...................................
The next day, Maria was happy. Or at least she appeared to be. Michael observed her in school laughing with her friends and kissing her boyfriend and he couldn’t help but think about her revelation. It hadn’t been a completely surprising revelation. He had pretty much seen it coming since the first day he had arrived in Long Beach. The thing about it was that he didn’t expect her to tell him. They still hadn’t known each other for very long, but they had become good friends, and he had gotten to the point where he felt comfortable telling her things. He just wasn’t aware that she had felt comfortable telling him.
He wondered if Isabel knew. He wondered if Maria would talk to Isabel about her problems on the phone at night. He wondered if Max knew. He wondered if Maria would tell Max about her not-so-perfect life while he was sucking on her neck in the eraser room.
More than ever now, Michael felt the urge to protect Maria. He couldn’t fight it. He wasn’t even sure if Maria wanted or needed protecting, but he was going to be the one to step up and do it.
“Maybe you could come over to my house tonight,” Max was suggesting at the lunch table the next day. “My mom and dad are goin’ out tonight.”
“But I’ll be there,” Liz said, “so if you guys do anything, I’ll know about it.”
“Not if we close the door.”
“But I could still hear you.”
“Not if we’re quiet.”
“Okay, let’s just talk about something else,” Maria said, shifting uncomfortably on Max’s lap. Michael noticed a flash of insecurity appear in Maria’s eyes, but it was gone almost instantly, and she was completely happy and secure again . . . to the casual observer.
He was well aware that he was no longer a casual observer. Even though Maria’s revelation had been simple and quiet, it spoke volumes.
“Well, are you gonna come over tonight or not?” Max pressed.
“I don’t know,” Maria said, obviously trying to hide her insecurities. “Wasn’t there gonna be a party at the beach for the football team?”
“Oh my god, I totally forgot about that,” Isabel said. “I have got to go. That game last night was awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever cheered so hard in my life.”
“Cheering is such hard work,” Max muttered sarcastically.
“Max!” Maria scolded, hitting him on the arm lately. “Of course it’s hard work!”
Max smirked. “I bet it doesn’t give you half as much of a workout as sex does.”
Michael had just about had it with Max Evans. The guy was constantly making sexual references around Maria, and it was starting to drive him crazy.
“What’s that matter, Guerin?” Max asked when Michael was unable to hide his annoyance. “Does talkin’ about sex make you all jittery?”
“Not at all.”
“Yeah, I bet you had a lot of sex when you were in jail.”
“Max, you are sick!” Maria exclaimed. “God!” She grabbed her purse and got up. “I’m outta here,” she said.
“Me, too.” Michael followed her. Isabel and Alex both followed Michael.
“What’s his deal today?” Isabel asked when they were in the hallway. “He’s acting like a real jerk.”
Maria sighed. “I don’t know. He’s usually not like that.”
Yes, he is, Michael thought, but for some reason, you just can’t see that.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The beach was packed that night with people from Hamilton High and people that tagged along just to be able to party. The wind was blowing, the beer was flowing, and the party was just kicking up as Maria arrived with her friends. And Liz.
“Do I look okay?” Maria asked the group.
“You look great,” Max said as he took in Maria’s appearance in her new pink bathing suit, “but I still think you should’ve gone with the blue one.” He shot Michael a glance out of the corner of his eye, and Maria caught it.
“I like the pink one,” she said. “Much better than that tan one I used to have.”
“But I picked that one out for you.”
“I know.”
The minute she stepped onto the beach, Kyle and his friends were making their way over to her. Max told them to leave, and they did, reluctantly. Kyle VaLenti was definitely bordering on stalker territory here, and it was most definitely not attractive.
The first thing Max did was head over to the beer keg. Isabel and Alex were immediately lost in each other, and Maria was approached by a guy trying to start a whipped cream bikini contest.
“Whipped cream would look great on you, baby,” he said. “Or, uh . . . you don’t even have to put any whipped cream on if you don’t want to.”
Maria was about to slap him in the face when Max came up and pulled her close to him. “I think he’s right,” he said, apparently having overheard. “Whipped cream would look great on you. And so would nothing.”
“Please!” the guy begged. “I need somebody to get this started.” When Isabel walked over with Alex, he was immediately all over her, too. “How about you? Whipped cream bikini? I think so.”
“I think not!” Isabel exclaimed in outrage. She held up her hand. “It’s called an engagement ring. Look it up. And even if I wasn’t engaged, I wouldn’t do that!”
“I won’t, either,” Maria said.
“I will!” Liz squealed.
“Liz . . .” The entire group looked in her direction and shouted in unison, “NO!”
She acted like she hadn’t even heard them. “I think Michael would enjoy it.”
At the mention of her stepbrother’s name, Maria realized that he wasn’t around. “Where is Michael, anyway?” she asked, searching the crowd.
“Doesn’t matter,” Max said, pulling her closer to him.
“There he is,” she said when her eyes landed on him. He was standing by himself surveying everything that was going on. Typical. Maria pulled away from Max and went to join her stepbrother.
“You’re really starting to give new meaning to the term ‘brooder’,” she told him.
“And you’re really starting to give new meaning to the term ‘social butterfly’.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re just around people all the time. Don’t you kinda get tired of it after awhile?”
“No,” she answered immediately and untruthfully. When she realized that Michael could see through her facade, she lightened the lie. “A little.” He still didn’t seem to buy it. “Okay, yeah, I get tired of it,” she finally admitted, “but it still beats hanging out by yourself.” She glanced towards the ocean and then back at Michael, insinuating that he should come swimming and do something fun for a change. He didn’t get in the water at first when she did, but eventually he was taking off his shirt and getting in.
“You caught their attention,” Maria said, pointing to two girls out deeper in the water. “I think they like the shirtless Michael.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
She laughed a little and started swimming towards the two girls, motioning Michael to follow. “Come on, Michael. Be a social butterfly, whatever the hell that’s supposed to be.”
“I don’t know,” he said, but he was following her anyway. “It’s been a long time since I’ve really talked to a girl.”
“You’ve talked to me.”
“Well, you’re easy to talk to.”
“You’ve talked to Isabel.”
“Well, she’s easy to talk to.”
“You’ve talked to Liz.”
“Well, actually she’s talked to me.”
Maria sighed. How was she ever going to get through to Michael that people might actually be interested in him? “Michael,” she said, “talking to a potential girlfriend is no different than talking to me . . . except that it is.” She almost didn’t notice when she bumped into one of the tiny brunettes in the water. “Hi,” she said, taking the liberty of starting up a conversation for Michael. “Do you guys go to Hamilton?”
“No,” one of them answered. “We’re here with our boyfriends.”
“Oh,” Maria said. “Oh....” She gave Michael a disappointed look. She had so been hoping to find someone for him.
“But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t go somewhere to do something for awhile,” the other girl said. “You know. The four of us.”
Maria was confused. “The four . . .? Okay, let’s leave, Michael!”
“Think about it!” one of the girls shouted as they swam away.
“That’s disgusting,” Maria said as she hurried away. “God, I don’t know who they’re more interested in, me or you!”
“Probably you,” Michael decided. “Everyone here is.”
“Just Kyle. And Max. And that whipped cream bikini guy. And those two girls. God, am I the only one here who sees something completely wrong with that?”
Michael laughed a little, and before he could say anything, Max came stumbling over to the water’s edge. “Maria!” he shouted loudly. “Want a drink?” He held out a beer.
“No thanks,” she told him, rising out of the water.
“Come on,” he said. “Just one beer.”
“No, Max,” she told him forcefully this time. She was going to stick with the not-drinking plan that Michael had previously established.
“Come on, baby.”
“No.”
“Maria . . .”
“She doesn’t want one,” Michael said at last, standing up beside Maria.
“Yeah,” Max said. “I got that the first time.”
“Didn’t seem like you did.”
Max gave Michael an icy glare and put his arm around Maria, handing her sarong to her. “It’s gettin’ cold,” he said, guiding her away from the water. “Let’s get inside.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It looked as if the party had already moved into the beach house when Maria and Max stepped foot inside. The music was blaring and people were dancing. The beer continued to flow, and the sex continued to sell. A few girls were even up on the table taking their clothes off.
“I wonder how long we have before the cops bust this party,” Maria said over the music.
Max didn’t seem to hear her. His attention was on the topless girl on the table. He only lost his focus when he heard the sound of a window breaking.
“This is a pretty wild party,” Maria commented. “Maybe we should go home.”
“Are you crazy?” Max asked in disbelief. “Wild parties are the best.” He signaled one of his friends to toss him another beer.
“It’s just so loud,” Maria said, still struggling to make herself heard over the music. “We can hardly talk.”
Max grinned suggestively. “We don’t have to talk.” He bent down and pressed his lips to her neck, beginning to suck on her skin lightly. When he pulled away, he said, “Let’s go upstairs.” He placed his already half-empty beer can down on a nearby table and took Maria’s hand, leading her upstairs. They had passed several rooms that were already occupied when Max finally found a vacant bedroom and led Maria inside. Hesitantly, she stepped in.
“Maybe we should leave the door open,” she suggested when he closed the door.
He smiled again. “I like the doors closed.”
Maria felt her heart start to pound and her fingers start to shake as a feeling of nervousness swept over her entire body.
Max whisked his arms around her and pulled her body close to his. He gazed into her eyes lustily and then laid her down on the bed. She wanted to say something, but she was unsure of what to say. She didn’t want to say something that would make Max angry or sad, but she didn’t want to have sex with him, either.
Maybe I should just do it, she thought. It’s not that big of a deal . . . right?
He kissed his way down to her neck, trailing his hands down her arms so that he could eventually untie her sarong. Her insecurities and unsureness returned at full force when she felt his hardened length pressing into her. He was completely ready for this and she wasn’t.
TBC...
Stimulation (AU,M/M,Mature) [Complete]
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Rowedog, ISLANDGIRL5, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, FSU/MSW-94, Erina, Hunter, Forum Moderators
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April
- Roswell Fanatic
- Posts: 1557
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:32 am
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roswellluver: yes, Max is DEFINITELY acting like a real jerk, isn't he?
manderly: I try to be quick with the updates, so it's nice to know that you appreciate that!
Thanks for the feedback!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So why were you in jail?”
Michael sighed. Why did everyone he met have to ask him that questions? “I vandalized my school,” he told the cute redhead in front of him in the water.
“How long were you in jail?”
“Not long.”
“What was it like in jail?”
Why the hell did she want to know? “Jail-like,” he answered.
She smiled. “I just love bad boys.” She stood up and got out of the water, showing off her shapely body to Michael. “I’ll be inside,” she said. “Upstairs. Come find me.”
He watched her go, knowing that he had no intention of going to find her. It seemed like all any of the girls he had talked to tonight had known that he had been in jail, and that was all they were interested in. Either that or having a threesome with him and his stepsister.
After the girl left for the warmer interior of the crowded beach house, Michael noticed that the rest of the beach was clearing out as well as the wind kept picking up. He got out of the water, himself, shivering slightly, and reached for his shirt. He slipped it on and started heading for the beach house when he noticed one more person left standing on the beach.
Kyle VaLenti.
“I was thinking about our little confrontation at the game last night,” he said, “and I started wondering what it was all about. You know, I’m not the only guy who wants to bed Maria. Practically every guy with eyes does. You think you can protect her from every single one of them?”
Michael shrugged. “Maybe. Might as well try.”
Kyle chuckled. “That’s really honorable. It is. But you know, I just have this uncontrollable urge right now to kick your ass.”
Michael didn’t think anything of Kyle’s threat. “I can take you,” he promised. “Believe me.”
Kyle smirked, and one by one, his friends came down from the beach house, each smirking in the same exact manner. “Do you really think you can take all of us?”
Six guys was a little different than one guy, and even though Michael felt fairly confident, he wanted to lessen Kyle’s army. “You’re pathetic,” he said. “You need five other guys to stand a chance at beating me.”
Kyle seemed offended. “No, I don’t.” He held out his hand and signaled for his friends not to take part. “You guys can stay there,” he said. “I’m gonna teach Guerin a lesson he’ll never forget.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Max, we don’t wanna do this right here.” Maria was desperately thinking of a way out of this. She was about ten seconds away from physically pushing Max off of her. He hadn’t gone to far yet, but it was clear that he wanted to, and that wasn’t his fault. He was an eighteen-year-old teenage boy with raging hormones that maybe he couldn’t control, and sex wouldn’t be a new experience to him.
“I do,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. Ever so slowly, he began to move one of her bathing suit straps down over her shoulder.
“Max, wait,” she said. He stopped, and when he did, Maria heard a noise. “What was that?” she asked him.
“What was what?”
“Didn’t you hear that?”
“No,” he said. “Come on, Maria.” He tried to bury his face in her neck some more, but she pushed him away and slid out from under him, pushing her strap back up on her shoulder.
“It’s outside,” she said, making her way to the window as the noises intensified. It sounded like someone was fighting.
When she looked out the window, she couldn’t believe what she saw. Between the whirlwind of fists, she could make out both Kyle and Michael, fighting violently on the beach.
“Oh my god,” she said, grabbing her sarong and bolting out of the room. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she had to stop whatever was going on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kyle wasn’t as pathetic as Michael had thought him out to be, he threw some good punches, and though he missed most of the time, the ones that made contact with Michael hurt like hell, especially the one that hit his stomach and knocked him to the ground where he landed on something sharp.
“Why are you defending her like this?” Kyle asked as they stood face to face, each waiting to see who would make the next move. “She’s just a stupid whore.”
Something snapped in Michael when Kyle said those words in reference to Maria, and he charged forward, knocking Kyle to the ground. He hit his face, and then he hit it again. And again. And again. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to stop until he heard someone calling his name.
“Michael! Michael!”
The next thing he knew, Maria was grabbing him by the shoulders, pulling him away from a battered Kyle. “Michael!” she shouted again, shaking him violently. She looked like she wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she could only look at him in disbelief, and he couldn’t do so much as provide her with an explanation at the moment.
“Max, let’s go home.”
“What? Why?”
Maria seemed to be growing exasperated. “Max, let’s just go.”
“I don’t wanna go.”
“Well, I’m going,” Maria said decidedly, standing up and practically pulling Michael up with her. “And so are you,” she told him.
He followed her to the car trying to conceal his pain. He knew he had taken some hits, but it was hurting most around his rib cage. Maria must have noticed though, because she didn’t even give Michael a chance to get in the driver’s seat and drive home. She drove them both home going well over the speed limit, almost hitting a few signs, and in silence. She didn’t ask him what had been going on out on that beach, but it was perfectly clear that she was wondering.
When they arrived home, she shut the car door and entered the house quietly, signaling for Michael to be quiet as well.
“I think they’re in their room,” she whispered quietly, helping Michael find his way through the dark house and into the kitchen area. “We should be okay. Come here.” She pulled two chairs out from the counter and motioned for him to sit down on one of them. He watched as she hurried quietly into the bathroom and came back out with a wet washcloth and some bandages and anti-bacterial cream. She sat across from him and started dabbing at a fairly good-sized cut on his forehead and above his eyebrow.
“What were you doing, Michael?” she asked him. “You can’t just go around starting fights with people.”
“I didn’t start that fight with Kyle,” he explained. “He started it with me.”
“Why did you react?”
“He was saying some stuff,” he answered, wincing slightly as she covered the cut with the anti-bacterial cream and he felt the sting.
“What could he possibly say that was so bad?”
Michael sighed. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell her or not. For a second, he thought about lying to her, but he realized immediately that he couldn’t do that. “He called you a stupid whore,” he explained.
“Oh,” she said. She looked both surprised and saddened that such things were thought about her, but she soon shook it off. “But, Michael, that’s just Kyle. That’s the way he is. You get used to the stuff that he says.”
“I just can’t stand the guy.”
“I can’t either,” she admitted in agreement. She placed a small band-aid carefully over the cut above his eyebrow and asked, “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “He hit me pretty hard around my ribs, though.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She collected the trash and threw it away put the anti-bacterial cream away as well.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt worse,” she said on her way down to the laundry room. “Kyle’s been known to be a pretty good fighter.”
Michael could not stop a smile from coming across his face as he said, “I’m better.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria opened the door to her parents’ room and peered inside quietly. They were laying in bed talking, but they were not asleep yet.
“Hey, we’re back,” she announced.
“Well, you’re home early,” Amy commented. “Did the party get boring?”
“Yeah,” Maria lied. “It did.” That party had been the farthest thing possible away from boring. In fact, it had been so crazy and out of control at times that it had started to suck. “I think I’m just gonna get ready for bed and go to sleep,” she said. “Goodnight.” She closed the door and made her way down the hallway to her room. She got out of her damp bathing suit and into her pajamas, then headed into the bathroom to brush her teeth and comb her hair. As she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she couldn’t help thinking back on what a strange night it had been. First that guy had approached her in hopes that she would be interested in participating in a whipped cream bikini contest, and then those two girls had suggested a foursome with her and Michael. Then she had come so close to having sex with Max when she wasn’t ready just because she knew he was. And then there had been that whole fight with Michael and Kyle, which, of course, had been about her. Some people loved it when everything was always about them. Maria was getting sick of it.
She wanted to just lay down in her bed and go right to sleep, but she found that impossible the minute her head hit the pillow. She laid for a good fifteen minutes in her room and then got out from under the covers, heading across the hallway to Michael’s room. She knocked on the door and entered when he told her to come in. He was sitting straight up in his bed, holding onto his side slightly, apparently where Kyle had hit him the hardest. He didn’t appear to be sleeping at all, either.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Could you?”
He shook his head.
“I hope you don’t mind if I just hang out in here for awhile,” she said, moving toward his bed.
“I don’t mind at all,” he said, sliding over slightly so that she had room to lay down.
She got comfortable under the covers and grabbed the remote control from his night stand, turning on the television and flipping to a channel that played Will and Grace marathons almost constantly. “I won’t stay in here the whole night,” she told him. “Just long enough to watch a few episodes of Will and Grace.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael woke the next day to the soft hum of his television. He sat up halfway, supporting himself on his elbows, and struggled to open his eyes. He squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight and searched around his room for the remote control. He found it laying next to Maria, who had fallen asleep in the middle of their Will and Grace marathon in his bed. She didn’t look like she had any intention of waking up yet, so Michael tried to get out of the bed as quietly and unnoticeably as possible.
He shut the television off on his way to the bathroom and proceeded to get ready for the morning. When he finished showering, shaving, and getting dressed, he glanced at his watch and found that it was much later than he thought it was. Apparently neither he nor Maria had heard his alarm go off.
“Maria,” he said, gently tapping her on the shoulder. “Maria, you gotta get up.”
She shook her head a little and rolled over, burying her face in Michael’s pillow.
“It’s 7:30,” he told her. “We gotta get to school soon.”
She shook her head again, but this time she started yawning and rubbing her eyes and stretching her legs as if she were about to get up. “Too early,” she said sleepily.
Michael left her alone to wake up and headed downstairs to eat some breakfast. Nothing fancy. Just a bowl of cereal and some juice. But it was ten times better than he’d ever eaten back in Roswell.
Maria came downstairs just as he was finishing up. She was still in her pajamas, she hadn’t yet gone to fix her hair, and she didn’t have any make-up on, but she was still so pretty. Michael could see why Kyle and every other guy in Long Beach had it in for her. He had known from the second he saw her that she was gorgeous. Every guy with eyes knew that. Hell, if she hadn’t have been his stepsister, he might have pursued something with her, but since that wasn’t even a consideration in his mind at this point, he was going to make sure that he kept her away from guys whose intentions were not pure.
He chuckled at the thought. Funny. I used to be one of those guys.
“It’s quiet this morning,” he commented. “Are your mom and dad even up yet?”
“Yeah, they are,” Maria said, reaching up in the cabinet for the same box of cereal Michael had grabbed earlier. “I think they went to some sort of invitational party thing for the day over at the Hilton.”
“The Hilton,” Michael echoed. “Pricy.”
“Worth every penny,” she said as she poured a large amount of milk into her cereal. “What time is it, Michael?”
Michael glanced at his watch again. “It’s 7:40 now.”
Maria slammed the milk carton down on the counter and made a mad dash for the stairs. “Forget breakfast!” she exclaimed as she took the stairs two at a time.
When she came back downstairs at 8:05, she was calmer. She had her hair curled now, and she was wearing a new dress she had purchased on one of her many shopping trips. She had her make up now, too, and she appeared to be satisfied with the way she looked.
“Record timing,” she said in reference to her getting ready. “Ready to go?”
Michael nodded and grabbed the keys, following Maria out the front door and to the dented Ford Taurus in the driveway. He didn’t get in the car. Instead, he stood by the driver’s side door, jingling the keys in his hand. “Wanna drive?” he asked her.
“I’m not supposed to drive,” she reminded him.
“You drove home last night,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but that was under a critical circumstance. I thought you had broken ribs or something.” Even as she said this, he saw her getting out of the car slowly at first, and then excitedly. “You’re the best, Michael!” she exclaimed enthusiastically, seizing the keys from him and climbing in.
“How many times have you read that book now?” Michael asked as he got into the passenger’s seat. “You know, the driving one.”
She shrugged and started up the car. “I don’t know. Probably fifty times by now. It just doesn’t help. It doesn’t tell you everything you need to know.” She carefully began to back out of the driveway. “It doesn’t tell you how to back out of a driveway when you’ve got rocks jutting out on both sides.”
“Here,” Michael said, placing his hand on the wheel beside hers. “The key is to just keep looking behind you on both sides and turn the wheel slightly when you need to.” He helped her back out of the driveway and get onto the street smoothly.
“See, my dad never tells me anything like that,” Maria said. “He just yells at me.” She shifted into drive and started down the street. “I should really do something sometime to bond with him again.”
“You two seemed pretty close at first,” Michael said.
“Yeah, at first,” Maria agreed. She slammed on her break when she reached the stop sign and sent Michael jolting forward a little. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A familiar pair of hands touched Maria’s shoulders and she put her books into her neatly organized locker, and even though they were familiar, she couldn’t stop herself from spinning around in surprise.
“So Kyle’s telling everybody he got his black eye from a gang,” Max told her. “I don’t blame him, really. I wouldn’t want everybody to know Guerin beat me up. Although a lot of people already know. Imagine the humiliation.”
Maria wasn’t sure what he meant by that, so she didn’t say anything.
“Why did Michael beat him up anyway?”
“Michael didn’t beat him up,” she corrected. “They had a fight.”
“Same thing. So why?”
“Why?” Maria echoed like she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Why did they fight?”
She thought about telling him that Michael had been defending her, but she decided against it. Max didn’t need to know. “I have no idea,” she said, lying straight to her boyfriend’s face. She shut her locker and tried to walk away from Max, but he followed her, placing his arm around her shoulders. She felt a shiver run through her body at his touch. She was feeling awkward around him right now since things had almost progressed at that beach party.
Before they had even made it halfway down the hallway, Liz caught up to them. “Maria, that’s an interesting dress. I think you should stay away from lavender in the future,” she said.
“Thanks for the constant fashion critiques, Liz,” Maria said sarcastically. “You have such great advice.”
“I know I do.”
“I’m sure all of those puke green sweaters you have in your closet are gonna be the next big thing.”
“Would you two stop?” Max asked, exasperated. He turned to his sister. “Liz, leave.”
She just stood there for a moment, and Maria was starting to think that she was never going to leave when she actually did. Thank God.
“Why do we hang out with her again?” she asked Max.
“Because she’s my sister.”
“So? That doesn’t mean anything. We can just ditch her.”
“I wish we could,” Max agreed. “But you know how my parents are with Liz. She’s the baby. Gotta have friends.”
“Well, did you talk to them about it?” Maria asked him hopefully. Max had promised some time ago that he would talk to his parents and get it so that they wouldn’t be forcing him to hang out with Liz.
“Yeah, I did,” he said.
“So we can stop hanging out with her?”
Max shook his head slowly.
“WHAT?” she shrieked. “Max, you promised you’d get through to them!”
“Yeah, but that’s before they promised me a new car.”
Maria sighed. This was typical. She should have known that Max’s parents would bribe him with a new car to get him to do something they wanted him to. She should have known Max would accept that bribe like he always did. “What kind?” she asked, uninterested.
“I don’t know,” Max said, “something expensive. They’re gonna let me pick it out. I’ve already got something in mind.”
He was so excited about his new car, and Maria felt a little bad that she couldn’t match his excitement. “What do you have in mind?” she asked mechanically.
“I was thinking about something where we can make out in the backseat,” he said with a suggestive grin.
“Well, that narrows it down.”
“Something that we’ll look good in when we ride to school together,” he continued. “If we ever ride to school together again.”
Maria didn’t say anything. The truth was, she felt a lot more comfortable riding with Michael than with Max. He wasn’t constantly trying to feel her up on the way to school. Plus, he’d agreed to let her drive every morning, which was something that Max never did.
“You’re always riding with Michael,” Max said.
“Well, it’s just more convenient. This way you don’t have to stop by my house to pick me up, so . . . so you conserve gas. And therefore save money. And I know you like your money.” She was rambling and she knew it.
“True,” he agreed. “But I like you, too.” The bell rang before he could say more, so he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and headed back the way they had come for his first class. Maria just stood there for a short time and let the other students pass by her. Things were getting more and more complicated with Max by the day, and she was starting to worry that if she didn’t progress things with him, he wouldn’t want to be with her anymore. And she had to be with Max. People expected it.
TBC...
manderly: I try to be quick with the updates, so it's nice to know that you appreciate that!
Thanks for the feedback!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So why were you in jail?”
Michael sighed. Why did everyone he met have to ask him that questions? “I vandalized my school,” he told the cute redhead in front of him in the water.
“How long were you in jail?”
“Not long.”
“What was it like in jail?”
Why the hell did she want to know? “Jail-like,” he answered.
She smiled. “I just love bad boys.” She stood up and got out of the water, showing off her shapely body to Michael. “I’ll be inside,” she said. “Upstairs. Come find me.”
He watched her go, knowing that he had no intention of going to find her. It seemed like all any of the girls he had talked to tonight had known that he had been in jail, and that was all they were interested in. Either that or having a threesome with him and his stepsister.
After the girl left for the warmer interior of the crowded beach house, Michael noticed that the rest of the beach was clearing out as well as the wind kept picking up. He got out of the water, himself, shivering slightly, and reached for his shirt. He slipped it on and started heading for the beach house when he noticed one more person left standing on the beach.
Kyle VaLenti.
“I was thinking about our little confrontation at the game last night,” he said, “and I started wondering what it was all about. You know, I’m not the only guy who wants to bed Maria. Practically every guy with eyes does. You think you can protect her from every single one of them?”
Michael shrugged. “Maybe. Might as well try.”
Kyle chuckled. “That’s really honorable. It is. But you know, I just have this uncontrollable urge right now to kick your ass.”
Michael didn’t think anything of Kyle’s threat. “I can take you,” he promised. “Believe me.”
Kyle smirked, and one by one, his friends came down from the beach house, each smirking in the same exact manner. “Do you really think you can take all of us?”
Six guys was a little different than one guy, and even though Michael felt fairly confident, he wanted to lessen Kyle’s army. “You’re pathetic,” he said. “You need five other guys to stand a chance at beating me.”
Kyle seemed offended. “No, I don’t.” He held out his hand and signaled for his friends not to take part. “You guys can stay there,” he said. “I’m gonna teach Guerin a lesson he’ll never forget.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Max, we don’t wanna do this right here.” Maria was desperately thinking of a way out of this. She was about ten seconds away from physically pushing Max off of her. He hadn’t gone to far yet, but it was clear that he wanted to, and that wasn’t his fault. He was an eighteen-year-old teenage boy with raging hormones that maybe he couldn’t control, and sex wouldn’t be a new experience to him.
“I do,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. Ever so slowly, he began to move one of her bathing suit straps down over her shoulder.
“Max, wait,” she said. He stopped, and when he did, Maria heard a noise. “What was that?” she asked him.
“What was what?”
“Didn’t you hear that?”
“No,” he said. “Come on, Maria.” He tried to bury his face in her neck some more, but she pushed him away and slid out from under him, pushing her strap back up on her shoulder.
“It’s outside,” she said, making her way to the window as the noises intensified. It sounded like someone was fighting.
When she looked out the window, she couldn’t believe what she saw. Between the whirlwind of fists, she could make out both Kyle and Michael, fighting violently on the beach.
“Oh my god,” she said, grabbing her sarong and bolting out of the room. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she had to stop whatever was going on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kyle wasn’t as pathetic as Michael had thought him out to be, he threw some good punches, and though he missed most of the time, the ones that made contact with Michael hurt like hell, especially the one that hit his stomach and knocked him to the ground where he landed on something sharp.
“Why are you defending her like this?” Kyle asked as they stood face to face, each waiting to see who would make the next move. “She’s just a stupid whore.”
Something snapped in Michael when Kyle said those words in reference to Maria, and he charged forward, knocking Kyle to the ground. He hit his face, and then he hit it again. And again. And again. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to stop until he heard someone calling his name.
“Michael! Michael!”
The next thing he knew, Maria was grabbing him by the shoulders, pulling him away from a battered Kyle. “Michael!” she shouted again, shaking him violently. She looked like she wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she could only look at him in disbelief, and he couldn’t do so much as provide her with an explanation at the moment.
“Max, let’s go home.”
“What? Why?”
Maria seemed to be growing exasperated. “Max, let’s just go.”
“I don’t wanna go.”
“Well, I’m going,” Maria said decidedly, standing up and practically pulling Michael up with her. “And so are you,” she told him.
He followed her to the car trying to conceal his pain. He knew he had taken some hits, but it was hurting most around his rib cage. Maria must have noticed though, because she didn’t even give Michael a chance to get in the driver’s seat and drive home. She drove them both home going well over the speed limit, almost hitting a few signs, and in silence. She didn’t ask him what had been going on out on that beach, but it was perfectly clear that she was wondering.
When they arrived home, she shut the car door and entered the house quietly, signaling for Michael to be quiet as well.
“I think they’re in their room,” she whispered quietly, helping Michael find his way through the dark house and into the kitchen area. “We should be okay. Come here.” She pulled two chairs out from the counter and motioned for him to sit down on one of them. He watched as she hurried quietly into the bathroom and came back out with a wet washcloth and some bandages and anti-bacterial cream. She sat across from him and started dabbing at a fairly good-sized cut on his forehead and above his eyebrow.
“What were you doing, Michael?” she asked him. “You can’t just go around starting fights with people.”
“I didn’t start that fight with Kyle,” he explained. “He started it with me.”
“Why did you react?”
“He was saying some stuff,” he answered, wincing slightly as she covered the cut with the anti-bacterial cream and he felt the sting.
“What could he possibly say that was so bad?”
Michael sighed. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell her or not. For a second, he thought about lying to her, but he realized immediately that he couldn’t do that. “He called you a stupid whore,” he explained.
“Oh,” she said. She looked both surprised and saddened that such things were thought about her, but she soon shook it off. “But, Michael, that’s just Kyle. That’s the way he is. You get used to the stuff that he says.”
“I just can’t stand the guy.”
“I can’t either,” she admitted in agreement. She placed a small band-aid carefully over the cut above his eyebrow and asked, “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “He hit me pretty hard around my ribs, though.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She collected the trash and threw it away put the anti-bacterial cream away as well.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt worse,” she said on her way down to the laundry room. “Kyle’s been known to be a pretty good fighter.”
Michael could not stop a smile from coming across his face as he said, “I’m better.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria opened the door to her parents’ room and peered inside quietly. They were laying in bed talking, but they were not asleep yet.
“Hey, we’re back,” she announced.
“Well, you’re home early,” Amy commented. “Did the party get boring?”
“Yeah,” Maria lied. “It did.” That party had been the farthest thing possible away from boring. In fact, it had been so crazy and out of control at times that it had started to suck. “I think I’m just gonna get ready for bed and go to sleep,” she said. “Goodnight.” She closed the door and made her way down the hallway to her room. She got out of her damp bathing suit and into her pajamas, then headed into the bathroom to brush her teeth and comb her hair. As she looked at her reflection in the mirror, she couldn’t help thinking back on what a strange night it had been. First that guy had approached her in hopes that she would be interested in participating in a whipped cream bikini contest, and then those two girls had suggested a foursome with her and Michael. Then she had come so close to having sex with Max when she wasn’t ready just because she knew he was. And then there had been that whole fight with Michael and Kyle, which, of course, had been about her. Some people loved it when everything was always about them. Maria was getting sick of it.
She wanted to just lay down in her bed and go right to sleep, but she found that impossible the minute her head hit the pillow. She laid for a good fifteen minutes in her room and then got out from under the covers, heading across the hallway to Michael’s room. She knocked on the door and entered when he told her to come in. He was sitting straight up in his bed, holding onto his side slightly, apparently where Kyle had hit him the hardest. He didn’t appear to be sleeping at all, either.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Could you?”
He shook his head.
“I hope you don’t mind if I just hang out in here for awhile,” she said, moving toward his bed.
“I don’t mind at all,” he said, sliding over slightly so that she had room to lay down.
She got comfortable under the covers and grabbed the remote control from his night stand, turning on the television and flipping to a channel that played Will and Grace marathons almost constantly. “I won’t stay in here the whole night,” she told him. “Just long enough to watch a few episodes of Will and Grace.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael woke the next day to the soft hum of his television. He sat up halfway, supporting himself on his elbows, and struggled to open his eyes. He squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight and searched around his room for the remote control. He found it laying next to Maria, who had fallen asleep in the middle of their Will and Grace marathon in his bed. She didn’t look like she had any intention of waking up yet, so Michael tried to get out of the bed as quietly and unnoticeably as possible.
He shut the television off on his way to the bathroom and proceeded to get ready for the morning. When he finished showering, shaving, and getting dressed, he glanced at his watch and found that it was much later than he thought it was. Apparently neither he nor Maria had heard his alarm go off.
“Maria,” he said, gently tapping her on the shoulder. “Maria, you gotta get up.”
She shook her head a little and rolled over, burying her face in Michael’s pillow.
“It’s 7:30,” he told her. “We gotta get to school soon.”
She shook her head again, but this time she started yawning and rubbing her eyes and stretching her legs as if she were about to get up. “Too early,” she said sleepily.
Michael left her alone to wake up and headed downstairs to eat some breakfast. Nothing fancy. Just a bowl of cereal and some juice. But it was ten times better than he’d ever eaten back in Roswell.
Maria came downstairs just as he was finishing up. She was still in her pajamas, she hadn’t yet gone to fix her hair, and she didn’t have any make-up on, but she was still so pretty. Michael could see why Kyle and every other guy in Long Beach had it in for her. He had known from the second he saw her that she was gorgeous. Every guy with eyes knew that. Hell, if she hadn’t have been his stepsister, he might have pursued something with her, but since that wasn’t even a consideration in his mind at this point, he was going to make sure that he kept her away from guys whose intentions were not pure.
He chuckled at the thought. Funny. I used to be one of those guys.
“It’s quiet this morning,” he commented. “Are your mom and dad even up yet?”
“Yeah, they are,” Maria said, reaching up in the cabinet for the same box of cereal Michael had grabbed earlier. “I think they went to some sort of invitational party thing for the day over at the Hilton.”
“The Hilton,” Michael echoed. “Pricy.”
“Worth every penny,” she said as she poured a large amount of milk into her cereal. “What time is it, Michael?”
Michael glanced at his watch again. “It’s 7:40 now.”
Maria slammed the milk carton down on the counter and made a mad dash for the stairs. “Forget breakfast!” she exclaimed as she took the stairs two at a time.
When she came back downstairs at 8:05, she was calmer. She had her hair curled now, and she was wearing a new dress she had purchased on one of her many shopping trips. She had her make up now, too, and she appeared to be satisfied with the way she looked.
“Record timing,” she said in reference to her getting ready. “Ready to go?”
Michael nodded and grabbed the keys, following Maria out the front door and to the dented Ford Taurus in the driveway. He didn’t get in the car. Instead, he stood by the driver’s side door, jingling the keys in his hand. “Wanna drive?” he asked her.
“I’m not supposed to drive,” she reminded him.
“You drove home last night,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but that was under a critical circumstance. I thought you had broken ribs or something.” Even as she said this, he saw her getting out of the car slowly at first, and then excitedly. “You’re the best, Michael!” she exclaimed enthusiastically, seizing the keys from him and climbing in.
“How many times have you read that book now?” Michael asked as he got into the passenger’s seat. “You know, the driving one.”
She shrugged and started up the car. “I don’t know. Probably fifty times by now. It just doesn’t help. It doesn’t tell you everything you need to know.” She carefully began to back out of the driveway. “It doesn’t tell you how to back out of a driveway when you’ve got rocks jutting out on both sides.”
“Here,” Michael said, placing his hand on the wheel beside hers. “The key is to just keep looking behind you on both sides and turn the wheel slightly when you need to.” He helped her back out of the driveway and get onto the street smoothly.
“See, my dad never tells me anything like that,” Maria said. “He just yells at me.” She shifted into drive and started down the street. “I should really do something sometime to bond with him again.”
“You two seemed pretty close at first,” Michael said.
“Yeah, at first,” Maria agreed. She slammed on her break when she reached the stop sign and sent Michael jolting forward a little. She gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A familiar pair of hands touched Maria’s shoulders and she put her books into her neatly organized locker, and even though they were familiar, she couldn’t stop herself from spinning around in surprise.
“So Kyle’s telling everybody he got his black eye from a gang,” Max told her. “I don’t blame him, really. I wouldn’t want everybody to know Guerin beat me up. Although a lot of people already know. Imagine the humiliation.”
Maria wasn’t sure what he meant by that, so she didn’t say anything.
“Why did Michael beat him up anyway?”
“Michael didn’t beat him up,” she corrected. “They had a fight.”
“Same thing. So why?”
“Why?” Maria echoed like she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Why did they fight?”
She thought about telling him that Michael had been defending her, but she decided against it. Max didn’t need to know. “I have no idea,” she said, lying straight to her boyfriend’s face. She shut her locker and tried to walk away from Max, but he followed her, placing his arm around her shoulders. She felt a shiver run through her body at his touch. She was feeling awkward around him right now since things had almost progressed at that beach party.
Before they had even made it halfway down the hallway, Liz caught up to them. “Maria, that’s an interesting dress. I think you should stay away from lavender in the future,” she said.
“Thanks for the constant fashion critiques, Liz,” Maria said sarcastically. “You have such great advice.”
“I know I do.”
“I’m sure all of those puke green sweaters you have in your closet are gonna be the next big thing.”
“Would you two stop?” Max asked, exasperated. He turned to his sister. “Liz, leave.”
She just stood there for a moment, and Maria was starting to think that she was never going to leave when she actually did. Thank God.
“Why do we hang out with her again?” she asked Max.
“Because she’s my sister.”
“So? That doesn’t mean anything. We can just ditch her.”
“I wish we could,” Max agreed. “But you know how my parents are with Liz. She’s the baby. Gotta have friends.”
“Well, did you talk to them about it?” Maria asked him hopefully. Max had promised some time ago that he would talk to his parents and get it so that they wouldn’t be forcing him to hang out with Liz.
“Yeah, I did,” he said.
“So we can stop hanging out with her?”
Max shook his head slowly.
“WHAT?” she shrieked. “Max, you promised you’d get through to them!”
“Yeah, but that’s before they promised me a new car.”
Maria sighed. This was typical. She should have known that Max’s parents would bribe him with a new car to get him to do something they wanted him to. She should have known Max would accept that bribe like he always did. “What kind?” she asked, uninterested.
“I don’t know,” Max said, “something expensive. They’re gonna let me pick it out. I’ve already got something in mind.”
He was so excited about his new car, and Maria felt a little bad that she couldn’t match his excitement. “What do you have in mind?” she asked mechanically.
“I was thinking about something where we can make out in the backseat,” he said with a suggestive grin.
“Well, that narrows it down.”
“Something that we’ll look good in when we ride to school together,” he continued. “If we ever ride to school together again.”
Maria didn’t say anything. The truth was, she felt a lot more comfortable riding with Michael than with Max. He wasn’t constantly trying to feel her up on the way to school. Plus, he’d agreed to let her drive every morning, which was something that Max never did.
“You’re always riding with Michael,” Max said.
“Well, it’s just more convenient. This way you don’t have to stop by my house to pick me up, so . . . so you conserve gas. And therefore save money. And I know you like your money.” She was rambling and she knew it.
“True,” he agreed. “But I like you, too.” The bell rang before he could say more, so he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and headed back the way they had come for his first class. Maria just stood there for a short time and let the other students pass by her. Things were getting more and more complicated with Max by the day, and she was starting to worry that if she didn’t progress things with him, he wouldn’t want to be with her anymore. And she had to be with Max. People expected it.
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
- Roswell Fanatic
- Posts: 1557
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New Part
Days combined to form weeks. Weeks added up to reach the end of November. Thanksgiving passed by almost unnoticed to Maria. Her parents decided to spend Thanksgiving break up in New York so that they could see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade instead of spending it with their daughter. Maria was glad when the holiday passed. She didn’t mind being off school, but no school meant that she had too much time on her hands, and so did everyone else. Max had come over many times over the break, and Liz had tagged along to see Michael. Once in awhile, Isabel and Alex would stop by for a short time, but they were so busy planning their wedding that they didn’t have a lot of time to just hang out. That was why going back to school was not as hard as Maria had expected it to be. A sense of normalcy returned when she woke up early and went downstairs to eat breakfast with Michael and her mother while her father was off shooting another episode for his beloved television show.
It wasn’t a perfect normalcy. Even though it seemed that way to many, it wasn’t.
Should I put in a combination jump sequence here? Maria asked herself as she danced in the basement one night after school. She watched herself doing a sequence of jumps in the mirrors and couldn’t help but smile. She was having inspiration for this new dance. If the rest of the team could master it and work out the complicated jump sequence, it would definitely wow the crowd.
Maria reached over and pressed the play button on her sound system. The music started up immediately, echoing throughout the basement. She started to move with the beat, going through the motions she had choreographed in her head.
Reach right. Reach left. Roll down. Roll up. Shake it slow. Shake it fast. Pike jump. Splits.
Just as she was reaching the jump sequence, the music stopped. She spun around to see that Michael had pressed stop. She hadn’t even noticed his reflection in the mirror while she had been dancing.
“Oh, hey,” she said, out of breath. She reached for her water bottle and took a nice big gulp.
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt or anything. It’s just . . . your dad wants to talk to you.”
“Imagine that.”
“He looks kinda . . . pissed off,” Michael told her, “just so you know.”
Great, she thought sarcastically. She had been having a relatively good day. School had been fun, Liz had been absent, and her dance was coming along great. Leave it to her dad to ruin it.
“I guess I should go see what this is all about,” she said, setting her water down and heading up the stairs.
“Hey, Maria,” Michael said when she was halfway up the stairs. “That looked like a pretty cool dance.”
“Thanks,” she told him, then she continued up the stairs. She was so happy that Michael had liked her dance that she wasn’t prepared when she bumped into her father at the top of the stairs. Her angry father.
“What’s up, Dad?” she asked him, trying to keep things lighthearted as long as she could.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move. He just stood there glaring at her with that same angry glare.
“Okay, this whole statue thing,” Maria said, heading on into the living room, “is getting pretty weird.” She sat down on the couch, and seconds later, as she was about to turn on the television, he was standing in front of her with his arms crossed over his chest. Still angry.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“I’m sitting down,” she answered slowly, confused by his question, “planning to watch TV.”
“What are you doing with your life?” he asked, his question clearer this time.
“I’m doing a lot,” she answered. “You wouldn’t know, though. You’re never around.”
He grunted. “You’re doing a lot. What are you doing? Dancing?”
“Oh, right, I forgot. Dancing’s pointless,” she said. “Didn’t you say that one time?”
“I did,” he said, “and I still believe it. There are better things you could be doing. You could be learning how to drive.”
“Actually I couldn’t. You won’t let me.” She didn’t bother telling him that she had been practicing with Michael whenever she could for several weeks now.
“You could be taking some steps to becoming an actress,” he continued. “You could be landing some commercials. Just something small. You could . . .”
“I don’t wanna act,” she blurted, finding that it was the time to tell him. “I don’t wanna be an actress, Dad! I don’t know when you decided I do! I don’t wanna do the things you do, Dad! I don’t wanna land commercials! I don’t wanna go to that prestigious acting school you’re always telling me about! I don’t know when you decided that I wanna be famous!”
Jim seemed taken aback. Apparently he had no idea that she never wanted it. He had always been blind to it. “What do you want to do, then?” he finally asked. “Dance? Then go to Vegas, Maria, and get a job as one of those showgirls and waste your life the way you’re planning to.”
“I’m not planning to waste my life!” she shouted back, tears stinging her eyes. She refused to let them fall. She refused to let him see her cry.
A picture of her father and herself when she was four flashed across her mind. It was a picture she had sitting in her room, framed in a very special frame. They were on the merry-go-round at Disney World. Maria hadn’t even been tall enough to reach the slots for her feet on the horse, so Jim had stood beside her and held her on.
“I can’t believe you’re like this now,” she said, jumping up from her seat on the couch and pushing past Jim. She bolted up the stairs, forcing her tears to stay in. When she reached her bedroom, she fell on top of her bed and let them fall until she could cry no more.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael arrived home the next night feeling overjoyed. He had completed all of his community service hours by the beginning of December. He thought for sure that he would still be trying to complete them when it came time for graduation.
Before he entered the DeLuca house, he tried to tone down his joy. He recalled the fight he had heard between Maria and Jim the night before. It had sure seemed like Jim had ripped into Maria, and he had known that she was in her room crying when he had heard her door shut. She hadn’t come down for the rest of the night, and she had refused to eat any dinner. At school, she had seemed okay, but that was because there had been people to impress, and Michael knew that Maria felt she was expected to impress people.
When he stepped inside and found Maria in the kitchen, though, he got a pleasant surprise.
“Hi, Michael!” she said cheerily with a big smile on her face.
“Hi,” he said, unable to hide his confusion.
“Did you have fun on the trash pick-up?”
“Well, not really,” he said, “but I’ve got some good news.” He figured that she seemed joyful enough herself that it was fine to tell her. “I finished all my community service.”
“That’s great!” she exclaimed.
“I know,” he said, unable to keep a smile off of his face. He was so happy to have the whole vandalizing-the-school-back-in-Roswell deal finally behind him. For good.
“I’m really happy for you,” she said.
“Yeah,” Michael said, “you know, you seem really happy altogether. You okay?”
“So now it’s strange for me to be happy?” she asked. She used a spatula to flip over a grilled cheese sandwich she was making. Michael hadn’t even noticed that she was cooking.
“No, it’s not strange,” Michael said, regretting the way it had come out. “I just didn’t know if . . . you know, with that whole thing with you and your dad last night . . . I just thought that . . .”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m gonna apologize to him tonight.”
“Apologize?” Michael echoed in inquiry. “But you don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“I know,” she agreed, “but I really wanna be close to my dad. And sometimes the only way to be close to him is to make him believe that he’s right.”
“But he’s not right.” Michael continued to point out the obvious.
“I know,” she agreed again, “but I really just wanna get rid of the tension between us.”
“So how exactly are you going to do that?”
“Grilled cheese.”
Michael took a look at the grilled cheese sandwich she was making in the frying pan on top of the stove right now. A quick glance to the right showed him that she already had nine sitting out on the counter and two more in the microwave, re-warming them.
“That’s a lot of grilled cheese,” he commented.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Dad loves grilled cheese sandwiches, but he never gets to eat them anymore because he supposed to eat healthy now. But I figured he could splurge for one night.”
“You made all of these?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Amazing, huh?”
“Kinda,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you cook before.”
“That’s ‘cause I don’t,” she said. “I’m not a good cook. Just look how I got these all too dark around the edges.”
“They’re not too dark,” he told her honestly. He knew he wouldn’t have any problem eating one.
“Are you sure?” she asked as she took the last of her twelve grilled cheese sandwiches out of the frying pan and set it down on a paper towel to drain the grease. Before he could answer, a car pulled up in the driveway. “Oh my god, they’re home,” Maria said, quickly placing the last sandwich on a plate before it had time to drain. “Do they all look okay?”
“Yeah,” Michael said, unable to hide his smile as Maria placed a few of the colder ones in the microwave for a few seconds in a panicked state. “Relax, Maria,” he told her. “Your dad’s gonna love it. It’s cool that you’re doing this for him.”
“You think so?”
The door swung open and Amy and Jim entered the house quietly. Jim immediately made his way over to the couch, and Amy immediately made her way into the kitchen. “Something smells good,” she commented. When she eyed the sandwiches, she looked at Michael. “Grilled cheese. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Maria did.”
Amy looked almost shocked. “Maria, you cooked?”
She nodded excitedly. “I made them for Dad,” she said. “Can we eat before they all get cold?”
“Sure,” Amy said. “Jim! Come in the kitchen.”
“I’m resting,” he replied.
“Jim!”
A few seconds later, an exhausted-looking Jim DeLuca stumbled into the kitchen, sitting down in his usual chair at the head of the table. “What’s that smell?” he asked.
“Grilled cheese,” Maria said, placing three of the nicest sandwiches in front of him. “You don’t have to eat them all.”
Jim didn’t say anything, so Maria went back and got a plate for her mother and for Michael, and finally one for herself. She sat down next to her father and across from Michael. She didn’t start to eat, yet. She just stared at her father in anticipation.
“Did you make these, Michael?” Jim asked.
Michael shook his head and took a bite of his first sandwich. It was dark around the edges, true, but it was very good.
“I made them,” Maria told him. “For you. I know you like grilled cheese, so . . .”
“I can’t eat this, Maria,” he interrupted.
“Dad, I know you’re not supposed to, but I think it’d be alright if . . .”
“No, Maria,” he said. “I just can’t eat this. You don’t know how to cook. Look at the edges. They’re all black.”
She seemed a little taken aback. This obviously wasn’t the response she had been hoping for and expecting. “They’re a little darker than I wanted them to be,” she said, “but I wouldn’t say that they’re black.”
“You probably didn’t even let all of the grease drain out,” he continued.
“No, I did,” she said. “Except for the last one. But I gave that one to myself. Your’s are good. I promise.”
“I’m not about to find out.”
Michael watched as tears began to form in her eyes. They glistened, but she didn’t let them fall. “Dad, I made them just for you,” she told him, her voice cracking as the realization that her effort to relieve the tension between them had failed came upon her.
He was still completely unappreciative. “Apparently making grilled cheese sandwiches is too hard for you.”
Maria pushed her plate away from her and got up from her seat, tearing across the dining room and kitchen and up the stairs without another word. She hid her face in her hands as she ran, and Michael knew that she was crying. Michael watched her go, feeling completely helpless. He slowly turned back to Amy and Jim, who were both sitting at the table in complete silence. He first looked to Amy to see what her reaction would be. Any other mother would run upstairs after her daughter or demand answers of her husband’s cruel behavior, but not Amy. Instead, she pushed her plate away from her as if to say, if Jim’s not eating them, I’m not eating them.
Then Michael turned his attention to Jim. He gave him a completely shocked look. Jim didn’t seem to mind. “How can you say that stuff to her?” he asked him. “Why do you say that stuff to her?”
“She needs to hear it from somebody,” he replied.
“No. She doesn’t.” Michael got up from the table, leaving the unappreciative couple behind to bathe in their cruelties. He took the stairs two at a time on his way upstairs, and he was across the hallway and in front of her closed bedroom door in two long strides. He stopped and listened. He could hear her crying from inside, trying to muffle her sounds so that nobody knew she was crying. He knew.
He knocked on the door lightly. She didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if he should leave her alone or not. “Maria,” he said quietly as he opened the door and stepped inside. “Can I come in?”
She didn’t say anything. She just kept crying, her face buried in her pillow.
He took a few steps forward, nearing her shaking, trembling form. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked her.
She still didn’t say anything. She just kept on crying, and he took that as a sign that he should go. He took one step back, and then she looked up at him with tears running down her face. “No,” she begged. “Please don’t leave.”
Slowly, he sat down beside her on her bed and helped her to sit up. He wrapped his arms around her and brought her to him. She held onto him tightly, resting her cheek against his shoulder. He could feel her tears falling off of her cheeks and soaking his shirt as he rubbed his hands up and down her back, but he didn’t pull away. He only held her tighter until they both fell fast asleep that night.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria didn’t want to wake up that next morning. She never wanted to wake up. But she knew it was inevitable, so she started stretching out her limbs and opening her eyes.
She stretched out her arm and hit Michael hard on the chest. The impact woke him up immediately.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I forgot you were there. I’m sorry.”
“I’m okay,” he assured her. “Are, uh . . .” He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure whether to ask his question or not. “Are you?”
“Yeah,” she said honestly. “I think. I’ll be okay. I know I will. I was just feeling bad last night.” She thought back to how much she had been crying. She was surprised that Michael hadn’t just decided to abandon her. She had been a complete charity case. “I’m sorry that I cried so much,” she apologized. “I was just being a big loser.”
“No, you weren’t,” Michael told her. “Your dad was. I don’t know why he says that stuff to you.”
Maria shrugged. “I don’t know, either. I guess that’s just who he’s become. He didn’t used to be like that, you know.”
“He’s still not half as bad as my dad.”
“Yeah,” Maria agreed. “I guess I can be thankful for that.” She had never met Hank Guerin, and she didn’t want to, but from what Michael had told her, he wasn’t a nice guy. She would much rather live with a dad who thought she was doing nothing with her life than with a dad who wasn’t even aware that she was alive. Although neither sounded too appealing.
“I thought your grilled cheese sandwiches were good,” Michael said out of the blue, “if it means anything.”
She smiled. She was so glad that Michael could always find a way to make her smile. “It does,” she told him. “It does. You know, the thing about the sandwiches, it doesn’t seem like a really big deal. It probably seems pretty insignificant, but it’s actually a really big deal. That was my attempt, you know. My attempt to re-bond with my dad, relieve the tension and all that. But he didn’t make an attempt in return, so obviously being close to me isn’t one of his priorities anymore.” She felt tears sting her eyes, but she held them in. She wasn’t going to cry any more about this. This situation wasn’t worth her tears. “But whatever,” she said, shrugging it off as best she could. “I’ll just live with his constant cranky mood and my mom’s mastered act of following.”
“Mastered is a good word for it,” Michael agreed.
Maria let out a deep breath and started shaking her arms. “I’m shaking it off,” she told Michael when he gave her a confused look. “I’m shaking the whole night off. We’re going shopping today. I don’t wanna be in a bad mood.”
“We?” Michael echoed. “Who’s we?”
“Just me and Isabel and Alex and Max. And Little-Miss-Tag-Along-Liz. And you. If you wanna come, that is.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said reluctantly. “I’m not much of a shopper.”
“You don’t even shop,” she pointed out. “You just kinda walk around.”
“True.”
“Michael, I might need you to come along,” she said.
This perplexed him. “Why the hell would you need me to come along?”
“What if Max tries to get me to buy the baby blue swimming suit,” she asked hypothetically, “or worse, another tan one?”
“Well you got Isabel.”
“What if she and Alex are off looking at wedding stuff?”
Michael seemed to debate the idea in his head. She could practically see it bouncing off the walls of his mind. Eventually, he gave in with a long sigh. “I don’t know why I agree to this shit.”
TBC...
Days combined to form weeks. Weeks added up to reach the end of November. Thanksgiving passed by almost unnoticed to Maria. Her parents decided to spend Thanksgiving break up in New York so that they could see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade instead of spending it with their daughter. Maria was glad when the holiday passed. She didn’t mind being off school, but no school meant that she had too much time on her hands, and so did everyone else. Max had come over many times over the break, and Liz had tagged along to see Michael. Once in awhile, Isabel and Alex would stop by for a short time, but they were so busy planning their wedding that they didn’t have a lot of time to just hang out. That was why going back to school was not as hard as Maria had expected it to be. A sense of normalcy returned when she woke up early and went downstairs to eat breakfast with Michael and her mother while her father was off shooting another episode for his beloved television show.
It wasn’t a perfect normalcy. Even though it seemed that way to many, it wasn’t.
Should I put in a combination jump sequence here? Maria asked herself as she danced in the basement one night after school. She watched herself doing a sequence of jumps in the mirrors and couldn’t help but smile. She was having inspiration for this new dance. If the rest of the team could master it and work out the complicated jump sequence, it would definitely wow the crowd.
Maria reached over and pressed the play button on her sound system. The music started up immediately, echoing throughout the basement. She started to move with the beat, going through the motions she had choreographed in her head.
Reach right. Reach left. Roll down. Roll up. Shake it slow. Shake it fast. Pike jump. Splits.
Just as she was reaching the jump sequence, the music stopped. She spun around to see that Michael had pressed stop. She hadn’t even noticed his reflection in the mirror while she had been dancing.
“Oh, hey,” she said, out of breath. She reached for her water bottle and took a nice big gulp.
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt or anything. It’s just . . . your dad wants to talk to you.”
“Imagine that.”
“He looks kinda . . . pissed off,” Michael told her, “just so you know.”
Great, she thought sarcastically. She had been having a relatively good day. School had been fun, Liz had been absent, and her dance was coming along great. Leave it to her dad to ruin it.
“I guess I should go see what this is all about,” she said, setting her water down and heading up the stairs.
“Hey, Maria,” Michael said when she was halfway up the stairs. “That looked like a pretty cool dance.”
“Thanks,” she told him, then she continued up the stairs. She was so happy that Michael had liked her dance that she wasn’t prepared when she bumped into her father at the top of the stairs. Her angry father.
“What’s up, Dad?” she asked him, trying to keep things lighthearted as long as she could.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move. He just stood there glaring at her with that same angry glare.
“Okay, this whole statue thing,” Maria said, heading on into the living room, “is getting pretty weird.” She sat down on the couch, and seconds later, as she was about to turn on the television, he was standing in front of her with his arms crossed over his chest. Still angry.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“I’m sitting down,” she answered slowly, confused by his question, “planning to watch TV.”
“What are you doing with your life?” he asked, his question clearer this time.
“I’m doing a lot,” she answered. “You wouldn’t know, though. You’re never around.”
He grunted. “You’re doing a lot. What are you doing? Dancing?”
“Oh, right, I forgot. Dancing’s pointless,” she said. “Didn’t you say that one time?”
“I did,” he said, “and I still believe it. There are better things you could be doing. You could be learning how to drive.”
“Actually I couldn’t. You won’t let me.” She didn’t bother telling him that she had been practicing with Michael whenever she could for several weeks now.
“You could be taking some steps to becoming an actress,” he continued. “You could be landing some commercials. Just something small. You could . . .”
“I don’t wanna act,” she blurted, finding that it was the time to tell him. “I don’t wanna be an actress, Dad! I don’t know when you decided I do! I don’t wanna do the things you do, Dad! I don’t wanna land commercials! I don’t wanna go to that prestigious acting school you’re always telling me about! I don’t know when you decided that I wanna be famous!”
Jim seemed taken aback. Apparently he had no idea that she never wanted it. He had always been blind to it. “What do you want to do, then?” he finally asked. “Dance? Then go to Vegas, Maria, and get a job as one of those showgirls and waste your life the way you’re planning to.”
“I’m not planning to waste my life!” she shouted back, tears stinging her eyes. She refused to let them fall. She refused to let him see her cry.
A picture of her father and herself when she was four flashed across her mind. It was a picture she had sitting in her room, framed in a very special frame. They were on the merry-go-round at Disney World. Maria hadn’t even been tall enough to reach the slots for her feet on the horse, so Jim had stood beside her and held her on.
“I can’t believe you’re like this now,” she said, jumping up from her seat on the couch and pushing past Jim. She bolted up the stairs, forcing her tears to stay in. When she reached her bedroom, she fell on top of her bed and let them fall until she could cry no more.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael arrived home the next night feeling overjoyed. He had completed all of his community service hours by the beginning of December. He thought for sure that he would still be trying to complete them when it came time for graduation.
Before he entered the DeLuca house, he tried to tone down his joy. He recalled the fight he had heard between Maria and Jim the night before. It had sure seemed like Jim had ripped into Maria, and he had known that she was in her room crying when he had heard her door shut. She hadn’t come down for the rest of the night, and she had refused to eat any dinner. At school, she had seemed okay, but that was because there had been people to impress, and Michael knew that Maria felt she was expected to impress people.
When he stepped inside and found Maria in the kitchen, though, he got a pleasant surprise.
“Hi, Michael!” she said cheerily with a big smile on her face.
“Hi,” he said, unable to hide his confusion.
“Did you have fun on the trash pick-up?”
“Well, not really,” he said, “but I’ve got some good news.” He figured that she seemed joyful enough herself that it was fine to tell her. “I finished all my community service.”
“That’s great!” she exclaimed.
“I know,” he said, unable to keep a smile off of his face. He was so happy to have the whole vandalizing-the-school-back-in-Roswell deal finally behind him. For good.
“I’m really happy for you,” she said.
“Yeah,” Michael said, “you know, you seem really happy altogether. You okay?”
“So now it’s strange for me to be happy?” she asked. She used a spatula to flip over a grilled cheese sandwich she was making. Michael hadn’t even noticed that she was cooking.
“No, it’s not strange,” Michael said, regretting the way it had come out. “I just didn’t know if . . . you know, with that whole thing with you and your dad last night . . . I just thought that . . .”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m gonna apologize to him tonight.”
“Apologize?” Michael echoed in inquiry. “But you don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“I know,” she agreed, “but I really wanna be close to my dad. And sometimes the only way to be close to him is to make him believe that he’s right.”
“But he’s not right.” Michael continued to point out the obvious.
“I know,” she agreed again, “but I really just wanna get rid of the tension between us.”
“So how exactly are you going to do that?”
“Grilled cheese.”
Michael took a look at the grilled cheese sandwich she was making in the frying pan on top of the stove right now. A quick glance to the right showed him that she already had nine sitting out on the counter and two more in the microwave, re-warming them.
“That’s a lot of grilled cheese,” he commented.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Dad loves grilled cheese sandwiches, but he never gets to eat them anymore because he supposed to eat healthy now. But I figured he could splurge for one night.”
“You made all of these?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Amazing, huh?”
“Kinda,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you cook before.”
“That’s ‘cause I don’t,” she said. “I’m not a good cook. Just look how I got these all too dark around the edges.”
“They’re not too dark,” he told her honestly. He knew he wouldn’t have any problem eating one.
“Are you sure?” she asked as she took the last of her twelve grilled cheese sandwiches out of the frying pan and set it down on a paper towel to drain the grease. Before he could answer, a car pulled up in the driveway. “Oh my god, they’re home,” Maria said, quickly placing the last sandwich on a plate before it had time to drain. “Do they all look okay?”
“Yeah,” Michael said, unable to hide his smile as Maria placed a few of the colder ones in the microwave for a few seconds in a panicked state. “Relax, Maria,” he told her. “Your dad’s gonna love it. It’s cool that you’re doing this for him.”
“You think so?”
The door swung open and Amy and Jim entered the house quietly. Jim immediately made his way over to the couch, and Amy immediately made her way into the kitchen. “Something smells good,” she commented. When she eyed the sandwiches, she looked at Michael. “Grilled cheese. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Maria did.”
Amy looked almost shocked. “Maria, you cooked?”
She nodded excitedly. “I made them for Dad,” she said. “Can we eat before they all get cold?”
“Sure,” Amy said. “Jim! Come in the kitchen.”
“I’m resting,” he replied.
“Jim!”
A few seconds later, an exhausted-looking Jim DeLuca stumbled into the kitchen, sitting down in his usual chair at the head of the table. “What’s that smell?” he asked.
“Grilled cheese,” Maria said, placing three of the nicest sandwiches in front of him. “You don’t have to eat them all.”
Jim didn’t say anything, so Maria went back and got a plate for her mother and for Michael, and finally one for herself. She sat down next to her father and across from Michael. She didn’t start to eat, yet. She just stared at her father in anticipation.
“Did you make these, Michael?” Jim asked.
Michael shook his head and took a bite of his first sandwich. It was dark around the edges, true, but it was very good.
“I made them,” Maria told him. “For you. I know you like grilled cheese, so . . .”
“I can’t eat this, Maria,” he interrupted.
“Dad, I know you’re not supposed to, but I think it’d be alright if . . .”
“No, Maria,” he said. “I just can’t eat this. You don’t know how to cook. Look at the edges. They’re all black.”
She seemed a little taken aback. This obviously wasn’t the response she had been hoping for and expecting. “They’re a little darker than I wanted them to be,” she said, “but I wouldn’t say that they’re black.”
“You probably didn’t even let all of the grease drain out,” he continued.
“No, I did,” she said. “Except for the last one. But I gave that one to myself. Your’s are good. I promise.”
“I’m not about to find out.”
Michael watched as tears began to form in her eyes. They glistened, but she didn’t let them fall. “Dad, I made them just for you,” she told him, her voice cracking as the realization that her effort to relieve the tension between them had failed came upon her.
He was still completely unappreciative. “Apparently making grilled cheese sandwiches is too hard for you.”
Maria pushed her plate away from her and got up from her seat, tearing across the dining room and kitchen and up the stairs without another word. She hid her face in her hands as she ran, and Michael knew that she was crying. Michael watched her go, feeling completely helpless. He slowly turned back to Amy and Jim, who were both sitting at the table in complete silence. He first looked to Amy to see what her reaction would be. Any other mother would run upstairs after her daughter or demand answers of her husband’s cruel behavior, but not Amy. Instead, she pushed her plate away from her as if to say, if Jim’s not eating them, I’m not eating them.
Then Michael turned his attention to Jim. He gave him a completely shocked look. Jim didn’t seem to mind. “How can you say that stuff to her?” he asked him. “Why do you say that stuff to her?”
“She needs to hear it from somebody,” he replied.
“No. She doesn’t.” Michael got up from the table, leaving the unappreciative couple behind to bathe in their cruelties. He took the stairs two at a time on his way upstairs, and he was across the hallway and in front of her closed bedroom door in two long strides. He stopped and listened. He could hear her crying from inside, trying to muffle her sounds so that nobody knew she was crying. He knew.
He knocked on the door lightly. She didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if he should leave her alone or not. “Maria,” he said quietly as he opened the door and stepped inside. “Can I come in?”
She didn’t say anything. She just kept crying, her face buried in her pillow.
He took a few steps forward, nearing her shaking, trembling form. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked her.
She still didn’t say anything. She just kept on crying, and he took that as a sign that he should go. He took one step back, and then she looked up at him with tears running down her face. “No,” she begged. “Please don’t leave.”
Slowly, he sat down beside her on her bed and helped her to sit up. He wrapped his arms around her and brought her to him. She held onto him tightly, resting her cheek against his shoulder. He could feel her tears falling off of her cheeks and soaking his shirt as he rubbed his hands up and down her back, but he didn’t pull away. He only held her tighter until they both fell fast asleep that night.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria didn’t want to wake up that next morning. She never wanted to wake up. But she knew it was inevitable, so she started stretching out her limbs and opening her eyes.
She stretched out her arm and hit Michael hard on the chest. The impact woke him up immediately.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I forgot you were there. I’m sorry.”
“I’m okay,” he assured her. “Are, uh . . .” He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure whether to ask his question or not. “Are you?”
“Yeah,” she said honestly. “I think. I’ll be okay. I know I will. I was just feeling bad last night.” She thought back to how much she had been crying. She was surprised that Michael hadn’t just decided to abandon her. She had been a complete charity case. “I’m sorry that I cried so much,” she apologized. “I was just being a big loser.”
“No, you weren’t,” Michael told her. “Your dad was. I don’t know why he says that stuff to you.”
Maria shrugged. “I don’t know, either. I guess that’s just who he’s become. He didn’t used to be like that, you know.”
“He’s still not half as bad as my dad.”
“Yeah,” Maria agreed. “I guess I can be thankful for that.” She had never met Hank Guerin, and she didn’t want to, but from what Michael had told her, he wasn’t a nice guy. She would much rather live with a dad who thought she was doing nothing with her life than with a dad who wasn’t even aware that she was alive. Although neither sounded too appealing.
“I thought your grilled cheese sandwiches were good,” Michael said out of the blue, “if it means anything.”
She smiled. She was so glad that Michael could always find a way to make her smile. “It does,” she told him. “It does. You know, the thing about the sandwiches, it doesn’t seem like a really big deal. It probably seems pretty insignificant, but it’s actually a really big deal. That was my attempt, you know. My attempt to re-bond with my dad, relieve the tension and all that. But he didn’t make an attempt in return, so obviously being close to me isn’t one of his priorities anymore.” She felt tears sting her eyes, but she held them in. She wasn’t going to cry any more about this. This situation wasn’t worth her tears. “But whatever,” she said, shrugging it off as best she could. “I’ll just live with his constant cranky mood and my mom’s mastered act of following.”
“Mastered is a good word for it,” Michael agreed.
Maria let out a deep breath and started shaking her arms. “I’m shaking it off,” she told Michael when he gave her a confused look. “I’m shaking the whole night off. We’re going shopping today. I don’t wanna be in a bad mood.”
“We?” Michael echoed. “Who’s we?”
“Just me and Isabel and Alex and Max. And Little-Miss-Tag-Along-Liz. And you. If you wanna come, that is.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said reluctantly. “I’m not much of a shopper.”
“You don’t even shop,” she pointed out. “You just kinda walk around.”
“True.”
“Michael, I might need you to come along,” she said.
This perplexed him. “Why the hell would you need me to come along?”
“What if Max tries to get me to buy the baby blue swimming suit,” she asked hypothetically, “or worse, another tan one?”
“Well you got Isabel.”
“What if she and Alex are off looking at wedding stuff?”
Michael seemed to debate the idea in his head. She could practically see it bouncing off the walls of his mind. Eventually, he gave in with a long sigh. “I don’t know why I agree to this shit.”
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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New Part
“Alex, look at that dress. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Sure.”
“It would be perfect for the bridesmaids. If it came in red. Do you think it comes in red?”
Isabel was at it again, looking at more things for the wedding. Alex never seemed quite as interested in planning the wedding as Isabel did, but he always discussed things with her and through out his ideas, just like any good fiancé.
Michael thought it was pretty cool how they were getting married right after graduation. It was totally unexpected and just a little bit crazy, and their parents probably didn’t approve. That’s what made it so cool.
“Isabel, if you mention the wedding one more time, I’m gonna toss you down into the sewers,” Max threatened.
“It’s her wedding, Max,” Maria reminded him. “Her wedding. She deserves to get all excited like this.”
“Does she deserve to annoy us all?”
“Back off, Max,” Alex said.
Michael didn’t say anything. He wanted to. Maria was right. It was Isabel’s wedding, and she did deserve to get all excited. It was a once in a lifetime thing . . . for some people. Max had no right to tell her to put it to an end.
Michael still didn’t like Max. Never had. Didn’t plan to. He still didn’t understand what Maria saw in the guy. She had once told him that he was a nice guy once you got to know him. Michael had known him for over a month now, and he still didn’t seem like a nice guy.
Maria deserved so much better. She deserved somebody who wasn’t putting her friends down and incessantly admiring her ass.
“I wanna go in here,” Isabel said, oblivious to Max’s words. “Just to look.” She grabbed Alex’s hand, and the two of them disappeared into Deb’s Formalwear.
“Michael, we should go in, too!” Liz suggested. “We can look at things for our wedding.”
“What the . . .” Michael stopped and censored himself. “Since when are we having a wedding?”
Liz leaned in closer to him, trying to flash him a seductive smile. “Since my dream last night.”
Maria bursted out laughing hysterically the minute Liz disappeared into the store.
“My sister’s got the hots for you, Guerin,” Max said, leading Maria into the store. “Loser plus loser. Sounds like a pretty solid combination to me.”
Fuck you.
Maria froze in her tracks, slipping out from under her boyfriend’s arm. “Max,” she said. It looked like she wanted to say more, but couldn’t.
“Come on, baby,” he said, slipping his arm across her shoulders again. He walked with her into the store, but she seemed less comfortable with him now.
“Can you try to be a little less hostile with him?” Michael heard Maria ask him. “And with everyone else?”
Michael entered the small shop after everyone else had, trying to forget about what Max had said. It wasn’t that Max’s words bothered him. Hell, they didn’t even affect him. Max thought he was good with insults, but he really wasn’t. He just couldn’t get over the fact that he had managed to find someone like Maria. She was just too good for him, and he would have found a way to tell her that if it weren’t sure to crush her.
“I don’t think there’s any dresses in here for our wedding,” Liz said, coming to stand beside Michael. “I’ll know it when I see it. Sort of like love at first sight. Sort of like you and me.”
“Make me gag,” Michael muttered, holding his stomach.
“This could be the dress,” Isabel was saying as Alex and Maria both looked it over in interest. “As long as it comes in red, which I’m pretty sure it does. Everything comes in red. This would just be perfect for the bridesmaids.” She looked to Maria. “What do you think, Maria? You’ll be wearing it.”
“I like it,” Maria said, “but is it backless? When I wear backless dresses, I tend to end up kinda frontless.”
Max grinned and leaned down and whispered in her ear, “That’s not a problem for me.”
Michael saw the start of an eye roll coming on from Maria, but she held it back. “It was only one time when I was, like, twelve,” she informed him. “Don’t get too excited.”
“It’s got straps in the back,” Isabel said, examining the dress some more. She clapped her hands together excitedly. “Yes, I think this is the one!” She skipped over to the counter and picked up an order magazine so she could order the dresses after showing them to the other bridesmaids.
“I really like the dress, Isabel,” Maria said. “It looks like it’ll be comfortable, but flattering, too, you know. And you can’t beat the fact that it’s not backless. I know it was only that one time, but God, it scarred . . . me . . . for life.” Her speech slowed down and her sentences broke apart when she spotted something over by the jewelry. Michael watched as she separated herself from Max and made her way over to a huge diamond necklace on display. “Oh my god,” she almost whispered, taking the diamond necklace into her hand.
“That is beautiful!” Isabel exclaimed.
“Oh, it is!” Liz agreed. She started jumping up and down excitedly. “That’s what I want my wedding ring to look like, okay, Michael?”
He shook his head and ignored her, trying to catch a glimpse of the necklace Maria had suddenly fallen in love with. From what he could see, it looked nice.
“Oh my god,” Maria repeated. “Do you guys see what I’m seeing?”
“Yeah,” Isabel said, “I’m seeing a gorgeous diamond that you’re going to wear to school on Monday.”
Maria checked the price tag and shook her head sadly. “No, I’m not. It’s $500.”
“Maria, that’s not very much,” Alex said, and Michael was once again reminded how wealthy all of these people were.
“I know,” she agreed.
“Charge it,” Isabel said. “Come on, that would look so perfect on you.”
Maria sighed. “I can’t. My dad’s getting pissed off that I’m spending so much on jewelry. And trust me--” She glanced back at Michael. “–he’s pretty pissed off already.”
“No offense, Maria,” Isabel said, “but your dad really sucks sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Maria agreed, “tell me about it. He said if I spend over $150 on jewelry, he’s gonna take my credit card away.”
“Well, all hope is not lost,” Isabel said. “Maybe some nice boyfriend by the name of Max Evans might get it for your for Christmas.” She gave Max a pointed look.
“Oh, yeah,” Maria agreed, looking up at her boyfriend. “$500 dollars is like a penny to you.”
“Well yeah,” Max agreed, “but I’m not sure I wanna spend my money on a necklace.”
Maria looked disappointed. “Not even if it’s for me?”
Max shrugged. “I just don’t see the point in jewelry, baby. I’m sorry. I’m just not gonna buy it for you. But I’ll get you something else.”
Maria hung her head. Michael could see how disappointed she was, and he wondered if Max could. “Yeah, that’s okay,” she said, trying to hide her sadness like she always did. “I guess you’re right. It’s . . . just a necklace.”
Michael was well aware that it wasn’t just a necklace to Maria.
“Let’s go,” Max said, wrapping his arm around her waist. He, Liz, and Maria all exited the store, followed by Alex and Isabel, who was already searching for the dress in her order catalog.
Michael looked the necklace over a little more before he left. He glanced at the price tag and then at Maria, strolling down the sidewalk with her friends.
$500 was a lot of money. Maybe not to Maria. Maybe not to Max. Maybe not to any of them. But it still was to Michael. He knew he didn’t have a lot of money, but maybe . . .
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Michael made his way downstairs on Christmas Eve morning, Maria and her mother were already setting up the tree. It wasn’t a real tree. Just one of those artificial trees. Michael had a feeling that Amy wasn’t crazy about bringing an actual tree into her house.
Amy and Maria were both dancing around singing, “Deck the halls with bows of holly. Fa la la la la, la la la la.”
“Oh, Michael, you’re up!” Amy said when she noticed him on the stairs. “You wanna help us decorate the tree?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. There was a certain aspect of decorating a Christmas tree that was extremely cheesy. But there was also an aspect that was appealing. Michael couldn’t remember ever having a Christmas tree before. The trailer had always been too small, and his father just didn’t care about Christmas or any other holiday. “I guess I could help,” he decided, finally giving in.
“Is Dad gonna be home soon to help?” Maria asked hopefully, opening up a box of garland, beads, and lights.
Amy hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “He’s working late tonight. I don’t expect that he will be.”
“I didn’t think that he would be,” Maria said. “But he’ll be home tomorrow to open presents with us, right?”
“Of course,” Amy told her. “He’d never miss Christmas morning.”
Michael took out a string of multi-colored beads. He wasn’t exactly sure how Maria and Amy wanted them on the tree. He was sure that they had their special Christmas traditions and ways they decorated the tree. Now he was stepping in and becoming a part of something he had no idea about.
“So did you put up a tree last year, Michael?” Amy asked her son.
“Uh, no,” he replied. “We didn’t really put up anything. Any year.”
Amy didn’t seem quite as surprised as he had expected. She obviously remembered Hank’s ways. “So this is your first actual Christmas, then, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
Within about a half an hour, all of the beads, garland, and lights were placed on the tree. It took a long time to get them on there just right. Maria and Amy wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfection.
“This is my favorite part,” Amy said as she placed a huge box marked CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS on the couch.
“Oh, mine, too!” Maria exclaimed. She did a sort of happy dance on her way over to the ornament box. Michael couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t seemed this happy in a long time.
Soon, many ornaments covered the tree. Some were small. Some were big. Some were gold. Some were red. Some were other colors. Some were homemade. Some were bought from the store.
“Where do you wanna put this?” Amy asked her daughter, pulling out the last ornament in the box. She held it up for Maria to see.
It was a tiny picture frame shaped like a snowman. Inside was a picture of Maria and Jim sitting together, smiling.
Maria replied without hesitation. “Put it on the back.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I have to be at the airport soon to pick up the family,” Amy said as she rushed around the house in a panicked state. “I still have to make cookies.” She glanced at her watch and then shook her head. “No, there’s no time to make cookies.” She grabbed her light jacket and shoes from the closet and started getting ready in a hurry. “I have to leave now. I’ll need you two to make the cookies.”
Maria looked around the room, thinking that her mother was talking to someone else. “Us?” she asked in disbelief, pointing to herself and Michael. “You want us to make the cookies?”
“Yeah,” Amy said. “If you could have them made by the time Uncle Ben and everyone else gets here, that would be great.”
Maria and Michael looked at each other. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” they said in unison.
“You just follow the directions over there,” Amy said, motioning with her head to the directions lying on the counter. “It shouldn’t be too hard. Maria, you’ve made them with me every year since you were nine.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never really paid attention!”
Amy grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she said. “Bye!” She left the house before Maria could object to this idea.
“Oh no,” Maria whimpered. “This could be bad.” She gave Michael a fearful look. “I don’t cook!”
“Yeah, I don’t, either,” Michael said. “Well, I do, but easy stuff, you know. Like . . .”
“Toast,” Maria filled in, even though toast didn’t really require anything more than putting bread in a working toaster for a minute or so.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Toast.”
“Well, cookies can’t be that much harder than toast.”
He nodded in agreement.
“We better get started,” she suggested, sprinting for the kitchen. They didn’t have much time before Amy arrived back from the airport with Uncle Ben and the rest of the family. Two and a half hours, maybe. Three if she got delayed.
“Here,” Maria said, tossing Michael an apron after finding one for herself. “Things could get messy.” She picked up the paper with the directions on it in her hand and looked it over. “Oh, shit!” she cursed. “This is the homemade recipe!”
“Can’t your mom just settle for the stuff you buy in the store?”
“No. She’s gotta do everything the hard way. She’s gotta torture us.” Maria opened the refrigerator to retrieve some of the ingredients when something caught her eye. “Michael,” she said, motioning towards “the stuff you buy in the store.” She took it out of the refrigerator, gleaming proudly. “I’m bad,” she joked.
“She won’t even notice the difference.”
“This is a blessing,” Maria said, pushing the homemade recipe out of her way. She opened up the large tub and her eyes lit up. “Look, Michael! All you have to do is take this stuff out and put it in the oven!”
“That’s all? Seems too easy.” Michael was skeptical.
“Well then we frost them,” she told him, reaching up in the cupboard. She pulled out five long tubes of frosting. Red, green, yellow, blue, and white frosting. “And then we put sprinkles on,” she said, reaching up in another cupboard for some red and green sprinkles. “Easy.”
They started taking the cookie dough out of the large tub, and Michael started sampling it. “It’s kinda sticky,” he commented as he ate.
“Well maybe we’re missing something,” Maria said.
“What would we be missing?”
“Uh . . .” Maria had no idea. She hadn’t been joking around when she said she didn’t cook. That thing with the grilled cheese sandwiches had been a fluke. (Apparently an unsuccessful fluke.) The cookies were placed upon her without remorse.
“Flour?” Michael suggested.
“Flour!” Maria exclaimed. “You’re right! We need flour! Although I don’t see why. Tastes a lot better this way.” She scooped out a handful of the delicious dough and started stuffing it into her mouth the way Michael had been.
“Pig,” Michael joked.
“I’m not a pig,” Maria said through the huge mouthful. She couldn’t resist taking another large clump in her hand and throwing it at Michael. It landed halfway on his face and halfway in his mouth. She couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of him.
“What was that?” he asked, attempting to clear his face.
She kept on laughing.
“You don’t just throw something like that at somebody,” he said, “without expecting to get something back.” Before she could react, he had an even bigger clump of the dough in his hand and was smearing it all over her face.
“Michael!” she yelled when she heard him start to laugh, satisfied. She uncovered her eyes and took another clump in her hands. “You’re gonna get it!” He tried to run and duck behind the counter, but she hit the side of his face before he was completely covered, lodging some of the dough in his ear. “Yeah, you better hide!” she told him, reaching for another clump. He shot up from behind the counter and she took the opportunity to hit him straight in the chest.
“I’m not hiding,” he told her. All at once, one of his hands was around her waist, holding her back to his front, and the other was trying to pry the cookie tub from her hands.
“No fair,” she said, trying with all her might to keep the tub away from him. “You’re stronger than I am.” Soon enough, he had taken the tub from her hands, but he didn’t let her go. He even lifted her off the ground a little bit so that she couldn’t try to run away. She squirmed in his arms and kicked her legs, but she couldn’t get away, and seconds later, she felt a huge glob of cookie dough being smeared around in her hair. Michael started laughing as he set her back down on the ground. “Who better hide?” he asked her.
Maria ran across the kitchen, ducking just as Michael threw another clump intended to hit her. It hit the refrigerator instead. “Oh yeah!” she celebrated. “Dancer reflex! Beat that!”
Within almost no time at all, frosting, sprinkles, and even flour had joined the cookie dough war. They covered Maria, they covered Michael, and they covered the entire kitchen, from the counters to the sink to the refrigerator to the oven. Nothing escaped the food fight.
When the cookie dough and the majority of the frosting, sprinkles, and flour were gone, Maria lay down on the disaster floor next to Michael. She looked up at the ceiling and noticed that a squirt of blue frosting had even managed to find its way up there.
“So much for making cookies,” Michael said.
Maria looked over at him. His face wasn’t even visible anymore. It was covered in a mixture of cookie dough and all different colors of frosting. He had sprinkles on his nose and ears and a lot of flour around his eyes. She couldn’t help but start laughing. “You look like one of those monsters from those science fiction movies,” she told him.
“What do you think you look like?”
“A beauty queen,” she answered jokingly. Then she shook her head. “No, that’s just wishful thinking.”
The phone rang, forcing Maria to sit up. She couldn’t find the phone at first. It was covered in frosting and sprinkles just like everything else. She cleaned if off slightly so she could speak. “DeLuca residence.”
“Maria, it’s me,” Amy said. “Believe it or not, I took the interstate. I’m at the airport right now. I should be home in about an hour and fifteen minutes.”
“An hour and fifteen minutes?” she echoed. She shot Michael, who was still laying on the trashed floor, a panicked look. “You’re going to be home in an hour and fifteen minutes?”
“Shit,” he cursed.
“Yeah, they’re all getting in the car right now,” Amy said. “They can’t wait to see you. Uncle Ben keeps raving about how pretty you are in your pictures.”
Maria looked down at her arms and legs and all of the rest of herself. “Oh yeah,” she said. “Real pretty.”
“Do you have the cookies made?”
“The cookies,” Maria echoed. “Uh, yeah. We got the cookies made.” She shot Michael another panicked look. “They, uh, they might’ve turned out a little differently than they usually do, but they taste good. They taste real good. We sampled them. I admit it.” She knew she was rambling, and they didn’t have much time left, so she hurried to put the conversation to an end. “I think I’ll just let you go now, ‘cause . . . ‘cause I’ve been watching TV. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time. Michael, too.”
“Okay, honey,” Amy said cheerfully. “See you soon.”
Maria hung up the phone without another word and laid back down on the disaster floor.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a really bad liar?” Michael asked her.
“Oh, my mom’s just gonna love this,” Maria said, running her fingers through a trail of frosting on the floor. “What’re we gonna do? There’s no way we can get cleaned off, clean up the kitchen, and actually make these cookies in an hour and fifteen minutes.”
“No,” Michael agreed, “but we could go out and buy some.”
Maria felt hope rising within her. “We could,” she agreed. “Okay! I’m having an idea! No, I’m having a plan! We can go shower off really quick, then while I’m cleaning the kitchen, you can drive out to the bakery and get some Christmas cookies!”
“Sounds good to me,” Michael said, standing up in a hurry. “We better hurry, though. We just got an hour and fifteen minutes.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After the quickest shower he had ever taken in his entire life, Michael hurried and got dressed in different clothes. He checked the mirror to make sure he was completely clean and checked his pockets for his wallet. Check complete.
He threw his dirty clothes in the washing machine downstairs so that they would be clean before Amy could even notice them. Then, he grabbed the keys to the Taurus from Amy and Jim’s bedroom and headed out the door.
He drove fast, exceeding the speed limit by 15 miles. He took a wrong turn somewhere on his way to the bakery and had to backtrack. It ate up time, and by the time he had purchased two dozen red and green santa shaped Christmas cookies, he discovered that he only had around fifteen minutes until Amy arrived home, along with the rest of the DeLuca family. Michael hoped Maria was having some luck with the kitchen. Nobody would really know what to think if they walked in and saw the kitchen the way it was.
As he sped down 14th street, a small shop caught his eye, causing him to apply his brake. Deb’s Formalwear. He stopped right outside an impressive display window and peered inside. He could see that Maria’s $500 diamond necklace was still there.
He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes until Amy got home. He couldn’t waste any more time. He had to get going.
But even though he knew this, he couldn’t bring himself to put his foot back on the gas. Maria deserved something more than the sales rack perfume he had gotten her. She deserved something that she really wanted. She deserved that necklace, and if her asshole boyfriend Max would have purchased it for her . . .
Michael sighed and glanced back at the necklace, then at his watch again. Nine minutes. Even though he didn’t have time, he turned the car off, grabbed the keys and got out of the car.
“Hi, Michael!” Liz stepped in front of him and greeted him cheerfully before he could enter the store. “Merry Christmas!”
“Yeah,” he said, trying to step around her. She took a step to the side and stayed right in front of him, though. “Are you gonna buy my ring?” she asked.
“Never,” he muttered. He managed to make his way past her and into the store.
“Wait, Michael!” she said as he opened the door and disappeared on the other side. “Don’t you wanna hear a science joke?”
He headed straight for the necklace the minute he got in the store. He checked the price again. Still $500. He opened up his wallet and checked inside. He had $500. He actually had more than that. It wasn’t his money. It was Tess’s. She had given it to him a long time back, and he was keeping it so that he could spend it on something special. He had never thought of necklaces to be particularly special before, but . . . this one was for Maria, and for some reason, that fact made it special. He knew he shouldn’t do it. He didn’t have enough cash to spend $500 on a necklace.
But he did. He bought it and watched as the woman behind the counter put it in a tiny box full of tissue paper and tied a ribbon onto it. He held it in his hands when she handed it to him and told him to have a merry Christmas.
He got back in the car and drove home twenty miles over the speed limit. He pulled into the driveway one minute late, but Amy and company did not appear to be back yet.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he burst through the door. “I got lost on the way to the bakery.”
“You’re fine,” Maria told him. “They’re not here yet. Did you get the cookies?”
He handed her a box full of two dozen Christmas cookies. She peeked inside and squealed with delight. “These are perfect!” she said.
“Yeah, I think they’ll do,” Michael said, struggling to keep the small gift hidden behind his back. “Kitchen looks nice.”
Maria smiled. “I even had time to blow dry my hair.” She walked back into the kitchen and took out a tray. She started placing the cookies on the tray one by one and then disposed of the box. While she was occupied, Michael hid the present under the tree, almost so that it was unnoticeable.
“I think they’re here,” Maria said. “I hear the car. Okay, we’re good right? We’re clean, kitchen’s clean. We got cookies.”
“We’re good,” Michael said. “Act casual.”
Maria made her way into the living room and sat down on the couch, turning on the TV. Michael kicked his shoes off by the door and went to sit down beside her, pretending that he was interested in what was on.
“We’re the best,” Maria said, laying out her hand for a low high five.
“Damn right.”
TBC...
“Alex, look at that dress. Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Sure.”
“It would be perfect for the bridesmaids. If it came in red. Do you think it comes in red?”
Isabel was at it again, looking at more things for the wedding. Alex never seemed quite as interested in planning the wedding as Isabel did, but he always discussed things with her and through out his ideas, just like any good fiancé.
Michael thought it was pretty cool how they were getting married right after graduation. It was totally unexpected and just a little bit crazy, and their parents probably didn’t approve. That’s what made it so cool.
“Isabel, if you mention the wedding one more time, I’m gonna toss you down into the sewers,” Max threatened.
“It’s her wedding, Max,” Maria reminded him. “Her wedding. She deserves to get all excited like this.”
“Does she deserve to annoy us all?”
“Back off, Max,” Alex said.
Michael didn’t say anything. He wanted to. Maria was right. It was Isabel’s wedding, and she did deserve to get all excited. It was a once in a lifetime thing . . . for some people. Max had no right to tell her to put it to an end.
Michael still didn’t like Max. Never had. Didn’t plan to. He still didn’t understand what Maria saw in the guy. She had once told him that he was a nice guy once you got to know him. Michael had known him for over a month now, and he still didn’t seem like a nice guy.
Maria deserved so much better. She deserved somebody who wasn’t putting her friends down and incessantly admiring her ass.
“I wanna go in here,” Isabel said, oblivious to Max’s words. “Just to look.” She grabbed Alex’s hand, and the two of them disappeared into Deb’s Formalwear.
“Michael, we should go in, too!” Liz suggested. “We can look at things for our wedding.”
“What the . . .” Michael stopped and censored himself. “Since when are we having a wedding?”
Liz leaned in closer to him, trying to flash him a seductive smile. “Since my dream last night.”
Maria bursted out laughing hysterically the minute Liz disappeared into the store.
“My sister’s got the hots for you, Guerin,” Max said, leading Maria into the store. “Loser plus loser. Sounds like a pretty solid combination to me.”
Fuck you.
Maria froze in her tracks, slipping out from under her boyfriend’s arm. “Max,” she said. It looked like she wanted to say more, but couldn’t.
“Come on, baby,” he said, slipping his arm across her shoulders again. He walked with her into the store, but she seemed less comfortable with him now.
“Can you try to be a little less hostile with him?” Michael heard Maria ask him. “And with everyone else?”
Michael entered the small shop after everyone else had, trying to forget about what Max had said. It wasn’t that Max’s words bothered him. Hell, they didn’t even affect him. Max thought he was good with insults, but he really wasn’t. He just couldn’t get over the fact that he had managed to find someone like Maria. She was just too good for him, and he would have found a way to tell her that if it weren’t sure to crush her.
“I don’t think there’s any dresses in here for our wedding,” Liz said, coming to stand beside Michael. “I’ll know it when I see it. Sort of like love at first sight. Sort of like you and me.”
“Make me gag,” Michael muttered, holding his stomach.
“This could be the dress,” Isabel was saying as Alex and Maria both looked it over in interest. “As long as it comes in red, which I’m pretty sure it does. Everything comes in red. This would just be perfect for the bridesmaids.” She looked to Maria. “What do you think, Maria? You’ll be wearing it.”
“I like it,” Maria said, “but is it backless? When I wear backless dresses, I tend to end up kinda frontless.”
Max grinned and leaned down and whispered in her ear, “That’s not a problem for me.”
Michael saw the start of an eye roll coming on from Maria, but she held it back. “It was only one time when I was, like, twelve,” she informed him. “Don’t get too excited.”
“It’s got straps in the back,” Isabel said, examining the dress some more. She clapped her hands together excitedly. “Yes, I think this is the one!” She skipped over to the counter and picked up an order magazine so she could order the dresses after showing them to the other bridesmaids.
“I really like the dress, Isabel,” Maria said. “It looks like it’ll be comfortable, but flattering, too, you know. And you can’t beat the fact that it’s not backless. I know it was only that one time, but God, it scarred . . . me . . . for life.” Her speech slowed down and her sentences broke apart when she spotted something over by the jewelry. Michael watched as she separated herself from Max and made her way over to a huge diamond necklace on display. “Oh my god,” she almost whispered, taking the diamond necklace into her hand.
“That is beautiful!” Isabel exclaimed.
“Oh, it is!” Liz agreed. She started jumping up and down excitedly. “That’s what I want my wedding ring to look like, okay, Michael?”
He shook his head and ignored her, trying to catch a glimpse of the necklace Maria had suddenly fallen in love with. From what he could see, it looked nice.
“Oh my god,” Maria repeated. “Do you guys see what I’m seeing?”
“Yeah,” Isabel said, “I’m seeing a gorgeous diamond that you’re going to wear to school on Monday.”
Maria checked the price tag and shook her head sadly. “No, I’m not. It’s $500.”
“Maria, that’s not very much,” Alex said, and Michael was once again reminded how wealthy all of these people were.
“I know,” she agreed.
“Charge it,” Isabel said. “Come on, that would look so perfect on you.”
Maria sighed. “I can’t. My dad’s getting pissed off that I’m spending so much on jewelry. And trust me--” She glanced back at Michael. “–he’s pretty pissed off already.”
“No offense, Maria,” Isabel said, “but your dad really sucks sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Maria agreed, “tell me about it. He said if I spend over $150 on jewelry, he’s gonna take my credit card away.”
“Well, all hope is not lost,” Isabel said. “Maybe some nice boyfriend by the name of Max Evans might get it for your for Christmas.” She gave Max a pointed look.
“Oh, yeah,” Maria agreed, looking up at her boyfriend. “$500 dollars is like a penny to you.”
“Well yeah,” Max agreed, “but I’m not sure I wanna spend my money on a necklace.”
Maria looked disappointed. “Not even if it’s for me?”
Max shrugged. “I just don’t see the point in jewelry, baby. I’m sorry. I’m just not gonna buy it for you. But I’ll get you something else.”
Maria hung her head. Michael could see how disappointed she was, and he wondered if Max could. “Yeah, that’s okay,” she said, trying to hide her sadness like she always did. “I guess you’re right. It’s . . . just a necklace.”
Michael was well aware that it wasn’t just a necklace to Maria.
“Let’s go,” Max said, wrapping his arm around her waist. He, Liz, and Maria all exited the store, followed by Alex and Isabel, who was already searching for the dress in her order catalog.
Michael looked the necklace over a little more before he left. He glanced at the price tag and then at Maria, strolling down the sidewalk with her friends.
$500 was a lot of money. Maybe not to Maria. Maybe not to Max. Maybe not to any of them. But it still was to Michael. He knew he didn’t have a lot of money, but maybe . . .
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Michael made his way downstairs on Christmas Eve morning, Maria and her mother were already setting up the tree. It wasn’t a real tree. Just one of those artificial trees. Michael had a feeling that Amy wasn’t crazy about bringing an actual tree into her house.
Amy and Maria were both dancing around singing, “Deck the halls with bows of holly. Fa la la la la, la la la la.”
“Oh, Michael, you’re up!” Amy said when she noticed him on the stairs. “You wanna help us decorate the tree?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. There was a certain aspect of decorating a Christmas tree that was extremely cheesy. But there was also an aspect that was appealing. Michael couldn’t remember ever having a Christmas tree before. The trailer had always been too small, and his father just didn’t care about Christmas or any other holiday. “I guess I could help,” he decided, finally giving in.
“Is Dad gonna be home soon to help?” Maria asked hopefully, opening up a box of garland, beads, and lights.
Amy hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “He’s working late tonight. I don’t expect that he will be.”
“I didn’t think that he would be,” Maria said. “But he’ll be home tomorrow to open presents with us, right?”
“Of course,” Amy told her. “He’d never miss Christmas morning.”
Michael took out a string of multi-colored beads. He wasn’t exactly sure how Maria and Amy wanted them on the tree. He was sure that they had their special Christmas traditions and ways they decorated the tree. Now he was stepping in and becoming a part of something he had no idea about.
“So did you put up a tree last year, Michael?” Amy asked her son.
“Uh, no,” he replied. “We didn’t really put up anything. Any year.”
Amy didn’t seem quite as surprised as he had expected. She obviously remembered Hank’s ways. “So this is your first actual Christmas, then, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
Within about a half an hour, all of the beads, garland, and lights were placed on the tree. It took a long time to get them on there just right. Maria and Amy wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfection.
“This is my favorite part,” Amy said as she placed a huge box marked CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS on the couch.
“Oh, mine, too!” Maria exclaimed. She did a sort of happy dance on her way over to the ornament box. Michael couldn’t help but smile. She hadn’t seemed this happy in a long time.
Soon, many ornaments covered the tree. Some were small. Some were big. Some were gold. Some were red. Some were other colors. Some were homemade. Some were bought from the store.
“Where do you wanna put this?” Amy asked her daughter, pulling out the last ornament in the box. She held it up for Maria to see.
It was a tiny picture frame shaped like a snowman. Inside was a picture of Maria and Jim sitting together, smiling.
Maria replied without hesitation. “Put it on the back.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I have to be at the airport soon to pick up the family,” Amy said as she rushed around the house in a panicked state. “I still have to make cookies.” She glanced at her watch and then shook her head. “No, there’s no time to make cookies.” She grabbed her light jacket and shoes from the closet and started getting ready in a hurry. “I have to leave now. I’ll need you two to make the cookies.”
Maria looked around the room, thinking that her mother was talking to someone else. “Us?” she asked in disbelief, pointing to herself and Michael. “You want us to make the cookies?”
“Yeah,” Amy said. “If you could have them made by the time Uncle Ben and everyone else gets here, that would be great.”
Maria and Michael looked at each other. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” they said in unison.
“You just follow the directions over there,” Amy said, motioning with her head to the directions lying on the counter. “It shouldn’t be too hard. Maria, you’ve made them with me every year since you were nine.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never really paid attention!”
Amy grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she said. “Bye!” She left the house before Maria could object to this idea.
“Oh no,” Maria whimpered. “This could be bad.” She gave Michael a fearful look. “I don’t cook!”
“Yeah, I don’t, either,” Michael said. “Well, I do, but easy stuff, you know. Like . . .”
“Toast,” Maria filled in, even though toast didn’t really require anything more than putting bread in a working toaster for a minute or so.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Toast.”
“Well, cookies can’t be that much harder than toast.”
He nodded in agreement.
“We better get started,” she suggested, sprinting for the kitchen. They didn’t have much time before Amy arrived back from the airport with Uncle Ben and the rest of the family. Two and a half hours, maybe. Three if she got delayed.
“Here,” Maria said, tossing Michael an apron after finding one for herself. “Things could get messy.” She picked up the paper with the directions on it in her hand and looked it over. “Oh, shit!” she cursed. “This is the homemade recipe!”
“Can’t your mom just settle for the stuff you buy in the store?”
“No. She’s gotta do everything the hard way. She’s gotta torture us.” Maria opened the refrigerator to retrieve some of the ingredients when something caught her eye. “Michael,” she said, motioning towards “the stuff you buy in the store.” She took it out of the refrigerator, gleaming proudly. “I’m bad,” she joked.
“She won’t even notice the difference.”
“This is a blessing,” Maria said, pushing the homemade recipe out of her way. She opened up the large tub and her eyes lit up. “Look, Michael! All you have to do is take this stuff out and put it in the oven!”
“That’s all? Seems too easy.” Michael was skeptical.
“Well then we frost them,” she told him, reaching up in the cupboard. She pulled out five long tubes of frosting. Red, green, yellow, blue, and white frosting. “And then we put sprinkles on,” she said, reaching up in another cupboard for some red and green sprinkles. “Easy.”
They started taking the cookie dough out of the large tub, and Michael started sampling it. “It’s kinda sticky,” he commented as he ate.
“Well maybe we’re missing something,” Maria said.
“What would we be missing?”
“Uh . . .” Maria had no idea. She hadn’t been joking around when she said she didn’t cook. That thing with the grilled cheese sandwiches had been a fluke. (Apparently an unsuccessful fluke.) The cookies were placed upon her without remorse.
“Flour?” Michael suggested.
“Flour!” Maria exclaimed. “You’re right! We need flour! Although I don’t see why. Tastes a lot better this way.” She scooped out a handful of the delicious dough and started stuffing it into her mouth the way Michael had been.
“Pig,” Michael joked.
“I’m not a pig,” Maria said through the huge mouthful. She couldn’t resist taking another large clump in her hand and throwing it at Michael. It landed halfway on his face and halfway in his mouth. She couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of him.
“What was that?” he asked, attempting to clear his face.
She kept on laughing.
“You don’t just throw something like that at somebody,” he said, “without expecting to get something back.” Before she could react, he had an even bigger clump of the dough in his hand and was smearing it all over her face.
“Michael!” she yelled when she heard him start to laugh, satisfied. She uncovered her eyes and took another clump in her hands. “You’re gonna get it!” He tried to run and duck behind the counter, but she hit the side of his face before he was completely covered, lodging some of the dough in his ear. “Yeah, you better hide!” she told him, reaching for another clump. He shot up from behind the counter and she took the opportunity to hit him straight in the chest.
“I’m not hiding,” he told her. All at once, one of his hands was around her waist, holding her back to his front, and the other was trying to pry the cookie tub from her hands.
“No fair,” she said, trying with all her might to keep the tub away from him. “You’re stronger than I am.” Soon enough, he had taken the tub from her hands, but he didn’t let her go. He even lifted her off the ground a little bit so that she couldn’t try to run away. She squirmed in his arms and kicked her legs, but she couldn’t get away, and seconds later, she felt a huge glob of cookie dough being smeared around in her hair. Michael started laughing as he set her back down on the ground. “Who better hide?” he asked her.
Maria ran across the kitchen, ducking just as Michael threw another clump intended to hit her. It hit the refrigerator instead. “Oh yeah!” she celebrated. “Dancer reflex! Beat that!”
Within almost no time at all, frosting, sprinkles, and even flour had joined the cookie dough war. They covered Maria, they covered Michael, and they covered the entire kitchen, from the counters to the sink to the refrigerator to the oven. Nothing escaped the food fight.
When the cookie dough and the majority of the frosting, sprinkles, and flour were gone, Maria lay down on the disaster floor next to Michael. She looked up at the ceiling and noticed that a squirt of blue frosting had even managed to find its way up there.
“So much for making cookies,” Michael said.
Maria looked over at him. His face wasn’t even visible anymore. It was covered in a mixture of cookie dough and all different colors of frosting. He had sprinkles on his nose and ears and a lot of flour around his eyes. She couldn’t help but start laughing. “You look like one of those monsters from those science fiction movies,” she told him.
“What do you think you look like?”
“A beauty queen,” she answered jokingly. Then she shook her head. “No, that’s just wishful thinking.”
The phone rang, forcing Maria to sit up. She couldn’t find the phone at first. It was covered in frosting and sprinkles just like everything else. She cleaned if off slightly so she could speak. “DeLuca residence.”
“Maria, it’s me,” Amy said. “Believe it or not, I took the interstate. I’m at the airport right now. I should be home in about an hour and fifteen minutes.”
“An hour and fifteen minutes?” she echoed. She shot Michael, who was still laying on the trashed floor, a panicked look. “You’re going to be home in an hour and fifteen minutes?”
“Shit,” he cursed.
“Yeah, they’re all getting in the car right now,” Amy said. “They can’t wait to see you. Uncle Ben keeps raving about how pretty you are in your pictures.”
Maria looked down at her arms and legs and all of the rest of herself. “Oh yeah,” she said. “Real pretty.”
“Do you have the cookies made?”
“The cookies,” Maria echoed. “Uh, yeah. We got the cookies made.” She shot Michael another panicked look. “They, uh, they might’ve turned out a little differently than they usually do, but they taste good. They taste real good. We sampled them. I admit it.” She knew she was rambling, and they didn’t have much time left, so she hurried to put the conversation to an end. “I think I’ll just let you go now, ‘cause . . . ‘cause I’ve been watching TV. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time. Michael, too.”
“Okay, honey,” Amy said cheerfully. “See you soon.”
Maria hung up the phone without another word and laid back down on the disaster floor.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a really bad liar?” Michael asked her.
“Oh, my mom’s just gonna love this,” Maria said, running her fingers through a trail of frosting on the floor. “What’re we gonna do? There’s no way we can get cleaned off, clean up the kitchen, and actually make these cookies in an hour and fifteen minutes.”
“No,” Michael agreed, “but we could go out and buy some.”
Maria felt hope rising within her. “We could,” she agreed. “Okay! I’m having an idea! No, I’m having a plan! We can go shower off really quick, then while I’m cleaning the kitchen, you can drive out to the bakery and get some Christmas cookies!”
“Sounds good to me,” Michael said, standing up in a hurry. “We better hurry, though. We just got an hour and fifteen minutes.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After the quickest shower he had ever taken in his entire life, Michael hurried and got dressed in different clothes. He checked the mirror to make sure he was completely clean and checked his pockets for his wallet. Check complete.
He threw his dirty clothes in the washing machine downstairs so that they would be clean before Amy could even notice them. Then, he grabbed the keys to the Taurus from Amy and Jim’s bedroom and headed out the door.
He drove fast, exceeding the speed limit by 15 miles. He took a wrong turn somewhere on his way to the bakery and had to backtrack. It ate up time, and by the time he had purchased two dozen red and green santa shaped Christmas cookies, he discovered that he only had around fifteen minutes until Amy arrived home, along with the rest of the DeLuca family. Michael hoped Maria was having some luck with the kitchen. Nobody would really know what to think if they walked in and saw the kitchen the way it was.
As he sped down 14th street, a small shop caught his eye, causing him to apply his brake. Deb’s Formalwear. He stopped right outside an impressive display window and peered inside. He could see that Maria’s $500 diamond necklace was still there.
He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes until Amy got home. He couldn’t waste any more time. He had to get going.
But even though he knew this, he couldn’t bring himself to put his foot back on the gas. Maria deserved something more than the sales rack perfume he had gotten her. She deserved something that she really wanted. She deserved that necklace, and if her asshole boyfriend Max would have purchased it for her . . .
Michael sighed and glanced back at the necklace, then at his watch again. Nine minutes. Even though he didn’t have time, he turned the car off, grabbed the keys and got out of the car.
“Hi, Michael!” Liz stepped in front of him and greeted him cheerfully before he could enter the store. “Merry Christmas!”
“Yeah,” he said, trying to step around her. She took a step to the side and stayed right in front of him, though. “Are you gonna buy my ring?” she asked.
“Never,” he muttered. He managed to make his way past her and into the store.
“Wait, Michael!” she said as he opened the door and disappeared on the other side. “Don’t you wanna hear a science joke?”
He headed straight for the necklace the minute he got in the store. He checked the price again. Still $500. He opened up his wallet and checked inside. He had $500. He actually had more than that. It wasn’t his money. It was Tess’s. She had given it to him a long time back, and he was keeping it so that he could spend it on something special. He had never thought of necklaces to be particularly special before, but . . . this one was for Maria, and for some reason, that fact made it special. He knew he shouldn’t do it. He didn’t have enough cash to spend $500 on a necklace.
But he did. He bought it and watched as the woman behind the counter put it in a tiny box full of tissue paper and tied a ribbon onto it. He held it in his hands when she handed it to him and told him to have a merry Christmas.
He got back in the car and drove home twenty miles over the speed limit. He pulled into the driveway one minute late, but Amy and company did not appear to be back yet.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he burst through the door. “I got lost on the way to the bakery.”
“You’re fine,” Maria told him. “They’re not here yet. Did you get the cookies?”
He handed her a box full of two dozen Christmas cookies. She peeked inside and squealed with delight. “These are perfect!” she said.
“Yeah, I think they’ll do,” Michael said, struggling to keep the small gift hidden behind his back. “Kitchen looks nice.”
Maria smiled. “I even had time to blow dry my hair.” She walked back into the kitchen and took out a tray. She started placing the cookies on the tray one by one and then disposed of the box. While she was occupied, Michael hid the present under the tree, almost so that it was unnoticeable.
“I think they’re here,” Maria said. “I hear the car. Okay, we’re good right? We’re clean, kitchen’s clean. We got cookies.”
“We’re good,” Michael said. “Act casual.”
Maria made her way into the living room and sat down on the couch, turning on the TV. Michael kicked his shoes off by the door and went to sit down beside her, pretending that he was interested in what was on.
“We’re the best,” Maria said, laying out her hand for a low high five.
“Damn right.”
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
-
April
- Roswell Fanatic
- Posts: 1557
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:32 am
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New Part
“Maria!”
“Uncle Ben!” Maria shot up and ran to her uncle, embracing him in a big hug. Uncle Ben was truly a fun guy. It was weird to think of him and her father as brothers since lately, Jim had been everything but fun. She wished she got to see her Uncle and his family more, but it was hard since they lived in Vermont.
“Maria, you look so beautiful!” he told her, taking a step back to look at her. “I bet all the boys are just crazy about you.”
Maria blushed. “Not really.”
“Ben, let me see her,” Aunt May was saying. She pushed past her husband and also embraced Maria in a big hug. “Oh my,” she said, “you’ve grown up so much just since last Christmas.” Aunt May immediately started to run her fingers through Maria’s hair. She seemed to have a fascination with hair of all sorts, but especially Maria’s. Ever since Maria had been a little girl, Aunt May had never left it alone. Aunt May was weird like that.
Maria’s three cousins entered the house next. First there was Beth and Amber. Beth was around her age, sixteen or something. Maria couldn’t exactly remember. She had always liked Beth. Whenever they did get together, they would talk about boys a lot. Beth was always stressing that she would never get a boyfriend. Maria was always trying to decide which one to choose.
Amber had certainly changed. The thirteen-year-old girl seemed to be going through a punk rock stage. She had died her hair maroon, pierced her nose, and was now dressing like Avril Lavigne.
“Hey, Maria,” Beth said, hugging her cousin. “I bet you don’t even recognize Amber anymore.”
“She looks different,” Maria agreed. “Is she an Avril-worshiper?”
Beth nodded and rolled her eyes. Maria did the same. Those were the worst kind.
“Avril Lavigne is a rock goddess!” Amber said in defense of the person who was obviously her idol. “I will convert you all someday.”
Hmm, Maria thought. Amber’s gotten a little strange.
The last person to enter the house was David. He was five. The last time Maria had seen him, he had still been sucking his thumb. It looked like he had outgrown that now, and by the way he walked, it appeared that he was in that stage where he thought he was a big shot.
After giving David a hug, Maria felt someone tap her shoulder. She knew right away that it was Beth. Beth always had something to talk about right away.
“Who’s that?” her cousin asked, pointing over to the couch.
Maria followed her finger and saw that Michael was still sitting on the couch, staring at the television. She knew he was probably nervous to meet her family.
“That’s Michael,” she said.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No, he’s--”
“He’s cute,” Beth went on. She didn’t seem to have heard Maria. “How do you snag these guys, girl?”
“I didn’t--”
“Have you kissed him yet? Oh my god, I need to hear every single detail about those beautiful lips of his.”
“Beth!” she almost shouted. “He’s not my boyfriend. Michael’s my stepbrother.”
“Your stepbrother?” Beth seemed unaware that Maria even had a stepbrother.
“Yeah. I thought my mom might have mentioned him.”
“I think she did,” Beth said. “I guess I wasn’t really listening.” She still couldn’t seem to tear her eyes off Michael. “Wow,” she said.
Soon, Amber came to stand beside her sister. “Who’s that?” she asked Maria. “Your boyfriend?”
“No,” Maria said again. “It’s Michael.”
“Isn’t that Aunt Amy’s kid?”
Maria nodded.
“Does he like Avril?” Amber asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Amber sighed and shook her head, disappointed. “Then it could never work out. But damn . . . he’s hot.”
Maria left her cousins to stare and joined her stepbrother. “My cousins have a crush on you,” she said, leaning over the back of the couch to talk to him. “They’re staring at you right now.”
Michael smiled, pleased. “Really?”
“Really.”
“How old are they?”
“Well, Beth’s sixteen,” she told him, “but not your type. She tends to go for the jocks. You know, the Kyles. And Amber’s only thirteen. She wants to know if you like Avril Lavigne.”
“Is she a worshiper?” Michael asked.
Maria nodded.
“Why, don’t you two make a cute couple!” Aunt May exclaimed as she made her way over to the couch.
“Couple?” Michael echoed in confusion.
“We’re not a couple, Aunt May,” Maria said. “This is Michael.”
“Oh, my mistake,” Aunt May said. She smiled at Michael and then started running her hands through his spiky hair. “It’s nice to meet you, Michael.”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, glancing up cautiously at the way she was touching his hair.
“I love your hair,” Aunt May told him, finally going away. “I just love your hair.”
Michael waited until she was out of earshot to say, “Please tell me that your whole family isn’t like that.”
“No,” Maria said. “That’s just Aunt May.” She grabbed the remote from him and turned off the TV. “Come meet the rest of them.” She grabbed Michael’s hand and tried to pull him up off the couch.
“I don’t know,” he said, reluctantly rising to a standing position. “They probably won’t like me.”
“So far everyone has,” Maria pointed out. “My cousins are in love with you. Literally. And my aunt’s in love with your hair.”
She dragged Michael up to greet her family. “Everyone,” she said, “this is Michael. My stepbrother. He came here about two months ago.”
“Nice to meet you, Michael,” Uncle Ben said, extending his hand. “Amy’s told me so much about you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Michael replied, shaking Maria’s uncle’s hand, a little unsure.
He must have been so nervous. Maria couldn’t imagine how nervous he probably was. He wasn’t just meeting her family. He was meeting a family that could have been his family if he had remained with Amy.
“He’s just such a nice looking boy,” Aunt May said. “I think he and my Beth would make a great match.”
Maria watched her cousin turn bright red. When she finally had the courage, she walked up to Michael. “I’m Beth,” she said.
“Hey.”
A big smile found its way to Beth’s face. It was one of those He-spoke-to-me! smiles. Then she turned bright red again and recoiled.
“Is she another Liz?” Michael asked Maria quietly as the rest of the family started talking again.
“Oh, no,” Maria reassured him. “She’s way cooler than that . . . I think.”
“You think? I can’t handle another Liz, Maria.”
“Well, I don’t think she’s ever had a boyfriend, so when she likes a guy, she really likes a guy.”
A look of terror flashed across Michael’s face. “You mean she’s a stalker?”
“No,” Maria said. “She just stares a lot and lets out a lot sighs. Just ‘sigh’, you know. And she talks about the guy a lot. She says some kinda weird stuff sometimes, like, ‘oh, he’s so aesthetically pleasing!’ But she’s not like Liz.”
“Funny, she sounds a lot like her.”
“I promise, she’s not. But since she’s never had a boyfriend, could you maybe just pretend that you’re interested in her?”
“What?”
“You don’t have to kiss her or anything. Just tell her she’s pretty. It would really make her happy.”
“Michael!” Before Maria could discuss it more, Amber was beside them, clicking what sounded like a tongue ring against her teeth nervously. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “I like Avril Lavigne, and Maria says you don’t. But I think that you would really like her if you listen to her music sometime. Her new CD is really good.”
Maria couldn’t help but smile. She could figure Amber out. This was her little cousin’s subtle way of flirting. Saying ‘her new CD is really good’ was really a way of saying ‘let’s listen to her new CD up in your bedroom sometime. Alone.’
“Amber,” Maria started, feeling the need to get through to the girl. “Avril Lavigne is the type of person that I like to refer to as bitchy, punk-rock wannabe, hermaphrodite.”
“What’s a her-maph-ro-dite?” Amber asked, struggling to pronounce the word.
“Look it up.”
Confused, Amber went to rejoin her sister.
“Kinda harsh,” Michael commented.
“I know,” Maria agreed. “Amber used to be cool. Now she’s under the delusion that Avril Lavigne is a ‘rock goddess.’”
Michael chuckled. “You know, Maria, your family’s kinda weird.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Who wants cookies?”
Everyone started saying ‘I do’ at the same time when Amy got up and went into the kitchen for the cookies. When Amy laid eyes on the cookies, she smiled. “Maria, Michael, these are just lovely! You did such a great job! Oh, and they’re cut in the shape of santa clause.”
“Santa!” David shouted.
“Where did you find a santa cookie cutter?” Amy asked as she started passing out the cookies.
“Um, just somewhere,” Maria lied. “I just found one lying around somewhere.”
“Bad liar,” Michael whispered quietly. She jabbed him in the arm with her elbow as a sign to be quiet.
“These are really tasty,” Uncle Ben said. “I’m gonna need another.”
They sat around the tree and the fire (there was nothing like a nice hot fire in contrast to the nice hot weather outside) talking and eating cookies and drinking hot cocoa. The whole family seemed especially interested in Jim’s career, Maria’s boyfriend, and Michael. Michael wasn’t sure why the family had fallen in love with him, but he wasn’t crazy about it. Beth was nice, but she was so shy, and way too much like Liz. Amber was annoying as hell. All she ever talked about was her rock goddess. Aunt May was always touching his hair or talking about his hair. Even little David had been begging Michael to give him rides on his back around the house for half an hour. Uncle Ben seemed to be the only sane one.
“When are we going to bed?” Maria asked when the clock read 11:00 p.m.
“Soon,” Amy replied. “We’re waiting until Jim gets home. He’ll be here soon.”
Soon the clock hit 11:30. Jim was still not home. Maria seemed extremely tired. Michael felt extremely tired. Everyone else still seemed to be wide awake. Even little David.
“How long are they gonna stay up?” Maria asked Michael quietly.
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Maria sighed, struggling to keep her eyes open. “I’m exhausted. Are you?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“That food fight wore me out.”
He laughed a little. “Yeah me, too.”
11:35. No Jim DeLuca.
11:37. No Jim DeLuca.
11:40. Why break tradition? Still no Jim DeLuca.
“I can’t stay awake,” Maria said, resting her head back against the couch. Her eyes began to fall closed, and within a few minutes, she was asleep. Her head gradually started to slip until she was resting it on Michael’s shoulder. He didn’t bother to move her. She looked too comfortable.
At 11:55, Jim DeLuca finally arrived home. “Merry Christmas, everybody!” he exclaimed as he came through the door. “Sorry I’m late. I stopped and bought some last minute gifts.” He started hugging every member of the family, commenting on how different Amber looked.
“Maria,” Michael said, trying to wake the girl sleeping on his shoulder. “Your dad’s home.”
She stirred slightly and made a quiet sound, but she never woke up.
“Aw, she’s so tired,” Aunt May said. “I think we better get some rest.”
Good idea, Michael thought. Maria’s not the only one who’s tired.
“Can I sleep in Michael’s room?” Amber asked.
Oh, shit.
Amy laughed. “We have a room downstairs you can sleep in.”
“We better get Maria upstairs,” Beth suggested. “She looks pretty out.”
Michael stood up, taking Maria with him. It was hard to get her on her feet, especially when she refused to completely wake up. He put his arm around her and helped her up the stairs.
“What’s going on?” she asked when she started to wake up more. “What am I doing?”
“You’re going up the stairs,” Michael told her.
“Did I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, you fell asleep.”
“Can I sleep in your room tonight, Maria?” Beth asked, following them up the stairs.
“Sure.”
“Good,” Beth chirped excitedly. “We can stay up and talk.”
“Oh, good.” Maria’s sarcasm and un-interest was manifestly evident.
After helping Maria into her room, Michael left her and her cousin to themselves.
“Goodnight, Michael,” Beth said with a smile.
“Goodnight, Beth.”
Yeah, he thought as he made his way into his bedroom, I’ve got another Liz Evans on my hands.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Okay, let’s talk about boys!”
Putting on her pajamas and brushing her teeth had forced Maria to wake up more than she had wanted to, but it didn’t mean that she was awake enough to sit and talk with Beth for half an hour.
“Let’s talk about Michael,” her cousin continued. “I cannot get over how amazing he is!”
“You’ve only known him for a few hours,” Maria reminded her.
“Yeah, but in those few hours, I’ve fallen in love with his beautiful smile.”
“Michael doesn’t really smile a lot.”
Beth let out one of her infamous dreamy sighs. “He’s so aesthetically pleasing.”
“There it is,” Maria muttered.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Beth smiled and sighed again. “You’re so lucky, Maria.”
That’s what everybody says, she thought. I’m so lucky.
“You get to be around him all the time. You get to touch him whenever you want.”
“I don’t really touch Michael.”
“Yeah, you do,” Beth told her. “You guys are always poking each other or tickling each other.”
“We don’t really tickle.” Maria wasn’t sure where Beth was getting this from.
“You fell asleep on his shoulder,” Beth continued. “Do you know what I would give for that?”
Maria felt really bad for her cousin. Beth had a mad crush on Michael, and Maria knew that Michael couldn’t be any more uninterested in Beth.
“Is Max like Michael?” Beth asked her suddenly.
“Not really,” Maria answered.
“Do they look anything alike?”
Maria shook her head. “No, Max has really dark hair and really dark eyes. He’s really hot, too.”
“Of course he is,” Beth said. “A guy’s gotta look good to be on Maria DeLuca’s arm.”
That confused her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re so pretty, Maria. You can get any guy you want. I can’t get anybody.”
“You will,” Maria promised her. “It just takes time. When you meet the right guy and fall in love with him, it won’t just be because he’s ‘aesthetically pleasing.’ It’ll be because he’s kind and loving and caring. He’ll care about you. Not just about the outside, either. The inside, too.”
This seemed to lift Beth’s spirits. “Does Max care about the inside?” she asked curiously.
Maria knew her face must have fallen at this question. She knew she hesitated too long before she replied. “Yeah,” she finally said. “He really cares.”
Beth made herself comfortable on one side of the bed. “You’re so lucky, Maria,” she said.
“Yeah,” Maria agreed, pulling her covers up to her neck to keep the sudden chill that had entered the air away. “So lucky.”
“Maria!”
“Uncle Ben!” Maria shot up and ran to her uncle, embracing him in a big hug. Uncle Ben was truly a fun guy. It was weird to think of him and her father as brothers since lately, Jim had been everything but fun. She wished she got to see her Uncle and his family more, but it was hard since they lived in Vermont.
“Maria, you look so beautiful!” he told her, taking a step back to look at her. “I bet all the boys are just crazy about you.”
Maria blushed. “Not really.”
“Ben, let me see her,” Aunt May was saying. She pushed past her husband and also embraced Maria in a big hug. “Oh my,” she said, “you’ve grown up so much just since last Christmas.” Aunt May immediately started to run her fingers through Maria’s hair. She seemed to have a fascination with hair of all sorts, but especially Maria’s. Ever since Maria had been a little girl, Aunt May had never left it alone. Aunt May was weird like that.
Maria’s three cousins entered the house next. First there was Beth and Amber. Beth was around her age, sixteen or something. Maria couldn’t exactly remember. She had always liked Beth. Whenever they did get together, they would talk about boys a lot. Beth was always stressing that she would never get a boyfriend. Maria was always trying to decide which one to choose.
Amber had certainly changed. The thirteen-year-old girl seemed to be going through a punk rock stage. She had died her hair maroon, pierced her nose, and was now dressing like Avril Lavigne.
“Hey, Maria,” Beth said, hugging her cousin. “I bet you don’t even recognize Amber anymore.”
“She looks different,” Maria agreed. “Is she an Avril-worshiper?”
Beth nodded and rolled her eyes. Maria did the same. Those were the worst kind.
“Avril Lavigne is a rock goddess!” Amber said in defense of the person who was obviously her idol. “I will convert you all someday.”
Hmm, Maria thought. Amber’s gotten a little strange.
The last person to enter the house was David. He was five. The last time Maria had seen him, he had still been sucking his thumb. It looked like he had outgrown that now, and by the way he walked, it appeared that he was in that stage where he thought he was a big shot.
After giving David a hug, Maria felt someone tap her shoulder. She knew right away that it was Beth. Beth always had something to talk about right away.
“Who’s that?” her cousin asked, pointing over to the couch.
Maria followed her finger and saw that Michael was still sitting on the couch, staring at the television. She knew he was probably nervous to meet her family.
“That’s Michael,” she said.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No, he’s--”
“He’s cute,” Beth went on. She didn’t seem to have heard Maria. “How do you snag these guys, girl?”
“I didn’t--”
“Have you kissed him yet? Oh my god, I need to hear every single detail about those beautiful lips of his.”
“Beth!” she almost shouted. “He’s not my boyfriend. Michael’s my stepbrother.”
“Your stepbrother?” Beth seemed unaware that Maria even had a stepbrother.
“Yeah. I thought my mom might have mentioned him.”
“I think she did,” Beth said. “I guess I wasn’t really listening.” She still couldn’t seem to tear her eyes off Michael. “Wow,” she said.
Soon, Amber came to stand beside her sister. “Who’s that?” she asked Maria. “Your boyfriend?”
“No,” Maria said again. “It’s Michael.”
“Isn’t that Aunt Amy’s kid?”
Maria nodded.
“Does he like Avril?” Amber asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Amber sighed and shook her head, disappointed. “Then it could never work out. But damn . . . he’s hot.”
Maria left her cousins to stare and joined her stepbrother. “My cousins have a crush on you,” she said, leaning over the back of the couch to talk to him. “They’re staring at you right now.”
Michael smiled, pleased. “Really?”
“Really.”
“How old are they?”
“Well, Beth’s sixteen,” she told him, “but not your type. She tends to go for the jocks. You know, the Kyles. And Amber’s only thirteen. She wants to know if you like Avril Lavigne.”
“Is she a worshiper?” Michael asked.
Maria nodded.
“Why, don’t you two make a cute couple!” Aunt May exclaimed as she made her way over to the couch.
“Couple?” Michael echoed in confusion.
“We’re not a couple, Aunt May,” Maria said. “This is Michael.”
“Oh, my mistake,” Aunt May said. She smiled at Michael and then started running her hands through his spiky hair. “It’s nice to meet you, Michael.”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, glancing up cautiously at the way she was touching his hair.
“I love your hair,” Aunt May told him, finally going away. “I just love your hair.”
Michael waited until she was out of earshot to say, “Please tell me that your whole family isn’t like that.”
“No,” Maria said. “That’s just Aunt May.” She grabbed the remote from him and turned off the TV. “Come meet the rest of them.” She grabbed Michael’s hand and tried to pull him up off the couch.
“I don’t know,” he said, reluctantly rising to a standing position. “They probably won’t like me.”
“So far everyone has,” Maria pointed out. “My cousins are in love with you. Literally. And my aunt’s in love with your hair.”
She dragged Michael up to greet her family. “Everyone,” she said, “this is Michael. My stepbrother. He came here about two months ago.”
“Nice to meet you, Michael,” Uncle Ben said, extending his hand. “Amy’s told me so much about you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Michael replied, shaking Maria’s uncle’s hand, a little unsure.
He must have been so nervous. Maria couldn’t imagine how nervous he probably was. He wasn’t just meeting her family. He was meeting a family that could have been his family if he had remained with Amy.
“He’s just such a nice looking boy,” Aunt May said. “I think he and my Beth would make a great match.”
Maria watched her cousin turn bright red. When she finally had the courage, she walked up to Michael. “I’m Beth,” she said.
“Hey.”
A big smile found its way to Beth’s face. It was one of those He-spoke-to-me! smiles. Then she turned bright red again and recoiled.
“Is she another Liz?” Michael asked Maria quietly as the rest of the family started talking again.
“Oh, no,” Maria reassured him. “She’s way cooler than that . . . I think.”
“You think? I can’t handle another Liz, Maria.”
“Well, I don’t think she’s ever had a boyfriend, so when she likes a guy, she really likes a guy.”
A look of terror flashed across Michael’s face. “You mean she’s a stalker?”
“No,” Maria said. “She just stares a lot and lets out a lot sighs. Just ‘sigh’, you know. And she talks about the guy a lot. She says some kinda weird stuff sometimes, like, ‘oh, he’s so aesthetically pleasing!’ But she’s not like Liz.”
“Funny, she sounds a lot like her.”
“I promise, she’s not. But since she’s never had a boyfriend, could you maybe just pretend that you’re interested in her?”
“What?”
“You don’t have to kiss her or anything. Just tell her she’s pretty. It would really make her happy.”
“Michael!” Before Maria could discuss it more, Amber was beside them, clicking what sounded like a tongue ring against her teeth nervously. “Here’s the thing,” she said. “I like Avril Lavigne, and Maria says you don’t. But I think that you would really like her if you listen to her music sometime. Her new CD is really good.”
Maria couldn’t help but smile. She could figure Amber out. This was her little cousin’s subtle way of flirting. Saying ‘her new CD is really good’ was really a way of saying ‘let’s listen to her new CD up in your bedroom sometime. Alone.’
“Amber,” Maria started, feeling the need to get through to the girl. “Avril Lavigne is the type of person that I like to refer to as bitchy, punk-rock wannabe, hermaphrodite.”
“What’s a her-maph-ro-dite?” Amber asked, struggling to pronounce the word.
“Look it up.”
Confused, Amber went to rejoin her sister.
“Kinda harsh,” Michael commented.
“I know,” Maria agreed. “Amber used to be cool. Now she’s under the delusion that Avril Lavigne is a ‘rock goddess.’”
Michael chuckled. “You know, Maria, your family’s kinda weird.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Who wants cookies?”
Everyone started saying ‘I do’ at the same time when Amy got up and went into the kitchen for the cookies. When Amy laid eyes on the cookies, she smiled. “Maria, Michael, these are just lovely! You did such a great job! Oh, and they’re cut in the shape of santa clause.”
“Santa!” David shouted.
“Where did you find a santa cookie cutter?” Amy asked as she started passing out the cookies.
“Um, just somewhere,” Maria lied. “I just found one lying around somewhere.”
“Bad liar,” Michael whispered quietly. She jabbed him in the arm with her elbow as a sign to be quiet.
“These are really tasty,” Uncle Ben said. “I’m gonna need another.”
They sat around the tree and the fire (there was nothing like a nice hot fire in contrast to the nice hot weather outside) talking and eating cookies and drinking hot cocoa. The whole family seemed especially interested in Jim’s career, Maria’s boyfriend, and Michael. Michael wasn’t sure why the family had fallen in love with him, but he wasn’t crazy about it. Beth was nice, but she was so shy, and way too much like Liz. Amber was annoying as hell. All she ever talked about was her rock goddess. Aunt May was always touching his hair or talking about his hair. Even little David had been begging Michael to give him rides on his back around the house for half an hour. Uncle Ben seemed to be the only sane one.
“When are we going to bed?” Maria asked when the clock read 11:00 p.m.
“Soon,” Amy replied. “We’re waiting until Jim gets home. He’ll be here soon.”
Soon the clock hit 11:30. Jim was still not home. Maria seemed extremely tired. Michael felt extremely tired. Everyone else still seemed to be wide awake. Even little David.
“How long are they gonna stay up?” Maria asked Michael quietly.
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Maria sighed, struggling to keep her eyes open. “I’m exhausted. Are you?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“That food fight wore me out.”
He laughed a little. “Yeah me, too.”
11:35. No Jim DeLuca.
11:37. No Jim DeLuca.
11:40. Why break tradition? Still no Jim DeLuca.
“I can’t stay awake,” Maria said, resting her head back against the couch. Her eyes began to fall closed, and within a few minutes, she was asleep. Her head gradually started to slip until she was resting it on Michael’s shoulder. He didn’t bother to move her. She looked too comfortable.
At 11:55, Jim DeLuca finally arrived home. “Merry Christmas, everybody!” he exclaimed as he came through the door. “Sorry I’m late. I stopped and bought some last minute gifts.” He started hugging every member of the family, commenting on how different Amber looked.
“Maria,” Michael said, trying to wake the girl sleeping on his shoulder. “Your dad’s home.”
She stirred slightly and made a quiet sound, but she never woke up.
“Aw, she’s so tired,” Aunt May said. “I think we better get some rest.”
Good idea, Michael thought. Maria’s not the only one who’s tired.
“Can I sleep in Michael’s room?” Amber asked.
Oh, shit.
Amy laughed. “We have a room downstairs you can sleep in.”
“We better get Maria upstairs,” Beth suggested. “She looks pretty out.”
Michael stood up, taking Maria with him. It was hard to get her on her feet, especially when she refused to completely wake up. He put his arm around her and helped her up the stairs.
“What’s going on?” she asked when she started to wake up more. “What am I doing?”
“You’re going up the stairs,” Michael told her.
“Did I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, you fell asleep.”
“Can I sleep in your room tonight, Maria?” Beth asked, following them up the stairs.
“Sure.”
“Good,” Beth chirped excitedly. “We can stay up and talk.”
“Oh, good.” Maria’s sarcasm and un-interest was manifestly evident.
After helping Maria into her room, Michael left her and her cousin to themselves.
“Goodnight, Michael,” Beth said with a smile.
“Goodnight, Beth.”
Yeah, he thought as he made his way into his bedroom, I’ve got another Liz Evans on my hands.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Okay, let’s talk about boys!”
Putting on her pajamas and brushing her teeth had forced Maria to wake up more than she had wanted to, but it didn’t mean that she was awake enough to sit and talk with Beth for half an hour.
“Let’s talk about Michael,” her cousin continued. “I cannot get over how amazing he is!”
“You’ve only known him for a few hours,” Maria reminded her.
“Yeah, but in those few hours, I’ve fallen in love with his beautiful smile.”
“Michael doesn’t really smile a lot.”
Beth let out one of her infamous dreamy sighs. “He’s so aesthetically pleasing.”
“There it is,” Maria muttered.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Beth smiled and sighed again. “You’re so lucky, Maria.”
That’s what everybody says, she thought. I’m so lucky.
“You get to be around him all the time. You get to touch him whenever you want.”
“I don’t really touch Michael.”
“Yeah, you do,” Beth told her. “You guys are always poking each other or tickling each other.”
“We don’t really tickle.” Maria wasn’t sure where Beth was getting this from.
“You fell asleep on his shoulder,” Beth continued. “Do you know what I would give for that?”
Maria felt really bad for her cousin. Beth had a mad crush on Michael, and Maria knew that Michael couldn’t be any more uninterested in Beth.
“Is Max like Michael?” Beth asked her suddenly.
“Not really,” Maria answered.
“Do they look anything alike?”
Maria shook her head. “No, Max has really dark hair and really dark eyes. He’s really hot, too.”
“Of course he is,” Beth said. “A guy’s gotta look good to be on Maria DeLuca’s arm.”
That confused her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re so pretty, Maria. You can get any guy you want. I can’t get anybody.”
“You will,” Maria promised her. “It just takes time. When you meet the right guy and fall in love with him, it won’t just be because he’s ‘aesthetically pleasing.’ It’ll be because he’s kind and loving and caring. He’ll care about you. Not just about the outside, either. The inside, too.”
This seemed to lift Beth’s spirits. “Does Max care about the inside?” she asked curiously.
Maria knew her face must have fallen at this question. She knew she hesitated too long before she replied. “Yeah,” she finally said. “He really cares.”
Beth made herself comfortable on one side of the bed. “You’re so lucky, Maria,” she said.
“Yeah,” Maria agreed, pulling her covers up to her neck to keep the sudden chill that had entered the air away. “So lucky.”
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
-
April
- Roswell Fanatic
- Posts: 1557
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:32 am
- Location: Somewhere. Anywhere.
- Contact:
Hey, bre! It's good to hear from you again! I know how it is to get really busy. I hope things calm down for you, because busy times can really stress a person out.
Thanks for the feedback!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next morning was a crazy, long morning. It took three hours to get through half of the presents, and the main room was now a mess of wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, bags, and boxes.
David was receiving a lot of toys. He got upset when he received a little train. He said that trains were for babies.
Amber was receiving a lot of Avril posters and videos. Maria felt awkward when Amber opened up a pretty pink dress from her. Oh, well. She hadn’t been aware of her cousin’s transformation.
Beth was jumping up and down every time she received anything that would help her attract guys. She would start screaming at the sight of perfume. She would do a little happy dance when she saw nail polish. She seemed to stop abruptly, embarrassed, when she remembered that Michael was in the room.
Maria wasn’t sure why Beth got so excited over those kinds of things. Body wash and shampoo and perfume were things you bought for someone when you didn’t know what else to buy. Even though it was supposed to be the thought that counted, there was no thought behind these kinds of gifts. They were mostly meaningless.
Sadly, meaningless gifts were all Maria had received. Her aunt and uncle had gotten her perfume and lotion and make-up. Beth had gotten her more make-up. Amber had gotten her a hat that said PUNK in big letters. Yeah . . .
Even Max’s gift had been a waste. He gave her money so that she could buy whatever she wanted. There was nothing wrong with money, but there was no thought put into it.
Perhaps the most pathetic of all of her gifts, though, were from her parents. They got her shampoo. And hair clips. And a curling iron just like the one she already had. Maria wished they would have put a little more thought into their gifts. After all, she had put a lot of thought into their gifts when she gave them each a photo album with many pictures she had collected over the years. Her gifts to them were meaningful. What was the meaning of theirs?
The only nice gift Maria had gotten so far was from Isabel and Alex. They had given her a card expressing how they would have gotten her something exquisite if they hadn’t been spending so much money on their wedding. They gave her a picture frame with a picture of the three of them inside. It meant a lot.
“It looks like we’ve only got a few left,” Amy said as she handed Maria a bag. “This is for you, honey,” she said. “I hope you like it.”
For a brief moment, Maria was thinking that this gift was going to be spectacular. She was thinking that it might make up for all of the others that weren’t as great.
She was highly disappointed when she got through all of the tissue paper and laid eyes on the driver’s manual.
“A driving book,” she said, her voice flat. “Thanks, Mom. It’ll go great with the three I already have.”
“Well,” Amy said, “I thought it might be a good thing to have if you lose the other three.”
“Oh, you’re right,” Maria said sarcastically. “I never could’ve asked for a better present.”
Amy didn’t seem to hear her sarcasm. No one seemed to get it. Except Michael. From the corner of her eye, Maria could see that he was hiding his smile.
Michael had gotten mostly meaningless stuff, too. The only halfway decent thing was from Isabel and Alex, but even that was just a card. He hadn’t gotten a lot to begin with. Out of all of the presents under the tree, only about 1/16 were for him. Amy and Jim had gotten him stupid, trivial things. Socks. A clock. A pen. A hat that was ugly as hell. He always acted excited, but Maria could tell that he wasn’t.
“Michael, you haven’t opened one in awhile,” Amy said, searching under the tree. “Let me just find one.”
“I don’t think there’s any left for me,” he said.
“Actually, there is.”
He looked at her and met her eyes with a confused look. “What?” Maria said. “You didn’t think I’d get you anything?”
“Which one is it?” Amy asked.
“This one,” Maria answered, tapping a red box with her foot.
“I can tell Maria wrapped that one,” Jim commented. “It’s a disaster.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Her mom grabbed it and handed it to Michael. He just sat with it in his hands for a short time as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Then finally, when Maria started pressuring him to open it, he did.
She knew Michael would like the gift before he had even saw it. It wasn’t expensive. It wasn’t marvelous. It was simple. It was fun. Most of all, it was meaningful.
He chuckled when he opened up the box and looked inside. “Will and Grace season one,” he said, holding up the DVD set for everyone to see.
“Will and Grace?” Amy didn’t get it. “Is that the crude TV show you two are always talking about?”
“It’s not crude,” Maria said. “It’s hilarious and brilliantly written.”
“Don’t forget the acting,” Michael said.
“Oh, yeah, the acting. It’s perfect. I don’t see why they haven’t gotten a Golden Globe, yet.”
“Will and Grace,” Jim said. “That’s kind of an odd present, Maria.”
She ignored him.
“No, it’s not,” Michael reassured her. “It’s awesome, Maria. Now we can have Will and Grace marathons every night.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Thank you.”
Only a few gifts remained after that. Most were for Amy and Jim now. Michael got them the Christmas CD they had wanted for some time now. Aunt May got Amy a gift certificate to Macy’s and a Monet calendar. Uncle Ben got them reservations to stay at the Hilton on their anniversary.
“Well, I think we’re done then,” Jim said after Uncle Ben finished telling them about their Hilton reservations. “Thanks for everything, everyone.”
Well, that’s nice, Maria thought. I’ve got a whole pile of even less meaningful stuff than last year. Imagine that.
“There’s, uh . . . one more thing,” Michael said quietly. Everyone turned and looked at him expectantly. He reached under the tree and grabbed a tiny white box. Maria hadn’t even noticed it. It had been so hidden.
“Who’s it from?” Amy asked him.
“Me,” he answered simply. He slid the box across the floor, and Maria was surprised when it landed in front of her. “Merry Christmas,” he said quietly, as if he were embarrassed.
“Michael, you didn’t have to get me anything,” she said, picking up the box in her hands.
He shrugged. “Well, I did.”
“You didn’t have to,” she repeated. “You really shouldn’t have . . .”
“Maria,” he said, “just open it.”
Michael Guerin, you’re full of surprises, Maria thought as she opened the box gently. “Tissue paper,” she joked.
“Keep going,” he said.
She pulled the tissue paper away slowly, and she almost passed out when she saw what lay inside. It was sparkling and shining and gleaming like nothing else she had ever saw.
“My necklace,” she whispered. “Oh my god.” She looked over at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the floor now, avoiding eye contact.
“Let us see,” Amy said.
Maria took the necklace and held it up for everyone to see. It was even more beautiful than she remembered. The sight of the necklace drew a huge intake of breath from the rest of the family and a wishful sigh from Beth. “He’s magnificent,” she said.
Still in shock, Maria looked over at Michael again. He still wasn’t looking at her. She made her way over to him on her knees with the necklace still in her hand and threw her arms around him, embracing him in a hug. “Michael,” she whispered, “how much did you pay for this?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Oh my god,” she said again, still not letting go. “Thank you so much.” This was the most meaningful gift she had received. And it was from her stepbrother.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The usual California heat had died down slightly for Christmas, but it still didn’t snow. Maria kept glancing out the window while she and her family ate Christmas dinner, wondering if she would ever get to see snow. She couldn’t remember ever playing in the snow like most kids. Her father told her that she had played outside in the snow for two hours when she was three, but who could remember things from when they were three?
“Does it snow in Roswell?” Maria asked Michael as they walked outside around the pool.
Michael shrugged. “Once in awhile. Barely ever.”
“Does it get cold?”
He shook his head.
“Well, what’s it like on Christmas?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I never really paid any attention to Christmas, you know.”
She had almost forgotten that Michael hadn’t ever really celebrated Christmas before. It was just hard to imagine not celebrating Christmas. It was such a big deal with her family. “Did you have a good Christmas this year?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Even though your family’s crazy.”
“They’re not all crazy. Just Aunt May.”
“And Amber,” Michael reminded her. “She wanted to sleep in my room last night.”
Maria laughed a little. “What about Beth? Do you still think she’s another Liz?”
“Yep,” he answered with a nod, “but I, uh . . . I told her she was hot. Just to make her feel good, you know.”
“No wonder she was so happy after dinner,” Maria said. “I was trying to figure out what was up with her. Oh, Michael, I know that makes her feel so good.”
“Yeah, it better. It took everything I had to do it.”
She smacked him on the arm playfully. “Michael!”
“Well it did! I’m telling you, Maria, she’s crazy just like the rest of them. Except your uncle. He’s partially sane.”
“Partially,” Maria agreed. “But you know, I thought he might get me some kind of cool gift at least. But even he didn’t. Just more make-up. I swear to God, most of the presents I got were pointless. Except for yours.” She smiled, remembering the moment she had laid eyes on the brilliant diamond necklace. “I’m still in shock about that.”
“It’s nothing,” Michael said.
“No, it’s something, Michael. It’s $500. What made you get me a $500 necklace?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. You just really liked it, and no one else was going to get it for you.”
Max wasn’t going to get it for me, she thought. She immediately pushed the thought away. She didn’t want to be thinking negative things about Max.
“That was the best gift,” she told him. “I’m serious. And then I went and got you Will and Grace.”
“And I’m glad you did,” he said. “That’s the only gift I got that wasn’t pointless.”
“But you got me a $500 necklace. I got you a $50 DVD set. I should have--”
“Maria,” he said, cutting her off. “If you don’t stop this, I’ll be forced to start a food fight with you again.”
“Well in that case,” she said, “I’ll be forced to kick your ass.”
“Confident much?”
“You bet.” She smiled at the memory of Michael lying on the floor, covered in food. “If I do half as well as I did last time, I’ll win for sure.”
“For sure?”
“Of course!” she exclaimed. “Michael, by the time we’d finished, I couldn’t even see your face. That’s how covered with food you were.”
“True,” he agreed, “but your clothes aren’t even salvageable. Mine are. That says something.”
“That says nothing. The sight of your face says something, let me tell you. I will never forget that. It was so funny.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “I’ll show you something funny.” Before she could react, he had lifted her up in the air and was tossing her into the pool. When she came up to the surface, he was laughing. “Michael!” she exclaimed. “You are gonna get it now! That was uncalled for!”
“Maybe,” he agreed with a shrug, “but I think it’s funny.”
“You think this is funny?” she said, making her way to the edge of the pool. “You really think this is funny?” Before he could back away, she grabbed his ankles and pulled him into the pool alongside her. “Well, I think that’s funny.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Beth peered out the sliding door that led to the pool, watching her cousin and Michael chasing each other around in the water. She laughed inwardly when Michael came up behind Maria and lifted her up again, tossing her into the water again when she least expected it. She stopped laughing when she looked closer, though.
Even though Maria said she didn’t really touch Michael, she did. Probably more than she knew. And he touched her. He probably wasn’t even aware of it. His hands were around her waist. Her hands were on his shoulders, then around his neck. Beth knew they probably didn’t think of it as anything more than friendly touching, and it probably wasn’t, but still . . .
There was another thing, too. They were both smiling. A lot. Michael didn’t smile in an over-abundance around the rest of the family. Beth had noticed that. Once in awhile, he did, but it always seemed to be directed at Maria. And Maria never really smiled a real smile. Most of the time, they were sarcastic, except when they were directed at Michael.
There was something different about their relationship. Beth saw that. She wondered if anyone else did. She wondered if Michael and Maria even did.
I don’t even stand a chance, she thought. They’re so close.
TBC...
Thanks for the feedback!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next morning was a crazy, long morning. It took three hours to get through half of the presents, and the main room was now a mess of wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, bags, and boxes.
David was receiving a lot of toys. He got upset when he received a little train. He said that trains were for babies.
Amber was receiving a lot of Avril posters and videos. Maria felt awkward when Amber opened up a pretty pink dress from her. Oh, well. She hadn’t been aware of her cousin’s transformation.
Beth was jumping up and down every time she received anything that would help her attract guys. She would start screaming at the sight of perfume. She would do a little happy dance when she saw nail polish. She seemed to stop abruptly, embarrassed, when she remembered that Michael was in the room.
Maria wasn’t sure why Beth got so excited over those kinds of things. Body wash and shampoo and perfume were things you bought for someone when you didn’t know what else to buy. Even though it was supposed to be the thought that counted, there was no thought behind these kinds of gifts. They were mostly meaningless.
Sadly, meaningless gifts were all Maria had received. Her aunt and uncle had gotten her perfume and lotion and make-up. Beth had gotten her more make-up. Amber had gotten her a hat that said PUNK in big letters. Yeah . . .
Even Max’s gift had been a waste. He gave her money so that she could buy whatever she wanted. There was nothing wrong with money, but there was no thought put into it.
Perhaps the most pathetic of all of her gifts, though, were from her parents. They got her shampoo. And hair clips. And a curling iron just like the one she already had. Maria wished they would have put a little more thought into their gifts. After all, she had put a lot of thought into their gifts when she gave them each a photo album with many pictures she had collected over the years. Her gifts to them were meaningful. What was the meaning of theirs?
The only nice gift Maria had gotten so far was from Isabel and Alex. They had given her a card expressing how they would have gotten her something exquisite if they hadn’t been spending so much money on their wedding. They gave her a picture frame with a picture of the three of them inside. It meant a lot.
“It looks like we’ve only got a few left,” Amy said as she handed Maria a bag. “This is for you, honey,” she said. “I hope you like it.”
For a brief moment, Maria was thinking that this gift was going to be spectacular. She was thinking that it might make up for all of the others that weren’t as great.
She was highly disappointed when she got through all of the tissue paper and laid eyes on the driver’s manual.
“A driving book,” she said, her voice flat. “Thanks, Mom. It’ll go great with the three I already have.”
“Well,” Amy said, “I thought it might be a good thing to have if you lose the other three.”
“Oh, you’re right,” Maria said sarcastically. “I never could’ve asked for a better present.”
Amy didn’t seem to hear her sarcasm. No one seemed to get it. Except Michael. From the corner of her eye, Maria could see that he was hiding his smile.
Michael had gotten mostly meaningless stuff, too. The only halfway decent thing was from Isabel and Alex, but even that was just a card. He hadn’t gotten a lot to begin with. Out of all of the presents under the tree, only about 1/16 were for him. Amy and Jim had gotten him stupid, trivial things. Socks. A clock. A pen. A hat that was ugly as hell. He always acted excited, but Maria could tell that he wasn’t.
“Michael, you haven’t opened one in awhile,” Amy said, searching under the tree. “Let me just find one.”
“I don’t think there’s any left for me,” he said.
“Actually, there is.”
He looked at her and met her eyes with a confused look. “What?” Maria said. “You didn’t think I’d get you anything?”
“Which one is it?” Amy asked.
“This one,” Maria answered, tapping a red box with her foot.
“I can tell Maria wrapped that one,” Jim commented. “It’s a disaster.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Her mom grabbed it and handed it to Michael. He just sat with it in his hands for a short time as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Then finally, when Maria started pressuring him to open it, he did.
She knew Michael would like the gift before he had even saw it. It wasn’t expensive. It wasn’t marvelous. It was simple. It was fun. Most of all, it was meaningful.
He chuckled when he opened up the box and looked inside. “Will and Grace season one,” he said, holding up the DVD set for everyone to see.
“Will and Grace?” Amy didn’t get it. “Is that the crude TV show you two are always talking about?”
“It’s not crude,” Maria said. “It’s hilarious and brilliantly written.”
“Don’t forget the acting,” Michael said.
“Oh, yeah, the acting. It’s perfect. I don’t see why they haven’t gotten a Golden Globe, yet.”
“Will and Grace,” Jim said. “That’s kind of an odd present, Maria.”
She ignored him.
“No, it’s not,” Michael reassured her. “It’s awesome, Maria. Now we can have Will and Grace marathons every night.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Thank you.”
Only a few gifts remained after that. Most were for Amy and Jim now. Michael got them the Christmas CD they had wanted for some time now. Aunt May got Amy a gift certificate to Macy’s and a Monet calendar. Uncle Ben got them reservations to stay at the Hilton on their anniversary.
“Well, I think we’re done then,” Jim said after Uncle Ben finished telling them about their Hilton reservations. “Thanks for everything, everyone.”
Well, that’s nice, Maria thought. I’ve got a whole pile of even less meaningful stuff than last year. Imagine that.
“There’s, uh . . . one more thing,” Michael said quietly. Everyone turned and looked at him expectantly. He reached under the tree and grabbed a tiny white box. Maria hadn’t even noticed it. It had been so hidden.
“Who’s it from?” Amy asked him.
“Me,” he answered simply. He slid the box across the floor, and Maria was surprised when it landed in front of her. “Merry Christmas,” he said quietly, as if he were embarrassed.
“Michael, you didn’t have to get me anything,” she said, picking up the box in her hands.
He shrugged. “Well, I did.”
“You didn’t have to,” she repeated. “You really shouldn’t have . . .”
“Maria,” he said, “just open it.”
Michael Guerin, you’re full of surprises, Maria thought as she opened the box gently. “Tissue paper,” she joked.
“Keep going,” he said.
She pulled the tissue paper away slowly, and she almost passed out when she saw what lay inside. It was sparkling and shining and gleaming like nothing else she had ever saw.
“My necklace,” she whispered. “Oh my god.” She looked over at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the floor now, avoiding eye contact.
“Let us see,” Amy said.
Maria took the necklace and held it up for everyone to see. It was even more beautiful than she remembered. The sight of the necklace drew a huge intake of breath from the rest of the family and a wishful sigh from Beth. “He’s magnificent,” she said.
Still in shock, Maria looked over at Michael again. He still wasn’t looking at her. She made her way over to him on her knees with the necklace still in her hand and threw her arms around him, embracing him in a hug. “Michael,” she whispered, “how much did you pay for this?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Oh my god,” she said again, still not letting go. “Thank you so much.” This was the most meaningful gift she had received. And it was from her stepbrother.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The usual California heat had died down slightly for Christmas, but it still didn’t snow. Maria kept glancing out the window while she and her family ate Christmas dinner, wondering if she would ever get to see snow. She couldn’t remember ever playing in the snow like most kids. Her father told her that she had played outside in the snow for two hours when she was three, but who could remember things from when they were three?
“Does it snow in Roswell?” Maria asked Michael as they walked outside around the pool.
Michael shrugged. “Once in awhile. Barely ever.”
“Does it get cold?”
He shook his head.
“Well, what’s it like on Christmas?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I never really paid any attention to Christmas, you know.”
She had almost forgotten that Michael hadn’t ever really celebrated Christmas before. It was just hard to imagine not celebrating Christmas. It was such a big deal with her family. “Did you have a good Christmas this year?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Even though your family’s crazy.”
“They’re not all crazy. Just Aunt May.”
“And Amber,” Michael reminded her. “She wanted to sleep in my room last night.”
Maria laughed a little. “What about Beth? Do you still think she’s another Liz?”
“Yep,” he answered with a nod, “but I, uh . . . I told her she was hot. Just to make her feel good, you know.”
“No wonder she was so happy after dinner,” Maria said. “I was trying to figure out what was up with her. Oh, Michael, I know that makes her feel so good.”
“Yeah, it better. It took everything I had to do it.”
She smacked him on the arm playfully. “Michael!”
“Well it did! I’m telling you, Maria, she’s crazy just like the rest of them. Except your uncle. He’s partially sane.”
“Partially,” Maria agreed. “But you know, I thought he might get me some kind of cool gift at least. But even he didn’t. Just more make-up. I swear to God, most of the presents I got were pointless. Except for yours.” She smiled, remembering the moment she had laid eyes on the brilliant diamond necklace. “I’m still in shock about that.”
“It’s nothing,” Michael said.
“No, it’s something, Michael. It’s $500. What made you get me a $500 necklace?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. You just really liked it, and no one else was going to get it for you.”
Max wasn’t going to get it for me, she thought. She immediately pushed the thought away. She didn’t want to be thinking negative things about Max.
“That was the best gift,” she told him. “I’m serious. And then I went and got you Will and Grace.”
“And I’m glad you did,” he said. “That’s the only gift I got that wasn’t pointless.”
“But you got me a $500 necklace. I got you a $50 DVD set. I should have--”
“Maria,” he said, cutting her off. “If you don’t stop this, I’ll be forced to start a food fight with you again.”
“Well in that case,” she said, “I’ll be forced to kick your ass.”
“Confident much?”
“You bet.” She smiled at the memory of Michael lying on the floor, covered in food. “If I do half as well as I did last time, I’ll win for sure.”
“For sure?”
“Of course!” she exclaimed. “Michael, by the time we’d finished, I couldn’t even see your face. That’s how covered with food you were.”
“True,” he agreed, “but your clothes aren’t even salvageable. Mine are. That says something.”
“That says nothing. The sight of your face says something, let me tell you. I will never forget that. It was so funny.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “I’ll show you something funny.” Before she could react, he had lifted her up in the air and was tossing her into the pool. When she came up to the surface, he was laughing. “Michael!” she exclaimed. “You are gonna get it now! That was uncalled for!”
“Maybe,” he agreed with a shrug, “but I think it’s funny.”
“You think this is funny?” she said, making her way to the edge of the pool. “You really think this is funny?” Before he could back away, she grabbed his ankles and pulled him into the pool alongside her. “Well, I think that’s funny.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Beth peered out the sliding door that led to the pool, watching her cousin and Michael chasing each other around in the water. She laughed inwardly when Michael came up behind Maria and lifted her up again, tossing her into the water again when she least expected it. She stopped laughing when she looked closer, though.
Even though Maria said she didn’t really touch Michael, she did. Probably more than she knew. And he touched her. He probably wasn’t even aware of it. His hands were around her waist. Her hands were on his shoulders, then around his neck. Beth knew they probably didn’t think of it as anything more than friendly touching, and it probably wasn’t, but still . . .
There was another thing, too. They were both smiling. A lot. Michael didn’t smile in an over-abundance around the rest of the family. Beth had noticed that. Once in awhile, he did, but it always seemed to be directed at Maria. And Maria never really smiled a real smile. Most of the time, they were sarcastic, except when they were directed at Michael.
There was something different about their relationship. Beth saw that. She wondered if anyone else did. She wondered if Michael and Maria even did.
I don’t even stand a chance, she thought. They’re so close.
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
-
April
- Roswell Fanatic
- Posts: 1557
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:32 am
- Location: Somewhere. Anywhere.
- Contact:
New Part
Christmas was over almost as soon as it started. Uncle Ben and his family left the DeLuca residence, the tree came down, and New Year’s settled in before anyone was ready for it. New Year’s Eve was a night for crazy parties. Max, Maria, Isabel, and Alex all headed from one party to another, and Maria dragged Michael along for the fun of it. Nobody wanted Liz to accompany them, but Max explained that to everyone that, if he was to receive his expensive new car any time soon, Liz had to come.
Max probably already has three cars, Michael thought. The guy’s an idiot. What the hell is an idiot like that doing with Maria?
Never was it clearer that Max was not the right guy for Maria than on New Year’s Eve. He was drinking like a maniac at every party he went to, and he was always trying to get Maria to drink, too.
“I told you, I’m not drinking anymore,” Michael heard her saying as Max tried to place a bottle of beer in her hand.
“Come on, baby,” he kept saying.
“Let’s just go dance,” she suggested.
Max shook his head and said something that Michael couldn’t understand, then resumed trying to place the beer in Maria’s hands. “Come on,” he continued. “Come on, baby.”
Maria pointed to the clock and said something about it almost being midnight. As the party people started to count down from ten until the New Year, Maria got Max to forget about the beer bottle. She maneuvered her way into his arms and got him to focus all of his attention on her.
The party erupted in cheers and shouts as the clock hit midnight. Everyone immediately found their significant other and started kissing. Isabel and Alex kissed. Maria and Max kissed.
All at once, Michael felt a presence sitting next to him on the couch. He looked over and saw Liz. “What do you want?” he asked, knowing quite well what she wanted.
“We need to kiss,” Liz said. “It’s tradition.”
Michael shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s what couples do.”
“We’re not a couple.”
Liz laughed like he was telling a joke. “We need to kiss like my brother and Maria are kissing.” She pointed over where Maria and Max were. Max was practically shoving his tongue down Maria’s throat. Michael knew he would never french Liz, not even if his life depended on it.
“It’ll be our first kiss,” Liz was saying, “so I want it to be romantic. But hot, too.”
Michael tuned her out. He was too busy looking at Max and Maria. Maria shouldn’t be kissing him, he thought. She should be kissing someone else. Someone better.
At last, everyone started to pull away, and the kissing started to die down. The minute Maria and Max stopped kissing, Max grabbed the beer bottle again. “Now you can drink,” he was saying. “Come on, Maria.”
“No,” she kept saying. “I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do. Come on.”
Michael stood up and walked away from Liz towards the couple. He couldn’t watch another second of this.
“Max, would you just stop forcing this,” Maria was saying as Michael approached.
“Come on, baby. Just have one drink.”
“She doesn’t want one drink,” Michael said, stepping by Maria’s side.
Max gave him an annoyed look. “Well aren’t you just the knight in shining armor,” he said. He sounded more than a little drunk.
Maria rolled her eyes and turned to Michael. “I used to think parties were so cool,” she said. “Now I’m starting to think they suck.”
“Wanna leave?” he asked her.
She nodded and grabbed her purse. “See you later, Max,” she said, almost without expression, before she turned and left with Michael.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Max watched his girlfriend leave with her stepbrother. Even though he was drunk, he could think clearly, and his mind was clearly telling him that Michael was a piece of shit. He had hated the guy from the moment he met him. He didn’t know why Maria seemed to like him so much. She didn’t have to like him. They weren't related by blood or anything.
Kyle VaLenti approached him, laughing. “Dude,” he said, “Maria spends more time with her stepbrother than she does with you.”
Max was aware of that, and he wasn’t happy about it. If Michael wanted to spend time with Maria, he would have to fight for it. This was a competition now, and Maria was the prize. Max wanted Maria, and he always got what he wanted.
One way or another.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“5, 6, 7, 8!”
Maria watched as the members of the Gold Rush team performed their latest dance for her. She stopped the music whenever they hit a problem spot, and then she went over it. This was definitely the hardest dance she had ever made up. Some of the girls even commented that it seemed like it was a college level, and teaching it and getting the other girls to catch on was definitely proving to be a challenge.
“Do it one more time with music, and then it should be ready,” Maria said. She played the music and watched as the girls moved, making sure that they were in time with the music and in sync with each other. She smiled when they reached the complicated jump sequence and all did it perfectly and together. When they were all done and out of breath, she couldn’t help but clap her hands together. “You guys, that was amazing!” she praised. “We’re gonna look so good tonight!”
A few of the girls raved about how excited they were. A few others complained about how nervous they were. Maria was one of the excited ones. This was going to be the best dance that they had done yet. They were going to wow the audience, and Maria wanted to make sure that one person in particular was wowed.
“I’ll be back in a sec, guys,” she said, taking off in the direction of the gym. She glanced at the scoreboard on her way through the crowded bleachers. Hamilton was leading by only a few points. Another good game.
She found her mother and father sitting by a group of other parents, both intrigued and interested in the game. She hoped that they were that interested in her dance. They should be. They would be. Gold Rush was going to blow them away.
“Good game,” she commented, squeezing in next to her father momentarily.
“Sure is,” he agreed.
“It’s almost half time,” Amy told her. “Nervous?”
Maria shook her head. After doing this all throughout high school, the nerves started to be nonexistent after awhile. “Excited,” she corrected. “You’ll be watching my dance, right?”
“Of course,” Amy said.
Amy wasn’t the one Maria had been asking. “Both of you?” she asked.
“If I can,” Jim answered.
That wasn’t the answer Maria had been looking for. “Please do,” she pleaded. “I’d really appreciate it if you would. It would mean a lot to me.”
“I will,” Jim said. “I’ll watch it, Maria.”
She felt overjoyed. “You promise?” She still had to make sure.
“I promise,” he said.
She felt like jumping up and down and doing a happy dance. Finally, her dad was going to take time out to watch something that was important to her, even though it was pointless to him. Finally, he would see that she was not just wasting her life.
“Okay, I better go,” she said. She made her way back through the bleachers, spotting Michael and Alex sitting together on the other side. She waved to them, and they waved back. Isabel was in the middle of a cheer.
I wonder where Max is, she thought. I thought he said he would be here.
Maria went back out to rejoin her teammates, and in a few minutes, they were making their way back to the gym. She tried to calm the nervous ones and last minute and reminded the team how important attitude was to the dance. After that, she found herself out on the floor, right in the center with everyone else surrounding her.
The music started up, and so did Maria. She felt as if all eyes were on her. She loved that feeling. No matter what else she failed at, she was a good dancer, and she never failed at dancing.
The guys in the crowd cheered when they shook their hips or did any other semi-sexual move. The girls cheered them on when they did an especially cute move.
But the entire crowd came together in awe when they started the jump sequence. Maria felt like she was going in slow motion suddenly. She didn’t ever want this moment to end. She was so happy out there. She loved it that the crowd thought that she and the rest of the team were doing something unbelievable. She loved that she could succeed in this. She loved that . . .
All at once, when Maria was coming down from one of her jumps, she felt her foot give way underneath her, and she fell to the ground. The crowd grew in a collective gasp at this, and Maria couldn’t keep the shocked expression off of her face. What had just happened? Had she messed up? She couldn’t have. Not on this dance. Not on this night. Not her.
She plastered a smile back on her face and got back up, joining the rest of her teammates again. She no longer never wanted this moment to end. For the first time that she could remember, she didn’t want to be dancing in front of everybody. She wanted it over with. She wanted everyone’s eyes off of her, she wanted to take that smile off of her face, and she wanted to get out of the spotlight.
She was still smiling at the very end of the dance, but she didn’t feel like smiling. She was still in shock that she had screwed up. She couldn’t remember ever messing up before. Not even when she was a freshman. That was why she was so proud.
She ran off with the rest of the girls, but she ran in a different direction. She ran back out in front of the trophy case and started watching herself do the jump sequence all alone with nobody else around. She didn’t even bother to sit and rest for awhile or get a drink of water. She had to prove that she could do it. That she could succeed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael couldn’t concentrate on the rest of the game. He kept searching around for Maria, but he didn’t see her. Weird. She wasn’t sitting by her parents. She wasn’t sitting by her friends. He even checked the concession stand. No Maria.
He made it to the fourth quarter, and then he couldn’t take it any longer. He needed to find Maria. He had a feeling she was isolating herself since she had taken her fall in the dance. It wasn’t a big deal to the audience, but it probably was to her.
“I’m gonna get outta here for awhile,” he told Alex, standing up. He squeezed past people and made his way down the bleachers and out of the gymnasium. He checked everywhere he could think. He checked the two smaller gyms. She wasn’t in there. He yelled into the bathrooms. He couldn’t find her.
When he finally did find her, she was practically killing herself in front of the trophy case. She kept doing the same jump combination that she had messed up on, over and over again. She looked like she was exhausting herself, and she looked like she was going to pass out.
“You want anything to drink?” he asked her.
She shook her head, not even turning around to face him. She kept doing the jumping thing again and again, and finally Michael couldn’t watch her do it anymore. “Maria, stop,” he said.
To his surprise, she did. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and started breathing heavily. She slumped down against the wall, finally allowing herself to rest.
“You okay?” he asked her.
She shrugged.
“Are you upset about--”
She was nodding before he even finished. “Don’t even tell me that you didn’t notice it,” she said. “Everyone noticed it. I’m sure.”
“So? Who cares if they did? It was one mistake. That’s all. You were still the best one out there.”
She shook her head. “No, I wasn’t. Not tonight. And I needed to be.”
Michael sat down beside her. He didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t sure what the hell she was talking about.
“My dad was watching,” she said finally. “This is the first time he’s seen me dance all year. I really wanted to prove to him that I was doing something and that I was doing it well. But I didn’t.”
“Maria, not everybody can get out there and do all the things you did.”
“Everybody can get out there and mess up.”
“Everybody messes up once in awhile.”
“No, they don’t.”
Maria was in one of her impossible moods right now. That much was obvious. Michael knew it was going to take a lot to get through to her right now.
“I’ve never messed up a dance like that before,” she told him. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I never have, and I take pride in that. Now that pride’s just demolished.”
Michael sighed. “It’s not, Maria. You know, even though you did mess up, nobody was able to take their eyes off of you. Everybody still just wanted to watch you, not the rest of the team. I know it’s not fair to the other people out there for me to say that, but it’s true.”
This seemed to make her feel a little better. “Do you think my dad still just wanted to watch me?”
“Of course. Maria, you don’t need to worry about your dad. He’s gonna be impressed. You just watch.”
A small smile played at her lips. “You’re getting better at this psychology thing.”
At the end of the game, her parents came out and found her. Jim was flanked by a few of his many fans and was in the process of signing autographs.
Maria looked at them expectantly, and Michael looked at them hopefully. Amy didn’t say anything about Maria’s dance, as if she were afraid to say something unless Jim gave her his approval.
When Jim was done signing autographs, he looked down at Maria. He just stared at her for a few seconds, and then he shook his head, disappointed. He took Amy’s hand and they started out to the car.
“Shake it off,” Michael told Maria. “Just shake it off.”
“Shake it off,” she echoed. She got to her feet and started shaking her entire body. “I’m shaking it off. It doesn’t bother me, ‘cause I’m shaking it off.”
We kinda have a routine going here, he thought. Something goes wrong, she comes to me, or I go to her, we talk about it, and then she shakes it off. I’m guess I’m kinda the shoulder she leans on.
Hmm. I like being that.
TBC...
Christmas was over almost as soon as it started. Uncle Ben and his family left the DeLuca residence, the tree came down, and New Year’s settled in before anyone was ready for it. New Year’s Eve was a night for crazy parties. Max, Maria, Isabel, and Alex all headed from one party to another, and Maria dragged Michael along for the fun of it. Nobody wanted Liz to accompany them, but Max explained that to everyone that, if he was to receive his expensive new car any time soon, Liz had to come.
Max probably already has three cars, Michael thought. The guy’s an idiot. What the hell is an idiot like that doing with Maria?
Never was it clearer that Max was not the right guy for Maria than on New Year’s Eve. He was drinking like a maniac at every party he went to, and he was always trying to get Maria to drink, too.
“I told you, I’m not drinking anymore,” Michael heard her saying as Max tried to place a bottle of beer in her hand.
“Come on, baby,” he kept saying.
“Let’s just go dance,” she suggested.
Max shook his head and said something that Michael couldn’t understand, then resumed trying to place the beer in Maria’s hands. “Come on,” he continued. “Come on, baby.”
Maria pointed to the clock and said something about it almost being midnight. As the party people started to count down from ten until the New Year, Maria got Max to forget about the beer bottle. She maneuvered her way into his arms and got him to focus all of his attention on her.
The party erupted in cheers and shouts as the clock hit midnight. Everyone immediately found their significant other and started kissing. Isabel and Alex kissed. Maria and Max kissed.
All at once, Michael felt a presence sitting next to him on the couch. He looked over and saw Liz. “What do you want?” he asked, knowing quite well what she wanted.
“We need to kiss,” Liz said. “It’s tradition.”
Michael shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“It’s what couples do.”
“We’re not a couple.”
Liz laughed like he was telling a joke. “We need to kiss like my brother and Maria are kissing.” She pointed over where Maria and Max were. Max was practically shoving his tongue down Maria’s throat. Michael knew he would never french Liz, not even if his life depended on it.
“It’ll be our first kiss,” Liz was saying, “so I want it to be romantic. But hot, too.”
Michael tuned her out. He was too busy looking at Max and Maria. Maria shouldn’t be kissing him, he thought. She should be kissing someone else. Someone better.
At last, everyone started to pull away, and the kissing started to die down. The minute Maria and Max stopped kissing, Max grabbed the beer bottle again. “Now you can drink,” he was saying. “Come on, Maria.”
“No,” she kept saying. “I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do. Come on.”
Michael stood up and walked away from Liz towards the couple. He couldn’t watch another second of this.
“Max, would you just stop forcing this,” Maria was saying as Michael approached.
“Come on, baby. Just have one drink.”
“She doesn’t want one drink,” Michael said, stepping by Maria’s side.
Max gave him an annoyed look. “Well aren’t you just the knight in shining armor,” he said. He sounded more than a little drunk.
Maria rolled her eyes and turned to Michael. “I used to think parties were so cool,” she said. “Now I’m starting to think they suck.”
“Wanna leave?” he asked her.
She nodded and grabbed her purse. “See you later, Max,” she said, almost without expression, before she turned and left with Michael.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Max watched his girlfriend leave with her stepbrother. Even though he was drunk, he could think clearly, and his mind was clearly telling him that Michael was a piece of shit. He had hated the guy from the moment he met him. He didn’t know why Maria seemed to like him so much. She didn’t have to like him. They weren't related by blood or anything.
Kyle VaLenti approached him, laughing. “Dude,” he said, “Maria spends more time with her stepbrother than she does with you.”
Max was aware of that, and he wasn’t happy about it. If Michael wanted to spend time with Maria, he would have to fight for it. This was a competition now, and Maria was the prize. Max wanted Maria, and he always got what he wanted.
One way or another.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“5, 6, 7, 8!”
Maria watched as the members of the Gold Rush team performed their latest dance for her. She stopped the music whenever they hit a problem spot, and then she went over it. This was definitely the hardest dance she had ever made up. Some of the girls even commented that it seemed like it was a college level, and teaching it and getting the other girls to catch on was definitely proving to be a challenge.
“Do it one more time with music, and then it should be ready,” Maria said. She played the music and watched as the girls moved, making sure that they were in time with the music and in sync with each other. She smiled when they reached the complicated jump sequence and all did it perfectly and together. When they were all done and out of breath, she couldn’t help but clap her hands together. “You guys, that was amazing!” she praised. “We’re gonna look so good tonight!”
A few of the girls raved about how excited they were. A few others complained about how nervous they were. Maria was one of the excited ones. This was going to be the best dance that they had done yet. They were going to wow the audience, and Maria wanted to make sure that one person in particular was wowed.
“I’ll be back in a sec, guys,” she said, taking off in the direction of the gym. She glanced at the scoreboard on her way through the crowded bleachers. Hamilton was leading by only a few points. Another good game.
She found her mother and father sitting by a group of other parents, both intrigued and interested in the game. She hoped that they were that interested in her dance. They should be. They would be. Gold Rush was going to blow them away.
“Good game,” she commented, squeezing in next to her father momentarily.
“Sure is,” he agreed.
“It’s almost half time,” Amy told her. “Nervous?”
Maria shook her head. After doing this all throughout high school, the nerves started to be nonexistent after awhile. “Excited,” she corrected. “You’ll be watching my dance, right?”
“Of course,” Amy said.
Amy wasn’t the one Maria had been asking. “Both of you?” she asked.
“If I can,” Jim answered.
That wasn’t the answer Maria had been looking for. “Please do,” she pleaded. “I’d really appreciate it if you would. It would mean a lot to me.”
“I will,” Jim said. “I’ll watch it, Maria.”
She felt overjoyed. “You promise?” She still had to make sure.
“I promise,” he said.
She felt like jumping up and down and doing a happy dance. Finally, her dad was going to take time out to watch something that was important to her, even though it was pointless to him. Finally, he would see that she was not just wasting her life.
“Okay, I better go,” she said. She made her way back through the bleachers, spotting Michael and Alex sitting together on the other side. She waved to them, and they waved back. Isabel was in the middle of a cheer.
I wonder where Max is, she thought. I thought he said he would be here.
Maria went back out to rejoin her teammates, and in a few minutes, they were making their way back to the gym. She tried to calm the nervous ones and last minute and reminded the team how important attitude was to the dance. After that, she found herself out on the floor, right in the center with everyone else surrounding her.
The music started up, and so did Maria. She felt as if all eyes were on her. She loved that feeling. No matter what else she failed at, she was a good dancer, and she never failed at dancing.
The guys in the crowd cheered when they shook their hips or did any other semi-sexual move. The girls cheered them on when they did an especially cute move.
But the entire crowd came together in awe when they started the jump sequence. Maria felt like she was going in slow motion suddenly. She didn’t ever want this moment to end. She was so happy out there. She loved it that the crowd thought that she and the rest of the team were doing something unbelievable. She loved that she could succeed in this. She loved that . . .
All at once, when Maria was coming down from one of her jumps, she felt her foot give way underneath her, and she fell to the ground. The crowd grew in a collective gasp at this, and Maria couldn’t keep the shocked expression off of her face. What had just happened? Had she messed up? She couldn’t have. Not on this dance. Not on this night. Not her.
She plastered a smile back on her face and got back up, joining the rest of her teammates again. She no longer never wanted this moment to end. For the first time that she could remember, she didn’t want to be dancing in front of everybody. She wanted it over with. She wanted everyone’s eyes off of her, she wanted to take that smile off of her face, and she wanted to get out of the spotlight.
She was still smiling at the very end of the dance, but she didn’t feel like smiling. She was still in shock that she had screwed up. She couldn’t remember ever messing up before. Not even when she was a freshman. That was why she was so proud.
She ran off with the rest of the girls, but she ran in a different direction. She ran back out in front of the trophy case and started watching herself do the jump sequence all alone with nobody else around. She didn’t even bother to sit and rest for awhile or get a drink of water. She had to prove that she could do it. That she could succeed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael couldn’t concentrate on the rest of the game. He kept searching around for Maria, but he didn’t see her. Weird. She wasn’t sitting by her parents. She wasn’t sitting by her friends. He even checked the concession stand. No Maria.
He made it to the fourth quarter, and then he couldn’t take it any longer. He needed to find Maria. He had a feeling she was isolating herself since she had taken her fall in the dance. It wasn’t a big deal to the audience, but it probably was to her.
“I’m gonna get outta here for awhile,” he told Alex, standing up. He squeezed past people and made his way down the bleachers and out of the gymnasium. He checked everywhere he could think. He checked the two smaller gyms. She wasn’t in there. He yelled into the bathrooms. He couldn’t find her.
When he finally did find her, she was practically killing herself in front of the trophy case. She kept doing the same jump combination that she had messed up on, over and over again. She looked like she was exhausting herself, and she looked like she was going to pass out.
“You want anything to drink?” he asked her.
She shook her head, not even turning around to face him. She kept doing the jumping thing again and again, and finally Michael couldn’t watch her do it anymore. “Maria, stop,” he said.
To his surprise, she did. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and started breathing heavily. She slumped down against the wall, finally allowing herself to rest.
“You okay?” he asked her.
She shrugged.
“Are you upset about--”
She was nodding before he even finished. “Don’t even tell me that you didn’t notice it,” she said. “Everyone noticed it. I’m sure.”
“So? Who cares if they did? It was one mistake. That’s all. You were still the best one out there.”
She shook her head. “No, I wasn’t. Not tonight. And I needed to be.”
Michael sat down beside her. He didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t sure what the hell she was talking about.
“My dad was watching,” she said finally. “This is the first time he’s seen me dance all year. I really wanted to prove to him that I was doing something and that I was doing it well. But I didn’t.”
“Maria, not everybody can get out there and do all the things you did.”
“Everybody can get out there and mess up.”
“Everybody messes up once in awhile.”
“No, they don’t.”
Maria was in one of her impossible moods right now. That much was obvious. Michael knew it was going to take a lot to get through to her right now.
“I’ve never messed up a dance like that before,” she told him. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I never have, and I take pride in that. Now that pride’s just demolished.”
Michael sighed. “It’s not, Maria. You know, even though you did mess up, nobody was able to take their eyes off of you. Everybody still just wanted to watch you, not the rest of the team. I know it’s not fair to the other people out there for me to say that, but it’s true.”
This seemed to make her feel a little better. “Do you think my dad still just wanted to watch me?”
“Of course. Maria, you don’t need to worry about your dad. He’s gonna be impressed. You just watch.”
A small smile played at her lips. “You’re getting better at this psychology thing.”
At the end of the game, her parents came out and found her. Jim was flanked by a few of his many fans and was in the process of signing autographs.
Maria looked at them expectantly, and Michael looked at them hopefully. Amy didn’t say anything about Maria’s dance, as if she were afraid to say something unless Jim gave her his approval.
When Jim was done signing autographs, he looked down at Maria. He just stared at her for a few seconds, and then he shook his head, disappointed. He took Amy’s hand and they started out to the car.
“Shake it off,” Michael told Maria. “Just shake it off.”
“Shake it off,” she echoed. She got to her feet and started shaking her entire body. “I’m shaking it off. It doesn’t bother me, ‘cause I’m shaking it off.”
We kinda have a routine going here, he thought. Something goes wrong, she comes to me, or I go to her, we talk about it, and then she shakes it off. I’m guess I’m kinda the shoulder she leans on.
Hmm. I like being that.
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
-
April
- Roswell Fanatic
- Posts: 1557
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:32 am
- Location: Somewhere. Anywhere.
- Contact:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
New Part
January raced by before anyone knew where it had gone. It had been a hectic month at times, but also a carefree one. Jim had gotten offered a part in a movie that would start shooting in July, and he was still debating on whether he should take it. Amy was eager and excited about the idea of Jim’s first movie. Maria wasn’t sure what to think, what to feel. If her dad agreed to the part, he would be going to Italy to shoot, and there was no telling how long he would be gone.
Isabel and Alex were still planning the wedding. It was all starting to seem a little more real now, and the stress was starting to take its toll on Isabel. She was tired a lot. She didn’t have the energy to go out partying with the rest of the group anymore, and she was always asleep when Maria called over to her house at night.
Liz and Max were still relatively the same. Liz didn’t seem like she was intending to stop obsessing over Michael at any time soon, and Maria knew it was driving Michael crazy. Max was still being Max. He hadn’t stopped making sexual comments and references around Maria, and it still made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure what she should do with their relationship. She didn’t want Max to break up with her, but she didn’t want to have sex with him yet, either.
Sometimes, the only way to relieve stress and tension was to hang out with Michael. Maria could hardly remember a time when she had hated his guts now. Now it seemed that she spent more time with him than anyone else. They drove together a lot. He let her drive around when Amy and Jim didn’t know. He even got her onto the interstate with no problem at all. They watched Will and Grace together, too. They had split the cost of the Season Two DVD set and had both been glued to the television for a week straight.
The entire senior class was getting anxious for graduation. Some were anxious to go to college. Some were anxious to start living life as a bum. Maria wasn’t sure what she was going to do, yet, but she, too, was anxious for high school to be over with in a few months. Max was, too. He seemed to be so excited for the end of school more than anyone. He was eager to move to LA to become a model. His eagerness was obvious, because he rarely ever attended class anymore. He skipped the classes he didn’t like and slept through the ones he did. He even started to pull Maria into the eraser room more than he did before.
“Max, I really should get to class,” she said as he pressed her up against the wall.
“Be late,” he said. “It’s no big deal.” He crashed his lips onto hers, plunging his tongue into her mouth. As they kissed, Maria felt something digging into her stomach. At first she didn’t know what it was, and then she realized that it was Max!
God, she thought, I guess I really have an effect on him.
As Max kissed his way to her neck, she felt him start grinding himself against her.
“Max,” she said, trying to push him away. He didn’t seem to get the hint. “Max!”
Finally, he stopped grinding and stopped kissing her and looked into her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Could you . . . not do that.”
He acted confused. “You don’t want me to kiss you?”
“No, not that. The . . . other thing.”
Now he acted hurt. “You don’t want me to show you how much I like you?”
“No, I do,” she said, and then she immediately realized she was lying. No more faking it. She was going to be real with him. Authentic. The way to go. “No, I really don’t,” she said, correcting herself. “It’s not that I won’t want you to someday, just not now.”
“When’s someday, Maria?”
She didn’t exactly have an answer to that question. “I don’t know,” she said. “Someday is soon. I promise Max. I’ll be ready someday soon.”
He seemed disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I just don’t want to rush something like that, you know.”
“I know,” he said, “and I respect that. We’ll wait. And when you are ready someday soon, everything’s gonna be perfect, Maria. I promise.”
She felt so much better. Who knew Max could be understanding? “Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. She hugged him tightly against her. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I am so tired.” Maria walked right inside that night and fell down on the couch next to Michael. He was watching hockey. She didn’t care. She would watch it with him as long as it meant getting off of her feet. Dancing for two hours every night after school was starting to take its toll on her, and after her fall at he last game, she wasn’t even sure if it was worth it anymore. “I still have homework to do,” she said. “How am I ever gonna get all of that done?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Michael told her. “I got Alex’s shit. It’s all taken care of.”
“You’re a god, Michael,” she said.
“I know.”
“What’s for dinner?” Maria called into the kitchen. When no one answered, she repeated herself. “Mom? What’s for dinner?”
“Your mom’s not making dinner,” Jim answered. “She’s not feeling well. And I’m not making it, either, so if you want something, you’ll have to get it yourself.”
She groaned. She felt like she couldn’t move. Every muscle in her body hurt like hell.
“I’ll get you something,” Michael offered, rising from the couch.
“You really are a god,” she told him. She closed her eyes, and within seconds, she was almost falling asleep.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” Jim announced suddenly, breaking her out of her sleep. “I decided to take the part.”
“In the movie?” Maria asked. She didn’t even know why she was asking. She already knew.
“Yep,” he answered. “So I’ll be going to Italy this summer.”
“For how long?” she inquired.
“Probably a year,” he said. “It’s gonna take awhile.”
“Will you come back and visit us?”
“Of course.”
Part of Maria was thrilled that her father would be leaving for some time. She wouldn’t have to listen to his stupid comments about her “pointless” life. She wouldn’t cry so much. She wouldn’t feel so bad.
Another part was aching for him to stay. If he went to Italy, he might never come back for all she knew. He might forget all about her and slip away entirely.
“What about your TV show?” Michael asked from the kitchen. “How are you gonna juggle that and a movie?”
“I’m gonna take a break from TV,” Jim said. “I’ll see if I like the movie thing. See if it works out.”
“What if it doesn’t work out?” Maria pointed out. “You can’t just expect to hop right back into TV again.”
“It’ll work out.” Jim seemed confident. Really confident. And truthfully, he had every reason to. Acting had been nothing but success for him for the past few years. He rarely received a bad review. He usually received a good one. He had become a force to be reckoned with in the acting world.
“I’m happy for you, Dad,” Maria told him. “This could be a really great opportunity.”
“It could,” he agreed. “Maria, if you got into acting, you could have an opportunity like this.”
And there he goes again, she thought. I was being happy for him. He was being happy for him. Everyone was being happy and then he throws out a stupid line like that.
“Shake it off,” Michael said quietly as he sat back down beside her and placed a sandwich in her hands. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“I’m not,” she said. “Not at all.” She turned to look at her father. “I’m happy for you, Dad,” she repeated. “Really happy.” And part of her was. Part of her was happy that he was going to be gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So I had to send all of the dresses back because they were maroon. I don’t know why they were maroon. I specifically told them that I want red. Just ordinary red. I swear, those designers just have to make everything more complicated than it is.”
“Isabel,” Max said. “I told you I can’t take much more of this wedding shit.”
It was true that Isabel talked about the wedding every day at lunch, and this day was no exception, but Michael didn’t mind. Max’s complaining was harder to deal with than Isabel’s wedding talk.
“Well you’re gonna have to be able to take it when you and Maria get married,” Alex pointed out.
Married? Michael’s mind screamed. Maria can’t marry a guy like Max! She deserves to marry somebody better! Much better!
“Whoa, talk about rushing things,” Maria said. “Marriage is way down the line. Like, way down the line.”
“Well, it’s not for me and Michael,” Liz said. She grabbed his hand, and he jerked it away immediately. “I think he’s going to propose to me on Valentine’s Day.”
The whole table erupted in laughter, and Michael joined in. Liz had created this whole fantasy relationship between them, and even though it was annoying as hell, it was hilarious. Michael wondered when she would ever see reality.
“Maybe we’ll even go on a date soon!” Liz exclaimed.
“Maybe not,” Michael muttered.
“Speaking of dates,” Max said when the laughter died down. He started nuzzling Maria’s neck. “Tonight is gonna be perfect.”
“Yeah, about tonight,” Maria said. “I kinda invited everyone to go to the movie with us.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Isabel and Alex and Michael,” Maria answered looking around the table. “I hope that’s okay?”
Max’s eyes shot up, and he was staring daggers at Michael. “You invited Michael?” he asked.
I hate you, too, man.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s great,” Max said, “‘cause my parents are making me bring Liz along. I’m sure she’ll keep Michael busy.”
“You know I will!” Liz said. She scooted closer to Michael. He scooted farther away.
“We’ll all have a great time tonight,” Max said, although he certainly seemed less enthused. “You know, it’s great to have friends like you guys.” Again, his eyes landed on Michael.
Michael wasn’t sure if anyone else could detect Max’s disgust with the entire situation. He didn’t think anyone could. Maybe Maria could, but she wasn’t letting onto it.
Max didn’t want Michael anywhere near Maria. Max didn’t want anyone near Maria but himself. And Michael didn’t want Max anywhere near her, either, but it was inevitable that he would be. He wished he could do something about it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was hot out that night. Insanely hot out. Hot enough that Maria left the house wearing a tiny white skirt that really showed off her long, lean legs and a small black tube top that bared her stomach and showed off some cleavage. Michael couldn’t help but think about how beautiful she was when she made her way down the stairs. Any guy would be lucky to have her. Max was lucky. He just wasn’t aware that he was.
“Daring,” Michael commented.
She shrugged. “I felt like being sexy.”
He smiled, thinking, She’s got that down.
A car horn honked from outside signaling that Max had come to pick them up. Typical. He didn’t even come to the door to get his girl. Of course, Michael wouldn’t have, either, but he had an excuse. He had grown up in a low-class neighborhood as a low-class kid. Max had lived the high life his entire life.
“You look great,” Max said when Maria got in the seat beside him. Michael crowded in the back with Isabel, Alex, and Liz. Liz offered to sit on his lap to make more space. He told her to sit on the floor, and to his surprise, she did.
“So what movie are we going to see?” Isabel asked.
“SWAT,” Max answered.
“Oh, I hate action movies,” Maria said.
“I’m not gonna go see some romance shit,” Max said.
“We could go see a comedy,” she suggested.
“Let’s just go see SWAT,” Isabel piped up. “I’m not big on action movies, either, Maria, but Colin’s in it!”
“Well that’s a plus,” Maria agreed. “Fine. SWAT it is.”
Long Beach was crazy that night. The lines for clubs were all a mile long. The cops were arresting somebody new every minute. The beer was flowing. A few guys coming out of the bar even made a play for both Maria and Isabel. Michael was glad when they got in the movie theater. He didn’t like the thought of all the guys out there looking at Maria, especially when she was wearing what she was wearing.
The theater was so crowded that they were lucky to all get a seat together. Although it would have been nice to have Liz sit somewhere else. All by herself. Away.
Isabel had fallen asleep before the previews even started. It didn’t look like Alex was far behind. He made it through the previews, but after that, the husband-to-be was a goner, too.
Liz talked through the entire first half of the movie. Michael tried to tune her out, but she just had this kind of sickening voice that was hard to get completely away from. He tried to tell her to shut the hell up a few times, but she just thought he was joking with her.
Max had his arm around Maria’s shoulders. He didn’t seem very interested in the movie. In fact, when Michael looked over, he saw that Max’s hand was now around her waist. He was stroking the skin exposed by her shirt and kissing her bare shoulder.
Max touched Maria. A lot. Michael did, too, but not in the romantic kind of way. He couldn’t. He wasn’t allowed to by some unspoken rule. Max was. Max could touch Maria in ways that Michael never could. The thought was enough to drive a man crazy.
Michael lost all interest in the movie and watched out of the corner of his eye as Max snaked his hand up to rest upon her stomach. Then he tried to sneak it up her shirt. Michael was about to jump out of his chair and go punch him in the face when Maria got him to stop. “Watch the movie,” she told him.
Michael knew he should be watching the movie, too, but he couldn’t. He was watching Maria, and not just because he was trying to protect, trying to keep her safe.
He was jealous. He could feel his jealousy boiling inside of him as he watched Max’s hands gliding across her smooth skin, knowing that his own hands never could. He could feel it radiating off of him whenever Max kissed her, knowing that he would never get to know what kissing Maria felt like.
He didn’t understand why he was getting so jealous over somebody touching his stepsister. His stepsister.
Michael sighed and shook his head. He was sure this jealousy thing would blow over in a few days. He just had to let it pass.
TBC...
January raced by before anyone knew where it had gone. It had been a hectic month at times, but also a carefree one. Jim had gotten offered a part in a movie that would start shooting in July, and he was still debating on whether he should take it. Amy was eager and excited about the idea of Jim’s first movie. Maria wasn’t sure what to think, what to feel. If her dad agreed to the part, he would be going to Italy to shoot, and there was no telling how long he would be gone.
Isabel and Alex were still planning the wedding. It was all starting to seem a little more real now, and the stress was starting to take its toll on Isabel. She was tired a lot. She didn’t have the energy to go out partying with the rest of the group anymore, and she was always asleep when Maria called over to her house at night.
Liz and Max were still relatively the same. Liz didn’t seem like she was intending to stop obsessing over Michael at any time soon, and Maria knew it was driving Michael crazy. Max was still being Max. He hadn’t stopped making sexual comments and references around Maria, and it still made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure what she should do with their relationship. She didn’t want Max to break up with her, but she didn’t want to have sex with him yet, either.
Sometimes, the only way to relieve stress and tension was to hang out with Michael. Maria could hardly remember a time when she had hated his guts now. Now it seemed that she spent more time with him than anyone else. They drove together a lot. He let her drive around when Amy and Jim didn’t know. He even got her onto the interstate with no problem at all. They watched Will and Grace together, too. They had split the cost of the Season Two DVD set and had both been glued to the television for a week straight.
The entire senior class was getting anxious for graduation. Some were anxious to go to college. Some were anxious to start living life as a bum. Maria wasn’t sure what she was going to do, yet, but she, too, was anxious for high school to be over with in a few months. Max was, too. He seemed to be so excited for the end of school more than anyone. He was eager to move to LA to become a model. His eagerness was obvious, because he rarely ever attended class anymore. He skipped the classes he didn’t like and slept through the ones he did. He even started to pull Maria into the eraser room more than he did before.
“Max, I really should get to class,” she said as he pressed her up against the wall.
“Be late,” he said. “It’s no big deal.” He crashed his lips onto hers, plunging his tongue into her mouth. As they kissed, Maria felt something digging into her stomach. At first she didn’t know what it was, and then she realized that it was Max!
God, she thought, I guess I really have an effect on him.
As Max kissed his way to her neck, she felt him start grinding himself against her.
“Max,” she said, trying to push him away. He didn’t seem to get the hint. “Max!”
Finally, he stopped grinding and stopped kissing her and looked into her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Could you . . . not do that.”
He acted confused. “You don’t want me to kiss you?”
“No, not that. The . . . other thing.”
Now he acted hurt. “You don’t want me to show you how much I like you?”
“No, I do,” she said, and then she immediately realized she was lying. No more faking it. She was going to be real with him. Authentic. The way to go. “No, I really don’t,” she said, correcting herself. “It’s not that I won’t want you to someday, just not now.”
“When’s someday, Maria?”
She didn’t exactly have an answer to that question. “I don’t know,” she said. “Someday is soon. I promise Max. I’ll be ready someday soon.”
He seemed disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I just don’t want to rush something like that, you know.”
“I know,” he said, “and I respect that. We’ll wait. And when you are ready someday soon, everything’s gonna be perfect, Maria. I promise.”
She felt so much better. Who knew Max could be understanding? “Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. She hugged him tightly against her. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I am so tired.” Maria walked right inside that night and fell down on the couch next to Michael. He was watching hockey. She didn’t care. She would watch it with him as long as it meant getting off of her feet. Dancing for two hours every night after school was starting to take its toll on her, and after her fall at he last game, she wasn’t even sure if it was worth it anymore. “I still have homework to do,” she said. “How am I ever gonna get all of that done?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Michael told her. “I got Alex’s shit. It’s all taken care of.”
“You’re a god, Michael,” she said.
“I know.”
“What’s for dinner?” Maria called into the kitchen. When no one answered, she repeated herself. “Mom? What’s for dinner?”
“Your mom’s not making dinner,” Jim answered. “She’s not feeling well. And I’m not making it, either, so if you want something, you’ll have to get it yourself.”
She groaned. She felt like she couldn’t move. Every muscle in her body hurt like hell.
“I’ll get you something,” Michael offered, rising from the couch.
“You really are a god,” she told him. She closed her eyes, and within seconds, she was almost falling asleep.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” Jim announced suddenly, breaking her out of her sleep. “I decided to take the part.”
“In the movie?” Maria asked. She didn’t even know why she was asking. She already knew.
“Yep,” he answered. “So I’ll be going to Italy this summer.”
“For how long?” she inquired.
“Probably a year,” he said. “It’s gonna take awhile.”
“Will you come back and visit us?”
“Of course.”
Part of Maria was thrilled that her father would be leaving for some time. She wouldn’t have to listen to his stupid comments about her “pointless” life. She wouldn’t cry so much. She wouldn’t feel so bad.
Another part was aching for him to stay. If he went to Italy, he might never come back for all she knew. He might forget all about her and slip away entirely.
“What about your TV show?” Michael asked from the kitchen. “How are you gonna juggle that and a movie?”
“I’m gonna take a break from TV,” Jim said. “I’ll see if I like the movie thing. See if it works out.”
“What if it doesn’t work out?” Maria pointed out. “You can’t just expect to hop right back into TV again.”
“It’ll work out.” Jim seemed confident. Really confident. And truthfully, he had every reason to. Acting had been nothing but success for him for the past few years. He rarely received a bad review. He usually received a good one. He had become a force to be reckoned with in the acting world.
“I’m happy for you, Dad,” Maria told him. “This could be a really great opportunity.”
“It could,” he agreed. “Maria, if you got into acting, you could have an opportunity like this.”
And there he goes again, she thought. I was being happy for him. He was being happy for him. Everyone was being happy and then he throws out a stupid line like that.
“Shake it off,” Michael said quietly as he sat back down beside her and placed a sandwich in her hands. “Don’t let it bother you.”
“I’m not,” she said. “Not at all.” She turned to look at her father. “I’m happy for you, Dad,” she repeated. “Really happy.” And part of her was. Part of her was happy that he was going to be gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So I had to send all of the dresses back because they were maroon. I don’t know why they were maroon. I specifically told them that I want red. Just ordinary red. I swear, those designers just have to make everything more complicated than it is.”
“Isabel,” Max said. “I told you I can’t take much more of this wedding shit.”
It was true that Isabel talked about the wedding every day at lunch, and this day was no exception, but Michael didn’t mind. Max’s complaining was harder to deal with than Isabel’s wedding talk.
“Well you’re gonna have to be able to take it when you and Maria get married,” Alex pointed out.
Married? Michael’s mind screamed. Maria can’t marry a guy like Max! She deserves to marry somebody better! Much better!
“Whoa, talk about rushing things,” Maria said. “Marriage is way down the line. Like, way down the line.”
“Well, it’s not for me and Michael,” Liz said. She grabbed his hand, and he jerked it away immediately. “I think he’s going to propose to me on Valentine’s Day.”
The whole table erupted in laughter, and Michael joined in. Liz had created this whole fantasy relationship between them, and even though it was annoying as hell, it was hilarious. Michael wondered when she would ever see reality.
“Maybe we’ll even go on a date soon!” Liz exclaimed.
“Maybe not,” Michael muttered.
“Speaking of dates,” Max said when the laughter died down. He started nuzzling Maria’s neck. “Tonight is gonna be perfect.”
“Yeah, about tonight,” Maria said. “I kinda invited everyone to go to the movie with us.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Isabel and Alex and Michael,” Maria answered looking around the table. “I hope that’s okay?”
Max’s eyes shot up, and he was staring daggers at Michael. “You invited Michael?” he asked.
I hate you, too, man.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s great,” Max said, “‘cause my parents are making me bring Liz along. I’m sure she’ll keep Michael busy.”
“You know I will!” Liz said. She scooted closer to Michael. He scooted farther away.
“We’ll all have a great time tonight,” Max said, although he certainly seemed less enthused. “You know, it’s great to have friends like you guys.” Again, his eyes landed on Michael.
Michael wasn’t sure if anyone else could detect Max’s disgust with the entire situation. He didn’t think anyone could. Maybe Maria could, but she wasn’t letting onto it.
Max didn’t want Michael anywhere near Maria. Max didn’t want anyone near Maria but himself. And Michael didn’t want Max anywhere near her, either, but it was inevitable that he would be. He wished he could do something about it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was hot out that night. Insanely hot out. Hot enough that Maria left the house wearing a tiny white skirt that really showed off her long, lean legs and a small black tube top that bared her stomach and showed off some cleavage. Michael couldn’t help but think about how beautiful she was when she made her way down the stairs. Any guy would be lucky to have her. Max was lucky. He just wasn’t aware that he was.
“Daring,” Michael commented.
She shrugged. “I felt like being sexy.”
He smiled, thinking, She’s got that down.
A car horn honked from outside signaling that Max had come to pick them up. Typical. He didn’t even come to the door to get his girl. Of course, Michael wouldn’t have, either, but he had an excuse. He had grown up in a low-class neighborhood as a low-class kid. Max had lived the high life his entire life.
“You look great,” Max said when Maria got in the seat beside him. Michael crowded in the back with Isabel, Alex, and Liz. Liz offered to sit on his lap to make more space. He told her to sit on the floor, and to his surprise, she did.
“So what movie are we going to see?” Isabel asked.
“SWAT,” Max answered.
“Oh, I hate action movies,” Maria said.
“I’m not gonna go see some romance shit,” Max said.
“We could go see a comedy,” she suggested.
“Let’s just go see SWAT,” Isabel piped up. “I’m not big on action movies, either, Maria, but Colin’s in it!”
“Well that’s a plus,” Maria agreed. “Fine. SWAT it is.”
Long Beach was crazy that night. The lines for clubs were all a mile long. The cops were arresting somebody new every minute. The beer was flowing. A few guys coming out of the bar even made a play for both Maria and Isabel. Michael was glad when they got in the movie theater. He didn’t like the thought of all the guys out there looking at Maria, especially when she was wearing what she was wearing.
The theater was so crowded that they were lucky to all get a seat together. Although it would have been nice to have Liz sit somewhere else. All by herself. Away.
Isabel had fallen asleep before the previews even started. It didn’t look like Alex was far behind. He made it through the previews, but after that, the husband-to-be was a goner, too.
Liz talked through the entire first half of the movie. Michael tried to tune her out, but she just had this kind of sickening voice that was hard to get completely away from. He tried to tell her to shut the hell up a few times, but she just thought he was joking with her.
Max had his arm around Maria’s shoulders. He didn’t seem very interested in the movie. In fact, when Michael looked over, he saw that Max’s hand was now around her waist. He was stroking the skin exposed by her shirt and kissing her bare shoulder.
Max touched Maria. A lot. Michael did, too, but not in the romantic kind of way. He couldn’t. He wasn’t allowed to by some unspoken rule. Max was. Max could touch Maria in ways that Michael never could. The thought was enough to drive a man crazy.
Michael lost all interest in the movie and watched out of the corner of his eye as Max snaked his hand up to rest upon her stomach. Then he tried to sneak it up her shirt. Michael was about to jump out of his chair and go punch him in the face when Maria got him to stop. “Watch the movie,” she told him.
Michael knew he should be watching the movie, too, but he couldn’t. He was watching Maria, and not just because he was trying to protect, trying to keep her safe.
He was jealous. He could feel his jealousy boiling inside of him as he watched Max’s hands gliding across her smooth skin, knowing that his own hands never could. He could feel it radiating off of him whenever Max kissed her, knowing that he would never get to know what kissing Maria felt like.
He didn’t understand why he was getting so jealous over somebody touching his stepsister. His stepsister.
Michael sighed and shook his head. He was sure this jealousy thing would blow over in a few days. He just had to let it pass.
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
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April
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New Part
A few days passed, and so did the jealousy thing, but it was only replaced by something new and something worse.
Now Michael found that he couldn’t stop thinking about Maria when she was away. He couldn’t take his eyes off her when she was around. He wasn’t doing the obsessive thing that Liz was. He was just feeling . . . what was the word? Fascinated. He was fascinated by her. She fascinated him.
She had the most beautiful green eyes. They lit up whenever she was thinking or talking about something that especially pleased her. They darkened whenever she told him about something that had caused her sorrow. No matter what shade they were, they were always so beautiful and always so full of life.
Her lips were beautiful, too. They were what formed her perfect smile. He loved when she smiled. She was so happy sometimes, and when she was, a huge, bight smile would come across her face and light up the entire room.
Her hands kept him marveling for an hour at a time. Whenever she did something simple like touch his shoulder or touch his cheek, he would find himself wondering what it would feel like to have her hands sliding across his skin, and then he started wondering what it would feel like to touch her. To really touch her the way a boyfriend would.
When she sometimes fell asleep in his bed at night, he wanted to reach over and wrap his arms around her and hold her to him, keeping her warm. He wanted to kiss her cheek and whisper things in her ear that she would like to hear. When she tossed and turned, he wanted to kiss her and take her away.
Worst of all, he kept thinking about the way she made him feel. She made him feel like no one else had ever made him feel in his life before. She made him feel happy in a way that he never knew was possible. When he was around her, he smiled. He laughed. It had always been that way with her. She had always been able to do something that would make him feel . . . fascinated. There was no other word for it.
The truth was, even when they had first met and wanted nothing to do with each other, he had been fascinated by her. He just hadn’t realized it until now.
He knew he had to put an end to this crush. Maria was off limits in two major ways: She had a boyfriend, and she was his stepsister. He had to get over whatever it was that he was feeling. It was okay to think that she was hot. Everyone else did, so why should he be an exception? But once it got to the point where she was making him feel things, where he started noticing her eyes and her smile, where he started thinking about touching her in a romantic sort of way . . . that was when it had to stop.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next few weeks were hard on Michael. He didn’t want things to be awkward between him and Maria. He had finally found someone who he felt like he could be completely comfortable with, and he didn’t want to start feeling uncomfortable and awkward now. The sooner he forgot about this strange crush, the better.
But he didn’t forget. The more Maria said, the more Maria did, the harder it got to forget about it. His feelings started to grow stronger. He couldn’t ignore them, so he tried to ignore Maria. But that was even harder to do, and she realized that something was up right away. Ignoring Maria wasn’t going to work. Ignoring his feelings wasn’t going to work. He decided he would just have to deal with the awkward and uncomfortable feeling that settled into his stomach every time Maria sat down next to him on the couch, unaware of how her very presence affected him. He was still confident that his feelings would fade on their own. Eventually.
The key to not thinking about Maria was distraction. He watched a lot more sports than he used to. It was about the only remedy he could find sometimes. He even started working out more. Anything to keep his mind off Maria was a helpful and welcomed distraction.
But nothing could distract him the night he saw her in the pool. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. He had seen her in the pool before, wearing only her pink bikini, but for some reason it felt like he was seeing her for the first time now. He was seeing the curves and the shapes of her body and he couldn’t take his eyes away.
Dammit, you’re sick! he scolded himself. You’re one sick piece of work! Don’t look at her that way! Don’t think about her that way! This is the girl who’s like your sister!
Only she never had been like his sister. Not from the second he first saw her. He had never looked at her and seen his stepsister. He had always seen Maria. First, just Maria, and then Maria the friend. Now he saw Maria the beautiful girl.
She saw him looking at her through the sliding door and motioned for him to step outside. He opened the door, but he didn’t step outside. He couldn’t let himself get that close. He would be to tempted to just . . .
Stop, he ordered himself. Don’t even go there.
It was all about mental discipline. And distractions, if they were available.
“You wanna get in?” she asked him. “It feels nice.”
“I bet it does,” he said. And I bet you do, too.
Mental discipline! Mental discipline!
“Are you gonna get in?” she asked again, running her fingers through her hair.
“Uh . . .” He searched desperately for a way out. He couldn’t get in there with Maria. Not anymore, even though he used to all of the time. “Uh, I . . . I’m actually, um . . . thinkin’ about going upstairs and uh . . . sleeping,” he stuttered nervously.
She got out of the water, her shapely body coming into full view for him. Oh, God, he thought. This is too much. To his relief, and somewhat disappointment, she wrapped a towel around her hips.
“It’s 8:00,” she said. “You’re gonna go to sleep at 8:00? You’re being kinda weird.”
“Well, actually I wasn’t gonna go to sleep just yet,” he said. “I was gonna . . . do some homework first.”
“Oh, yeah. I haven’t done any yet,” she said. “Well, I think I’m gonna go take a shower and then I’ll come and join you. I’ve got Alex’s trig, so we should be in good shape.” She walked past him, and her arm brushed his. The simple contact made Michael’s head spin.
A few minutes later, he was up in his bedroom pretending that he was all absorbed in his homework when he was really just wondering how he was going to manage things when Maria was up in his bedroom. Things that used to be so simple and relaxed were now complicated and nerve-wracking.
He could hear the water running, and he could hear Maria singing some Britney Spears song. He could imagine the water running over all of her creamy, smooth skin, down her shoulders and arms, down her legs.
Don’t imagine,he told himself. Don’t even imagine imagining.
The water stopped running about twenty minutes later, and Maria stepped out into the hallway. “Mom, where’s my hair dryer?” she shouted downstairs. “Did you use it again?”
Michael didn’t want to look, but he glanced up and saw that she was wrapped in only a towel. A very small towel. He forced himself not to imagine what was underneath that towel.
When she finally got her hair dried and her pajamas on, she joined him in his bedroom. She shut the door. Michael wished she hadn’t. It would have made it easier to bolt if his feelings started to overwhelm him.
“Okay, I’ve got trig and anatomy,” she said, laying down on her stomach. “What do you have?”
“What?” Michael asked. He had been so busy thinking about how cute she looked in her pink pajamas that he hadn’t heard her.
“For homework,” she said. “What do you have?”
“Oh, the same. The same. You got the answers?”
Maria held up Alex’s trigonometry paper and smiled. “Like I promised. I don’t suppose you got anyone’s anatomy, though, did you?”
Michael shook his head.
She sighed. “Well, then, I guess we’ll be staying up late for that one, working hard to get a failing grade.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “Staying up late.” He was looking forward to that one. He was looking forward to it a little too much.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Valentine’s Day was an exciting holiday. It always had been for Maria. She had started going out for Valentine’s Day when she was fourteen, but none of those Valentine’s Day dates had been like this one would be. She was so excited about going out with Max tonight. He had promised her the perfect date, and he hadn’t even hinted about sex. Maria predicted that they would go see a romance movie and then go out for Mexican, because that would be totally perfect. And Max would bring her pink roses as a gift. Her favorite.
“I’m so excited about tonight,” she told her mother as she pictured the evening her in mind. “This is going to be the best Valentine’s Day ever.”
“Why’s that?” Amy asked as she filled up the sink to wash the dishes.
“Because I’m going out on a date.”
“You always go out on dates.”
“Yeah, but Max and I are an actual couple,” Maria reminded her, “not just a pre-couple.”
“You and Max have been dating for awhile now,” Amy said. “Do you think this might be . . . something more?”
Maria shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s just a high school thing. But it’s nice, you know.”
Well, sometimes it was nice. Sometimes it wasn’t. It wasn’t nice when he tried to get her to drink. It wasn’t nice when it was so obvious that he wanted to have sex with her. But lately, Max had seemed to understand her more. She liked it when he understood her. Things were so much easier with him when she didn’t have to worry about where his hands were.
“What time is it?”Maria asked her mother.
Amy glanced at her watch. “It’s 5:30.”
“I better go get ready then,” Maria said. She disappeared from the kitchen with a smile on her face. God, she loved Valentine’s Day.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael hated Valentine’s Day. It was just another stupid, unimportant holiday designed to make people like him feel lonely. He was going to be sitting at home watching TV while everyone else was going to be going out. Maria was part of the everyone else.
When she walked down the stairs, she took his breath away. He tried not to stare, but she was so amazing. She had on a short red dress that hugged her body in all of the right places. Her hair was up, exposing her bare shoulders, and she was wearing the necklace he had bought her for Christmas. The $500 one.
Max hadn’t bought that necklace for her.
“How do I look?” she asked him.
“You look great,” he said, although ‘great’ was not the right word. ‘Great’ was an understatement. ‘Great’ did not give her justice. ‘Great’ was almost an insult. He wished he could have found the courage to tell her she was breathtaking.
“I’m wearing the necklace,” she said, holding onto the beautiful diamond around her neck.
“I can see that.”
She looked like she was about to sit down next to him on the couch, but then Max’s car horn sounded from outside. She grabbed her purse and headed towards the door. “Are you sure I look okay?” she asked once she was at the door.
“You look great,” he repeated. He heard her let out a sigh of relief and then she left the house. “Breathtaking,” he whispered when he was sure that she was gone. If only he had been able to tell her that.
Michael stayed on the couch the entire night, watching television. Most everything on related to Valentine’s Day in one way or another. It made Michael feel even more miserable.
Fucked up holiday . . .
Amy and Jim went out that night. They said they would be out late, probably so late that they wouldn’t make it home until morning. So that left Michael home completely alone. It didn’t really start to bother him until it was 10:00. Maria wasn’t home yet. Of course she wasn’t. Valentine’s Day. Big night. Big date.
She wasn’t home at 11:00, either. Michael never left the couch. He just lay there and watched the clock more than the TV. He wasn’t jealous. Just concerned. The fact that Maria was out alone with Max concerned him.
12:00. Maria still hadn’t arrived home. Michael was exhausted. He wanted to go to sleep, but a bigger, stronger part wanted to see Maria get home.
She finally did get home around 1:30 in the morning. “Are you still up?” she asked when she noticed the TV was on.
“Barely,” he told her. “Did you have fun?”
“Yeah,” she replied, sitting down on the couch beside him. She didn’t sound as enthusiastic as she had when she had left the house.
“What did you do?” he asked her.
“We went to see a movie,” she said. “An action movie. And then we went out to eat at this seafood place. It was a really expensive place, I guess.”
“Did he get you anything?”
She nodded. “Flowers. Roses. Red ones.” She yawned and got up. “I’m gonna go to bed,” she said. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he told her. He knew he should head up to bed, too, but he didn’t right away. He sat there on the couch where he had been sitting the entire night, thinking about what Maria had told him. They had gone to see an action movie, and then went out for seafood, and Max had bought her red roses. Maria couldn’t stand action movies. Maria hated seafood. Maria thought red roses were boring. If he had gone out with her instead of Max, he would have bought her pink roses, because they were her favorite. He would have taken her to see that new romance movie she had been dying to see, even though he thought romance movies were stupid. He would have taken her out for Mexican instead of seafood, because nothing pleased Maria more than Mexican food.
Would have. Those were basically the key words.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Maria lay in her bed, reflecting on her date with Max. It hadn’t been horrible by any means. In fact, Max had been really fun. He didn’t say anything or do anything that made her feel uncomfortable, but for some reason, Maria had still been uncomfortable.
She wanted desperately to feel comfortable around her boyfriend. She had been hoping that she would now that he was being more understanding, but she still found that every time she touched her necklace, she was wishing that she was spending time with Michael. Or Isabel and Alex. Anyone, just as long as she felt comfortable.
The date hadn’t been perfect by her standards, but she supposed it could have been worse.
But it could have been perfect, too. It could have.
Could have. Those were basically the key words.
TBC...
A few days passed, and so did the jealousy thing, but it was only replaced by something new and something worse.
Now Michael found that he couldn’t stop thinking about Maria when she was away. He couldn’t take his eyes off her when she was around. He wasn’t doing the obsessive thing that Liz was. He was just feeling . . . what was the word? Fascinated. He was fascinated by her. She fascinated him.
She had the most beautiful green eyes. They lit up whenever she was thinking or talking about something that especially pleased her. They darkened whenever she told him about something that had caused her sorrow. No matter what shade they were, they were always so beautiful and always so full of life.
Her lips were beautiful, too. They were what formed her perfect smile. He loved when she smiled. She was so happy sometimes, and when she was, a huge, bight smile would come across her face and light up the entire room.
Her hands kept him marveling for an hour at a time. Whenever she did something simple like touch his shoulder or touch his cheek, he would find himself wondering what it would feel like to have her hands sliding across his skin, and then he started wondering what it would feel like to touch her. To really touch her the way a boyfriend would.
When she sometimes fell asleep in his bed at night, he wanted to reach over and wrap his arms around her and hold her to him, keeping her warm. He wanted to kiss her cheek and whisper things in her ear that she would like to hear. When she tossed and turned, he wanted to kiss her and take her away.
Worst of all, he kept thinking about the way she made him feel. She made him feel like no one else had ever made him feel in his life before. She made him feel happy in a way that he never knew was possible. When he was around her, he smiled. He laughed. It had always been that way with her. She had always been able to do something that would make him feel . . . fascinated. There was no other word for it.
The truth was, even when they had first met and wanted nothing to do with each other, he had been fascinated by her. He just hadn’t realized it until now.
He knew he had to put an end to this crush. Maria was off limits in two major ways: She had a boyfriend, and she was his stepsister. He had to get over whatever it was that he was feeling. It was okay to think that she was hot. Everyone else did, so why should he be an exception? But once it got to the point where she was making him feel things, where he started noticing her eyes and her smile, where he started thinking about touching her in a romantic sort of way . . . that was when it had to stop.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next few weeks were hard on Michael. He didn’t want things to be awkward between him and Maria. He had finally found someone who he felt like he could be completely comfortable with, and he didn’t want to start feeling uncomfortable and awkward now. The sooner he forgot about this strange crush, the better.
But he didn’t forget. The more Maria said, the more Maria did, the harder it got to forget about it. His feelings started to grow stronger. He couldn’t ignore them, so he tried to ignore Maria. But that was even harder to do, and she realized that something was up right away. Ignoring Maria wasn’t going to work. Ignoring his feelings wasn’t going to work. He decided he would just have to deal with the awkward and uncomfortable feeling that settled into his stomach every time Maria sat down next to him on the couch, unaware of how her very presence affected him. He was still confident that his feelings would fade on their own. Eventually.
The key to not thinking about Maria was distraction. He watched a lot more sports than he used to. It was about the only remedy he could find sometimes. He even started working out more. Anything to keep his mind off Maria was a helpful and welcomed distraction.
But nothing could distract him the night he saw her in the pool. It shouldn’t have been a big deal. He had seen her in the pool before, wearing only her pink bikini, but for some reason it felt like he was seeing her for the first time now. He was seeing the curves and the shapes of her body and he couldn’t take his eyes away.
Dammit, you’re sick! he scolded himself. You’re one sick piece of work! Don’t look at her that way! Don’t think about her that way! This is the girl who’s like your sister!
Only she never had been like his sister. Not from the second he first saw her. He had never looked at her and seen his stepsister. He had always seen Maria. First, just Maria, and then Maria the friend. Now he saw Maria the beautiful girl.
She saw him looking at her through the sliding door and motioned for him to step outside. He opened the door, but he didn’t step outside. He couldn’t let himself get that close. He would be to tempted to just . . .
Stop, he ordered himself. Don’t even go there.
It was all about mental discipline. And distractions, if they were available.
“You wanna get in?” she asked him. “It feels nice.”
“I bet it does,” he said. And I bet you do, too.
Mental discipline! Mental discipline!
“Are you gonna get in?” she asked again, running her fingers through her hair.
“Uh . . .” He searched desperately for a way out. He couldn’t get in there with Maria. Not anymore, even though he used to all of the time. “Uh, I . . . I’m actually, um . . . thinkin’ about going upstairs and uh . . . sleeping,” he stuttered nervously.
She got out of the water, her shapely body coming into full view for him. Oh, God, he thought. This is too much. To his relief, and somewhat disappointment, she wrapped a towel around her hips.
“It’s 8:00,” she said. “You’re gonna go to sleep at 8:00? You’re being kinda weird.”
“Well, actually I wasn’t gonna go to sleep just yet,” he said. “I was gonna . . . do some homework first.”
“Oh, yeah. I haven’t done any yet,” she said. “Well, I think I’m gonna go take a shower and then I’ll come and join you. I’ve got Alex’s trig, so we should be in good shape.” She walked past him, and her arm brushed his. The simple contact made Michael’s head spin.
A few minutes later, he was up in his bedroom pretending that he was all absorbed in his homework when he was really just wondering how he was going to manage things when Maria was up in his bedroom. Things that used to be so simple and relaxed were now complicated and nerve-wracking.
He could hear the water running, and he could hear Maria singing some Britney Spears song. He could imagine the water running over all of her creamy, smooth skin, down her shoulders and arms, down her legs.
Don’t imagine,he told himself. Don’t even imagine imagining.
The water stopped running about twenty minutes later, and Maria stepped out into the hallway. “Mom, where’s my hair dryer?” she shouted downstairs. “Did you use it again?”
Michael didn’t want to look, but he glanced up and saw that she was wrapped in only a towel. A very small towel. He forced himself not to imagine what was underneath that towel.
When she finally got her hair dried and her pajamas on, she joined him in his bedroom. She shut the door. Michael wished she hadn’t. It would have made it easier to bolt if his feelings started to overwhelm him.
“Okay, I’ve got trig and anatomy,” she said, laying down on her stomach. “What do you have?”
“What?” Michael asked. He had been so busy thinking about how cute she looked in her pink pajamas that he hadn’t heard her.
“For homework,” she said. “What do you have?”
“Oh, the same. The same. You got the answers?”
Maria held up Alex’s trigonometry paper and smiled. “Like I promised. I don’t suppose you got anyone’s anatomy, though, did you?”
Michael shook his head.
She sighed. “Well, then, I guess we’ll be staying up late for that one, working hard to get a failing grade.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “Staying up late.” He was looking forward to that one. He was looking forward to it a little too much.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Valentine’s Day was an exciting holiday. It always had been for Maria. She had started going out for Valentine’s Day when she was fourteen, but none of those Valentine’s Day dates had been like this one would be. She was so excited about going out with Max tonight. He had promised her the perfect date, and he hadn’t even hinted about sex. Maria predicted that they would go see a romance movie and then go out for Mexican, because that would be totally perfect. And Max would bring her pink roses as a gift. Her favorite.
“I’m so excited about tonight,” she told her mother as she pictured the evening her in mind. “This is going to be the best Valentine’s Day ever.”
“Why’s that?” Amy asked as she filled up the sink to wash the dishes.
“Because I’m going out on a date.”
“You always go out on dates.”
“Yeah, but Max and I are an actual couple,” Maria reminded her, “not just a pre-couple.”
“You and Max have been dating for awhile now,” Amy said. “Do you think this might be . . . something more?”
Maria shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s just a high school thing. But it’s nice, you know.”
Well, sometimes it was nice. Sometimes it wasn’t. It wasn’t nice when he tried to get her to drink. It wasn’t nice when it was so obvious that he wanted to have sex with her. But lately, Max had seemed to understand her more. She liked it when he understood her. Things were so much easier with him when she didn’t have to worry about where his hands were.
“What time is it?”Maria asked her mother.
Amy glanced at her watch. “It’s 5:30.”
“I better go get ready then,” Maria said. She disappeared from the kitchen with a smile on her face. God, she loved Valentine’s Day.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael hated Valentine’s Day. It was just another stupid, unimportant holiday designed to make people like him feel lonely. He was going to be sitting at home watching TV while everyone else was going to be going out. Maria was part of the everyone else.
When she walked down the stairs, she took his breath away. He tried not to stare, but she was so amazing. She had on a short red dress that hugged her body in all of the right places. Her hair was up, exposing her bare shoulders, and she was wearing the necklace he had bought her for Christmas. The $500 one.
Max hadn’t bought that necklace for her.
“How do I look?” she asked him.
“You look great,” he said, although ‘great’ was not the right word. ‘Great’ was an understatement. ‘Great’ did not give her justice. ‘Great’ was almost an insult. He wished he could have found the courage to tell her she was breathtaking.
“I’m wearing the necklace,” she said, holding onto the beautiful diamond around her neck.
“I can see that.”
She looked like she was about to sit down next to him on the couch, but then Max’s car horn sounded from outside. She grabbed her purse and headed towards the door. “Are you sure I look okay?” she asked once she was at the door.
“You look great,” he repeated. He heard her let out a sigh of relief and then she left the house. “Breathtaking,” he whispered when he was sure that she was gone. If only he had been able to tell her that.
Michael stayed on the couch the entire night, watching television. Most everything on related to Valentine’s Day in one way or another. It made Michael feel even more miserable.
Fucked up holiday . . .
Amy and Jim went out that night. They said they would be out late, probably so late that they wouldn’t make it home until morning. So that left Michael home completely alone. It didn’t really start to bother him until it was 10:00. Maria wasn’t home yet. Of course she wasn’t. Valentine’s Day. Big night. Big date.
She wasn’t home at 11:00, either. Michael never left the couch. He just lay there and watched the clock more than the TV. He wasn’t jealous. Just concerned. The fact that Maria was out alone with Max concerned him.
12:00. Maria still hadn’t arrived home. Michael was exhausted. He wanted to go to sleep, but a bigger, stronger part wanted to see Maria get home.
She finally did get home around 1:30 in the morning. “Are you still up?” she asked when she noticed the TV was on.
“Barely,” he told her. “Did you have fun?”
“Yeah,” she replied, sitting down on the couch beside him. She didn’t sound as enthusiastic as she had when she had left the house.
“What did you do?” he asked her.
“We went to see a movie,” she said. “An action movie. And then we went out to eat at this seafood place. It was a really expensive place, I guess.”
“Did he get you anything?”
She nodded. “Flowers. Roses. Red ones.” She yawned and got up. “I’m gonna go to bed,” she said. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he told her. He knew he should head up to bed, too, but he didn’t right away. He sat there on the couch where he had been sitting the entire night, thinking about what Maria had told him. They had gone to see an action movie, and then went out for seafood, and Max had bought her red roses. Maria couldn’t stand action movies. Maria hated seafood. Maria thought red roses were boring. If he had gone out with her instead of Max, he would have bought her pink roses, because they were her favorite. He would have taken her to see that new romance movie she had been dying to see, even though he thought romance movies were stupid. He would have taken her out for Mexican instead of seafood, because nothing pleased Maria more than Mexican food.
Would have. Those were basically the key words.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Maria lay in her bed, reflecting on her date with Max. It hadn’t been horrible by any means. In fact, Max had been really fun. He didn’t say anything or do anything that made her feel uncomfortable, but for some reason, Maria had still been uncomfortable.
She wanted desperately to feel comfortable around her boyfriend. She had been hoping that she would now that he was being more understanding, but she still found that every time she touched her necklace, she was wishing that she was spending time with Michael. Or Isabel and Alex. Anyone, just as long as she felt comfortable.
The date hadn’t been perfect by her standards, but she supposed it could have been worse.
But it could have been perfect, too. It could have.
Could have. Those were basically the key words.
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.
-
April
- Roswell Fanatic
- Posts: 1557
- Joined: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:32 am
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Thanks again for the feedback, and Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who observe this holiday. Unfortunately, this isn't a very happy part for the holiday season. There is some violence, so if you're sensitive to that, then you might not want to read it, but it's nothing too explicit. -April
New Part
Michael awoke the next morning to someone pounding on his back.
“Michael! Are you ever going to get up?”
The pounding continued, and he reluctantly rolled over to find Maria. “What are you doing up so early?” he asked her. Maria hated waking up early, especially on Saturdays.
“It’s not early,” she said. “It’s noon.”
He rubbed his tired eyes and glanced at the clock. She was right. “It feels like 6:00,” he said.
“Well, if you hadn’t stayed up so late watching TV last night, you might not be so tired,” she pointed out.
“What about you? You were out late with Max.” He didn’t bother to tell her that was the reason why he had stayed up so late.
“I was,” she agreed, “but I had motivation to get up today. You said you were gonna take me out on the interstate again. The busy ones.”
“Oh, that’s right I did.” He had actually tried to forget about that, hoping that Maria would forget, too. Being alone in the car with her was going to be tough.
“If we leave pretty soon we’ll catch the noon rush hour.”
“You wanna catch the noon rush hour?”
“I need the experience.”
He sighed. “Okay. Okay, I’ll get up. Just give me some time.” He started to close his eyes again, and she started to pound her fists into his arms again.
“Noon rush hour, Michael!”
He opened his eyes and found her giving him an expectant look. Her fist was in the air, warning that she would hit him again. She was so adorable. He couldn’t help but smile.
“Okay, just give me five minutes to lay here,” he said.
“Fine. I’ll lay here, too.” She crawled under the covers on the empty side of the bed and made herself comfortable. Michael wished she hadn’t. Having her in his bed . . . it was too much.
But he loved it.
“Michael, last night I was thinking,” Maria said. “You didn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day. You didn’t go out with anyone last night.”
“Nothing to do. No one to go out with.”
“But you could’ve gone out with someone,” she said. “You could’ve just asked girls around school if they wanted to go with you. I’m sure someone would have said yes.”
Michael almost laughed at that. “No one would’ve said yes.”
“Someone would have,” Maria said. “Michael, there are so many girls out there that would love to get to know you.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Maria, all girls know about me is that I was in jail. They don’t wanna know anymore.”
She sighed. “Well maybe they do.”
“They don’t.”
“Well maybe they just need a little encouragement,” she suggested.
“What kind of encouragement?” He had a feeling he knew where this was leading.
“The kind of encouragement where a person, a Maria person, that being me, takes it upon herself to hook you up with a very pretty Rhonda Gibson person.”
“Not Rhonda,” Michael said.
“How about Amanda in our anatomy class? She’s nice.”
“Not Amanda.”
“Courtney?”
“No.”
“Felisha?”
“No.” Michael didn’t even know most of the people who Maria was naming off, but he didn’t need to. He knew that he wouldn’t be interested in them for one reason and one reason only.
They weren’t Maria.
“I’m not gonna let you pair me up with somebody,” he finally told her.
“I had a feeling you wouldn’t. So since you won’t let me pair you up and since we’re probably gonna have missed the noon rush hour by the time we get out on the interstate, you might feel inclined to do something for me.”
He gave her a questioning look.
“You might feel inclined to go to Lucinda’s party with me tonight.”
Michael shook his head. “No, no, no more parties, Maria. I thought you weren’t even gonna go.”
“I wasn’t. But Max was talking about it last night and it seems like he really wants to go. And he really wants me to go with him.”
“He’s just gonna be tryin’ to get you to drink the entire night,” Michael reminded her.
“Maybe,” Maria said, “but maybe not. He’s almost like a different person lately, Michael. It’s like he understands me more now.”
Michael felt as if someone was squeezing his lungs together when Maria said that. If Max understood Maria, which Michael doubted, then they might grow closer together. Michael hated the thought.
“But I would still really like it if you’d come,” she continued. “Besides, you might find some girl there who’s perfect for you.”
The only perfect girl he would find would be Maria, and she wouldn’t find him.
“Please, Michael,” she begged. “Please come with me tonight.”
He sighed and shook his head, feeling himself giving in. “Why do I do this stuff for you?”
She smiled excitedly. “Because you love me.”
It was a joking statement, or at least it should have been. Michael watched her leave his room, and he thought about what she had said.
Because you love me.
Why did that simple statement matter? It was a joke. A joke. It shouldn’t really matter to him unless . . .
Oh shit.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Whoever said March comes in like a lion is full of crap,” Maria commented, looking out the window. “It’s just as nice outside as it has been this entire winter.”
Michael glanced over his shoulder at her. He knew Maria wanted to see it snow so badly, but he highly doubted that she would.
“Can’t we just get a nice snowstorm around here for once?” she asked whoever was listening, throwing her arms up in the air dramatically. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Yeah, ‘cause this warm weather is so hard to take.”
The weeks since Valentine’s Day had been fairly uneventful. Besides a few parties here and there, teaching Maria how to drive, and struggling to graduate, Michael hadn’t done much. He was finding that sleeping was a fine distraction from all of the Maria sights and sounds and smells that overwhelmed his senses more than they should. But it seemed that every time he went to sleep, he would dream that Tess and Josh were right in front of him, telling him that he was nobody and that Maria was somebody and that he didn’t deserve her.
Maria seemed to be staying at home more, too. She went out with Max occasionally, and she hung out with Isabel and Alex a few times, but she definitely appeared to be enjoying the quiet life. Will and Grace marathons were now almost an every night occurrence.
Jim and Amy weren’t around a lot anymore, and when they were around, they were usually just talking about Jim’s big movie in Italy. Michael knew that it bothered Maria when they went out to some big red carpet event and weren’t even home when she awoke in the morning. They were gone on this night, too, for an award banquet.
“What should I have for dinner tonight?” Maria asked, peering in the almost empty refrigerator.
Michael shrugged. “Not much to choose from.”
“Mom hasn’t been to the market in forever,” she said. “There’s nothing to eat around here.”
“Tell me about it. This is the fourth night in a row I’ve had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
Maria muttered something about her mother being connected to her father by the hip and then slammed the refrigerator door shut. “This is ridiculous.”
“We could run out and get some stuff,” Michael suggested. “You could drive.”
She smiled excitedly. “Sounds good to me. I’ll go get the keys.”
Michael ran upstairs to get his wallet and met Maria down by the door. He slipped his shoes on and opened the door.
Max was on the other side, poised as if he were about to knock.
“Hey, Max,” Maria said. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and his arm immediately found its way around her waist. Michael tried not to notice.
“Hey, baby,” he said, stepping inside.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “I thought we were going out tomorrow night.”
“I just thought I’d stop by,” he said. “I wanted to see you.” He pressed his lips to Maria’s forehead and glanced out of the corner of his eye, almost to see if Michael noticed.
“Well we were actually just gonna head out to the market,” Maria said. “There’s no food around here.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to just stop in like this,” Max apologized. “I just really wanted to spend some time with you.”
Maria smiled and blushed a little. “We shouldn’t be too long,” she told him. “When we get back, we could hang out awhile. And they’ll be actual food in the house. You can just stay here until we get back.”
“I could,” Max said with a nod, “or you could stay with me and Michael could just go.”
Maria looked at Michael, and then at Max. She didn’t look like she wanted to have to choose between them. “Would you mind, Michael?” she asked.
“No,” he lied. “I’ll go. You two can stay here.” He didn’t like the idea of Maria being alone with Max. It still made him jealous as hell, and he still wasn’t so sure about Max. “I’ll be back soon,” he said as he left the house.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Do you wanna watch Will and Grace?” Maria asked her boyfriend. “We’ve got season one and season two on DVD.”
“I’m not in the mood to watch TV,” Max said.
“Okay. You wanna go swimming?”
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her back to his chest. “Maybe later,” he said.
“Then what do you wanna do?”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Maria tensed. “Upstairs?”
“Yeah,” he said. “To talk.”
She let herself relax, and she headed up the stairs with her boyfriend. She opened the door to her bedroom and sat down on the bed. Max sat down beside her. His arms were still around her waist, and he was kissing her neck now. “Does that feel good?” he murmured against her skin.
“Feels good,” she said, wishing she could have put some more emotion behind it.
“What about this?” Max asked. “Does this feel good?” He moved his hand up her stomach to cup her breasts.
“Max,” she said, placing her hand over his hand. She moved it away. “Don’t.”
“Don’t?” he seemed surprised.
She turned to face him, putting a slight distance between the two of them. “I thought you said that we would wait . . . until, you know, until I’m ready. It’s gonna be perfect, remember?”
He let out a deep, clearly disappointed sigh. “And I thought you said that you’d be ready someday soon.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m not ready.”
“You said soon.”
“And I don’t know when soon is!” she found herself speaking volumes above him now, so she lowered her voice. “Look, I don’t mean to yell. I just . . . I’m not gonna feel like I must do this. I’m gonna wait until I’m ready. And you’re gonna have to wait, too.” She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly cold and vulnerable and wishing that she had gone with Michael instead of staying with Max.
“I think about touching you,” Max said. “All the time. All the time, Maria. I think about how it would feel to just . . .” He trailed off and brought his hand up to touch her cheek. The sudden show of tenderness got Maria to relax a little more. “I wanna feel you,” he said, trailing his hand down her arm. “All of you.” Before she could react, he plunged his hand down between her legs.
“Max, stop!” she told him, bolting off of the bed. “That’s not funny!”
“It’s not supposed to be.” He stood up and started backing her up into a corner of the room. She felt fear start to encompass her as she saw the dark look in his eyes. “Every guy wants to feel you, Maria,” he said. “That’s all they want. Your skin. Your body.”
“Max, why are you saying this to me?” Her voice cracked as she ran into the wall behind her.
“Because it’s true,” he said, stepping closer. With a sudden hostility, he slammed his fists into the wall on either sides of her head, causing her to jump in surprise. He laughed and leaned in closer so that his lips were almost touching hers. “And it’s all that I want,” he whispered.
“Fuck you!” she shouted, trying to push him away from her unsuccessfully. He was too big. Too strong.
“I never loved you,” he continued as she struggled against him. “All I want is what everybody else wants. Skin. Sweat. Sex.”
She felt tears start to fall from her eyes at the same time that she felt Max pressing himself into her.
“Do you know how much patience it takes?” he asked her. “Do you know how hard it is to put up with you for months just to get your sex?”
She tried to push him away again, but she was again unsuccessful. She started to scream, but his mouth clamped down on hers, silencing all cries for help before any could be heard. He grabbed her wrists with his hands and held them together behind her back so that she couldn’t fight against him and kissed her hard. It hurt. Everything hurt. His hands. His mouth. His entire body. Him. Everything was hurting her.
“Please stop,” she begged when he stopped kissing her.
“Stop?” He threw her down on her own bed, smiling as he towered over her. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She started to cry uncontrollably as he ran his hands up under her shirt. “You actually thought I understood?” he asked in disbelief as he snaked his fingers under her bra to touch her breasts. “Maria, you’re an idiot.”
She tried everything she could to get away. She tried to kick him. She tried to hit him. She tried with all of her might to throw him off of her. But she was just too small, and he was just too big. She was no match for him.
“Just give in, Maria,” he said, trailing one hand down her thigh suggestively. “Just let me feel you.”
She started to cry out for help as he touched her through her clothing. He started to laugh at her helplessness.
“Somebody help me!” she cried. She could barely speak. It was like her throat had gone dry. “Somebody, please!”
“Nobody’s gonna come help you,” Max said. “Nobody cares.”
TBC...
New Part
Michael awoke the next morning to someone pounding on his back.
“Michael! Are you ever going to get up?”
The pounding continued, and he reluctantly rolled over to find Maria. “What are you doing up so early?” he asked her. Maria hated waking up early, especially on Saturdays.
“It’s not early,” she said. “It’s noon.”
He rubbed his tired eyes and glanced at the clock. She was right. “It feels like 6:00,” he said.
“Well, if you hadn’t stayed up so late watching TV last night, you might not be so tired,” she pointed out.
“What about you? You were out late with Max.” He didn’t bother to tell her that was the reason why he had stayed up so late.
“I was,” she agreed, “but I had motivation to get up today. You said you were gonna take me out on the interstate again. The busy ones.”
“Oh, that’s right I did.” He had actually tried to forget about that, hoping that Maria would forget, too. Being alone in the car with her was going to be tough.
“If we leave pretty soon we’ll catch the noon rush hour.”
“You wanna catch the noon rush hour?”
“I need the experience.”
He sighed. “Okay. Okay, I’ll get up. Just give me some time.” He started to close his eyes again, and she started to pound her fists into his arms again.
“Noon rush hour, Michael!”
He opened his eyes and found her giving him an expectant look. Her fist was in the air, warning that she would hit him again. She was so adorable. He couldn’t help but smile.
“Okay, just give me five minutes to lay here,” he said.
“Fine. I’ll lay here, too.” She crawled under the covers on the empty side of the bed and made herself comfortable. Michael wished she hadn’t. Having her in his bed . . . it was too much.
But he loved it.
“Michael, last night I was thinking,” Maria said. “You didn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day. You didn’t go out with anyone last night.”
“Nothing to do. No one to go out with.”
“But you could’ve gone out with someone,” she said. “You could’ve just asked girls around school if they wanted to go with you. I’m sure someone would have said yes.”
Michael almost laughed at that. “No one would’ve said yes.”
“Someone would have,” Maria said. “Michael, there are so many girls out there that would love to get to know you.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Maria, all girls know about me is that I was in jail. They don’t wanna know anymore.”
She sighed. “Well maybe they do.”
“They don’t.”
“Well maybe they just need a little encouragement,” she suggested.
“What kind of encouragement?” He had a feeling he knew where this was leading.
“The kind of encouragement where a person, a Maria person, that being me, takes it upon herself to hook you up with a very pretty Rhonda Gibson person.”
“Not Rhonda,” Michael said.
“How about Amanda in our anatomy class? She’s nice.”
“Not Amanda.”
“Courtney?”
“No.”
“Felisha?”
“No.” Michael didn’t even know most of the people who Maria was naming off, but he didn’t need to. He knew that he wouldn’t be interested in them for one reason and one reason only.
They weren’t Maria.
“I’m not gonna let you pair me up with somebody,” he finally told her.
“I had a feeling you wouldn’t. So since you won’t let me pair you up and since we’re probably gonna have missed the noon rush hour by the time we get out on the interstate, you might feel inclined to do something for me.”
He gave her a questioning look.
“You might feel inclined to go to Lucinda’s party with me tonight.”
Michael shook his head. “No, no, no more parties, Maria. I thought you weren’t even gonna go.”
“I wasn’t. But Max was talking about it last night and it seems like he really wants to go. And he really wants me to go with him.”
“He’s just gonna be tryin’ to get you to drink the entire night,” Michael reminded her.
“Maybe,” Maria said, “but maybe not. He’s almost like a different person lately, Michael. It’s like he understands me more now.”
Michael felt as if someone was squeezing his lungs together when Maria said that. If Max understood Maria, which Michael doubted, then they might grow closer together. Michael hated the thought.
“But I would still really like it if you’d come,” she continued. “Besides, you might find some girl there who’s perfect for you.”
The only perfect girl he would find would be Maria, and she wouldn’t find him.
“Please, Michael,” she begged. “Please come with me tonight.”
He sighed and shook his head, feeling himself giving in. “Why do I do this stuff for you?”
She smiled excitedly. “Because you love me.”
It was a joking statement, or at least it should have been. Michael watched her leave his room, and he thought about what she had said.
Because you love me.
Why did that simple statement matter? It was a joke. A joke. It shouldn’t really matter to him unless . . .
Oh shit.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Whoever said March comes in like a lion is full of crap,” Maria commented, looking out the window. “It’s just as nice outside as it has been this entire winter.”
Michael glanced over his shoulder at her. He knew Maria wanted to see it snow so badly, but he highly doubted that she would.
“Can’t we just get a nice snowstorm around here for once?” she asked whoever was listening, throwing her arms up in the air dramatically. “Is that too much to ask?”
“Yeah, ‘cause this warm weather is so hard to take.”
The weeks since Valentine’s Day had been fairly uneventful. Besides a few parties here and there, teaching Maria how to drive, and struggling to graduate, Michael hadn’t done much. He was finding that sleeping was a fine distraction from all of the Maria sights and sounds and smells that overwhelmed his senses more than they should. But it seemed that every time he went to sleep, he would dream that Tess and Josh were right in front of him, telling him that he was nobody and that Maria was somebody and that he didn’t deserve her.
Maria seemed to be staying at home more, too. She went out with Max occasionally, and she hung out with Isabel and Alex a few times, but she definitely appeared to be enjoying the quiet life. Will and Grace marathons were now almost an every night occurrence.
Jim and Amy weren’t around a lot anymore, and when they were around, they were usually just talking about Jim’s big movie in Italy. Michael knew that it bothered Maria when they went out to some big red carpet event and weren’t even home when she awoke in the morning. They were gone on this night, too, for an award banquet.
“What should I have for dinner tonight?” Maria asked, peering in the almost empty refrigerator.
Michael shrugged. “Not much to choose from.”
“Mom hasn’t been to the market in forever,” she said. “There’s nothing to eat around here.”
“Tell me about it. This is the fourth night in a row I’ve had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
Maria muttered something about her mother being connected to her father by the hip and then slammed the refrigerator door shut. “This is ridiculous.”
“We could run out and get some stuff,” Michael suggested. “You could drive.”
She smiled excitedly. “Sounds good to me. I’ll go get the keys.”
Michael ran upstairs to get his wallet and met Maria down by the door. He slipped his shoes on and opened the door.
Max was on the other side, poised as if he were about to knock.
“Hey, Max,” Maria said. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, and his arm immediately found its way around her waist. Michael tried not to notice.
“Hey, baby,” he said, stepping inside.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “I thought we were going out tomorrow night.”
“I just thought I’d stop by,” he said. “I wanted to see you.” He pressed his lips to Maria’s forehead and glanced out of the corner of his eye, almost to see if Michael noticed.
“Well we were actually just gonna head out to the market,” Maria said. “There’s no food around here.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to just stop in like this,” Max apologized. “I just really wanted to spend some time with you.”
Maria smiled and blushed a little. “We shouldn’t be too long,” she told him. “When we get back, we could hang out awhile. And they’ll be actual food in the house. You can just stay here until we get back.”
“I could,” Max said with a nod, “or you could stay with me and Michael could just go.”
Maria looked at Michael, and then at Max. She didn’t look like she wanted to have to choose between them. “Would you mind, Michael?” she asked.
“No,” he lied. “I’ll go. You two can stay here.” He didn’t like the idea of Maria being alone with Max. It still made him jealous as hell, and he still wasn’t so sure about Max. “I’ll be back soon,” he said as he left the house.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Do you wanna watch Will and Grace?” Maria asked her boyfriend. “We’ve got season one and season two on DVD.”
“I’m not in the mood to watch TV,” Max said.
“Okay. You wanna go swimming?”
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her back to his chest. “Maybe later,” he said.
“Then what do you wanna do?”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Maria tensed. “Upstairs?”
“Yeah,” he said. “To talk.”
She let herself relax, and she headed up the stairs with her boyfriend. She opened the door to her bedroom and sat down on the bed. Max sat down beside her. His arms were still around her waist, and he was kissing her neck now. “Does that feel good?” he murmured against her skin.
“Feels good,” she said, wishing she could have put some more emotion behind it.
“What about this?” Max asked. “Does this feel good?” He moved his hand up her stomach to cup her breasts.
“Max,” she said, placing her hand over his hand. She moved it away. “Don’t.”
“Don’t?” he seemed surprised.
She turned to face him, putting a slight distance between the two of them. “I thought you said that we would wait . . . until, you know, until I’m ready. It’s gonna be perfect, remember?”
He let out a deep, clearly disappointed sigh. “And I thought you said that you’d be ready someday soon.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m not ready.”
“You said soon.”
“And I don’t know when soon is!” she found herself speaking volumes above him now, so she lowered her voice. “Look, I don’t mean to yell. I just . . . I’m not gonna feel like I must do this. I’m gonna wait until I’m ready. And you’re gonna have to wait, too.” She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly cold and vulnerable and wishing that she had gone with Michael instead of staying with Max.
“I think about touching you,” Max said. “All the time. All the time, Maria. I think about how it would feel to just . . .” He trailed off and brought his hand up to touch her cheek. The sudden show of tenderness got Maria to relax a little more. “I wanna feel you,” he said, trailing his hand down her arm. “All of you.” Before she could react, he plunged his hand down between her legs.
“Max, stop!” she told him, bolting off of the bed. “That’s not funny!”
“It’s not supposed to be.” He stood up and started backing her up into a corner of the room. She felt fear start to encompass her as she saw the dark look in his eyes. “Every guy wants to feel you, Maria,” he said. “That’s all they want. Your skin. Your body.”
“Max, why are you saying this to me?” Her voice cracked as she ran into the wall behind her.
“Because it’s true,” he said, stepping closer. With a sudden hostility, he slammed his fists into the wall on either sides of her head, causing her to jump in surprise. He laughed and leaned in closer so that his lips were almost touching hers. “And it’s all that I want,” he whispered.
“Fuck you!” she shouted, trying to push him away from her unsuccessfully. He was too big. Too strong.
“I never loved you,” he continued as she struggled against him. “All I want is what everybody else wants. Skin. Sweat. Sex.”
She felt tears start to fall from her eyes at the same time that she felt Max pressing himself into her.
“Do you know how much patience it takes?” he asked her. “Do you know how hard it is to put up with you for months just to get your sex?”
She tried to push him away again, but she was again unsuccessful. She started to scream, but his mouth clamped down on hers, silencing all cries for help before any could be heard. He grabbed her wrists with his hands and held them together behind her back so that she couldn’t fight against him and kissed her hard. It hurt. Everything hurt. His hands. His mouth. His entire body. Him. Everything was hurting her.
“Please stop,” she begged when he stopped kissing her.
“Stop?” He threw her down on her own bed, smiling as he towered over her. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She started to cry uncontrollably as he ran his hands up under her shirt. “You actually thought I understood?” he asked in disbelief as he snaked his fingers under her bra to touch her breasts. “Maria, you’re an idiot.”
She tried everything she could to get away. She tried to kick him. She tried to hit him. She tried with all of her might to throw him off of her. But she was just too small, and he was just too big. She was no match for him.
“Just give in, Maria,” he said, trailing one hand down her thigh suggestively. “Just let me feel you.”
She started to cry out for help as he touched her through her clothing. He started to laugh at her helplessness.
“Somebody help me!” she cried. She could barely speak. It was like her throat had gone dry. “Somebody, please!”
“Nobody’s gonna come help you,” Max said. “Nobody cares.”
TBC...
LOVE IS MICHAEL AND MARIA.