Page 97 of Revealing Mark

And I’d had it. I stormed off in the direction of the car, deciding I would wait for him there rather than trade insults with his mom. Now I could understand his reluctance to talk about her. If she had been my mom, I would have put myself up for adoption.

I was still trying to get a handle on my anger and the hurt she had inflicted, when Mark found me.

“She got to you, didn’t she?” he asked anxiously.

I couldn’t look at him directly for fear he would see the truth.

“Tracy,” he said, lifting my chin so our eyes met.

“She isn’t a very nice person,” I admitted, not wanting to get into the finer details of the insults.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “None of them are.”

If his mother was that bad, I couldn’t imagine what his father would be like, and for the first time I hoped I never saw them again.

It ate away at me and I hated that I had allowed Mark’s mom to get to me. It was my own insecurity about not feeling like I was pretty enough to land someone like him that had allowed her to get to me. I knew that but I didn’t know how to get over it.

“Is something bugging you?” Mark asked when we got back to his apartment.

He poured himself a drink. I reached for it and downed it before shoving it back into his hand.

“That bad?” he asked, refilling the glass.

I nodded, still fighting the feel of the alcohol that burned down my throat. I didn’t drink often but, after that encounter, I needed something to soothe the angst.

Feeling agitated, I threw my purse onto the sofa as I sat down.

“Is she always like that?” I asked, finding it so difficult to believe someone could be that mean.

He took a sip of his drink and nodded. “Sometimes worse.”

“God, how did you survive that?” I asked, feeling sorry that he had to deal with her.

I couldn’t imagine her with a baby or a small child. If afteronly one encounter she could make me feel the way I was, I couldn’t imagine the damage she had done to Mark.

“Sometimes I’m not sure I did.” He set his drink down.

“You have my permission to never mention her ever again.” I crossed my arms.

He laughed. “Wait until you get to know my father.”

I glared at him. “I’ll pass.”

He walked over to the seat beside me and sat down. He leaned back and put his arm around the top of my chair. “My grandfather was the only kind one. He was the one who encouraged me when all they could do was criticize.”

I couldn’t imagine living in an environment like that.

“Being born into privilege has its expectations. I was expected to act a certain way and, when I didn’t, it became quickly apparent I wasn’t going to fit into the mold of who my parents wanted me to be.”

It hurt to hear him say things like that when I loved him so much. His good qualities were a mile long and I couldn’t even think of a single one for his parents.

“It’s why I don’t like to talk about them.”

“And why you don’t have any photos of them,” I finished for him.

He nodded.

“The only one who saw value in me was my grandfather. He was the one who tried to love me when they couldn’t.”