Mark Waterman: The Sun In All Its Glory (Completed) Alternate Story

Chapter 12: Social Blow Up

The alarm rang out on the quiet Monday morning. Luna reached out and turned it off. She turned her head to see Mark sleeping peacefully next to her. She thought about what had happened to change their dynamic. She couldn't help herself. She grabbed her phone to see that she had missed many messages from Janine, "I know right, if you can I don't suppose you could get me some pics of him, for the yearbook obviously." "Luna what's going on. I haven't heard from you in over 6 hours. What r u doing rn, you naughty girl." and others to the same extent.

Luna took the duvet off of the two of them and took a picture of the naked Mark to send to Janine. Just before she was about to send it, she felt guilty and bad about doing so, but sent it in the end anyway. She followed this up with a selfie of the two of them in bed together and posted it on Instagram. Then she messaged Janine "I had the best day yesterday. We just ended up staying the night together and we cuddled up next to each other and talked for hours upon end. I don't think I can go back to Sol after that." Janine replied instantly saying, "Luna you do realise what the time is right, cos I've been waiting for you for almost 30 minutes outside your house. I also want to say thank you for the picture and don't ever let him go."

Luna remembered that they had school in just under an hour's time. She looked over at Mark however and realised that he didn't have any of his school stuff with him. She gathered some of her father's smart clothes for Mark to wear to school and lent him a notepad and pen for him to work in. Luna then woke Mark up by sitting on him and telling him that he has to get ready for school. Mark headed straight for the door before Luna reminded him to put on some clothes that were laying on the chair next to the bed. Mark thanked her and headed for the kitchen for some breakfast.

With 45 minutes left, Luna quickly hopped in the shower to get clean and wash her hair. Mark saw Janine waiting outside so went up to the shower to ask Luna why Janine was here. Luna said that she and Janine always walked to school on Mondays, as this was when they could talk about important things where nobody could hear them. Mark jumped down the stairs and let Janine in. Janine began asking Mark a lot of questions like why he was in Luna's house overnight, what did he do last night, etc., whilst they both waited for Luna. Janine moved closer to Mark and whispered in his ear "just to let you know my statement from the park still stands, I know given what happened yesterday you probably won't want to, but if things don't work out you know where I am." Finishing with a kiss on his cheek.

Luna was finally ready and after making herself a coffee, the three of them walked to school.

Mark felt very left out and weird for the whole journey as they would just be talking and laughing, every now and then they would turn their heads towards him and carry on laughing. This made Mark feel very uncomfortable and he could only imagine all the things that they were talking about, mainly what had happened and an emphasis on him.

Mark then started to think about all the other conversations that they must have had on the way to school, and all the negative things they must have said about him, especially over the last few months. He hoped that this time they were talking positively about him given all the laughing.

They got to school and they went to the common room to hang out before form and lessons. Mark couldn't help but notice all the glances that came his way as they walked to the common room and once they got there. He sat down with Luna and Janine and asked Luna why everyone was looking at them. Luna then looked at her notifications. The picture of the two of them had been seen by everyone in the year and there were a lot of mixed comments. Their respective friends were delighted that they had finally got together but the rest of the year had sent very rude and nasty comments about Mark and herself. Mark saw the picture out of the corner of his eye and explained that many people would perceive it as cheating and portray her in a bad light. Luna hadn't thought about this and realised that Sol would also have seen it. Luna dreaded what was yet to come.