Mark stared at his hand completely flabbergasted.
‘He touched me. I don’t feel like I am going to explode from itching. My skin isn’t burning, or crawling. I don’t feel nauseous. I don’t feel like I can’t breathe. He touched me. He touched me and I am completely fine.’
Mark blinked like a fool.
He knew he should be something more than shocked, but he felt fine. He felt normal. And that made him want to scream with happiness. It made him want to dance. It made him want to weep. But most of all, it made him confused.
‘Why did this happen? Why him?’
‘Is my dermatographia gone?’
‘Can I touch people now?’
‘Can I feel what it is like to get a hug. To receive a kiss for the first time. To poke someone. To have someone punch my shoulder. To take a cloth from someone’s hands. To reach out and pat someone gently?’
‘Can I touch? Or can he? Is it me or him?’
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
‘Have I finally been fixed? Am I no longer broken?’
‘Jjc P olcjiis offi ktja la lr ilxf ab ub ab j wbnlf bg j mjof? Kb qijs aju, gec j gfijs gjmf.’
‘Leu ws wbw.’
Llr tfjga jmtfv rb wemt ja atf ijra bcf. Kb yf jyif ab teu tlr ojwlis wfwyfgr. Kb tbiv atfw jcv rtbk klat wbgf atjc kbgvr tbk wemt tf ibnfv atfw.
Tears welled up into the corner of his eyes and he tried to swallow them back down without making it obvious that he was willing his body to stop.
‘No, I can’t be too hopeful.’
‘I can’t be greedy.’
‘It’s wrong to receive a gift and then demand and expect more.’
‘What if it was just a one time thing?’
‘What if you go out and try to, you are unable, what if all you feel is that painful burning that eats away at your body, soul and mind?’
‘Can you do that to your family? Can you watch them see you writhe in pain again, like that one time. Can you break their hearts again?’
‘Can you if it is just a fluke?’
Mark realized he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
No matter how scared or elated he was. As his body flip-flopped through those emotions, he couldn’t let them run with it. To become so overwhelmed with it that he stopped thinking straight.
The most important thing. The thing that mattered over everything else was finding out whether or not it really had been a fluke. Finding out why this guy High could touch him.
And he could receive that touch just fine, without being harmed. And in order for that to happen, you are going to have to say something.
‘You need to say something to him before he thinks you are stupid. You need to say something to him before he leaves.’
“Touch me again.” Mark stated.
Mark sucked in his feelings of aggravation. ‘Seriously of everything you could choose, that’s what slipped out of your mouth. Why does life hate me so much? Why can’t I just be eloquent when I need to be? He is probably thinking you are some sort of strange weirdo now.’
He had meant to ask him nicely but firmly. He had wanted to explain himself. But when the first word fell from his lips and High’s dark brown eyes with their perfectly symmetrical large almond shape, and double lids had turned to gaze down that long clear nose, his heart had skipped right into his throat. And all manner of demand, or politeness had flown out the window. As the much taller boy had simply looked at him with great interest and yet he couldn’t still his heart if he tried.
High’s eyebrows raised in confusion and he looked Mark up and down as if trying to mull over what he could possibly mean by those words.
‘Don’t try to understand it.’
‘Give up you won’t be able to understand and figure out what I am thinking High, I can’t even understand myself right now.’
‘I sound ludicrous.’
‘Don’t try and make sense of it. I am begging you, just please, please say yes.’
‘I need you to say yes, so badly!’
Awe, so sweet! Thanks!!!!