Seven
(Back to Taylor's POV)
Everything was dark and quiet, and muffled sounds gradually became more prominent, along with the pounding in my head. I slowly opened my eyes and heard Mark shuffling around the room. I didn't want to get up, but I knew I would need medicine for my headache, plus I was thirsty. Conveniently, there was already a bottle of pills and a water bottle next to me on my desk. Mark must have done that this morning or last night.
"Good morning," Mark smiled when I finally convinced myself to sit up and take medicine.
"I wouldn't call it that," I commented before swallowing a pill and taking a long drink of water.
"So I was right to guess that you'd have a hangover?" he wondered.
"Yeah, I don't drink that often so I'm not used to this. How do you feel?"
"I'm good."
"You're good? What do you mean, you're good?" I questioned him, my eyebrows furrowed.
"I don't really get hangovers. I was just slightly tipsy, anyways. It takes a lot for me to get seriously drunk," Mark explained, and I suddenly felt very jealous. I considered being sassy, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, I stayed quiet as I ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, showered, and got dressed. It wasn't until I had been through my morning routine and relaxed for a bit that I spoke again.
"So, you remember everything from yesterday, right?" I hesitantly asked Mark as he looked through my movie selection.
"Yeah. What do you remember?"
"Everything up until some point when we were dancing like idiots. I don't remember what time of night it was, so I don't know if I did anything really stupid. I've actually never been significantly drunk before until last night," I confessed.
"Well, you didn't miss out on much. You were pretty drunk, so there was a lot of dancing and singing."
"Well, that's embarrassing, but I can deal with that. So, don't take this the wrong way - I'm not insinuating that I was expecting or wanting anything, but I have to check - nothing happened between us or anything, right?"
I was hoping for a somewhat quick and confident answer, but Mark hesitated and my mind went to a million different places. I shouldn't have had so much to drink. I shouldn't have trusted him. This whole thing has been a mistake! But then he answered the question, and I had to stop worrying and start listening.
"Not anything really serious, no."
"But, something did happen?" I waited a moment for him to reply once again. I wished he wasn't so reluctant to talk to me about this. I wanted to know what the hell had gone down!
"Yeah, you kind of kissed me." Oh.
"Kind of?"
"Well, not kind of. You kissed me. You made out with me, actually. After that I took away the rest of the bottle of alcohol you were drinking and we both basically came back here and went to sleep. Nothing else happened." Well, that's embarrassing. He probably knew now that in the back of my sober mind, I wanted to kiss him, and it just took alcohol for me to actually do it. But then again, maybe he just thought it was me being stupid while I was drunk, and maybe he wasn't looking into it at all. I couldn't be sure.
"Okay. So...you let me make out with you? I mean, were you drunk enough to actually kiss me back?" I chuckled a little bit, trying to make a joke out of the whole thing so he wouldn't think too much into it.
"I told you, I wasn't exactly drunk. But yeah, I kissed you back."
"Oh, geez. Why would you do that? I can't imagine me trying to make out with someone while drunk. That had to have been a nightmare," I realized.
"I don't know, I kind of wanted to." Wait, what? He wanted to? And he wasn't seriously drunk? That couldn't be right.
"I think you were more drunk than you thought you were at the time," I concluded. That was the only logical answer. If he really wanted apocalyptic Taylor, sassy as hell and practically no effort in her appearance other than clothing, it must have only been because I was the only girl around and he was desperate.
"You know, it is possible for guys to be attracted to girls. Maybe that's a new concept for you?" Mark smirked.
"It's not a new concept, but I am the only girl around at the moment. I don't know when the last time you were in a relationship was."
"It's been a while, but that's not a reason for me wanting to kiss you, and neither is the alcohol," he argued.
"Whatever you say." I gave up, shaking my head in disbelief as I walked over to my bed to sit down. Before I could get there, I felt a hand wrap around my wrist and spin me around.
"God damn, you're stubborn." As soon as the words left his mouth, his lips collided with mine. I could barely even comprehend what was happening at first, but then the kiss almost felt familiar, as if I was beginning to remember the night before. I became hopelessly lost in the moment, and when the kiss should have ended, it continued. I didn't think about the fact that continuing could completely change the dynamic of us living together, or that it could potentially ruin everything in the end. I didn't think about anything except how soft his lips were, how perfectly they fit with mine, and how I wanted more. It wasn't until we had already made out for a moment that I came to my senses and pulled away from him, shocked at how I was acting.
"I guess you really wanted to kiss me too, and it wasn't just the alcohol for you, either." Okay, so he was right. But this couldn't happen. I just think he's hot. It's a dumb crush that's distracting me because I haven't been in a relationship in a while either.
"I'm sorry. Can we please just pretend that didn't happen?" I was completely scatterbrained, and I didn't even feel like trying to prove him wrong.
"You think I'm just going to completely forget that just happened?" He seemed a little hurt, and my heart sunk a little. I had to ignore the feeling, though. He had said it himself: I'm stubborn.
"You can try."
****
The rest of the day was awkward. I ended up taking a walk through campus by myself. Mark insisted that I couldn't go out alone, but I loaded a good chunk of my weapons and ammo into my bag and reminded him that there were practically no zombies around anyways. When I got back, my hangover headache was gone and my mind was somewhat cleared, but any and every interaction with Mark felt weird. And unfortunately, it stayed that way for the next few days. There was a strange tension between us, and we hardly talked. I spent most of my time reading and he spent most of his time binge watching Friends, which I had every season of on DVD. But eventually, one of us had to address the issue, and as expected, it was him.
I was completely enveloped in the magical world of Harry Potter with my music playing loudly when I felt my bed bounce slightly and my earbuds were taken out of my ears, ruining the experience.
"Hey! I'm reading!" I complained, giving Mark a nasty look.
"You've been doing nothing but reading for the past few days. We need to talk, because I know we aren't going to be able to live like this for much longer," he told me.
"I don't want to talk about it, Mark."
"I don't care if you want to or not. It has to happen. Clearly you and I both want something, and we need to figure out what that is."
"Look, I don't want a relationship, if that's what you think. I shouldn't have kissed you back. Everything was way more fun when we were just friends, and now we've ruined that," I vented.
"We can still just be friends, if that's what you want. We don't have to let this ruin anything," Mark answered.
"No, Mark, we can't just be friends. It's obvious that we both like each other more than that in one way or another!" I snapped, my body filling with angry heat.
"Then we just won't act on those feelings. We did that before, didn't we? Obviously feelings were there before we ever kissed, and we were doing just fine."
"That's because neither of us knew that the other person felt even remotely the same. That was different." The look on Mark's face made me feel like he was starting to realize that I was right this time.
"Maybe, but everything is so awkward right now. And we haven't had an adventure in a few days. We don't have to pretend to hate each other just because we kissed a couple times. People kiss each other all the time, it's a normal thing. It's whatever. We don't have to act on it. We'll just be roommates, surviving the zombie apocalypse like we always have been." Things would probably never be exactly the same again, but he had a point. We couldn't act this strangely forever. We didn't have to let this ruin anything. I hesitated, but I eventually responded to his suggestion.
"I have always wanted a skateboard...maybe we could go out on an adventure and try to find one? Me trying to teach myself to skate would be entertaining for the both of us," I smiled.
"That's the spirit! Let's go get some skateboards."
I had a feeling that this was too good to be true, that things weren't just going to go back to normal this easily, but I pushed those thoughts out of my mind. Instead of focusing on that, I chose weapons and ammo and I followed Mark into the elevator and out the door to the car for another one of our famous adventures.
Hey guys! If you enjoyed the chapter, please let me know by voting for it and by leaving me some comments! Do you think Mark and Taylor should remain friends or do you want them to become more than that? I already have this story planned, but I'd still like to hear what you guys think. Anyways, thanks so much for reading :) Hopefully I can update again somewhat soon.