Yeah, Michael may be kind of dense sometimes, but he really nailed it with his gift for Maria. He gets her.What a perfect gift for Maria.......a guitar.
Eva:
Oh, he realizes that. He's just completely okay with it.But just like maria, I'm wondering where she has to sleep. In his bed? With him? I'm not sure that he reaslised that.
He's been pretty blind to it for a while now, but after that last part, hearing Maria sing . . . that sparked something, some realization.It's like he has no clue that his feelings are changing, quickly.
Sara:
I would imagine both Isabel and Michael know they aren't meant to be, but neither one of them has the strength to admit it right now. Because they both know it will hurt her a lot more than it will hurt him.And when are they going to realize they aren't meant for each other? Its painful to watch them go down this road.
Yes, about time!And FINALLY michael is starting to realize he might just have feelings for this maria girl...about time
Michael:
This is the Michael that Isabel longs to see, the one who has the potential to be a decent guy. He does exist . . . he just doesn't exist for Isabel.Michael just surprised me during this update... getting Dylan a new room... Maria a guitar and she singed one of my favorite songs of all time. Ahhh!!! I loved it all, especially Michael putting Amy in her place.
One of your favorite songs of all time, huh? Cool. I think it's my third or fourth favorite.
He just so obviously didn't belong there.Isabel's family dinner just sounded boring and i felt for Michael. I know what it's like for people to think that there better than you...
Rodney:
Nice gifts from Michael. ....I'll give him that one.
I know you still hate him, though.Oh, yeah, that's Isabel. She is a nice girl and was classy enough to rise above whatever jealousy she may have felt over Maria and get her a gift.Even Isabel was nice enough to give Maria a gift.
But it seems now that Maria is getting all hot and horny
Maria is now starting to have a very difficult time controlling her feelings. And after hearing her sing in the last part, Michael might have a similar struggle.Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate it!
I'm dropping off more music today. This time it's "Again" by Lenny Kravitz. I'm not his biggest fan, but I've always really liked this song. You can listen to it here or click on
right at the beginning of this part. Enjoy!Part 31
(
)Sleeping next to Maria was impossible that night. Michael couldn’t shut off . . . the feeling. Whatever it was. It was swirling around in the pit of his stomach, making him feel alert and wide awake. And mostly confused. In his head, he kept hearing her sing that song, and he wondered if she’d chosen it just for him.
He mostly forced himself to just stare at the ceiling, but whenever he looked in her direction, he felt fixated. Fascinated, even, by the way her hair was sprawled across the pillowcase.
What the hell was wrong with him?
It didn’t get any better the next day. They took Dylan outside to play in what little snow had fallen, which normally wouldn’t have been a big deal. But for some reason, instead of playing along with them, Michael decided to just sit out on the porch and watch. He watched intently as they threw snowballs at each other. As Maria laughed. As she smoothed her hair back from her face. As she smiled. When she smiled like that, it lit everything up.
He remembered their first encounters at the Crashdown, back when she’d smiled so rarely, and even if she had, it hadn’t been like this. She was changing.
And so was he.
His thoughts were preoccupied with her. At all times. He found that he was trying to be around her, even when it wasn’t necessary. Like when she was cooking dinner for them the next night. He literally hovered around her, using the excuse that he wanted to get a closer look at the food just so he could stand closer to her. She didn’t seem to mind.
But it was always the most painstaking at night, especially now that Dylan had a room of his own. When it was just the two of them up there, he couldn’t help but let his mind wander, think of the possibilities. But while he was focused on her, she was focused on her new guitar. She played it more and more each night, singing a wide variety of songs, many of which he didn’t recognize and suspected were her own. He usually just listened. Watched, and listened.
As hard as it was to believe, he was actually looking forward to school starting back up, because then maybe things would get back to normal. He’d see Isabel more often, and he’d have . . . classes or something to focus on. Or at least try to focus on for the first time ever.
Kyle called him and invited him to go lift weights a few days after Christmas. He jumped at the chance to get out of the house and be able to do something that would take his mind off . . . everything. Weightlifting was monotonous and routine, the perfect distraction.
“What am I at?” Kyle asked, pausing while holding the bench press bar above himself.
“Ninety-seven,” Michael told him as he stood over him, spotting.
Kyle brought the bar down to chest-level, then lifted it back into the air, repeating it two more times, straining towards the end. Michael took the bar from him and set it back down in the holder.
“Man, I’m outta shape,” his friend groaned, sitting up.
“Yeah, right.”
“No, seriously. My dad’s been chewin’ my ass out lately about hittin’ the gym.”
“Oh, really? I thought he was chewing Amy’s ass out,” Michael joked.
“Funny.” Kyle made a face of disgust. “Gross, but funny.”
Michael slid a ten pound weight off both sides of the bar, discarding them on the floor beside the machine. “Did she spend Christmas with you guys?” he asked.
“Yeah. My dad invited her ‘cause he felt bad for her bein’ all alone.”
“Serves her right,” Michael snarled, feeling absolutely no sympathy for the woman. “You know what I think her ultimate agenda is? I think she wants to raise Dylan herself, but I think she wants Maria outta the picture.”
“Possibly,” Kyle agreed, standing up. “And how is dear, sweet Dylan?”
Michael took his place, straddling the bench press seat. “Good. He loves his new room.”
Kyle stepped up behind the bar, inquiring, “And how is dear, sweet Maria?”
Hot, Michael thought on impulse. But at least he was smart enough not to say it. “She’s good, too.” He lay down, raising his hands to grasp the bar.
“You know, I’m impressed. I never thought I’d see the day,” Kyle remarked, lifting the bar out of the holder for him, “when you could just be friends with a girl and nothing more.”
When Kyle let go, Michael grimaced and strained, struggling to hold the bar up. Not because it was heavy, but because of that word: friends. Forcing himself to focus to the best of his ability, he slowly lowered the bar down to his chest, then pushed it back up again.
He couldn’t wait to get home.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Isabel invited him over. Which was fine, because they got to fool around a little while her mom was out. But once she returned, Michael couldn’t get out of their fast enough. The cousins were gone now; the judgment wasn’t.
It was nightfall by the time he got home, and immediately, he was thinking about being in bed next to Maria again that night. What if she curled up against him this time? Would he move away? Or closer?
He peeked into Dylan’s room, where the little boy was falling asleep while his mom read him a bedtime story. Michael leaned against the doorframe, watching once again, listening.
Maria flipped to the last page of the story, even though Dylan was already out of it, and read it for him. “At long last, Fred the unhappy dinosaur finally knew what it felt like to smile.” She closed the book and set it aside on the bedside table, then carefully untangled herself from Dylan and stood up. “Goodnight, baby,” she whispered, giving him a kiss on the forehead. Then she slipped out of the bedroom and quietly shut the door. “He loves it in there,” she told him quietly.
“I’m glad.” That had been the whole point, to give Dylan a space that was his own, so that he would feel like he had a home there. Because he did. They both did.
“He loves that book, too,” she added. “He’s had me read it to him three nights in a row.”
Who can blame him? Michael thought. At this point, he would have loved to curl up with Maria and have her read him a bedtime story.
What the fuck? A bedtime story? God, he was so messed up.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, narrowing her eyes.
“Yeah.” No. “I, uh . . . I was just thinkin’ about how Teenie used to have me read that same book to her when she was little.”
She smiled adoringly. “You read to your sister?”
“Yeah, when my parents stopped.” He really hadn’t read many books since.
“That’s so cute,” she said.
She thought he was cute? Or she thought the fact that he cared about his sister was cute? Crap, he felt like a chick now, overanalyzing everything. Why was this happening?
“Do you wanna go out with me?” he blurted, not even sure where that had come from.
She gave him a bewildered look.
Shit. He hadn’t meant for it to sound like that. “I mean, do you wanna go out with me tonight?” he clarified. “To a restaurant. To go get food.” He shifted nervously, feeling like a spaz. “To eat.”
She laughed a little, seemingly okay with his sudden awkwardness. “Sure.”
Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. She was acting normal. So all he had to do was act normal, too.
They walked instead of driving. He was fine with it. It took longer that way. They happened onto Main Street, where some familiar greasy food was practically calling Michael’s name.
“So that song you sang for me the other night . . .” he said as they walked together along the sidewalk. “Is that your favorite song?”
“It’s definitely in my top ten,” she acknowledged, “but it’s not my favorite.”
“Damn.” He’d honestly thought he’d have it figured out by now. “I’ll just have to keep on guessing then.”
“You do that.”
As they passed by the Crashdown, he peered inside, noticing it was mostly empty except for a guy and his kid daughter sitting at the counter. “Let’s go in here,” he decided, reaching for the door.
“Wait, are you serious?”
“Yeah.” It was still his favorite restaurant, and it had been too long since he’d indulged.
“I can’t go in there.”
“Why not? Who cares if they fired you? Now they have to wait on you.” He pulled open the door, holding it open for her.
She considered it for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, when you put it like that . . .” She walked on in, and he followed after her.
It was dead in there. Kind of reminded him of those night shifts where she would be the only waitress working. He supposed it was good that it was empty, though. Less of a chance of running into her jackass of an ex-boss.
They automatically went over to his old booth. She sat on the side he usually sat on, and he took the side Kyle had sometimes sat on. He grabbed the menu, opened it once, then tossed it aside, already knowing what he wanted.
“It feels so weird being back here,” she admitted.
“You miss it?”
“Not in the slightest. But it was a steady paycheck for a while. That was nice.”
He let his eyes roam over her, thinking about how he missed seeing her in the uniform.
Get your mind out of the gutter, he told himself, glancing over his shoulder to try to find the waitress. When he located her, though, his stomach churned, because he recognized her immediately.
“Oh, shit, Maria, I’m such an ass,” he swore, trying to hide his face.
“What? No, you’re not,” she said.
“Yeah, I am.” He totally regretted coming in here, because she was going to find out some things that would probably make her think differently about him. “You see that girl back there?”
“The little girl?” she asked.
“No, the waitress. Dark brown hair.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
He sighed, confessing, “I think that’s the girl I slept with when I was dating Isabel last year.”
“Oh.” Maria took another look, being a little obvious this time. “Well, get ready. She’s coming this way.”
“Oh, fuck,” he cursed.
The familiar waitress approached the table, giving the same greeting she’d given him last year: “Hi, my name’s Liz and I’ll be your waitress today. Can I--” She cut off abruptly when she saw it was him sitting there. “Michael.” She looked . . . shell-shocked really wasn’t even a strong enough word.
“Hey,” he said, grinning sheepishly. This was worse than running into an ex-girlfriend, because . . . she’d never even been his girlfriend.
“Hey,” she echoed, her face immediately flushing with red. She still had those big doe eyes and that innocent smile. A little less innocent than it had once been, of course.
Finally, she snapped herself back into her spiel, asking, “Can I get you guys something to drink?”
Every alcoholic beverage known to mankind, Michael thought, smiling uncomfortably. “Root beer.”
Liz wrinkled her forehead in confusion, not used to him asking for that. Then she looked expectantly at Maria.
“Oh, I’ll just have the same,” Maria decided.
“Okay. Coming right up.” Liz nervously scampered off behind the counter to fill their glasses.
“So what’s the story there?” Maria asked curiously.
Wasn’t much of a story, really. If it was, he was the villain of the piece. “That’s Liz Parker. Her dad owns this place. She was the hot waitress around here before you were.”
Maria held one hand to her chest and asked, “Wait, I was the hot waitress?”
“Well . . .” Clearly he was feeling flustered, because he hadn’t meant to let that slip. “I got to know her last year, and things . . . happened.”
“She couldn’t resist you, huh?”
“Hey, it wasn’t easy. She’s a lot different than me. She went to a Catholic school, for starters. Very goal-oriented, responsible. Said she was savin’ herself until marriage, until I . . .” He sighed, cringing. “. . . convinced her not to.”
“So she was like a conquest?” Maria surmised.
“Yeah, you could say that.” God, he really sounded like the world’s biggest jerk. “Anyway, Isabel literally walked in on us together. Shit hit the fan. That was about the last time I saw her.”
“Okay, quiet,” Maria cautioned. “She’s coming back.”
Michael tensed again as Liz once again approached the table, setting a glass of root beer down in front of him and one in front of Maria.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“You’re welcome.” She stood back then, clasping her hands, and, to her credit, was able to start up a polite conversation. “So how have you been?”
“Good.” Awkward. So very, very awkward.
“I heard you guys all had to switch to West this year. How’s that going?”
“It’s alright.” Brief was best. If he didn’t say much, then maybe she’d just go away. “You?
“Oh, yeah, college is pretty good, too,” she went on. “But it’s . . . different than what I thought it would be.”
He wasn’t about to ask if that was a good different or a bad different. Nope. He didn’t even know where she was going to college, and he wasn’t about to ask. The sooner this conversation was over, the better.
“I’m just home with my dad on winter break right now, so I thought I’d work here a little, make some money,” she explained.
Good. So that meant she wasn’t going to be back permanently. He could come in and enjoy a nice, greasy, unhealthy meal a few weeks from now without having to deal with this.
“I worked here awhile back,” Maria told her. “Got fired.”
“Oh, was Derek your manager?” Liz asked.
Maria nodded. “He’s a dick.”
“Yeah, my dad was getting lots of complaints, so he fired him. He’s been managing it by himself for a few weeks now until he can find a replacement.”
“Hmm.” A small smile crept across Maria’s full lips. “Karma.”
Liz exhaled shakily, seemingly still nervous, and returned her attention to Michael. “So I take it you and Isabel didn’t get back together,” she said, sounding as if she felt guilty.
“No, we did,” he assured her.
Looking confused, she glanced back and forth between him and Maria.
She thinks Maria’s my girlfriend, he realized. Not quite. “Oh, sorry, this is Maria,” he introduced. “She lives with me.”
Liz’s perplexed frown intensified.
“Long story,” Maria said. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Liz returned. A few seconds of awkward silence later, she finally just asked, “Do you guys want some food?”
“Yeah. Burger. Fries.” He wasn’t really very hungry anymore, but he’d get hungry once he smelled it.
“Everything on it?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“And you?” She turned to Maria.
“Um . . . I’m not really hungry. Can I just share your fries?” she asked Michael.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so one burger and fries. I’ll make sure to give you extra,” Liz promised, giving them both a friendly smile as she headed back to the kitchen to place their order.
“You should give her a very good tip,” Maria suggested once she was out of earshot. “She seems nice.”
“Which is exactly why she should’ve never hooked up with me.” As he said the words, it occurred to him that the same could be said about Maria. Maria was a nice girl. A good girl. A good girl with a bad past, sure, but . . . he’d probably be bad for her, too. He was bad for everyone.
“Michael, you’re way too hard on yourself.”
“Maria, she almost got kicked outta school when word got around about what we’d done. And Isabel was . . . she wouldn’t even talk to me. I broke her heart; I took Liz’s virginity. I’m a pretty bad guy.”
“You’re not bad,” she insisted. “You’re . . . misunderstood.”
“Well, as sexy and mysterious as that sounds . . .” It wasn’t true.
“It’s your past, Michael,” she pointed out. “You’ve changed since then.”
Had he? Had he really? He liked to think he had, at least a little. But underneath, wasn’t he still the same guy? Weren’t the fantasies he’d had about lifting up Liz’s Crashdown uniform the same as the ones he was starting to have about Maria now? Sure, this was more intense, but . . .
“I don’t know why you always see the good in me,” he admitted, leaning back in his seat.
She leaned forward, resting her arms on the tabletop. “Because there’s a lot of good to see.”
Was there? Sometimes, if he looked hard enough, he thought he could see it. But other times, it just faded into the background, like it had never even been there to begin with.
But she saw it. And that mattered.
Dammit, Maria. He felt like history was repeating itself, and he wondered if she had any idea.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next night was couple’s night—oh, goodie—which Michael could have done without, but since Tess and Isabel were best friends and he and Kyle were best friends, it was almost mandatory that they all hang out together at least twice a week. They chose Isabel’s house for it this time, because she had a movie room with a huge screen and massage-recliners. But halfway through the movie, everyone had lost interest, and the girls decided to start practicing a cheerleading routine they were doing at halftime of an upcoming basketball game. As fun as it was to watch them shake and shimmy about, Michael jumped at the chance to get away from it all when Kyle told him to leave the room with him.
They went out to the double staircase at the entrance and took a seat. The girls were still within view, but they were very much in the cheer zone as Tess tried to teach Isabel the moves. The fact that were so absorbed with what they were doing was probably the only reason Kyle said, “Hey, take a look at this,” and subtly pulled a ring out of his pocket. Very shiny. Very . . . long-term.
“Oh my god, Kyle,” Michael gasped dramatically. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”
Kyle rolled his eyes, chuckling lightly. “It’s for Tess,” he said, stating the obvious. “I’m gonna give it to her on Valentine’s Day. It’s nice, right? What do you think?”
Michael raised his eyebrows, unable to bite his tongue. “I think you’re fuckin’ crazy,” he admitted.
“It’s not an engagement ring; it’s a promise ring,” Kyle clarified.
“What the hell’s that?”
“It’s like a promise that I will give her an engagement ring someday, maybe even at graduation. And I’ll marry her.”
Well, when he put it like that . . . Michael’s opinion hadn’t changed. “Crazy,” he reiterated.
Kyle put the ring back in his pocket before Tess’s ring-radar alerted her to its presence. “What’s so crazy about knowing who you wanna be with for the rest of your life?” he objected.
“Uh, the fact that you know. You’re eighteen and you know. Or at least you think you do.”
“Oh, I know,” his friend insisted.
Michael turned toward him, lowering his voice, even though the girls were giggling too much to overhear them. “Kyle, you’ve only ever slept with, like, one other girl. You don’t even know what all else is out there.”
“I don’t wanna know,” Kyle protested. “I got everything I want with the girl I’m with.”
“But what if your feelings change?”
“They won’t. She’s the one.”
Oh, there it was. The one. Michael had spent the last decade of his life doubting such a thing existed. As far as he was concerned, practically all the adults in the town were proof that it didn’t. His parents hated each other most of the time, and Kyle’s own dad wasn’t exactly a model of fidelity. Even Isabel’s mom was divorced. Nobody stayed together anymore.
“Okay, but how do you know?” he challenged, hoping to get some real, solid answers out of his friend. “How do you know she’s the one?”
“I just know.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
“Well, what do you want me to say? It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.” He really, really wanted to know.
Kyle hesitated for a moment, and at first, Michael thought it was because maybe he was second-guessing it, changing his mind. But he should have known better. Kyle was always sure. About everything. And when he finally did answer, it became blatantly clear that the only reason why he’d hesitated was because he was feeling something too strong to adequately describe. “She’s the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep,” he confessed. “It’s cheesy, but it’s true. And when I’m not around her, I wanna be. And when I am around her . . . it’s like . . .” He smiled, just a genuinely happy, even awestruck, smile. “It’s like I can’t look away from her. Because I don’t wanna miss any little thing she’ll do or say.”
Michael frowned. Can’t look away from her?
“That’s how I know,” Kyle affirmed. “She’s the one for me.”
Fine, Michael thought. So maybe it did exist for some people. Not for him. He just . . . he wasn’t Kyle. He wasn’t that type of guy. And he didn’t have that kind of life ahead of him.
Glancing back into the theater room, he watched as Isabel extended her arms in the air and twirled around, her beautiful hips making beautiful circles. But when he looked at her, the only thing he knew for certain was that he didn’t know anything at all.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Apparently West Roswell had a basketball rivalry, even though it barely had enough people on both the girls and boys teams. Every December 30th, they hosted the Holiday Tournament, where the rival Springer High Spartans usually beat them down beyond the point of no return. For some reason, a lot of people showed up, though, and even when they were thirty points down near the end of the first half, spirit and enthusiasm was high.
Michael only went because Isabel wanted him to see the finished product of the dance she and Tess had been working on the other night. He convinced Maria to accompany him and was smart enough to let Isabel know in advance that she’d be there.
During a timeout, the cheerleaders did a crowd cheer, dubbed simply, Do It. It was easy enough. Mostly just jumping around and fist-pumping, which even the most uncoordinated person could do. Maria, for some reason, though, was reluctant to participate.
“No, I can’t,” she insisted as the cheerleaders chanted, “Do it, do it, do it! Go, go, go!” in time with the junior class.
“Why not?” Michael pressed.
“Do it, do it, do it! Fight, fight, fight!”
“Uh, because I don’t go to school here,” she answered.
“So?”
“Do it, do it, do it! Win, win, win!”
“Michael . . .”
“Come on.”
“Now stop!” the cheerleaders yelled. “And let the seniors do it!”
All the seniors in the student section stood up, and Michael grabbed Maria’s arm, hauling her up alongside himself and Kyle. “Do it, do it, do it! Go, go, go!” they shouted, making the bleachers thunder with the sound of their jumping. And after just that one round of it, Maria joined in, bouncing around and pumping her fist in the air. “Do it, do it, do it! Fight, fight, fight! Do it, do it, do it! Win, win, win!”
“Now stop!” the cheerleaders said again. “ ‘cause that’s the end.”
“Woo!” Michael yelled, feeling oddly spirited himself. Maybe it was just because Maria was there. He turned to her and gave her a high-five.
A high-five? What the hell was up with that? He hated these rare occasions when he wasn’t smooth.
As they sat back down, he noticed Isabel eyeing them curiously as she and the other cheerleaders lined up along the wall again. He just smiled at her, hoping he looked reassuring. And he must have, because she smiled back.
Once the halftime routine was done, Michael headed up to the concession stand with Maria, inconspicuously squeezing into the front of the line. One of the women working the counter asked, “What can I get for you?”
“Uh . . .” He stared at the list of items someone had hastily scribbled on a poster taped to the back wall and quickly debated his options. “Hot dog and a pizza-stuffed pretzel.”
“Okay. And you?” the woman asked Maria.
“Oh . . . I don’t need anything,” she answered.
Knowing she was probably plenty hungry and just didn’t want him to have to pay for her, Michael took ten dollars out of his wallet and slid it across the counter. “She’ll have super nachos,” he said before she could protest.
“Okay, coming right up.” The woman took his money and called out the order to the other people working in there.
Michael looked down at Maria and smirked, and she just smiled at him. Sort of like Isabel had.
They didn’t go back to the game—what was the point? They were going to lose anyway—so Michael took her around the school, showing her all the uninteresting and relatively pointless things that existed there. The trophy case that was mostly empty. The Student Wall of Honor, which was much the same, except that Kyle and Isabel were both heavily featured there. They slipped past the gates set up to keep people near the gym and headed up to the second level, where no one was around. Eventually, he had no destination in mind for them. They were just walking, surrounded only by darkened hallways, and that was fine.
Maria polished off the rest of the messy chips on the plate in her hand and then licked the remainder of cheese off her finger. The sight of that alone was just about enough to make him go crazy.
“So how did you know I like super nachos?” she asked, dumping the empty plate into a trashcan when they strolled by.
“Well, I know a lot about you,” he bragged.
“You don’t know my favorite song yet,” she pointed out.
“Key word: yet.” He was bound and determined to figure it out.
She shook her head doubtfully, teasingly, even, and grazed her hand along the concrete wall. “This looks like a nice school,” she remarked.
“It’s not bad, I guess,” he admitted, “as far as schools go.” East Roswell had been on its last leg, even before it had been flooded. “I actually kinda like my guidance counselor here.”
“I’m guessing she’s hot, then,” Maria surmised.
“Well . . . yeah.” Definitely MILF-material. “But that’s not why I like her. And when I say like, I just mean that I can tolerate her. You know what I mean?”
“So why can you . . . tolerate her?”
“Because . . .” He sighed, stunned that he was even revealing such an un-macho thing. “She doesn’t seem to think I’m a lost cause. Unlike the principal. And the teachers. And all the other students around here.”
“I’m sure they don’t think you’re a lost cause,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” He grabbed her hand, not because he needed to, but just because he really, really wanted to. “Come here.” Pulling her into the nearest girl’s bathroom, he enjoyed the confused expression that found its way to her face.
“What’re we doing?” she asked.
He flipped on the light and tipped his head in the direction of the stalls. “Go look at what’s written there.”
She frowned, apparently still perplexed, and slowly did just that. He stayed on the other side of the stall, knowing that, in any girls bathroom in any part of that school, his name was bound to make a few appearances.
“See anything interesting?” he asked after she’d been looking for several seconds.
“Kind of,” she admitted, reading a few scribbled comments aloud. “I hate Michael Guerin. Michael is a loser. Go to hell M.G.”
He rounded the stall, standing in the doorway of it, glancing over all the gossipy little scandals scattered there. Some were in permanent marker, others just darkened with a pen. Clearly the janitors had just given up trying to keep the stalls clean at this point, because it was basically a graffiti mural.
“Most of these were probably written by girls you slept with,” she rationalized. “One night stands. I’m sure you’ve had a few of those.”
“More than a few.” Too many to count.
“Do you regret it?” she asked.
He hadn’t actually thought about it a whole lot before. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t . . . I don’t know,” he mumbled unsurely. Did he regret having a lot of sex in his life? No, especially not with girls who were too drunk and/or too slutty to even think twice about it. But as strange as it was to admit, part of him envied Kyle for being so sure about Tess, even though he didn’t have anything else to compare to. It all seemed so simple for them.
She kept browsing through the comments, then pointed to one that had a heart around it. “Oh, here’s a nice one. Michael Guerin has a big dick.”
He grinned, laughing a little. Yeah, leave it to him to get that kind of compliment. Not that he minded. It was true.
“I could write something,” she pondered, holding out her hand. “You got a pen?”
“What’re you gonna write?” he asked.
“Something about you.”
He fumbled around in the front pocket of his jeans, managing to locate a pencil sharpened down to the nubbins. He shrugged and handed it to her. “All I got.”
She took it from him, then placed one hand on his chest and pushed him backward slightly.
“What’re you doin’?” he asked.
Without a word, she closed the bathroom door, and he heard the lock click into place.
“Oh, come on.” If she was going to write something, chances were it’d be something that didn’t paint him in such a horrible light. And he really wanted to see that.
Sighing, he leaned back against the wall, waiting, listening as she pressed down hard on the inside wall of the stall to make the pencil marks as dark as possible. A few seconds later, she emerged, and even though he tried to peek over her shoulder to see what she’d written, she wouldn’t let him.
“Let’s go,” she said, putting her hands on his chest again, urging him backward.
“What’d you write?” he asked, allowing her to maneuver him, mostly just because it felt good to have her hands on him.
“It’s a secret.”
“Maria, it’s a girls bathroom.” Nothing was secret there.
“And you’re not even supposed to be in here,” she said, flipping off the light on their way out. “Come on.”
Oh, well. Once school started up again, the first thing he was going to do was go back to that bathroom and find out what she’d written. First thing.
He took her into one of his classrooms, not because it was particularly interesting or enlightening, but just because the door was left unlocked, and he didn’t want to return to the game yet.
“Whose room is this?” she asked.
“Ms. Alvarez.” His hand hovered on the light switch, and he eventually decided to just leave it off. “English.”
“I used to love English,” she said wistfully.
“I hate it.” Too much reading. Too much writing. Wasting time. He crossed the room and sat down in his seat. Second row, farthest over to the left. Poor Ms. Alvarez. Didn’t she know that an unmotivated, easily-distracted student such as himself needed to be in the front row, and not sitting by a window that could potentially fascinate him?
“That’s where Isabel sits,” he informed her when she started to sit down two seats over.
She stopped, then admitted, “I’m more of a back of the class girl myself,” on her way to the farthest back row.
My kind of girl, he thought, waiting a few seconds before he followed her. She sat down, looking perfectly at place there, and it made him wish that she actually was there, that he could see her in these classrooms and in these hallways during the day. And maybe even in the eraser room.
“I wish you went here,” he admitted, taking a seat at the desk beside her.
“Me, too,” she said quietly, laying both her hands atop the desk. She drummed her fingers for a moment, and he tried to pick out the rhythm of a song. Because it was always possible that it could be her favorite.
“Hey, Michael, can I ask you something?” she questioned suddenly.
“Sure.” He turned his chair slightly sideways, just the way he would have if she actually had sat by him in class.
She waited a moment, then asked, “Isabel still doesn’t know we’re sleeping in the same bed at night, does she?”
He gave her a look. “What do you think?” There would have been a hurricane of girlfriend drama if he’d told her about that.
“I think your mom does,” she informed him. “She asked me about it at work today.”
Honestly, he was surprised it’d taken her thing long to ask anything. She had to have noticed the couch every morning, unslept on, no blankets or extra pillows. “What’d you tell her?” he asked.
“Well, I didn’t wanna lie to her,” she replied, surprising him when she added, “But I told her you sleep on the floor.”
He grinned, pleased with that. Oh, this girl . . . Every single thing made him like her even more.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “This is bad. We’re lying to people.”
“White lies, Maria,” he corrected. “And white lies are okay. They keep people from gettin’ hurt.”
“Or they cause people to get hurt,” she pointed out.
He exhaled shakily, wondering how many white lies he’d told Isabel back when he’d been pursuing Liz. No, don’t worry, Is; I don’t even know the girl. She probably has a crush on me, but I don’t feel anything for her. Liz who? Oh, is that her name?
No. He didn’t want to think about that.
TBC . . .
-April
........with the no one actually being related part I mean.
when you see it if you'd like.
In my experience working with teenagers, I can assure you, it seems like they have no common sense sometimes.