Mark and The Borrower HIATUS

Chapter 13

(Your POV)

"And this is where I live!" Ethan announced, swinging open his apartment door, revealing his house. The kitchen was right by the living room with a small hallway leading to 3 other rooms. It definitely was a better place to borrow from since it was more condensed compared to Mark's house and the place was a little messy with a few plates and bowls left on the counter and some boxes of food.

He set me down on the counter where it was the cleanest. "Sorry for the mess, wasn't really expecting company," He laughed in embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. We stood there, both not sure what to say. "Do you want to watch a show or something?" He asked, I titled my head in confusion.

"What's a show?" I asked, he looked shocked.

"You can't tell me you haven't tried to at least once try to watch what Mark has put on the Tv." He said, carefully scooping me off the counter and walking into his bedroom. In front of the bed was one of those black boxes that would produce images when you pressed what they call a 'remote'. I've almost been caught because of that wretched remote. I remember a couple months back when I had jumped up onto a remote, not knowing it's purpose at the time, trying to reach for a tissue when the black box suddenly turned on. I almost got caught but luckily I had jumped into the box just as Mark came into the room to see what was going on.

"I mean, I've might've caught glimpses of it while borrowing since it keeps you beans distracted while I borrow but I've never purposefully sat down to see what it was about," I told him as he sat down on the bed.

"Well, now we have to watch something." He proclaimed, laying down on the bed, tilting the hand I was on, causing me to tumble onto his chest. Now that his hand was free he reached over for the remote before flicking through a site called 'Netflix'. He put something on but it was hard to focus on what was going on or even hear over his thundering heartbeat below me and his rhythmic breathing luring me to sleep. Just as I was about to fall asleep I felt something heavy and warm drape over me and I opened my eyes to see Ethan's hand protectively draped over my body. I closed my eyes again and not soon after I fell asleep...

"Oh, you're still alive." My aunt greeted too sweetly, trying to hide her grimace.

"Yep! This is almost the 4th month since they've left to live on their own." My father stated, completely oblivious to my aunt's malice towards me. While my Dad might've been the best borrower in our family, he wasn't the brightest in social situations. Ever since Christmas my aunt formed a hatred against me for 'almost killing her son'.

"I'm surprised they haven't run back home," My aunt said, stepping out of the way for us to enter. This year she was scheduled to hold the New year celebration at her house. She's always bragged about easy it was to borrow from this house and how rich the humans were. It meant nothing of course since this neighborhood was a closed gated community, meaning everyone was rich here. I preferred my place though, the human that lived there was humble about his wealth, which kept him from inviting people just to show off his money. There wasn't a big advantage since he still invited his friends over practically every other day but at least I could enjoy their conversations instead of listening to snobby rich men speak about how rich they are.

My father continued to praise me, still oblivious to my aunt's intent as my mom and I went to their family room to catch up on what's been going on in the family. Apparently, my uncle, the one who hosted the Christmas party, was killed a few days after throwing the party, the family owning the house had it sprayed with toxins in fear of mice. It may sound morbid but we didn't really mourn. Of course, we were all sad but these kinds of things happened almost on a monthly basis, plus if we were to mourn for too long we wouldn't be able to borrow efficiently. My aunt kept trying to bring up how her son was almost killed before that in his house but was ignored.