#actor mark lore

September 14th 9:57pmIt was starting to get cold outside, I could tell she was cold even if she’d never admit it, but god forbid I be the gentleman and offer her my jacket! She’d only see it as pity and nothing more. I don’t need your charity! pft... We were walking along the boulevard by the river, headed home after a night at the theatre watching one of our favorites. A date night. I owed her one after all. She was quiet, more than usual, stone faced and never looking at me, hadn’t all day. I’d tried everything for her attention. Sweet nothings, a kiss on the cheek, tried to hold her hand but she slipped my grasp more times than I could count, bought her drinks and popcorn for the show, made jokes and acted like a goofball to try and make her smile, nothing worked. A steel wall around her heart I couldn’t break through. I didn’t know why. 

We were a good ten minutes or so walk from home, now normally we’d get a ride, especially on a cold night but she’d insisted on the walk. Said she wanted to chat on the way home and of course I was ready to listen but the lady hadn’t spoken a word to me! eventually my anxiety got the best of me and I asked what she wanted to talk about. There was a pause in her breath, a closing of her eyes and she looked away from me. It was bad I could tell that much. “What is it?” I’d asked “You can tell me.” My stomach turned knots. Eventually we came across the bridge over the river and she paused by the rails. I stopped with her. “Sweetheart? What is it? Is everything ok?” I’d grown concerned for her well being more than anything else. Her next words cut like glass. 

“I can’t do this anymore.” My heart skipped a beat. For her to stop at the bridge like this and say such a thing, my mind thought the worst. I immediately took a few steps closer just in case. But it turns out it wasn’t what I’d thought...

“I can’t do this anymore.... I’m leaving you Mark. I’ve filed for divorce and I’ll have my things out by tomorrow night.” 

I had to shake my head and recollect myself, it came as a shock. Only a few days ago had we been rolling around on the bed like horny teenagers! As I took another step closer she took one away from me almost as if scared of my reaction. And I must admit it may have been the shock in my body language. the disbelief that she would just... lead me along on a date like this and then drop that on me. But I guess she wanted one last time out of me. 

We must have spent an hour on that bridge, back and forth. I just wanted a straight answer but she never gave one. In the end she hailed a passing cab to pick her up and all I could do was watch as she left. Left me alone on that bridge in the cold of the night lost, confused, alone, and heart broken. 

I’d at some point slumped against the side of the bridge to let my emotions out, sat on the ground with my back to the rails and just.... reeling in the conversation we’d had. I didn’t understand. Eventually I continued the walk home. Slung my jacket over the sofa and collapsed onto it. 

I was there for 3 hours before I got up and headed for the nearest liquor cabinet to drown myself in my own agony. That’s when I saw the letter. Or rather the envelope. 

My Dearest Celine  🖤

Hand delivered. It stank of watermelon bubble gum and her perfume. I knew the handwriting. A letter from our friend. I ignored it, went for the whiskey and proceeded to drown myself in alcohol- ah I should note this was before the hospital visit that stopped my alcohol drinking. So don’t worry about me there my friends. 

It wasn’t until I was blind drunk that I began to suspect that letter for what it was. A heart? The curvature of the lettering. Only saved for a sweetheart. A love letter. My next question followed suit. Where had she gone if not here. If not home? Most likely her brothers place. I called my driver to come pick me up and take me to the colonels manor and that’s where everything changed. 

You see... I suspected her to be at Damien’s. Not there.... With him. 

Will had been my friend since we were kids. I’d met him when we were just 8 years old. A goofball like myself. Damien was always a little more serious but had a whirlwind of fun hiding inside him that we could usually coax out now and again. Will was my friend.... So it was natural for me to have a key to his place. The invitation to wander in. 

Now don’t get me wrong I didn’t just waltz in unannounced I knocked on the door first with no answer. With such a big house its hard to hear if you’re on the other side so our understanding was to come in, shoes off, call out. So I did. No answer. 

Once I got upstairs however I heard the tell tale upbeat music Will enjoyed to know he was home and wandered over, knocked and entered his bedroom. Now I’m not gonna lie I’ve seen more of Will than I care to admit doing this same stupid move, but at that point it was more of an in-joke between us and remember I was blind drunk at the time. I didn’t exactly have the cognitive function that maybe I should have waited first. 

I saw Will first. The two of them scramble for the bed sheets and Will laughing that they’d been caught in the act. “Oops sorry buddy!” I was apologetic! Realized my mistake despite my inebriation and made to back out, when I saw the look of utter panic in her eyes. 

They were both naked, rolling around under the sheets which she’d pinned to above her chest for concealment. 

“Celine?”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. If on a scale of 1-10 on how drunk I was, I’d gone from a solid 8 to a 5 in just that moment. “It’s not what it looks like” HA! Course it wasn’t. 

My anger may have gotten the better of me that night. I yelled, a lot. But understandably so. She’d run off to go be with HIM. My best friend! Ditched me and couldn’t wait to climb into bed with him! I’d been left out in the cold, only to find that my wife and best friend had run off together behind my back. 

The yelling must have lasted over an hour I don’t remember. But I do know I blacked out somewhere in between there and being driven home again with a black eye and a swollen lip. Might have gotten into a fist fight with Will. Who knows. 

Once home I curled up on the sofa again, all I could think was three words. 

“How could you?” HOW COULD SHE!? HOW COULD HE!? HOW COULD THEY! DO THIS TO ME!?I gave up everything for her. EVERYTHING! I gave her everything she could want and more. Nice dresses, a beautiful home, all the stupid voodoo shit she was into, the best food around! I gave her everything and she tossed me aside like an old rag! 

.......... -sigh- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvjMgVS6kng  (play in background )When I was a young lad my parents owned quite a bit of land, I enjoyed the outdoors as much as any young boy rolling around in the dirt pretending to be a pirate or a dragon-witch slaying knight, not that my mother ever approved of me coming home covered in mud, but hey young boys will do as they do. So it was natural for them to send me off to one of those summer camp things where you do all the camping and the canoeing and all that stuff. 

Fairbank’s a nice place, ya know? Lot of forestation, lot of city. Got that city / country vibe goin’ on. Lot of mountains to the south, and that’s kinda where we went for the summer trip. Fairbank’s camping ground was a nice spot for cub scouts and the sort, couple of log cabins and some flat land to set up tents, and this real nice river. I must have spent every day that I was there, sittin’ on the banks or hanging off a tree. What can I say, I was the adventurous kid, always getting into something, risking my neck, ahaha some things never change eh? 

Bout a week in to the camp, I was sitting on a branch, swinging my legs, watching the water go by under me, saw a little paper boat go by and another kid from the camp go chasing after it. It got stuck on a rock under me but the poor fella couldn’t reach it so I hopped down to the rocks and handed it back to him. Cute kid. shy. Still was several years later but I guess we kinda brought him out his shell a little in the end. Er... No pun intended. 

We sort of hit it off, got to talking, I taught him how to cross the river safely over the rocks and he let me play with his paper boat with him, we chased it up and down the river for a while. Least until we were called over for dinner, then we sat together and just talked, got to know one another. He came from a rich family, I came from semi wealthy, we talked about how dumb our parents were and how neither of us really wanted to be here but it wasn’t so bad. 

A week later we were best friends. Laughing and playing every day, talking about nothing important. His mother was a nurse, father a lawyer. they wanted him to follow in their footsteps. He just wanted to make people happy. 

That evening we were by the river again, sat in the tree talking about a cartoon we both liked, I don’t even remember which one, and we heard crying. Another kid but not from our camp. Took us a bit to find him but we did, hiding in a bush sniffling. 

We went over to sit with him and found he’d been yelled at for something not his fault, though in hindsight it probably was. Something about throwing a hunting knife around. Makes sense now I look back ya know? 

Sure enough my goofy ole self got the kid laughing and a little spark and click the two of us were making jokes and had our third laughing as well. Fast friends... 

Sadly Will wasn’t staying for long. He was camping with his family just over the other side of the river from us, and was only there for the weekend, but we got to meet his parents, got their number and eventually Will was gone. couple weeks after Damien and I were trading numbers too and parted ways. 

I’d hated the camp but I couldn’t wait for the next summer to see them both again.... 

Fast forward a couple years turns out we all went to the same high school! Myself an actor of course, the theatre kid, Damien got into all the mathematics, English all that, Will got into the sports and science, lil’ bit of an artist too. 

We grew up together. Got jobs and eventually hosted parties to meet up. That’s when I met Celine.... 

When I turned 27 I invited the boys on a vacation, never stated where of course, but I took them back to that spot. By the river. Will naturally went running off into the woods something about making fires and going to see if he could find any wild life. That was fine by me and Damien. 

It’s funny ya know. Despite how much I talk about Celine I don’t talk much about what happened with Damien on that trip... He was quiet, reserved, a lot on his shoulders while studying to be a lawyer. Then a DA and then eventually the mayor. But in that moment he was just a baby lawyer. Just got his license. Couldn’t get him to relax no matter what I did. 

So I decided to surprise him. A paper boat. The old tree was still there too. The branch we had both sat in was long since broken, but there was another we could have gone into if we were still young and weighed less. 

We sat on the bank, watching the boat sort of spin in a mini whirlpool caught in  a crevice of some rocks. “I miss this place” “Me too...” “Do you remember the day we found Will in that bush over there?” “Oh yeah! He got grounded for trying to cut windows in their tent” “Ha.... yeah.” Idle chatter really, nostalgia, reminiscing on the activities we did while here. The sound of the river babbling beside us, birds tweeting somewhere above us. “I never did get around to telling you” His words had confused me, caught me a little off guard. “Tell me what?”“Doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past. We both moved on” “No no no go on what was it?” “I was just a kid” “Damien.” “.... You were the only friend I had. I mean I had Celine of course but.. she’s my sister she didn’t count. you were my first ever friend. No one else would talk to me. You made me laugh” 

Funny how one little thing can change everything isn’t it..... 

We talked for a long time, idle stuff, nothing important, eventually Will came back saying he pet a squirrel, oddly we believed him. He set about making the fire and we set up the tent and a small pot for cooking with. That’s when we discovered Mr smarty pants lawyer wasn’t so smarty pants after all. Dumbass forgot his own tent, but that was fine, mine was a two man. So we’d bunk together. 

We sat around for dinner, talked stories about what we’d been up to since we last met up, expressed our excitement for a whole weekend together in this familiar place and complained about the mosquitoes. Was bound to happen this close to the water. 

Eventually night fell and we retired to our tents, we heard Will snoring before we could even get undressed, must have tired himself out or something. But me and Damien talked for hours... like old times. 

Celine was beautiful, I loved her dearly but this was far before I’d even gotten to know her. Met her twice maybe at this point in time. So Damien... Damien had my attention. Now don’t get me wrong! We were never a thing, not at all. But you can’t deny Damien was a handsome lad! Not as handsome as me of course but still, I’m capable of appreciating a looker! 

We were close, closer than I was with anyone else at that time, and I guess chatting led to us laying on our sides, to laughing, to getting cold and scooting closer and then .... 

.....

......... ((18+ NSFW))

It was a long time ago... Just a one off thing, I guess Damien was stressed from work and needed a way to relax. We talked afterwards, didn’t mean anything, we were just... enjoying our vacation together. .... Weirdly never did forget that night. I remember everything we did pretty well. You’d be surprised ya know.