said and disappeared off down the stairs. Mark wondered whether anyone else would be up. He hoped that if they did then they wouldn't get the wrong idea about what had happened. As normal as it was for people to end up sleeping in their house, she had never done it before, and she wasn't the type to crash.

He found her in the kitchen boiling the kettle. He had to leave in five minutes and when she saw him all dressed she must have realised because she went into the hallway to put on her shoes and sat watching him on the bottom step while he packed his bag. Then when he was ready, she followed him out the door.

It was still early by his standards and the sun was still shining. It was warm and he was glad he hadn't had time to find a jacket. she rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and undid the top button. It was pale green and strictly speaking shouldn't have suited her. He hadn't thought much of it last night, but then there had been the girl in the skirt who was making eyes at him and ended up in his bed just before her.

When they reached the turning that he was taking, she hugged him and didn't say anything. Mark was glad that they no longer had to think of things to say to each other if they didn't want to. He walked away and looked once through the trees where he could still see her on the other road. She was holding the collar of the blouse to her nose and her eyes were shut.