“Told you,” Sam said, laughing at his expression.
He was expecting it when he shook Mark’s hand, but it was clear that he was as confused as the rest of us over the bizarre situation.
For the next hour, we sat at the picnic table comparing stories. Shawn, like me, had been adopted at a young age. His adoptive parents split up five years ago, but he was fine about it. He felt his adoptive mom never wanted children and only went along with it to please his adoptive dad. “My adoptive dad was no gem,” was all he said when I tried to ask him about it.
Out of the four of us, Mark was the only one who had been raised by his biological parent. We had no idea why, if we were all tied together in some way, why the rest of us had been abandoned.
Sam then filled Mark in on her past. She appeared to be glossing over a lot of the details, but we saw through them and I reached over to pat her hand. I already knew from small tidbits Sam had given me that her childhood had sucked. Eventually we ran out of steam and our conversation trailed off. We sat in silence for awhile analyzing all the information we lacked.
“I’m going to go read my book for awhile,” Sam said. “I need a break from all this seriousness.” She and Shawn got up and walked toward the jungle gym and climbed to the top.
Mark and I sat in silence. With Sam and Shawn gone I suddenly felt self-conscious. What if I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to talk about? Sure, I had a high IQ, but I was way out of his league when it came to schooling, he was light years ahead of me. I studied the leaves that had fallen from the red oak trees that were scattered throughout the park. During all my research of California, I had seen that in parts of northern California, the trees grew so big and wide you could drive a car through them. My silent pondering was interrupted when Mark finally broke the silence.
“Do you want to take a walk around the park?” he asked. “It’s bigger than it looks. There’s a trail that wraps around back there, behind all the trees.”
“Sure,” I answered. He could have suggested walking to Florida, and I would have gladly followed him.
We set off following the trail. Mark reached over and grabbed my school bag with one hand, and my hand with the other. We walked in silence for a few minutes.
“Was my note too much?”
I stopped walking and turned to look at him.
“No, it all just seems to be happening so fast. I’m not sure what I feel, but I do know that I want to be with you all the time.”
Relief covered his face. “I was afraid I was rushing you,” he said as he pulled me into his arms.
Looking around, I could see that we were in the shadows of the trees and that it was hard to see more than a few feet in front of us. I could see that Mark was also aware of it. He pulled back slightly and cupped my face in his hands.
This was the moment I had been waiting for since I first laid eyes on him yesterday. That’s not true, this was the moment I had been waiting for my whole life.
“So, you like to read?” He asked pulling away. I flushed when I realized he was standing a few paces away from me. I must have read the signals wrong; this is what I got for never hanging out with other people. I didn’t even know when some guy was about to kiss me or not. What a dork, I thought, hoping he had missed the fawning look I was sure must have been on my face.
Swallowing the disappointment that was welled up in my throat, I tried to focus on the question he had asked me.
“Yeah, I love to read,” I said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice.
I found out that he liked to read as much as I did.
“Favorite book?” Mark asked.
“Easy, the sixth Harry Potter book.”
“Really? More than the last Harry Potter book?”
“Definitely, the sixth book was the most interesting.”
“How about you, what’s your favorite book?”
“Well, like you, I like the Potter series, but I still like some of the classics like the Outsiders or Where the Red Fern Grows. ”
“Those books were banned from my house after I read them the first time,” I said with a smile.
“Why?” Mark asked surprised.
“Because, I cried buckets after I read them, and walked around gloomy for weeks. After that, my dad would look at all my books before I read them to make sure no one died in them.”
“How did you slide the Harry Potter books by him?”