In the morning, I had to go to college. The road to it took more than an hour, so I had to get up earlier. And I even allowed myself a thought that maybe I should go back to the dorm. Mark wouldn't even know I was home.

The road is long, and the landscape outside the window is conducive to thoughts. However, my thoughts are not pleasant.

Why am I clinging to Mark all of a sudden? I need to make friends. Ted is well suited for the role of a friend - the first friend in my life, actually. And also, there are so many girls around, and I should have already found a girlfriend. This is how I imagined my college life. That's what I wanted. Why am I desperately trying to get back now?

Until the end of the class, I didn't decide where to go. So, I stand at the exit of the college for a while. Eventually, I make up my mind and go back to Mark's place.

This time he is at home. But he is gloomy. He answers my questions reluctantly. We have dinner, and it is not the way I imagined it.

"Okay, I'll go, I guess," I say, feeling uneasy.

"It's late. You can stay here," says Mark.

"I just... I wouldn't want to meet Ian again."

"He will not come!" Mark answers sharply. "I mean... I'm sorry, you have nothing to do with it."

"Have you had a fight?" I ask without looking up.

"You can say so..."

"Because of me?" I ask carefully.

Mark just looks at me and doesn't answer.

"Anyway, you can stay here for the night," he utters at last.

I agree, but it's hard for me to look at Mark. I've never seen him so upset. He probably really loves this Ian...

I try to distract Mark with a conversation, telling him everything I haven't told him in the last few months. Mark is surprised by my talkativeness, but after a while, I even make him smile. And then I say that I have been expelled from the dorm...

"Did you smoke in bed or something?" Mark grins.

"Sort of," I smile.

"Well, your room is your room. I won't expel you."

I am glad to hear it. I'm not homeless, actually. I have an apartment left to me by my parents. Mark rented it out. Also, mom and dad had a cabin in the mountains. We used to go there almost every weekend. These memories seem like vague dreams to me.

"Let's go to our house in the mountains," I suddenly suggest. Mark looks at me in surprise.

"I thought you didn't want to go there anymore," he frowns.

"Why do you say that? I do. I really want to go. Let's go this weekend?" I press on stubbornly.

"It's strange to hear it from you. Every summer, you turned down every offer to go there. What has changed?"

I take a moment to think, lapsing onto silence. "Probably me..." I shrug.

Mark, fortunately, agrees to my proposal, despite its suddenness and his depressed mood.

The next day, we pack up and depart. The journey is supposed to take two or three hours. And looking at the trees flashing by, I suddenly catch myself thinking that I am not inflamed with a sudden longing for the old place. No, I wanted to take Mark away from his apartment so Ian couldn't make up with him.

I'm selfish, right?

The house of my childhood greets us with cold and desolation. And also, fine snow completes the picture. However, as soon as I looked away from the dull house, the surroundings take my breath away. The forest, sprinkled with snow, covers the mountain and is torn apart by a stream running past our house and into the lake. It all is frozen now. But still, it is amazingly beautiful and quiet here.

Mark unloads our belongings, and we enter the house. There I realize that it will take us at least a couple of hours to put it in order. A thin layer of dust lay on everything. Light barely penetrates through the dirty windows.

"You light a fire, and I'll bring the brushes and everything," Mark says.

While I am fiddling with the wood and matches, Mark already starts wiping the windows, and the room becomes noticeably brighter. Then we clean out both rooms. There is an attic, but we have no strength nor desire to clean there. It was my brother's room. And I don't want to go up there.

The fire in the fireplace blazes dazzlingly. The house is warming up from its long-frozen sleep. And Mark and I sit together and watch the fire. I feel good... and bad, at the same time.

The house brings back sad memories. They are not sad by nature. On the contrary, they are good. Here, my family would celebrate the New Year, give gifts, and make snowmen. My father would teach me to fish in the lake. Mom would pick flowers in the summer and read a book while lying in a wicker hammock. But that was too long ago to be true. When they were all gone, these memories became like this house for me - cold, distant, and alien.

I feel bad because, despite the fact that I am here with Mark, Mark's thoughts are elsewhere. He either recalls their quarrel with Ian or imagines the scene of their reconciliation. I do not know for sure...

I know what suffering is. No, really. Without sentiments and whining. Suffering is like an intense hunger that you cannot satisfy. Only this hunger is somewhere at the level of the solar plexus, and everything is constantly cramping there, not allowing you to forget about the cause of your suffering.

I suffered when my parents died because I wanted to see them. I wanted to hug my father again, to hear how my mother wishes me good night. But I couldn't. They disappeared in an instant. A wave swallowed them, washed them off the raft, and smashed them against the rocks.

But before I could even begin to comprehend this, I lost my brother. On that trip, my brother was with our parents. He made it to the shore, they did not. He came back completely broken. And then suddenly, he began to test himself and fate, until one day, he went bungy-jumping, and a rope tangled and broke his neck. And I still wanted my brother to steal my gifts as before, to make fun of my acne. But this could not have happened. He was no longer there.

Mark is all I have left. But...

I look at Mark. He is absent-minded.

Our relationship, in a form of elder brother - younger brother, has outlived its usefulness. We had to become equals, friends so that we were bound by something more than his promise to take care of me. After all, he had already done everything he had to. I'm not a kid anymore. After college, I'll be on my own and Mark too. And I don't want that. Why didn't I think about it before?

Perhaps Mark kept his distance from me, remembering that he should be not a friend but a guardian. Maybe he felt his responsibility and wanted to grow a good person out of me... So I could take care of myself. And be on my own.

And maybe ...

...I shouldn't resist it... maybe Mark finally wants to live his life, a considerable part of which he has already given to me...