After that conversation, Stephanie never brought it up again. She chose to believe him, so she mentally shelved the topic. In the grand scheme of things in this pandemic era, sometimes inner demons and personal disagreement seemed minuscule compared to the real problem at hand.
The morning after, she woke Mark up who was still sleeping soundly on her sofa. She shook his body awake gently, causing his eyelids to flutter and whole body to stretch.
"Morning, sleepyhead," she teased. A rich and delicate aroma of homebrewed coffee soon filled the room, tickling Mark's nostrils to finally wake him up.
Stephanie remembered that she never argued back about Mark's low opinion of himself, but she wanted to fight for it. It was not solely responsibility of a crush, but more of a friend who didn't want to see her friend crumble under the imaginary burden of the so-called society.