Sara:
Krista is amazing and Andy is an ass. Jim can go suck it and Amy can go "f" herself.
You have strong reactions!Isabel probably handled that a lot better than I would have.I think Isabel handled that as well as she could and I'm glad Michael actually told her....well most of it at least.
Rod:
I agree. Isabel has every right to be upset.I don't blame Isabel for being upset with Maria living there. Yes for once Michael is trying to do a good thing without getting benefited for it. But as a cheater who is well known to drop his pants for any girl you can't blame Isabel for doubting his reasons.
I promise, he's not Michael's dad!Now normally Jim is one of my favorite characters. But you keep making him look so bad in this story. .....and seeing how so much a like they are I still hold to the belief Jim is Michael's dad
He's not a horrible guy . . . he's just obsessed with football and women. If he could overcome his reputation of being a womanizer, he might not be so bad!Fair enough. Maria's been feeling sorry for herself ever since she got pregnant, so in a way, she's gotten used to it. If she just accepts her life for what it is, she might actually learn to enjoy it a little. But then again, that's easier said than done.I'm getting a bit tired of Maria feeling bad for herself. Life's hard and you have to suck it up and keep going. Just because you're in a rough patch doesn't mean you have to sit around all the time going " ohh woe is me!" attitude.
CandyliciousLovah: Yep, Isabel's becoming jealous, and that's making her cling to Michael all the more. Gotta say, I've been there.
Michael:
Wow, April... you are achieving something i didn't think was possible... annoyance with Isabel's character.
Oh, that tends to happen in my fics. Every character annoys everyone at some point or another.It's very simple, when you think about it, but Isabel's just not thinking that way.Okay, Michael may have not told Isabel the whole story with Maria and i understand that he's cheated before... but if you can't trust the person your in a relationship with... THAN DON"T BE WITH THEM!!!
On some level, she probably is glad. But on a deeper level, she wishes that, if he's going to be thinking about someone besides himself for once, he'd be thinking about her.Seriously, you would think that Isabel would be glad that he's not thinking about only himself for once.
Eva:
It is sad, isn't it? Both Andy and Amy view their children as . . . disappointments. Krista has taken a different approach. She loves Michael regardless of all his faults and failures, the way a parent should.Amy keeps surprising me in a very bad way. The way she thinks about her own daughter is very low, a bit like Andy is thinking about Michael. They only see the negative things in their children, even when it's not there. It's very sad.
Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate it!
Part 21
Post-game plans were usually a no-brainer: Someone would have a party, and Michael would go to it. But now that Maria was in the picture, part of him felt like he should invite her. Probably wasn’t a good idea, though, what with Isabel still being furious with him. Figuring Maria would just ride home with his dad, he took his time in the shower, trying to work out what he’d say to his girlfriend to get back on her good side. Maybe she wouldn’t be so mad, since they’d won and he’d scored all those touchdowns.
He walked outside with Antonio, a bit disappointed to find out where everyone was meeting up that night. “Parking lot party?” Lame. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” Antonio looked excited about it.
“As long as there’s booze, I’m in.” He spotted Isabel, sitting in the back of Kyle’s truck with Tess, and he actually started to feel nervous. She did not look like the cheery cheerleader girlfriend of a guy who’d just played a huge part in winning the game. She looked like she just wanted to go home.
“Good luck, man,” Antonio said, giving him a pat on the back. He tossed his bag down next to his car and darted across the parking lot to Jase, who appeared to be the one supplying the drinks. Good. When the principal decided to check the cameras, he’d be the one to get in the most trouble.
“Michael Guerin?”
Michael took a step back as a guy he didn’t recognize stepped out of the shadows. Definitely wasn’t a student, but he didn’t look very old, either. He was wearing a sweatshirt that said NMSU.
“Yeah?”
The guy extended his hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m Carl Husen.”
Michael shook his hand unsurely. What was a guy like this doing at the parking lot party?
“You played a great game,” Carl congratulated. “Lit it up out there.”
“Thanks.” He’d pay for it tomorrow, though, when he woke up and all his limbs felt sore as hell.
“Seems to be a lot of hype surrounding you guys,” Carl continued on. “Lots of people sayin’ you’re bound for State finals.”
Michael shrugged. “Ah, maybe. Coach doesn’t want us thinkin’ about anything but Quarterfinals, though.”
“Right, of course.” Carl nodded, smiling. “Hey, listen, I know you’re probably tired, but if you ever get the chance, I’d love to have a conversation with you.”
Michael frowned. About what?
“I’m a recruiter at New Mexico State University,” he said.
Well, that explained the sweatshirt. “Oh, so you were here to watch Kyle, huh?”
“No, I was here to watch you,” he corrected swiftly.
Michael’s eyebrows arched. Me?
“We’re lookin’ to get some high caliber receivers this year, and we think you have a lot of talent. You got a lot of people talkin’ about you.”
He actually felt . . . sort of speechless. This was different from the newspaper articles. A step up. Because now he wasn’t just reading what somebody thought of him. He was hearing it.
“You’ve got a bright future ahead of you,” Carl predicted. “I suppose you’ve already given some thought as to where you’d like to attend college.”
“Uh . . .” Not so much.
“It’s a big decision.”
“Yeah.” One he’d never intended to make.
“You applied to any schools yet?”
“Um . . . yeah, to Alabama.”
“Alabama,” Carl echoed. “Great school. Great football program.”
“Yeah, that’s where Kyle wants to go.”
“And would you say that’s your top choice, too?”
He shrugged wordlessly. Didn’t have a top choice, really, because he hadn’t applied anywhere else.
“Well, that’s obviously an excellent school, and I can understand why you’d wanna play there,” Carl said. “I just want you to entertain some other options, though. Now I know New Mexico State might not be a division one team, but we’re having some success. And we’re looking for young leaders.”
Leaders? Michael thought incredulously. Now he was a young leader? Since when? If this guy only knew who he was talking to . . .
“At a school like Alabama, you might spend three years on the sideline before you ever get to play a snap. Might end up being a little fish in a big pond. But at New Mexico State, you’d be a big fish in a little pond.” He grinned excitedly and said, “Think about it.”
Michael nodded. Sure, sure, he’d think about it, even if he didn’t want to. Because he was a fish in a simple high school pond right now, but as for the future . . . he had no idea which direction he was swimming.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Michael couldn’t get to sleep. But the nice thing about having Maria there was that he had someone to stay up with. She wasn’t sleeping either, so she came downstairs, and he joined her in the kitchen, where she proceeded to scrounge around the refrigerator for ingredients for a sandwich. He talked her ear off about the New Mexico State guy, just because it was easier to talk to her about his future than it was to talk to his mom or dad about it. Because, unlike them, or unlike his dad, at least, she seemed to believe he had one.
“I felt like an idiot,” he admitted, leaning against the counter. “I just stood there. I didn’t know what to say.”
She smiled, spreading mayo on his bread before switching to butter for hers. “That’s exciting, Michael.”
“It’s weird,” he said.
“Why?”
“ ‘cause most of the time, schools can’t wait to get rid of me. This one actually wants me.”
She laughed a little, tossing her butter knife into the sink. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yeah. For the past four years, I’ve stood off to the side and watch guys go up to Kyle and tell him how great he is. Never me.”
“Until now,” she pointed out.
“Yeah.” Weird. Weird, weird, weird. He knew he was good, but . . . “Do you know how many guys across the state—across the country—play wide receiver? And I’m just one of ‘em. And I play in a town that’s more well-known for UFOs than it is for football or anything else.”
“Well, if you and Kyle make it to the NFL, it’ll be more well-known for football,” she said, unwrapping a few slices of cheese.
“No, I’m not gonna make it that far,” he predicted. New Mexico State wasn’t exactly a hotbed for future professional athletes. Not that he was going to go there. Not that he was even entertaining the idea. “NFL’s always been Kyle’s dream, not mine.”
“But you’re really good,” she insisted.
“Not that good.”
“No, you are.” She slapped the cheese slices, along with a few turkey slices, down on the bread, then put the top layer of bread on each sandwich and slid his to him.
He greedily took a bite, nodding his head in approval. “So did you have fun tonight?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m really glad I went.”
“See?”
She took a small bite of her sandwich, frowning slightly. At first, he thought maybe she was disappointed with the taste, but when she spoke again, she sounded more confused than anything else. “Why do you downplay it?”
Okay. Now he was confused, too. “Downplay what?”
“Your talent,” she clarified. “Your ability. You act like you’re not good enough to play in college, or at the next level, but you don’t know that. Maybe you don’t even know how good you are.”
He looked down at the floor, wondering how she did that, how she managed to make him actually wonder about things like that, just by voicing the question out loud. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“You could be, like, a sports superstar someday.”
He chuckled, trying to picture it. “I don’t wanna be a superstar.”
“Then what do you wanna be?”
“I wanna be . . .” He trailed off, struggling to come up with any sort of answer. He knew what he’d probably be. All his life, he’d envisioned that he’d wind up at some dead-end construction job like his dad. Something involving manual labor. His options were limited.
“Maybe you should figure it out,” she suggested.
“And maybe you should take your own advice.” He set his sandwich down, taking a step closer to her. “Didn’t you wanna be, like, a superstar singer someday?”
She blushed a little and corrected, “Singer/songwriter. But it wouldn’t matter if I was a superstar. I just wanted to sing.”
It was hard not to notice her use of the past tense. “And you don’t anymore?”
“Well, I can’t anymore,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because . . .” She hesitated, sighing. “You know why not.”
He knew what she was hinting at: Dylan. But it didn’t make sense to him. Having a kid meant she had to throw her dreams away? “You could still do it,” he encouraged.
“No, I can’t.”
“Sure you can.”
“No, it’s . . . it was a passing dream for me. Once you have a kid, it’s like . . . your only dream is to watch him grow up to be smart and successful.”
Huh, he thought. If that was true, then he must have crushed his parents’ dreams. “You should sing somethin’ for me,” he suggested.
“What?”
“Yeah, right now. Go for it.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No, I . . . I haven’t sang anything for a long time. I don’t even have my guitar anymore. I sold it.”
He frowned, wishing he could convince her. Because she sounded so sad. When she talked about his future, she was upbeat; when she talked about her own, it was different.
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I’ll do something else with my life. I’ll raise Dylan. I’ll be a mom.”
He wanted to tell her she could do more than that, not that being a mom wasn’t important. He wanted to persuade her that she could still sing, that she could go to college and study music, that she could do all the things she wanted to do.
All the things he had the chance to do.
But he sensed she wouldn’t believe him. Not yet, anyway.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael barely went to sleep that night, which in some ways made it even more difficult to wake up in the morning than it usually was. He dragged his ass to school, knowing he still had to do some damage control with his girlfriend. Couldn’t put it off forever.
He sidled up to her at her locker, hoping she’d at least be somewhat responsive. “Hey,” he greeted, trying to sound casual.
She looked up at him, then returned her attention to all her books. “Hey,” she mumbled a few seconds later, as if she weren’t sure whether she wanted to say it or not. She opened up her physics textbook and started to check through her homework assignment.
He leaned back against the lockers next to hers, searching for something non-combative to talk about. “God, I hate havin’ games on Thursdays,” he complained. “It’s so hard to go to school the next day. Yesterday felt like Friday.”
“Well, today’s Friday,” she pointed out, sounding uninterested.
“Feels like a weekend, though.”
She shut her book, then shut her locker. “I’m surprised you even came,” she admitted. “I thought you might stay home. You know, with Maria.” With that little subtle jab, she tried to walk away.
He grabbed her arm as she was brushing past him. “So are we ever gonna talk about it?”
She shrugged. “What is there to say? You told me to trust you. I’m trying to.”
“Yeah, but you’re pissed off as hell.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, so . . . “ Great. This was going nowhere. He decided to try a different approach. “Fine, maybe we shouldn’t talk then.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave her a look, knowing she’d be able to read his mind.
She squinted at him suspiciously, connecting the dots. “Are you . . .” she sputtered, lowering her voice. “You seriously want me to have sex with you right now?”
“Yeah, it’ll get us back on good terms again.”
She grunted, shaking her head. “Unbelievable. Michael, you can’t use sex to solve all your problems.”
“Why not?” Seemed like a simple enough solution to him.
“You just can’t.”
Now he was starting to get pissed, too. Here he was, really trying to make things right with her, and she seemed to want no part in it. “Fine, you figure it out then,” he told her. “You come up with something.”
“I just need some time.” She whirled around and stomped down the hallway, but he wasn’t content to just let her go. If he gave her time, if he gave her space, it was possible she’d get even more upset with him, especially if she had a little birdie named Tess in her ear, chirping about what a jerk he was being.
“Isabel,” he called.
Slowly, reluctantly, she turned back around, clutching her books to her chest.
So the first two tactics hadn’t worked. Maybe the third was the charm. “I have an idea.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Micho!” Dylan screamed as he zoomed through the living room with a white bed sheet over his head. Since he couldn’t pronounce Michael’s name, that was how he said it. He bumped into Krista, though, he was coming downstairs, securing a bracelet around her wrist.
“Oh, what do we have here?” she asked. “A little ghost?”
“Dylan . . .” Maria caught up to her son and removed the sheet from his head. “Sorry, I was doing laundry, and he wanted to help fold.”
“Oh, he’s fine,” Krista assured her.
“Where’s Micho?” Dylan asked.
“He wants to play football with Michael,” Maria explained. “But I told him he can’t play right now. He’s probably upstairs doing homework or something.”
Krista laughed at that. “Probably not.”
Well, he must have been doing something. Maria hadn’t seen much of him since she’d gotten home from work and he’d gotten home from football practice at about the same time. “You look nice,” she told Krista. The woman was wearing a dark blue mid-sleeved dress that went down to her knees and black pantyhose. With her hair curled and makeup done, she was actually quite beautiful.
“Thanks,” she said. “Andy and I are going to Tina’s music concert tonight, so I convinced him to look nice, too.”
“Music concert?” she echoed, remember how she used to love those. She’d had her first solo in the first grade. From the moment she’d stood before that small group of people and belted out the first verse of “Jingle Bell Rock,” she’d fallen in love with singing.
“Yeah, Andy hates going, but . . . I kind of like it.”
“Hmm.” Maria hoped Dylan would grow up to love music. Even if he didn’t have a great voice, he could sing in the choir. Or maybe he’d be in band. Something.
“We’re running a little late, though,” she fretted before calling upstairs, “Tina, let’s go!”
A few seconds later, Tina trotted downstairs, wearing a long dress that her mom was probably forcing her to wear and too much makeup to go along with it. “Let’s get this over with,” she groaned.
“Hi, Tina,” Dylan said with a wave.
She halfway waved back at him and headed outside.
“Andy!” Krista called up to her husband.
It took him a little bit longer to trudge downstairs, but when he did, he had the same attitude his daughter did. “Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled, loosening his shirt collar. He looked different than he usually did, too. His hair was actually combed, and he was wearing black slacks and a nice blue button-down shirt. His facial expression was the same as always, though: upset, uninterested.
“Bye, Maria,” Krista said, following her husband out to the car.
“Bye,” Maria returned, waiting until the door was shut to address her son. “Alright, who’s ready for his bath?” She tried to sound excited when she said it, as if it were something to get excited about.
He pouted. “No.”
“No?”
“No bath.”
“Yes bath. Come here.” She tried to grab him, but he nearly squirmed away. He giggled and kept squirming as if it were a game.
“Dylan . . .” Did this always have to be such a hassle?
He laughed, but when Michael came downstairs, all his attention shifted. “Micho!” he exclaimed excitedly.
“Hey, buddy,” Michael said. “Whatcha doin’?”
“No bath.”
“He doesn’t wanna take one,” Maria explained.
“Who can blame him? It’s a lot more fun bein’ dirty, isn’t it, man?”
Dylan nodded exaggeratedly.
“Uh, you’re not helping,” Maria informed.
He grinned. “Sorry. Hey, I was gonna ask you . . . do you think you could help me cook somethin’?”
She raised an eyebrow. Michael wanted to cook? Okay. Weird. “Cook what?” she asked.
“I don’t know, it’s some Mexican recipe I found online.”
“Why do you wanna cook Mexican?”
“ ‘cause it’s pretty much either that or one of those boxed up meals in the back of the cupboard. You know, the kind where they give you all the ingredients in the box, and all you gotta do is dump it in a pan and put it in the oven.”
“Yeah, you should probably just stick with one of those,” Maria suggested. “I’m not the world’s greatest cook.”
“Alright.” He messed up Dylan’s hair, eliciting another giggle, and went into the kitchen.
“Play football?” Dylan asked.
“Sorry, can’t,” Michael told him. “I’ll play with you tomorrow, though.”
Maria handed him the white sheet again, figuring he could occupy himself with that a little bit longer. The bath could wait. “Go play,” she told him.
He put the sheet around his shoulders this time, like a cape, making zooming sounds as he darted back into the living room, probably pretending he was a superhero.
Maria joined Michael in the kitchen, watching him for a minute as he quickly inspected the expiration dates on several boxes of Complete Meals. One was some kind of hideous-looking beef stew. The other was a much more appetizing penne pasta and meatballs. “Which one?” he asked her, holding each up.
“That one,” she said, pointing to the penne.
“Kay.” He tossed the other box aside and frantically searched around for a casserole dish. He didn’t seem to know where they were located, though, because it took him a bit to look under the stove.
“So why are you cooking?” she inquired curiously.
“ ‘cause I have to,” he replied. “I said I would.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed, studying the back of the box, where a few brief instructions were located. “Isabel,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Yeah, I invited her over for dinner tonight.”
Maria tensed. Isabel. Over. For dinner? That sounded like a bad idea. “Should Dylan and I just stay upstairs then?”
“No, it’s dinner for the four of us.”
Oh, that sounded like an even worse idea. The small knots in her stomach started to expand. “I’m confused.”
He opened up several cabinets and cupboards, rifling through until he found a measuring cup. “Isabel’s kinda been pissed at me these past couple days, so I’m tryin’ to make it up to her.”
“Well, why do I have to be here?”
He sighed as he hurriedly filled up about two cups of water. “Okay, remember when I said she was okay with you stayin’ here?”
She groaned, sensing where this was going. “Oh . . . Michael . . .”
“No, she’s gonna be fine with it,” he assured her. “It’s just, right now, she doesn’t really know what to think about it. So I figured she should come over and get to know you better. And she can see that it’ll be fine, and then she’ll be fine, and . . . it’ll all be fine.” He poured the water into the casserole dish, not seeming to care when much of it sloshed over the sides.
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” she warned. In her mind, she was picturing it, and what she was picturing was very awkward and uncomfortable for everyone involved.
“No, it’ll work,” he insisted. “I just need to make her feel included.” Right as he said that, he tore open a package of noodles inside the penne pasta box, but he tore it too far, and they scattered all over the floor. Probably an omen of how the night was going to go.
“Crap,” he muttered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Staring at her reflection in her full-length bedroom mirror, Isabel had the same doubts almost every other teenage girl had. Did she look good enough? Was she pretty enough? Would Michael think she was pretty?
So ridiculous.
“How do I look?” she asked, smoothing away the few frizzies in her hair. She turned around, posing with her hands out to the sides. She was wearing black leggings and a long red shirt that went down just past her bottom. Michael loved that shirt because it was low-cut up top, and the cleavage was a bit excessive.
“Casual, yet classy and gorgeous,” Tess replied.
“That’s what I was going for.” She wasn’t going to show up to that dinner in some formal ball gown, because then she would just look like she was trying way too hard. But she most certainly was going to look good.
“Okay, it’s official: You’re, like, the prettiest person to ever walk the planet,” Tess proclaimed, crawling up off the bed. “This Maria girl doesn’t even stand a chance.”
Isabel shot her a look.
“Not that it’s a competition,” Tess quickly added. “But if it was, you’d totally win.”
That elicited a smile. It didn’t matter if Tess was her best friend and was practically required to say these things; just hearing it at all gave her a boost of confidence.
Tess came up behind her and squeezed her shoulders supportively. “Looks like you’re ready,” she said. “Go claim your man.”
My man, Isabel thought. It was going to stay that way.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
What the fuck was up with these Complete Meals? They never ended up looking as good as they did on the front of the box. In fact, Michael’s penne pasta had turned out to be a complete disaster. He hadn’t added enough water or something, because it was practically glued to the pan, and now he was trying to chisel it away from the sides. Looked unappetizing to say the least.
He was still chiseling when the doorbell rang. “Shit,” he swore, tossing the knife he’d been using into the kitchen sink. He quickly rinsed off his hands, dried them on his pants, and checked his reflection in the microwave. Well, at least he had good looks on his side, because he definitely didn’t have cooking ability.
He scurried to the door, taking a deep breath to prepare himself. Maria came downstairs with Dylan, who had reverted back to his shy form and was clinging to his mom. He must not have known what was going on.
“Michael, really, we can just stay upstairs if that’s what you want,” Maria offered again.
“No, I want you down here.” It wasn’t like she and Dylan were his dirty little secret. He wasn’t going to hide them away. Taking one more deep breath, he pulled open the door just as Isabel rang the doorbell again. “Hey, baby,” he greeted, making sure to over-exaggerate it. He bent down to kiss her cheek, but she just stood there, seemingly confused because he was never cheesy enough to call her ‘baby.’
“Hey,” she finally returned, very little warmth or excitement in her tone.
“Come on in,” he said, stepping aside.
From the moment she came in and saw Maria and Dylan standing there, she looked tense.
“You remember Maria, right?” he said, quickly reintroducing them anyway. “Maria, Isabel.”
“Hi,” Maria said, managing a smile and a wave.
“Hi,” Isabel echoed, managing neither. Her eyes immediately drifted down to Dylan, and she gave Michael a curious look.
“Oh, didn’t I . . . didn’t I tell you Maria has a kid?” he asked, knowing very well he hadn’t.
She smiled, not a happy kind of smile, but that angry kind where she pressed her lips together tightly to keep from saying what she was really feeling. “No,” she answered simply.
“No.” He nodded, already anticipating an argument about that little omission later. “Well, she does.” If anything, he was hoping it’d make her feel better. Obviously Maria wasn’t like all the other girls he’d hooked up with over the years, so maybe she’d feel less apprehensive about this whole living situation.
“Dylan, say hi,” Maria instructed.
“Hi,” he whimpered, biting on his fingers.
“Hi,” Isabel returned. “Dylan, is it?”
He nodded.
“Hi, Dylan.” She managed to smile at the little boy, but when she looked at Michael again, that smile immediately vanished.
Enough talking, he decided, shutting the door. “Alright, let’s eat.”
Dinner was full of the clanging and scraping of silverware against plates. And little else. They didn’t talk. Once in a while, he’d try unsuccessfully to start up a conversation, but it usually fizzled out before it even began, and then they were back to where they started: attempting to ingest a meal that wasn’t complete at all, unless you counted being a complete failure. It was like chewing on rubber, and swallowing was actually painful. Michael noticed that Dylan stopped eating his after one bite and started spitting it out into his napkin instead. Maria didn’t even stop him, because she probably wanted to do the same.
“Kinda chewy,” Michael remarked. “Sorry.”
Isabel nearly choked on hers, barely managing to swallow. “Can I have some more water?” she asked.
“Sure.” He took her glass and got up from the table, amazed that he hadn’t screwed water up, too. Hell, he was screwing everything else up.
While he was refilling her glass, waiting for it to get as cold as possible, Maria managed to strike up the smallest of conversations. “So, Isabel,” she said, “you’re a cheerleader, right?”
Isabel just nodded.
“Hmm.” Maria swallowed hard, smiling a little. “I always used to wanna be a cheerleader. Back when I was little. But I never was.”
Isabel shrugged. “It’s not really that great. You stand on the sideline and wave pom poms. Nobody notices you; nobody watches. Nobody cares.”
“That’s not true,” Michael said, even though it kind of was. He brought Isabel’s glass back to the table and set it down in front of her, accidentally spilling a little on her lap. “I notice.”
“How? You’re playing the game.”
“But when the defense goes out there and I’m standin’ on the sidelines . . . I hear you guys. Go, fight, win, all that stuff.”
“All that stuff,” she echoed, mimicking him. “Gee, you must really listen closely.”
Man, she was backfiring this on him. Chicks were so good at this stuff. “Well, I gotta focus on the game,” he pointed out, taking his seat again.
“I know. That’s okay, don’t worry. I don’t expect you to focus on me.”
He shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a way out of this conversation. He glanced to Maria for help.
“So . . .” Maria jumped in quickly. “Do you think the guys are gonna end up going to State?”
Again, she shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Oh, we’re gonna go,” Michael declared confidently. “I’m gonna give you a lot to cheer about.”
“Can’t wait,” she mumbled, sliding her noodles—if they could even be called that—around on her plate with her fork to avoid eating them. “So, Maria,” she said, “how do you like living here?”
Maria bristled, down casting her eyes towards her plate. “It’s good,” she said. “It’s just temporary, though.”
Right, just temporary, Michael reminded himself. Truth was, though, he was getting kind of used to having Maria and Dylan there. And even though the one-week mark his mom had set out for this arrangement was quickly approaching, nobody had yet talked about her leaving.
“So did you grow up around here?” Isabel asked. “I feel like I should know you.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I grew up in Santa Fe with my mom,” Maria exclaimed. “And then when I was fourteen, I went to live with my dad in Albuquerque. And that was when . . . you know, everything changed. My mom and I just moved here about a year ago.”
Isabel nodded, never once looking at her as she said, “Interesting. So how old is your son?”
“Uh, he’s two. And a half, actually.”
“Oh, so you must’ve been really young when you had him.”
“Yeah. Fifteen.”
Michael glanced back and forth between them, listening closely, starting to feel the slightest bit hopeful. Okay, maybe this isn’t so bad, he thought. They were talking. They were getting to know each other, at least a little bit.
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, where’s his father?” Isabel inquired.
“Oh, he’s . . .” Maria looked down at her plate, instantly looking sad. Then she glanced over at Dylan to make sure he wasn’t listening. He wasn’t. He was playing with two of his noodles now, holding them up and pretending they were people fighting each other. They were probably tough enough to be. “He’s not around,” she mumbled.
“Hmm.” Isabel stared at her for a moment, sounding truly hostile for the first time when she remarked, “Well, then it’s a good thing Michael is.”
Maria shot him an alarmed look, and he didn’t even know what to say. What he was supposed to do, just sit there and lie to Isabel, tell her he didn’t give a rat’s ass about Maria and Dylan? Would that make her feel better, put her nerves at ease? Because he wasn’t going to do that.
“Excuse me,” Isabel said, standing up. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” She quickly scurried through the kitchen and around the side of the stairs towards the downstairs bathroom.
Once Michael heard the door shut, he muttered, “Shit, this isn’t goin’ well.”
“No,” Maria agreed. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not your fault.” She was being plenty friendly. Isabel was just being a bitch.
“Michael, you have to see things from her perspective, though,” she urged. “This is a highly unusual situation, and you know you weren’t completely upfront with her about it.”
“Yeah, but can’t she just . . . get over it?”
Maria gave him a stunned look. “Seriously? That’s your solution?”
“No, my solution was dinner, but apparently that’s a bust.”
“Okay, imagine if she had some guy living with her. Some guy and a kid. How would you feel?”
He imagined it, and it made him furious. Right away. He wanted to punch that imaginary guy in the face. “Alright, point taken.”
“See? You can’t expect her to just get over it.” She sighed heavily, reaching over to wipe off the corners of Dylan’s messy, sauce-covered mouth. “Okay, you take him upstairs,” she told him. “I’ll talk to Isabel.”
“Just the two of you? Alone?” That sounded . . . well, hot, honestly.
“Yes.”
“What’re you gonna say to her?”
“I don’t know, but it’s probably better than anything you’ll say to her.”
He couldn’t help but smile. She was probably right. “Alright, work some magic,” he said, standing up. “Come on, Dylan.” He grabbed the youngster’s hand and hoisted him into his arms, carrying him upstairs before Isabel could come out and catch sight of him holding a kid.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria wrung her hands together, wracking her brain for something to say. Being polite and friendly clearly wasn’t working. What this girl needed was some all-out reassurance that she had nothing to worry about.
She didn’t have much time to come up with what she wanted to say, because Isabel exited the bathroom shortly after Michael headed upstairs. She looked like she’d been crying. Maria wasn’t a makeup expert, but it looked like it’d been touched up.
“Where’s Michael?” she asked.
“Oh, Dylan wasn’t feeling well, so I asked him to take him upstairs,” she fibbed.
“Maybe I should just go then.”
“No, um . . .” Maria stood up quickly, wanting to make this easier on Isabel. And on Michael. Neither one of them deserved to feel like their relationship was straining just because she was there. “Let’s sit down,” she suggested, motioning towards the living room.
Reluctantly, Isabel went and sat down on the couch. Maria sat down in the recliner she’d seen Andy fall asleep in the other night, still holding his drink in his hand. “We should talk,” she suggested.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel apologized immediately. “For asking about Dylan’s dad. That’s none of my business.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“No, it’s . . .” Isabel took in a shaky breath, looking very on edge. “It’s just kinda weird, you know? I barely even know you, and here you are, living with my boyfriend.”
“Just for now,” Maria reminded her. “And Isabel, it’s . . . you know it’s nothing like that.”
Isabel blinked back tears, only managing, “Like . . .” before she trailed off.
“Like what you’re thinking it is,” Maria filled in, “or might be. I promise, there’s nothing going on between me and Michael. He just . . . he feels sorry for me. That’s the only reason why I’m here. I have nowhere else to go.”
“Nowhere?” Isabel echoed, sounding skeptical.
“I can’t afford a place of my own, and my own mom kicked me out. If you even knew how desperate I was for money . . .” She shuddered, remembering James Winston, what she’d done with him for a lousy one-hundred bucks.
“That’s rough,” Isabel said. “I’m sorry.”
Maria shrugged, figuring she’d accepted plenty of people’s pity lately. “Teen mom. Comes with the territory.”
“I guess,” Isabel said. “Look, I have nothing against you. But it’s really hard for me to trust Michael. He cheated on me last year, and we ended up breaking up. I don’t want it to happen again.”
“It won’t,” Maria assured her. “It’s not like that. I know it’s hard, but you’re just gonna have to trust him.”
Isabel sighed, still seeming hesitant to do that. “Do you like him?” she asked.
Oh, that question. She remembered hearing it about a month ago, Halloween. Tina had asked her, and she’d known the answer, even back then. Now, that answer was even clearer. Which was why she lied. “He’s a friend. Nothing more. And I know I’m a friend to him, but that’s all it is. What you two have is . . .” Shaky, she thought. Unstable. “It’s rock solid. I mean, you should hear the way he talks about you. It’s always Isabel-this, Isabel-that. He’s so in love with you; it’s obvious.”
Isabel smiled for the first time since she’d been there, a genuinely surprised smile. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Okay, so this wasn’t exactly the truth. But he did talk about her sometimes, once in a while. She was just . . . adding some embellishments to what he normally said. “And you know, he even said that, he understands why you’re upset with him, but he hopes one day you’ll be proud of him for helping me. Because he’s trying to do the right thing, because he wants to be a better man. He wants to be somebody who’s worthy of being with you. At least that’s what he says.”
Isabel looked . . . elated. There was really no other way to describe it. It was like all her anxiety had vanished, and she trusted him again. Maybe it would only last for tonight, or maybe it would last longer. But however long it lasted, Maria knew she’d just done what Michael had asked. She’d worked some magic.
When it came time for Isabel to leave, Maria busied herself with washing the dishes. That casserole dish alone was going to take a good twenty-minute scrub.
Michael walked outside with Isabel, and they stood together out by her car for a while, talking, looking like they were having a pretty serious conversation. Maria couldn’t help but peer out the window once or twice and notice the way he leaned in towards her, the way he held her hand, stroked her hair. And eventually, after he’d smooth-talked his way back into her good graces, he kissed her, and she kissed him back; and they looked like the perfect high school couple, so Maria had to look away.
TBC . . .
-April
) he might ride the bench for a few years. While at the smaller school he could play at the start. I'm a firm believer that no matter what school you play for big or small. .....if you're good. ...the NFL scouts will find you.
when you see it if you'd like. Enjoy!
Really? 521 Max was a narcissistic rapist.