“Mark! We’re heading to my room, don’t bother us!”

“Alright!”

Mark could hear his sister and her friends make their way up the stairs, past his room, and into Jenny’s room at the end of the hall. He sighed and leaned against the wall. If he listened carefully, he was just barely able to make out the sounds of conversation. They were hushed, perhaps they were aware that he might be listening? Or maybe the walls were thicker than he thought?

His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was his mom, texting him that she and his dad had arrived at the next town. Recently, one of their cousins was getting married and so both his parents were invited, but both he and Jenny declined to go.

Their official reasons were to catch up on schoolwork and while that was partially true in Mark’s case, the real reason was that neither of them really liked their cousin Ben, and a weekend free at the house seemed like a fun distraction.

Mark rubbed his eyes as he remembered the math assignment he had to do earlier. He hated fractions.

On the other side of the wall, the girls started laughing. He wondered what it was about. If perhaps Victoria told a funny joke or Susan made a small mistake. Perhaps they were talking about him, and how weird they found him to be.

His phone buzzed. He looked down and saw it was Jimmy texting him that he, Zack, and Brayden would be there in about an hour. They’re just waiting for Brayden to finish with soccer practice. Mark replied ok and went downstairs. He made sure the door was unlocked for them and that the outside light wouldn’t turn on to alert anyone that more people had come inside.

“Oh, hi Mark!” Victoria had come downstairs, “I was just going to get some water, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Mark replied, “Just checking to see if there was anyone outside.”

Victoria frowned, “You expecting someone? You didn’t piss off the wrong people, did you?” she joked.

Mark chuckled, “No. Just expecting some mail. It’s supposed to come in later today.”

“Alright.” Victoria said, “Well… we’re all upstairs… so yeah.”

And with that Victoria left. A part of him wanted to call out to her, to ask her to stay with him for a little while longer. But he wasn’t …