Complete Timeline

**SPOILERS!**
This article contains **spoilers and detailed information** about the overall storyline of the series.
Continue reading at your own risk!

**CONTENT WARNING!**
This page contains mentions of sensitive topics that some may find uncomfortable to read about.
Reader's discretion is advised.

Complete Timeline

# Before Mark was born

In the town of Luckland, Texas, Alex Husher and Samuel Reed were two people who absolutely hated each other. Though he had done nothing to cause it, Alex always seemed to have a very specific grudge against Samuel and always made it obvious. The two would do nearly anything to make each other uncomfortable, and in Alex's case, it usually was borderline sexual harassment. Alex had always shown provocative behavior, though at the time, nobody seemed to take it seriously, and many people even gave into it, as Alex was quite popular in high school and had many girlfriends. However, after graduating high school, Alex did not have anyone to encourage his behavior anymore, and not being able to project it only made it worse.

# 2000

In August 2000, Alex had convinced the three girls, Darcy, Delilah, and Maegan to get into his car by offering them all a ride home. However, his intentions were not to take them home. While Delilah and Maegan had ended up escaping, Darcy was not so lucky and she ended up getting taken advantage of. Samuel Reed, who was Darcy's boyfriend at the time, heard of the news rather quickly, and after consoling her about the incident, made it his goal to get justice and have Alex arrested. *(Though Samuel would rather if Alex was killed, as he did not take people hurting his loved ones lightly.)* Since Alex's father was a lawyer, and the legal system is very flawed, they did not have much hope. However, what they did not know was that Alex's wrongdoings had gotten Darcy pregnant. After they had been made aware of this, many people, especially Samuel, tried to convince Darcy to not go through with the pregnancy, as the idea of someone carrying their rapist's child seemed completely illogical. However, Darcy knew that if she went through with it then Alex would most definitely be able to be caught; He would share DNA with the child. People still tried to discourage her and tried to convince her of other options, but Darcy was set on raising the child. Though she knew it would take over the rest of her life, Darcy really wanted to be the child's mother. She wanted to give it a life that it otherwise would not have. She thought that if she was not meant to be pregnant with it, then she would not even have it in the first place, or something would go wrong along the way. However, everything went smoothly and the baby was born, reaffirming Darcy's belief that she was supposed to have him.

# 2001

On March 22, 2001, Mark Reed was born. Right from the start, everyone noticed just how alarming similar Mark was to Alex, especially with his eyes. Since Mark was damning proof, Alex was put to justice and he was now out of the picture... Except, in Samuel's eyes, since Mark was the successor to Alex, that's all he was to him; nothing but a reminder of Alex. Samuel wanted absolutely nothing to do with Mark whatsoever, and was not a very present parent in his infant stage. Samuel was often working to be able to both leave Luckland and to be able to provide for a baby he did not care about. He wouldn't dare to leave Darcy after what had happened to her though, as he loved her dearly, so he was a bit trapped in the situation. This ultimately left him unhappy and he became really distant from others. Mark was a very difficult baby and was extremely particular with who he'd let care for him. He only wanted his mother, and due to this, Darcy was not able to work and was only able to be a mother to Mark since he had such needy demands.

# 2004

Darcy and Samuel got married when Mark was three years old. Mark would ultimately end up not remembering this event, as he was very young.

# 2005

In 2005, the family had moved to Ohwell, Texas and Samuel started working at *the restaurant* that in the coming years, he would end up becoming the owner of. Very soon after moving in, Mark was playing outside one day as any little kid would, and ended up wandering off to some neighbor's property. The neighbor's yard had a lot of flowers, which is what initially drew young Mark to the property. He picked the flower because he wanted to give it to Samuel, but Samuel was less than pleased and ended up hitting him with a belt over it on the preposterous basis of the flower not belonging to Mark. This was the start of Samuel beginning to unfairly punish Mark quite brutally for very subjective things. Also within this year, Mark met Benjamin Washington and Jonathon Washington, who were the sons of the next door neighbors. He very quickly formed a friendship with them, and him and Benjamin became best friends.

# 2008

Mark had went through Kindergarten and first grade with being the target of many insults and harassment. He had a really hard time making friends since no one wanted to be his friend, so he had begged his mother to hold him back another year for first grade so he could have his friends in the same grade as him and not seem like as much of a loser. Mark would end up retaking his first grade year, this time with Benjamin and Jonathon. He was much happier after that since he had his friends with him.

# 2009

When the boys were in second grade, they met Kenny Peterson and he soon became a part of their friend group. Mark at this point of time was still relatively an ok person to be around, so he and Kenny got along alright.

# 2010

In 2010, Mark got news from his mother that he would be getting a brother - *(or technically, his half-brother, since he would be the biological child of Darcy and Samuel.)* Mark absolutely had a mental breakdown at this news, and overreacted greatly. Beforehand, he had believed he was living a semi-decent life and had it pretty well, but after the news was out, something in Mark broke and he absolutely began to grow worse mentally, and in future years it would not seem like his mental state matured much outside of his age range from this point of his life.

# 2011

Leon Reed was born, and Mark noticed right from the start that something was completely different about Leon; Samuel showed affection for Leon, something that Samuel had never done to Mark at any point at all throughout his life. This only seemed to worsen Mark's already declining mental state, as Mark was now very prone to emotional outbursts and would commit various actions in order to receive attention, like crying. Alas, this only made Samuel's abuse on Mark get worse, and it would seem to become a regular occurrence at this point, rather than just when Mark would act out. Mark would get physically and mentally punished, while Leon would get nothing but love and attention. This undoubtedly made Mark jealous, and he held a huge grudge against Leon for it. He absolutely hated him. Mark's declining mental state also affected his relationship with his friends, as they now began to fear his mental state as well, but still continued to hang out with him in an attempt to make some sort of sense of the situation to him, which they did not understand the whole story of. Mark never took any of their sympathy, which is what originally caused their bond with Mark to begin to break.

# 2012-2015

This had been in the back of his head for a while now, but Mark was really beginning to question his sexuality. He would begin to feel different around Ben, as if he'd started to develop feelings for him; But the feelings were all too confusing for young teen Mark, and instead of bringing this up to Ben, he began to act out yet again. Ben would try to offer some compassion to Mark, but Mark, not wanting to accept that he had feelings for Ben in fear of having another thing for people to make fun of about him and it ruining the two's friendship. Ironically, Mark pushing Ben away affected their relationship a lot, and Ben felt like Mark didn't care about him anymore. So he began to give Mark a taste of his own medicine and slowly began to hate him.

# 2016

2016 was a very confusing year for Mark. He was continuing to question his sexuality, and soon came to the conclusion that he'd developed a crush on Benjamin; The friend who he had had the longest, been the closest with, and had usually favored the most. After finally telling Ben, he had gotten severely and harshly rejected. Mark's extremely low self esteem paired with his always present anger began to manifest these feelings into more of a lust than a crush, and he tried to act upon them by always being persistent with these feelings and always bugging Benjamin, much to his dismay. Mark's crush on Benjamin is what ultimately ruined their friendship. After a few months of Mark's ongoing love quest, Benjamin begged for assistance from Ashley Moore, who he essentially bribed into going on a date with Mark in an attempt for him to leave him alone. This seemed to work, as the two became boyfriend and girlfriend.

# 2017

This year was one of the most important and eventful years in Mark's entire life. His relationship with Ashley at the start of it was seemingly going pretty alright. The two had became close for a short while since Ashley began to take notice on how sad Mark's life was, but as soon as Mark began to get clingy, their relationship began to get rocky. Soon enough, Mark tried to convince Ashley to have sex with him, which she was intent on saying no to. However, due to much coercion, Ashley consented and the two had sex. Although Mark had been the one to coerce Ashley, he did not enjoy it as much as he initially thought he would and yet again began to seriously question his sexuality. This experience also killed any interest Ashley had in Mark, and the two soon would break up right when the year's summer break started. Although Mark did not enjoy the sex, he still enjoyed the love and attention that Ashley gave him, and he knew that with her ending the relationship, he would not get that kind of attention from anyone anymore.

He began to be very prone to anger yet again, and one day while walking to the park with his friends, Leon had came along with them. After getting into an argument, Mark pushed him into the street and almost pushed him into a car that was coming by. His friends witnessed this and they were appalled at this. They took a break from Mark for the whole summer, which made Mark depressed, as he now had no one. Luckily, Leon was there for him despite how Mark could have almost killed him, and the two fixed their relationship. Mark had realized that Leon would give him attention, and he wanted to use that to his advantage. After having lots of time to think, it soon became August, and Mark tried to get his friends back. They reluctantly took him back, although it wasn't very genuine and they only took him back so he wouldn't do something crazy.

Over the summer though, the group had taken on a new member, Ash Powyrs, *(who was also Benjamin's new boyfriend.)* Mark, still having feelings for Benjamin and jealous at the thought of having to share attention was outraged, and he made it his goal to try and get Ash out of their group so it would just be the main 4 again. Ash had taken notice of Mark and Ben's ever worsening relationship, and he attempted to have them fix it by making them spend time with each other. This always backfired, however, except questionably the last time. During this time, Mark had confessed to Benjamin about his father's abuse. Benjamin, not having a way to make Mark feel better, ended up kissing Mark, which Mark had escalated further passionately. Mark took this as a sign that Ben liked him, and his obsession with him was reignited. After this, Ben began to feel a bit guilty, and he told Ash, who was still his boyfriend. After some time, Ash broke up with Benjamin, and Benjamin put all of the blame onto Mark despite having responsibility himself. He tried to distance himself from Mark again, but Mark's persistent obsession with Benjamin did not allow this to happen. Very shortly after Ash broke up with Benjamin, he came to Mark's house and intended to console him, as he had caught on from everything that he wasn't doing well at home. Ash, much to Mark surprise, threw out the idea that he may have feelings for Mark, and Mark rudely rejected him, much like what Benjamin had done to him just the previous year.

Ash seemed to be out of the picture for a while after that, as Mark learned that Benjamin got a new boyfriend, Luke Tucker. Benjamin had met Luke online, so the two weren't physically in a relationship, so due to this, Mark used this to his advantage. He thought he had finally gotten rid of Ash and that Luke was just another obstacle in his way of spending time with not just his friends, but Benjamin, which is what his ultimate goal was at this point. Mark became friends with Luke, though it was one sided since Mark secretly hated Luke. He wanted to take Luke away from Ben so that he could have another chance at him. After all, the two had shared a passionate moment, and Mark believed that meant something. Mark and Luke would hang out everyday, and Luke would grow to have a crush on Mark. The two would soon begin to sext, Luke essentially cheating on Ben with Mark. Luke broke up with Ben and confessed his feelings to Mark, which Mark (like he did with Ash,) harshly rejected him and then explained that he had gotten him to do what he wanted all along and that he was just leading him on. Luke tried to tell Benjamin what happened, but Benjamin had the wrong idea and assumed that it was Luke's intention to cheat on him all along. As if being lead on and being told so by the person he had been very intimate with wasn't enough, Benjamin just fueled the fire by beginning to spread the misinformation he had about Luke, and Luke lost all the people that were close to him. Luke was being the one painted as the manipulator as well as the cheater, which he did have some fault in, and ultimately ended up taking his own life due to not only the pressure from this drama, but also paired along with his already terrible mental state as well as his not the best living situation.

After Ben caught wind of Luke's death, he blamed it on Mark and told Jonathon and Kenny, who at that point definitely did not want anything to do with Mark either. Benjamin and Ash became friends again soon after, and after Ash heard of what happened, he made sure Mark wouldn't try to come back to his friends by not so nicely letting him know of how messed up in the head that he is, and that he hopes he gets help, because he desperately needed it. It was now the end of the year, and Mark had no one; He had no friends, and no people who cared for him except his brother and mother. His family were not made aware of Luke's death, and they would never be aware of it. After losing his friends and hearing of Luke's death, Mark finally broke down and wanted to become a better person because his fear for loneliness was bigger than his selfish desire for Benjamin's attention. He no longer even had a crush on Benjamin, as he no longer had any chance at all.

One night, very late, Mark took a walk outside like he did many nights to clear his mind from his negative thoughts and he found himself at the park. At the park he met someone who would become a very important person in his life, Steven Mandel. Steven asked why Mark looked so distressed, and though hesitant at first, Mark was so distraught that he told his whole life story to the stranger. Mark at that point wanted to end it all, but meeting Steven convinced him otherwise. Steven showed Mark that if he really put his mind to it, he could be a better person. The two would meet at that very park nearly every night and discuss what was going on in their lives. Steven's life was much like Mark's; Not good. His mother was neglectful and abusive, and he did not even have a dad. Having someone he could relate to who didn't act like a complete jackass was what Mark really needed. They would become best friends.

# 2018

Soon into the year, Mark began to have feelings for Steven, and this time it was not lustful feelings like his feelings for Ben were. He ended up telling Steven on Valentine's Day and the two became boyfriends. They were very affectionate with each other and kept up their habit of talking about their feelings with each other. Mark was very obviously improving his mental state, until one night when he seemed to have a sudden relapse. Steven did what he would usually do and console Mark, but this time was rather difficult, Mark had a sudden heavy feeling of guilt come across him about Luke and he was regretting it severely. He broke down again to Steven, and little did they know, their nights of meeting would come to an end. When they had met every night, they had been breaking a curfew law for minors and the police had showed up. Instead of just going home, Mark made them run away, because he was not done talking to Steven. Mark was so desperate to talk to Steven that night that he ended up getting him taken away from him. The two had hid from the police, and soon before being caught, Steven let Mark know that he would be telling the police about his mother, because he wanted his life to get better. Though he tried to encourage Mark to tell someone about his dad, Mark did not listen. Steven told Mark that he would come back for him one day, because he knew that CPS would intervene if he told the police everything.

So after Steven essentially broke off all contact with Mark and was 'taken away' from him, Mark was absolutely devastated. Samuel was beyond angry at Mark for getting in trouble with the police, and he began to degrade him and worsen his mental state even worse than it was at the time. Having enough, Mark decided to end it all, and attempted to kill himself. Although, Mark did not get very far. He was trying to slit his wrists and bleed out, but he was too weak to do it and ultimately got caught by Leon. Leon was alarmed and let Darcy and Samuel know, who quickly sent him away to a mental hospital. Mark had messed up his arm a bit, but the wounds had eventually ended up healing over time.

The mental hospital made Mark chill out on his suicidal thoughts for the time being, but Mark was still pretty upset since he didn't have anyone to give him attention. He was given medication, but he refused to take it once he was home. His behavior started to get immature again, and Samuel definitely let him have it. Mark was fed up with his dad always abusing him over everything, so he made it his goal to try and impress him, which he never did.

# 2020

Now 19, Mark is on track to graduate and is about to prove his dad wrong for once that he can in fact do something right. he's really excited about it, and makes sure that Samuel knows to go. However, when the time comes and Mark's graduation occurs, the only people who came to support him were Darcy and Leon. This event, yet again, pushed Mark over the edge and he fell into a deep depression again. He wanted to kill himself again, but he didn't even have to motivation to go through with it. At the end of the graduation, he had met up with his old friends and they ended up making amends, but Mark was too depressed to want to continue his relationship with any of them, so ultimately the 4 making up again didn't really mean much. Mark had already began to drink occasionally this year, but after this event, he would soon begin to drink a lot more and progressed into alcoholism. He also began to toy around with the idea in his head of killing Samuel. He started taking notes of his homicidal thoughts in a journal.

# 2022

After turning 21, Mark would very often frequent bars and would pay for alcohol with Samuel's credit card. After months of doing this with no repercussions, Samuel caught him and made him get a job. However, Samuel would become his boss, as Mark would have to work at his restaurant. Mark still continued to drink, and his hatred for Samuel grew. Samuel had never stopped verbally degrading Mark, nor stopped hitting him. Mark was getting tired of it. Mark had lashed out at Samuel and threatened him, telling him that he wanted to kill him. This just earned Mark another trip to the mental hospital and he was, once again, alright for a small while after being admitted. However, after he came home, he began to go downhill again.

# 2023

Mark, still working at his dad's restaurant, still never forgot about his plans to murder him. He was very intent on going through with it too. However, the time was never right. He didn't want to do it while Darcy and Leon were home; he didn't want to scare them or see them be disappointed in him. He never seemed to have the right opportunity. Until one day that is, when Leon and Darcy had to travel away for the weekend for an academic event for Leon. It seemed like the perfect timing.

# Endings

There are 2 endings to The Mark Side. The 'true' one, or 'canon' one is up to the viewer's interpretation.