The night before his Birthday

The exam preparation had started to heat up. Mark had found himself isolating within the library, **** to perform well in his first set of exams at college.

Knowing he was unlikely to do much work on his birthday, the day before exams, Mark decided to cram in as much as he could on the two days before that.

Sitting alone at a random library desk, Mark looked at his watch to see the time of 11:33.

He had been almost falling asleep on top of his laptop. Rubbing his eyes, he knew there was no point continuing tonight, it wasn’t worth it, he was barely awake.

Mark made his way to the exit of the library, there were still plenty of people inside as he made his way out. Many who had left their studying til last minute, just like Mark.

Walking down the footpath in the direction of East Hall, Mark heard a couple of familiar female voices, both speaking outside.

Turning the corner, there was Tiffany and Ali, having a quiet chat, a very serious looking one.

“Oh hey girls, you all good?” he asked, noticing that Tiffany’s eyes were a little red and puffy.

She **** a smile, “Yeah thanks,” she replied, “I’m just being a bit stressed over something.”

“That time of the year I guess. Absolutely hate any form of exams,” Mark said, assuming that she was talking about the pressure of exams right now.

Ali looked at Tiffany, as if to see if she would correct him or not.

“Actually,” Tiffany then said, “It’s just a bit of relationship stress about Trav.”

Mark’s eyes lit up, heating that. Relationship problems? Break up? Tiffany’s back on the market? His mind was instantly hoping for the best which alternatively was the worse for Tiffany.

“Is everything okay? Did he do something?” Mark asked, hoping to hear that the nice jock was really an asshole all along.

“No he didn’t do anything, it’s just, Travis got selected to be apart of a marines group overseas,” Tiffany explained to him, “He might be overseas for two or three years and that really makes it tough for us. You know, like trying to make it work long distance. I dunno, it’s just a bit of a scary thought right now.”

She was really getting emotional again repeating this. Mark knew that Travis meant a lot to her and they seemed to be infatuated with each other.

An overseas trip that wouldn’t have him back in the country for that long would be something that may tare their very rock solid relationship apart.

“I’m really sorry to hear that Tiffany,” he said, doing everything in his power not to reveal his true emotions. On the inside, he was grinning, while on the outside, his face remained stone cold and quiet.

She gave him a half hearted smile to show her appreciation even though she was in a very emotional mood.

Ali stood by her, trying to comfort her as much as she could. They had grown to be good friends over the semester and Ali hated to see her friend potentially facing the end of their relationship.

“Anyways, thank you both for thinking about me,” Tiffany then said, “I’m going to go his dorm now just to talk our options through again.”

“Alright babe, you just message me if you need anything else tonight,” Ali said, giving Tiffany a nice big hug.

“Thanks hun. Alright, I’ll see you guys later on.”

Just like that, Tiffany was on the move again, heading to see Travis. This left Mark and Ali to walk back to East Hall together alone.