Part 31
Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 12:06 pm
nibbles:
Leila:
Nove: I love your last feedback! Lots of OMGs.
behrlyliz:
Alison:
spacegirl23:
And oh my gosh, you're so right about that conversation Maria first had with Billy! A lot of people seemed to think that when she told him she wasn't doing the whole "other woman thing" anymore, she was alluding to Isabel cheating on Michael, but . . . not so much.
lilah:
tequathisy:
BLONDIE:
Mercedes:
I can't believe you went back to Part 7 to find that line! But you're right, I have had this planned the entire time, and that line you pointed out was part of the foreshadowing.
Sara:
Krista:
Christina:
Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I'm happy I was able to catch a few people off-guard.
I'm suggesting more music for this part. "Nobody's Perfect" by dios malos when you see
I can't find it on Youtube, but you can listen to it here: http://www.last.fm/music/dios+Malos/_/Nobody's+Perfect It's one of those great unknown songs. I only discovered it myself because of One Tree Hill.
I should probably preface this part with something: It's a very odd part. At times, it's very dark, and at other times, it's way more light-hearted. It's kind of spastic like that, but it's another important part nonetheless. I should caution that you should probably read it at your own risk. There's some kind of disturbing, sensitive stuff in it, but I don't anticipate anybody feeling extremely uncomfortable when reading it.
Italics indicate a flashback.
Part 31
Michael was outside on the balcony debating whether or not to take down the Christmas lights already when he heard the front door open. He walked back inside the house as Maria was taking off her coat.
“Hey,” he said. “Alright, so I was gonna take down the outside lights, but then I thought, ‘I just put up these things.’ And then I thought, ‘Hey, I like these things.’ So what do you say we leave the lights up through New Year’s?” He looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer, but she didn’t say anything right away. “Maria?”
“Yeah, great.” She sounded distracted. “Hey, Michael, can I talk to you?”
Oh, no, he thought. The last time she’d sounded this serious, she’d told him she was moving in with Billy. “Sure,” he said, already worried that she was getting back together with him. “What’s up?”
“Sit down,” she said, taking a seat on the couch and patting the cushion.
He sat down beside her, waiting nervously.
“Okay, so I talked to Liz today,” she told him, “and it didn’t go so well. And I kinda . . . implied something to her, and you’re gonna find out about it sooner or later, and I’d rather have you find out about it from me.”
He stared at her in confusion. “What’re you talking about?”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
Crap, they are getting back together, he thought dismally.
“I mean, I hate it.”
He frowned. Maybe they weren’t getting back together? He was so lost. He wished she would just blurt it out. She was making him nervous, more nervous than he usually was. “Maria, you’re scaring me.”
“Sorry,” she apologized. “It’s just . . . I’ve never really said it out loud before.”
He leaned forward and rested a reassuring hand on her knee. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “I think so.” She let out a deep, readying breath. “Okay, Michael . . . there’s more to me hating Max than just hating Max.”
He still didn’t get it, but when she said the next two words, he did.
“Something happened.”
Crap, he thought again. There was no way that something wasn’t sex.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Liz knocked on the door to Max’s penthouse hotel suite. Somehow, he must have known it was her, because he didn’t take the time to peer through the peep-hole or check the security cameras. “Come in,” he called from inside.
She pushed open the door slowly and sidled in. She looked around and found him in his bathroom, sitting on the edge of the Whirlpool bathtub and using a self-waxing kit to wax his entire chest, even though he hardly had any hair there. Such a Max Evans thing to do.
“Good, you’re here,” he said. “Just let me finish waxing and we’ll fuck.”
“Did you sleep with Maria?”
He froze midway through tearing the waxing strip back. He stared right at her and didn’t say anything. Didn’t deny it. Didn’t admit it. Didn’t have to. His silence spoke louder than anything he could have said. Still, she had to ask again.
“Did you really sleep with your girlfriend’s best friend?”
After a moment, he peeled off the remainder of the waxing strip, sort of smiling at her as if his actions with Maria were something he was proud of.
Maria was right, she thought, shaking her head in disbelief, even though she should have believed it easily. There was nothing good that could come of being with Max, except some good sex. And that wasn’t important in the scheme of things. And neither was Max’s money. All the things that really mattered—kindness and loyalty and compassion—all those things that weren’t important to her yet but would be someday down the road . . . Max didn’t have any of those things.
“I can’t be with someone like you,” she decided, holding back tears as the words traversed her lips. She gazed at him sadly, wishing she didn’t have to do this. Because he really did make her feel something. But it was something she could no longer afford.
She walked turned and walked away from him, hoping that this time she would stick to her guns and actually stay away. He didn’t follow her, and why would he? Max Evans only cared about himself, and he was in the middle of waxing his chest.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria was so glad that Michael just sat next to her and listened to everything she had to tell him about her and Max. He didn’t make faces. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t say anything judgmental. Of course not. He was Michael. He was an amazing guy. He was the complete opposite of somebody like Max, and he was her friend. She just hoped he would still be her friend now that he knew what had happened, what she had let happen.
“Wow,” he said contemplatively. “So . . . you and Max.”
“Yeah.” She could barely even stand to think about it. “Do you hate me?”
“No,” he replied immediately, putting some of her worst fears to rest. “No, not at all.”
“Well . . . you should.” As it stood, that night with Max was the one thing she truly hated about herself.
“Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he assured her, holding her hand in his, “and I don’t want you thinking you did anything wrong. You’re not the bad guy here; he is.”
“I just feel so ashamed,” she admitted.
“Don’t,” he said. “This isn’t gonna make me look at you any differently.”
She smiled at him slightly. “Good, ‘cause . . . I like the way you look at me.”
He squeezed her hand supportively and asked, “So are you gonna tell Tess?”
“I think I have to,” she said. It had been weighing on her for a year now. Truth be told, it was probably the reason why their friendship had fractured. She was so tired of keeping the secret, and it wasn’t really a secret anymore. “I’m just so totally dreading it,” she said. “Can you tell her for me?”
He laughed lightly. “No.”
She frowned. “How do you think she’s gonna react?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, this just sucks,” she groaned. “I feel like Tess and I are finally really good friends again, and now this is just gonna ruin it.”
“Maybe,” Michael said. “Maybe not.”
She breathed steadily but nervously, really praying for the latter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria didn’t gather up enough courage to go to Tess’s apartment until nighttime. The door was locked, understandably. Tess was probably trying to keep Max out. And after this conversation, she’s probably gonna be trying to keep me out, Maria thought sadly, using the key she still kept on her to unlock the door and step inside. “Tess?” she called, her voice already wavering with uncertainty. Maybe she wasn’t ready to do this.
“Maria?” Tess came out of the bedroom, looking . . . not her best. Again, understandably. She looked like she had been crying. How did she have any tears left? She was going to need some after she heard what Maria had to say.
“Hey,” Maria greeted, hearing the thickness of emotion in her own voice. She’d been wanting to keep it disguised as long as possible, but it was so easily detectable.
“Hey,” Tess returned. “What’re you doing here?”
“Well, I just came by to check up on you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So how’re you doing?”
“Better,” Tess replied unconvincingly, “I . . . think.”
Maria hated that she was about to make everything worse. She hated it so much. “Tess, I need to tell you something,” she blurted, figuring it was best not to beat around the bush. She’d been avoiding say this for a year already.
Tess’s eyes bulged. “Are you pregnant?”
“No, it’s . . .” She trailed off and stared at her friend, feeling her courage slip away. But she held onto it just barely . . . just barely. And that was enough. “There’s something you need to know,” she said, trying to be as calm as she could, “and you need to just listen, because I need to just say it, and then you react however you want.”
Tess looked completely frightened. “Maria, what--”
“Remember last year, right before you and Max broke up for a few weeks, you went home to see your dad?”
Tess wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “I guess . . .”
“Well, you weren’t here,” Maria said straight-forwardly, “and I was.” She felt her muscles tighten as the night replayed itself in her mind. “And Max stopped by.”
Maria was all set to watch a marathon of Sex and the City when she heard a knock. She made a detour on her way back from the kitchen to the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her hand and stopped to pull open the door. Max was standing on the other side. “Tess isn’t here,” she told him, ready for him to go away.
“I know. She’s at home with her dad. I was wondering if I could get a tour of the new place.”
“You mean you and Tess haven’t christened all the rooms yet?” She made a face, finding that hard to believe.
“Our relationship isn’t all about sex, you know.”
She grunted. “Whatever.” She pulled open the door and allowed him to step inside. The sooner he got what he wanted, the sooner he left, and then she could start her marathon. Unless he decided to watch the marathon with her. She was beginning to notice increasingly metro sexual tendencies, lots of waxing involved.
“Living room,” she said, setting her popcorn bowl down on the couch. “Kitchen, hallway, bedrooms, bathroom. Well, that pretty much concludes the tour.”
“Not so fast,” he said, making his way down the hallway. “Which one’s Tess’s room?”
“Which one do you think?”
“Hmm,” he said, peering into the pinker of the two bedrooms. “I envision lots of sex happening in there.”
“Sick.” It wasn’t as though she were opposed to sex, but the thought of Max having sex with anything or anyone was enough to make her want to heave.
He grinned and came back out into the living room. “Champagne?” he asked.
“Where?”
“I have some out in my car,” he explained. “I can go get it, bring it in. We can celebrate.”
“Celebrate what exactly?”
“You and Tess being independent, out on your own, out of those wretched dorms.”
She laughed at that suggestion. “You want me to drink with you?”
“I want you to celebrate with me,” he corrected. “I know we’ve never gotten along, Maria. It’s a new school year, time to bury the hatchet. And it’s really good champagne.” He grinned again. “So, what do you say?”
She couldn’t believe it, but it seriously seemed as though he were extending an invitation for friendship. She wasn’t particularly interested in having that with him, but . . . she supposed she could have a glass of champagne.
Maria played with her hands nervously as she mentally invented all sorts of scenarios on the side where she didn’t accept Max’s invitation to ‘celebrate.’ Because the celebration hadn’t been very fun.
“So, we sat down, and we started drinking. We even started talking a little bit,” she told Tess. “And after awhile, he didn’t seem so bad. Of course, after awhile, I was pretty plastered . . .”
Maria sat on the floor, not sure how she had ended up on the floor, while Max kept pouring her vodka shots and sliding them across the coffee table towards her. “How’d we go from champy to hard liquor?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” She tossed back another shot of vodka and made a face. Not tasty.
Max laughed. “What, you don’t like it?”
“No, I don’t like you,” she told him. “I think you’re a . . . jerk.”
“A jerk, huh? Good insult.”
“Shut up,” she snapped. “I’m too—I’m too . . .” She trailed off, unable to think of the word she wanted to say.
“Drunk?” he filled in.
“Yeah, I’m too . . . that. No, I’m not drunk. No, I am.” She couldn’t decide. But she couldn’t see straight, either, so . . . she was probably tipsy off her ass. It happened sometimes, but usually Tess was around to keep an eye on her.
“I like you a lot better when you’re drunk, Maria,” he said, sounding totally sober.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling stupidly at him. “What? No.” What was she doing? She just wanted to watch her marathon of . . . what was the show? “Ow, my head hurts,” she said, pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead.
“Do another shot,” he urged. “It’ll help.”
“No. Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “Max, I think you should . . . I think you ssshould . . . go. You should go.”
“You’re kickin’ me out? I thought we were friends.”
“No.” She didn’t want to be friends with him. She wanted to be friends with people like Tess and Michael. She wanted to hang out with them and with her brother. She didn’t want to hang out with Max. “Go,” she said, struggling to get on her hands and knees and then to get to her feet. She had to push on the coffee table in order to help herself up into a standing position. “Oh, it’s bright in here,” she said, shielding her eyes. She felt so disoriented. And dizzy. “Max?” She closed her eyes as the room started to spin. “Could you just--” She wasn’t able to finish, as she lost her balance fell over onto the couch, onto his lap.
“Whoa there,” he said. “One too many?”
It felt like a hell of a lot more than one.
Maria sighed shakily as the story became increasing harder to tell. Tess just looked at her with fearful eyes, clearly understanding where this was going even though she didn’t want to.
“I tried to get up, because I really wanted him to go,” Maria emphasized. “But he wouldn’t let go of me.”
“Max.” She tried to get back up on her feet, but he had his arms wrapped around her mid-section, keeping her close.
“Wait just a minute. You like it here.”
She didn’t. She tried to squirm away from him, but it was no use. She was so weak, and she felt sick, and now she felt scared.
“Yeah, just like that,” he said, grinding his pelvis up into her.
“Stop.”
“Make me.” He lifted her up off his lap only to lay her down on the couch and fall on top of her, grinning menacingly. He looked like a snake. “That’s more like it,” he said, trying to urge her legs apart with his knee.
She tried to keep them together. “Stop it.” She wanted her voice to be loud and forceful, but they didn’t sound that way at all.
He leaned in and kissed her against her will. She could only squeak in protest and try to push him away, but her limbs felt like Jell-o, and his body was like a concrete wall, trapping her on the couch. She couldn’t get away.
“No, Max . . .” She felt him trying to slip his hand up under her shirt. “No . . .” All the energy drained from her body, and tears began to fall out of the corners of her eyes, sliding down her temple as he fought to control her. And she got to a point where he couldn’t fight back, where all she could do was close her eyes and hear his zipper sliding down before slipping away into the safe haven of unconsciousness.
“I don’t really remember . . .” Maria blinked back tears as she tried to keep it together. “I mean, I woke up and it was just done. I think he . . . that it didn’t last very long, and it didn’t hurt. Not physically, at least.” She swallowed hard. “But, um, when I opened my eyes, I could still feel him all over me and . . . I’ve never hated someone so much in my entire life.”
Maria sat up dizzily yet suddenly sober. She first saw Max standing by the couch, getting dressed. Then she took in her own state: her jeans had been taken off and her panties pushed aside, her shirt was pushed up, her abdomen covered in semen. She grabbed a blanket, covered herself up, and slid to the far end of the couch, away from him.
“I’m assuming you won’t say anything to Tess,” he mumbled as he tightened his belt.
It took all the strength she had, but she looked up at him, looking him right in the eye, and spoke to him. “If you don’t tell Tess about what just happened, I will,” she ground out determinedly.
Max looked genuinely concerned to hear her say that for a minute. Just for a minute. But then he chuckled, grabbed his empty champagne bottle, and started for the door. He wasn’t worried. He was the kind of guy who got what he wanted, and apparently he had wanted her. “Thanks for the tour,” he said, grinning at her one last time before he walked out the door.
She ran to the door once he shut it and slid the turned he lock into place. She stepped backward, shocked, horrified, and terrified by what had just happened. She lost her footing and fell on the floor, and even though she didn’t want to, she started to cry. She felt dirty. She felt ashamed. She could still feel him inside her, and that was the worst feeling in the world.
“So . . .” Maria didn’t realize she was crying until she was done talking. “That’s it. That’s why I hate Max as much as I do. That’s why I’ve always known you deserve better. That’s why I’m happy you saw him with Liz yesterday, because the thought of you being with him after . . .” She couldn’t even say it again. She’d already said it twice today.
“Oh my god,” Tess whispered in horror. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Tess was crying, too. “You could’ve told me. You should’ve told me, Maria.”
“I wanted to,” Maria assured her. “But for awhile, I thought Max was gonna do what I wanted. He did break up you. And now I know it was during that time that he and Liz first started up their . . . thing. But then he got back together with you, he ended things with Liz, and he basically told me to tell you. Because he knew I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was just . . . I don’t know, I was scared, Tess,” she admitted. “I was so worried that you’d think I was lying, like you wouldn’t believe me and you’d choose him over me. Or maybe I was just scared that you’d be mad at me for letting it happen. I swear I didn’t want it to happen, but it did, and I know I should’ve done something more to stop it.”
“Oh my god, Maria, this isn’t your fault in any way,” Tess said, hugging her. “Don’t blame yourself. This is something Max did to you. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault, either.”
“But . . . God, you had to put up with him all that time. You had to act like everything was normal whenever I invited him over or whenever he stayed the night.”
Maria finally released her friend from the hug. “Tess, you didn’t know.”
“I should’ve. I just get so wrapped up in my own life sometimes.”
“Michael told me Max is the bad guy,” Maria said, “and I think he’s right. Max is the only bad guy. I didn’t wanna sleep with him, and you didn’t wanna have to consider the possibility.”
“No, you didn’t sleep with him; he took advantage of you,” Tess corrected. “My god, Maria, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Maria said. “I mean, it’s not okay, but . . . I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but . . .” She sighed in frustration. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say here.”
Tess shook her head, holding her jaw tight to keep from breaking down. “It’s just so wrong. It’s so wrong that we have to deal with things like this just because we’re girls.”
“I know,” Maria agreed. There were some really bad guys out there, and she’d had the misfortune of meeting quite a few of them over the years. “But I’m not worried about me,” she said. “I’m worried about you. Because I’m actually doing really good right now. I’ve got a great place to live, great new job, great friends. I’m even doing well in school for a change. But you . . . I hate to say it, Tess, but you’re life’s, like, falling apart right now.”
“Yeah, it is,” Tess acknowledged. “But as long as I have my dad, and you and Michael and Kyle, you know . . . the Core Four.”
Maria managed to laugh a little. “That stupid nickname . . .”
“You guys are such great friends. And you’re my best friend, Maria.”
Relief surged through her. That was really all she wanted to hear. “Even after . . .?”
“Especially after that. I’m so glad you finally told me.”
“Me, too.” It felt good to no longer be keeping such a huge secret. And she’d been a fairly free spirit before this incredible confession. She was really going to be free-spirited now.
“Come here.” Tess opened up her arms, and they hugged again. “We’ve gotta look out for each other, okay?”
Maria smiled. “Yeah, I can think of two boys who might wanna help with that.”
Tess laughed and pulled back from the hug. “Well,” she said, “the truth is out, and we’ve both had a good cry and a good talk to follow . . . so what should we do now?”
Maria glanced into Tess’s bedroom and saw a picture of Max still sitting on her nightstand. She smirked. “I’ve got a few ideas.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria cackled as she tossed a dart at Max’s photo hanging on the wall. “Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha.” Her dart had connected with his chin.
“Take that, jackass.” Tess aimed and threw her own dart. It hit the photo right in between Max’s eyebrows.
“Ooh, take that.” Maria held up her beer bottle and asked, “Another toast?”
“Sure.” Tess knocked her bottle against Maria’s and accidentally spilled some beer onto Maria’s lap. “Oops.”
Maria wiped at the spill with her hand. “Now it looks like I peed my pants,” she grumbled. “Oh, well.” She tilted her head back, downing the rest of her beer, and set the empty bottle down on the coffee table along with the other half dozen empty bottles the two of them had drunk. She picked up another dart, craned her arm backward, aimed even though she couldn’t see straight, and threw it. It landed on Max’s mouth, those stupid lips pulled upward in a sly grin.
“Oh, good one,” Tess remarked.
“Pow! Right in the kisser.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Oh, I’m having so much fun!” Maria chirped happily.
“Me, too,” Tess agreed.
“Hey, but do you realize we’re sitting here getting drunk right after my story about getting drunk and the getting . . . you know. By stupid Max!” She quickly threw another dart, not even attempting to aim, and this one missed the photo and connected with the wall. “Uh-oh.”
“It’s probably not a good idea,” Tess acknowledged.
“No, it’s okay,” Maria assured her. She saw no harm in getting hammered with her friend. “Just so long as you don’t take advantage of me, too.”
“Oh, I would never,” Tess promised. “Only if you were Britney Spears.”
“Goddess!” Maria exclaimed right before there was a knock on the door. “Oh! Who is that?”
“I don’t know,” Tess replied, sounding alert and adventurous, sort of like a safari guide. “What if it’s Max?”
“What if it’s the pizza boy?” They’d ordered two large cheese pizzas an hour ago.
“Get your dart ready just in case,” Tess instructed. Once she and Maria had both picked up their last two darts, she called, “Come in!”
“Come in!” Maria echoed.
Michael and Kyle walked through the door, and Maria and Tess threw their darts on impulse, once again connecting with the wall but almost connecting with the boys.
“Jesus Christ,” Michael said, ducking.
“What the hell was that?” Kyle asked them. “My life just flashed before my eyes. I need to get a life.”
“Sorry, guys, we thought you were Max,” Maria apologized.
Tess giggled. “Good thing we had bad aim that time.”
“I know, right?”
Michael made his way over to them and surveyed the situation. “Okay, I see booze and darts. That doesn’t sound like a smart combination.”
“We’re taking out our rage, Michael,” Maria explained. She made a mean face and growled.
“Lots of rage,” Tess put in.
“And we ordered pizza.”
“Pepperoni.”
“Yes, pepperoni, Michael.” Maria smiled. “No, wait, cheese. It was cheese, wasn’t it?” She couldn’t remember.
“Alright, I think the best thing to do would be to put down the darts and put away the alcohol,” Michael said, reaching for one of many nearly-empty bottles on the coffee table.
“Oh, I can do that.” Maria seized it before he had the chance, unscrewed the lid, tilted her head back, and downed it again. “There. All gone!”
“Yeah.”
“Mine’s gone, too,” Tess said, holding up an empty bottle in her hand. “See? More darts!”
“No, no more darts.” Michael took a dart out of her hand and spoke to Kyle. “Dude, would you help me out?”
Kyle’s came over to study them, his eyes moving back and forth between them. “Think we could get ‘em to make out?”
“Bad Kyle!” Maria hissed. “Naughty! You should never make a girl do something she doesn’t wanna do when she’s drunk.”
“Oh, no-no Kyle’s not bad,” Tess insisted. “He’s good. He’s a good guy. He does good things. It’s good to do good. For the good. Of the good.” She smiled at her own stammering nonsense.
“Girl, you’re so far gone. I’m cuttin’ you off,” Maria informed her, reaching for another bottle on the coffee table.
“I’m cuttin’ you both off,” Michael said, moving behind the couch. “Come on.” He hoisted Maria up by placing his hands beneath her under arms and dragging her up and over the back of the couch.
“Wait, Michael, wait,” she protested, squirming and kicking her feet a little. When he set her down on her own two feet, she could barely stand. “I’m wasted!” she exclaimed, falling against him.
“Kyle, you wanna put Tess to bed?” Michael suggested.
“Take me to bed, Kyle!” Tess shouted, leaping to her feet. “Take me to bed!”
Kyle smiled and gave Michael a thumbs-up. Maria noticed it and said, “Uh-uh, Kyle. Be good.” She barely even noticed that she was walking—or rather that Michael was dragging her—until she was a few feet from the door. “Where’re we going?” she asked him.
“Home.”
“But the pizza . . . and Tess! Bye, BFF!” she hollered.
“Bye, B . . . oh, I can’t spell!”
Maria laughed, accidentally hitting her head on the doorframe as she tried to exit the apartment.
“God, are you okay?” Michael asked concernedly, immediately checking her over for bumps and bruises.
She just kept laughing. “You’re such a good guy, Michael.”
“Alright, let’s get you home.”
“I mean it,” she said, flailing against him. “You’re such a good guy.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael had seen Maria drunk many times. This was definitely the extreme. It was funny, but if she were to have been out in public, it would have been dangerous. He was just glad he would be able to take care of her.
“Womanizer, woman-womanizer, you’re a womanizer,” she sang as he assisted her down the hallway to their apartment. He was practically supporting her entire frame. “Oh! Womanizer, oh, you’re a womanizer, baby!”
“Shh,” he shushed her as she became increasingly loud. He doubted their neighbors wanted to hear Britney Spears tunes at 1:00 in the morning. Or at all, actually. “You’re gonna wake people up.”
“But I’m just practicing,” she said, “for the concert, remember? ‘member, Michael? You got me tickets.”
“I remember.” He inserted his key into the lock and pushed open the door to their living quarters.
“This is where I live,” she chirped, skipping inside. She almost tripped over her own feet and fell down, but somehow, she managed to stay upright. “You drive me crazy!” she sang, keeping with the Britney trend, even adding in a few drunken dance moves as she headed for the bedroom. “I just can’t sleep.” She plopped down on the bed and beamed at him. “You hear that, Michael? I just can’t sleep!” She bounced up and down on the mattress excitedly, looking wide awake.
“I think you need to sleep,” he told her.
“Are you gonna sleep with me?” She giggled. “See how I make that sound all dirty?”
“Yeah, you’re the master,” he said as he pulled back the covers.
“Hey, if I’m the master, then does that make you, like, my slave?” Her eyes lit up as she crawled towards the top of the bed. “I’m so perverted.”
“Comfy?” he asked as she got settled in on the mattress.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, trying to pull the blankets up over her chest.
“Wait, hold on,” he said. “Shoes.” He tossed the blankets back and reached down to unhook her gold sandals from around her feet. They had a number of strappy mechanisms going on at once. Complicated little things.
“You know, you’d make a good boyfriend,” she commented suddenly. “You take off my shoes, you like my singing.”
“Hey, I never said I liked your singing.”
She smiled. “I got you, babe.”
He tossed her shoes onto the floor and teased, “Hey, that’s not Britney.”
“Nope, that’s our song.” She laughed again, then suddenly seemed to grow serious. “Come here,” she said.
He just sat there.
“Come here,” she repeated, reaching up to grab hold of his shirt collar. She pulled him downward, down so that he was halfway lying atop her, his face a mere inches from her own. For a minute, he thought she was going to kiss him. But she probably didn’t want to.
“Do you know how long it’s been,” she asked, “since I’ve had sex?”
Oh, wow. He wasn’t sure what to say or what to do, what she was hoping to accomplish by asking him the question. He sat up slightly, needing to put some distance in between the two of them. There was nothing he wanted more than to have his body near her body, but she was drunk, and he wasn’t like Max. “Not as long as it’s been since I’ve had sex,” he replied.
She laughed. “Hmm.” Her eyes fell closed, she began to breathe contentedly, and all of a sudden, she spoke again. “I love you, Michael.”
His heart skipped a beat. Or two or fifty. Had she just said . . . “What?” he spat, incredulous. He sat up and looked around the room, too shocked to formulate a coherent response. “When did this happen?” He stared down at her, waiting for something, anything. An explanation, some answers, maybe another I love you. But she didn’t say anything. “Maria.” She was fast asleep. “Maria?” He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, gazing down at her and wondering, wondering if her drunken state was allowing her to acknowledge something her sober self wouldn’t. Or maybe he was just getting his hopes up. Regardless, it felt nice to hear someone say that.
He stood up, pulled the covers up over her, and bent to give her a kiss on the forehead. Tomorrow he’d ask her what she meant. Maybe.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess felt fine when she woke up . . . until she sat up. “Uh, too fast,” she groaned, pressing her hand to her head. She sat there for a minute not doing anything in an attempt to alleviate the impending headache. But it was inevitable.
When she got out of bed and walked out into the hallway, she heard noises coming from the kitchen, almost as though someone were rummaging around looking for something. And indeed, that was exactly what Kyle was doing. She wasn’t sure why or what for—she hadn’t even expected him to still be there. But Kyle was full of surprises.
“Hey,” she said.
“Oh, hey.” He reached into her refrigerator and took out two eggs. “Contrary to what it may look like, I’m not robbing you. I’m just making you breakfast. Scrambled eggs. You like?
“Yeah.” She smiled at him, amazed by how considerate a man could be. “Did you spend the night here?”
“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that it took you awhile to get into bed, and then you didn’t wanna stay there.”
She rolled her eyes at herself. “I’m like a two year-old.”
“Well, beer does that to a person,” he said. “Or so I’m told.”
She stood back and watched him grease up the frying pan on top the stove and get to work on her eggs. “So you looked after me last night, and you’re making me breakfast now,” she recapped. “Max would’ve never . . .” She trailed off. It was understood; she didn’t need to say it. Max would have never treated her well. “Thanks,” she said, faintly hearing the sound of her cell phone ringing from inside her purse in the bedroom. “Make yourself some, too.” She went back in the bedroom, glanced at her caller ID, and smiled as she answered the phone. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey, Tessie,” Ed Harding said, still apparently insistent on using his childhood nickname on her. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” she lied as she strode into the bathroom to find some pain reliever in her medicine closet. This headache was going to get the best of her if she let it.
“How was your Christmas?” he asked.
She hesitated for a moment as the memories played out in her mind, seeing Max and Liz in the backseat of that car . . . “Eventful.” That seemed like a good, honest way to describe it.
“Well, maybe you can tell me about it over dinner tonight.”
She frowned. “Dinner?” How was that going to work? Her dad was in Roswell, and she . . . wasn’t.
“Yeah, I’ve got a job interview up in Santa Fe this afternoon. I figure I might as well come see you and take you out to eat. My treat.”
“Oh.” She wished it were a less hectic time in her life. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to be great company. “Job interview, huh?”
“Yeah, I’m a little stressed out about it.”
“Don’t stress, Dad,” she told him. “You’ll do fine, and then we . . . will have dinner.” She decided it was probably just what she needed to take her mind off other situations.
“Great, I’ll look forward to it all day,” he promised. “I’m assuming your boyfriend can join us.”
“My boyfriend?” she echoed questioningly. Don’t really have one of those anymore. But she did not want her dad to worry about her. At all. He had a job interview to think about, and heart disease ran in their family. Stress at a minimum was all he could handle. She didn’t want him to know about all the Max drama.
She listened as Kyle yelped out in the kitchen, apparently having burnt the eggs or his hand or something. And then an idea dawned on her.
“Yes,” she said, “yes, my boyfriend will be there.” She gazed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, the redness in her eyes, and hoped he wouldn’t be too hard to convince. “I’ll make sure of it.”
After she got off the phone with her dad and took two pain relievers, Tess made her way back out into the kitchen to talk to Kyle. He was using a spatula to put the eggs on her plate and had even made her buttered toast to go along with them. “Alright, somehow these started out as scrambled and ended up sunny side up,” he informed her. “I’m baffled. Is that okay?”
“Fine,” she said, not even really all that hungry. “Hey, Kyle?”
He grinned as he looked at the two sunny side up eggs. “They look like little boobs. Not that I’m perverted.”
She stepped closer toward him, hoping he could get serious for a moment. “Um, I just got off the phone with my dad. Apparently he’s got a job interview in town today, and he’s gonna join me for dinner afterwards.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
“Well, hold on. See, he’s still under the impression I have a boyfriend. As in Max.”
“Oh.” Kyle nodded. “So you gonna set him straight?”
“Well . . . probably not,” she confessed. “Or at least not completely. See, my dad’s kind of a mix of old-fashioned and new-fashioned when it comes to gender roles. He totally thinks I can be independent and be whatever I wanna be in life, but on the other hand, he wants me to have a man to take care of me. Like financially. Like financially and emotionally, you know? Which is why he’s never liked Max, aka: the guy with no knowledge of emotions. So anyway, I’ve always had a boyfriend because I don’t want him to worry about me; I don’t want him to get stressed. Because if gets too stressed, that could be really bad, ‘cause it’s like, we have this history of heart disease in my family and--”
“Whoa, Tess, you’re rambling even more than I do,” Kyle cut in. “That’s a lot of ramble.” He picked up her plate of eggs and toast and tried to hand it to her. “Why don’t you just eat your breakfast and cut to the chase?”
She couldn’t accept breakfast from him until she asked him something really weird. “Will you pretend to be my boyfriend?”
And upon hearing that, Kyle dropped the plate of eggs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael brought a drink for Maria into the bedroom just as she was waking up. Not an alcoholic drink, of course. It looked a little like tar, probably tasted like tar. He was glad he didn’t have to drink it.
“Hey, you’re awake,” he remarked.
“Yeah, sort of.” She sat up and immediately groaned, holding her hand to her head. “Whoa, too fast.”
“Here.” He handed her the concoction and sat down on the side of the bed. “I found a recipe on the Internet. It’s supposed to cure anything you’ve got.”
“Including the hangover from hell?”
“I said anything, didn’t I?”
“Oh, goodie.” She took a sip of the tar-like substance and cringed. “Hmm, that’s definitely property of Chef Michael.”
“Gross?”
“Yeah, but I think it’s supposed to be.” She set the glass down on the bedside table. “So tell me the truth: how badly did I embarrass myself last night?”
He tensed. Last night. It wasn’t as though anything had happened. It wasn’t as though anything had even been about to happen. But the words she’d said had kept him up all night, wondering if they were true.
“No, you didn’t embarrass yourself,” he assured her. “You flexed your vocal chords a little. Nothing major.”
“Britney Spears?” she guessed.
He nodded mutely.
“I knew it. Well, as long as I didn’t say anything weird . . .” She trailed off and looked him in the eye, and even though he wasn’t saying anything, she came to the right conclusion. “Oh my god. I did, didn’t I? I totally said something weird.”
“No, you . . .” He thought about it and realized it was the perfect opportunity to ask her about it. When else was he going to get the chance to find out how she felt? “You might have said something weird.”
“What’d I say?’
“Well, first--”
“First?” she interrupted in horror. “This is a multiple embarrassment?”
He chuckled. “First you asked me if I knew how long you’d gone without sex.”
“Oh, days,” she lamented. “I’m practically dying, but . . . hey. Wait a minute. We can fix that.”
Fix what? he thought. Her sex drought? “We can?” He liked the sound of that.
“Yeah. I desperately need to get laid, so obviously you and I . . .” She drew it out, and he let himself get his hopes up. She was saying that they could . . . since he was a guy and she was a girl . . . it only made sense . . . anatomically speaking . . . “We should go to a party on New Year’s so I can find some random guy to get it on with at midnight!” she exclaimed. “Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Uh . . .” It wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.
“Yeah!” she chirped excitedly. She picked up the anti-hangover concoction he’d made for her and took another drink of it. “So, uh, was that the weirdest thing I said? ‘Cause that’s not too bad. I’ve said weirder.”
“Yeah,” he said, wishing he hadn’t allowed himself to get hopeful. Realistic was better. “Yeah, that’s the weirdest thing you said. Except . . .”
She froze, mortified. “Except what, Michael?”
Now it was his turn to draw it out. “You might’ve said . . . I mean, the words might’ve come out . . . phonetically . . .” He sighed and cut the crap. “You said you love me.”
She didn’t even flinch. Or twitch. Or look embarrassed or nervous at all. She didn’t even have to blush and avert her glance. “Well, I do,” she said, looking him right in the eye.
And again, he let himself get his hopes up, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He let himself believe it was a pinnacle moment. He even imagined he was hearing the Hallelujah chorus. “Are you serious?”
“Of course.” She sounded serious. “You always let me have all the covers and the first shower in the morning. You brew me disgusting hangover remedies. You listen to me when I talk. You salsa with me. Why wouldn’t I love you?”
The disappointment overcame him. He was pretty sure it was obvious, and how she remained oblivious to it, he did not know. “Oh, so . . . so you love me in the way you love a lifelong friend.”
She smiled as though that were a good thing. “Exactly.”
Maybe it was a good thing. He always wanted to be her friend, no matter what. But he didn’t want to just be her friend forever. He nodded and said, “Well, in that case, I love you, too.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know it meant something much different when he said it.
TBC . . .
-April
Max has a reason for not saying anything.And what's to stop Max from spilling the beans now that he has nothing to lose?
Leila:
Yep. And like you said, this explains the hostility.Holy Shit...Did Maria and Max...? I can't belive it, if it is true. though that would be explain the hight hostility between Max and Maria.
Nove: I love your last feedback! Lots of OMGs.
You'll get the answers to your questions in this part.*sigh* ok I'm stunned!! April Wow! Wow! You're friggin fantastic at what you do. This whole thing is blowing my mind right now. OMG Seriously!! Are you saying Maria slept with Max? Is this what you're saying? Really? OMG! Was she drunk? Was it a one time thing? Is this why Max is so hostile towards her because he has been pissed she didn't fall under his spell?
behrlyliz:
That would make Maria very hypocritical, if she did the same thing Liz did.I'm sorry, I have to say this. If Maria slept with Max behind Tess' back, regardless of the positive changes she's made in her life, she is one big, fat hypocrite to even think of judging Liz for doing the same thing she did.
Alison:
I was wondering if anybody was going to mention Max's threats to Kyle. Kyle's definitely got to be careful now.Hopefully Max was just making idle threats, because Kyle is way too cute to have his life messed with.
spacegirl23:
Well, right now he's threatening more than planning anything. Still kinda scary.What could Max be planning for Kyle? I'm kinda scared too.
And oh my gosh, you're so right about that conversation Maria first had with Billy! A lot of people seemed to think that when she told him she wasn't doing the whole "other woman thing" anymore, she was alluding to Isabel cheating on Michael, but . . . not so much.
lilah:
You know I never like to make things easy on you guys! You'll get some explanations in this part.I'll start on a high note. April I love your fics..always always and always. Your characters are great. The dialogue is fabulous and the stories are always my favorites and you can never update quickly enough for me.....That being said...What is wrong with you? All I could think as I was reading down to the last few lines was "No, April would never do that. Nope, it can't be possible...NO She didn't! Aww....she did
tequathisy:
And she will be.If Maria really wants to be a responsible and a better person, then she has to be honest with Tess and Michael about what happened.
BLONDIE:
It's possible.I wonder if Max will actually do anything to him?
Mercedes:
Hey, girl! You're right, it's bad either way, but it's one of the two.Did Maria and Max have consensual sex while he was with Tess? Non-consensual? It's bad either way.
I can't believe you went back to Part 7 to find that line!
But you're right, I have had this planned the entire time, and that line you pointed out was part of the foreshadowing.Sara:
Ah, interesting theory, but you are in fact reading too much into it. Notice in the last part that Maria was feeling ashamed, so it's something that happened when he was with Tess.Max and Maria used to date? And then Max got bored with maria and slept with her best friend Tess????? Or was I reading too much into that?
Krista:
She didn't get caught up in the moment.And really, I'm not surprised. But that doesn't mean I hate her. That was in the past, and I know that Maria would never intentionally hurt Tess. Maybe she just got caught up in the moment.
Christina:
Well, you'll figure out when, why, and how it happened in this part.Now, I did have a feeling that something happened between Max and Maria, because he's a bad guy, she's a bad girl, and they just hated each other way too much. I didn't necessarily know what it was exactly, but something bad, for sure. Now I'm really wondering when, why, and how it happened.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone! I'm happy I was able to catch a few people off-guard.
I'm suggesting more music for this part. "Nobody's Perfect" by dios malos when you see
I can't find it on Youtube, but you can listen to it here: http://www.last.fm/music/dios+Malos/_/Nobody's+Perfect It's one of those great unknown songs. I only discovered it myself because of One Tree Hill.I should probably preface this part with something: It's a very odd part. At times, it's very dark, and at other times, it's way more light-hearted. It's kind of spastic like that, but it's another important part nonetheless. I should caution that you should probably read it at your own risk. There's some kind of disturbing, sensitive stuff in it, but I don't anticipate anybody feeling extremely uncomfortable when reading it.
Italics indicate a flashback.
Part 31
Michael was outside on the balcony debating whether or not to take down the Christmas lights already when he heard the front door open. He walked back inside the house as Maria was taking off her coat.
“Hey,” he said. “Alright, so I was gonna take down the outside lights, but then I thought, ‘I just put up these things.’ And then I thought, ‘Hey, I like these things.’ So what do you say we leave the lights up through New Year’s?” He looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer, but she didn’t say anything right away. “Maria?”
“Yeah, great.” She sounded distracted. “Hey, Michael, can I talk to you?”
Oh, no, he thought. The last time she’d sounded this serious, she’d told him she was moving in with Billy. “Sure,” he said, already worried that she was getting back together with him. “What’s up?”
“Sit down,” she said, taking a seat on the couch and patting the cushion.
He sat down beside her, waiting nervously.
“Okay, so I talked to Liz today,” she told him, “and it didn’t go so well. And I kinda . . . implied something to her, and you’re gonna find out about it sooner or later, and I’d rather have you find out about it from me.”
He stared at her in confusion. “What’re you talking about?”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
Crap, they are getting back together, he thought dismally.
“I mean, I hate it.”
He frowned. Maybe they weren’t getting back together? He was so lost. He wished she would just blurt it out. She was making him nervous, more nervous than he usually was. “Maria, you’re scaring me.”
“Sorry,” she apologized. “It’s just . . . I’ve never really said it out loud before.”
He leaned forward and rested a reassuring hand on her knee. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “I think so.” She let out a deep, readying breath. “Okay, Michael . . . there’s more to me hating Max than just hating Max.”
He still didn’t get it, but when she said the next two words, he did.
“Something happened.”
Crap, he thought again. There was no way that something wasn’t sex.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Liz knocked on the door to Max’s penthouse hotel suite. Somehow, he must have known it was her, because he didn’t take the time to peer through the peep-hole or check the security cameras. “Come in,” he called from inside.
She pushed open the door slowly and sidled in. She looked around and found him in his bathroom, sitting on the edge of the Whirlpool bathtub and using a self-waxing kit to wax his entire chest, even though he hardly had any hair there. Such a Max Evans thing to do.
“Good, you’re here,” he said. “Just let me finish waxing and we’ll fuck.”
“Did you sleep with Maria?”
He froze midway through tearing the waxing strip back. He stared right at her and didn’t say anything. Didn’t deny it. Didn’t admit it. Didn’t have to. His silence spoke louder than anything he could have said. Still, she had to ask again.
“Did you really sleep with your girlfriend’s best friend?”
After a moment, he peeled off the remainder of the waxing strip, sort of smiling at her as if his actions with Maria were something he was proud of.
Maria was right, she thought, shaking her head in disbelief, even though she should have believed it easily. There was nothing good that could come of being with Max, except some good sex. And that wasn’t important in the scheme of things. And neither was Max’s money. All the things that really mattered—kindness and loyalty and compassion—all those things that weren’t important to her yet but would be someday down the road . . . Max didn’t have any of those things.
“I can’t be with someone like you,” she decided, holding back tears as the words traversed her lips. She gazed at him sadly, wishing she didn’t have to do this. Because he really did make her feel something. But it was something she could no longer afford.
She walked turned and walked away from him, hoping that this time she would stick to her guns and actually stay away. He didn’t follow her, and why would he? Max Evans only cared about himself, and he was in the middle of waxing his chest.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria was so glad that Michael just sat next to her and listened to everything she had to tell him about her and Max. He didn’t make faces. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t say anything judgmental. Of course not. He was Michael. He was an amazing guy. He was the complete opposite of somebody like Max, and he was her friend. She just hoped he would still be her friend now that he knew what had happened, what she had let happen.
“Wow,” he said contemplatively. “So . . . you and Max.”
“Yeah.” She could barely even stand to think about it. “Do you hate me?”
“No,” he replied immediately, putting some of her worst fears to rest. “No, not at all.”
“Well . . . you should.” As it stood, that night with Max was the one thing she truly hated about herself.
“Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he assured her, holding her hand in his, “and I don’t want you thinking you did anything wrong. You’re not the bad guy here; he is.”
“I just feel so ashamed,” she admitted.
“Don’t,” he said. “This isn’t gonna make me look at you any differently.”
She smiled at him slightly. “Good, ‘cause . . . I like the way you look at me.”
He squeezed her hand supportively and asked, “So are you gonna tell Tess?”
“I think I have to,” she said. It had been weighing on her for a year now. Truth be told, it was probably the reason why their friendship had fractured. She was so tired of keeping the secret, and it wasn’t really a secret anymore. “I’m just so totally dreading it,” she said. “Can you tell her for me?”
He laughed lightly. “No.”
She frowned. “How do you think she’s gonna react?”
Michael shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, this just sucks,” she groaned. “I feel like Tess and I are finally really good friends again, and now this is just gonna ruin it.”
“Maybe,” Michael said. “Maybe not.”
She breathed steadily but nervously, really praying for the latter.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria didn’t gather up enough courage to go to Tess’s apartment until nighttime. The door was locked, understandably. Tess was probably trying to keep Max out. And after this conversation, she’s probably gonna be trying to keep me out, Maria thought sadly, using the key she still kept on her to unlock the door and step inside. “Tess?” she called, her voice already wavering with uncertainty. Maybe she wasn’t ready to do this.
“Maria?” Tess came out of the bedroom, looking . . . not her best. Again, understandably. She looked like she had been crying. How did she have any tears left? She was going to need some after she heard what Maria had to say.
“Hey,” Maria greeted, hearing the thickness of emotion in her own voice. She’d been wanting to keep it disguised as long as possible, but it was so easily detectable.
“Hey,” Tess returned. “What’re you doing here?”
“Well, I just came by to check up on you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So how’re you doing?”
“Better,” Tess replied unconvincingly, “I . . . think.”
Maria hated that she was about to make everything worse. She hated it so much. “Tess, I need to tell you something,” she blurted, figuring it was best not to beat around the bush. She’d been avoiding say this for a year already.
Tess’s eyes bulged. “Are you pregnant?”
“No, it’s . . .” She trailed off and stared at her friend, feeling her courage slip away. But she held onto it just barely . . . just barely. And that was enough. “There’s something you need to know,” she said, trying to be as calm as she could, “and you need to just listen, because I need to just say it, and then you react however you want.”
Tess looked completely frightened. “Maria, what--”
“Remember last year, right before you and Max broke up for a few weeks, you went home to see your dad?”
Tess wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “I guess . . .”
“Well, you weren’t here,” Maria said straight-forwardly, “and I was.” She felt her muscles tighten as the night replayed itself in her mind. “And Max stopped by.”
Maria was all set to watch a marathon of Sex and the City when she heard a knock. She made a detour on her way back from the kitchen to the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her hand and stopped to pull open the door. Max was standing on the other side. “Tess isn’t here,” she told him, ready for him to go away.
“I know. She’s at home with her dad. I was wondering if I could get a tour of the new place.”
“You mean you and Tess haven’t christened all the rooms yet?” She made a face, finding that hard to believe.
“Our relationship isn’t all about sex, you know.”
She grunted. “Whatever.” She pulled open the door and allowed him to step inside. The sooner he got what he wanted, the sooner he left, and then she could start her marathon. Unless he decided to watch the marathon with her. She was beginning to notice increasingly metro sexual tendencies, lots of waxing involved.
“Living room,” she said, setting her popcorn bowl down on the couch. “Kitchen, hallway, bedrooms, bathroom. Well, that pretty much concludes the tour.”
“Not so fast,” he said, making his way down the hallway. “Which one’s Tess’s room?”
“Which one do you think?”
“Hmm,” he said, peering into the pinker of the two bedrooms. “I envision lots of sex happening in there.”
“Sick.” It wasn’t as though she were opposed to sex, but the thought of Max having sex with anything or anyone was enough to make her want to heave.
He grinned and came back out into the living room. “Champagne?” he asked.
“Where?”
“I have some out in my car,” he explained. “I can go get it, bring it in. We can celebrate.”
“Celebrate what exactly?”
“You and Tess being independent, out on your own, out of those wretched dorms.”
She laughed at that suggestion. “You want me to drink with you?”
“I want you to celebrate with me,” he corrected. “I know we’ve never gotten along, Maria. It’s a new school year, time to bury the hatchet. And it’s really good champagne.” He grinned again. “So, what do you say?”
She couldn’t believe it, but it seriously seemed as though he were extending an invitation for friendship. She wasn’t particularly interested in having that with him, but . . . she supposed she could have a glass of champagne.
Maria played with her hands nervously as she mentally invented all sorts of scenarios on the side where she didn’t accept Max’s invitation to ‘celebrate.’ Because the celebration hadn’t been very fun.
“So, we sat down, and we started drinking. We even started talking a little bit,” she told Tess. “And after awhile, he didn’t seem so bad. Of course, after awhile, I was pretty plastered . . .”
Maria sat on the floor, not sure how she had ended up on the floor, while Max kept pouring her vodka shots and sliding them across the coffee table towards her. “How’d we go from champy to hard liquor?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” She tossed back another shot of vodka and made a face. Not tasty.
Max laughed. “What, you don’t like it?”
“No, I don’t like you,” she told him. “I think you’re a . . . jerk.”
“A jerk, huh? Good insult.”
“Shut up,” she snapped. “I’m too—I’m too . . .” She trailed off, unable to think of the word she wanted to say.
“Drunk?” he filled in.
“Yeah, I’m too . . . that. No, I’m not drunk. No, I am.” She couldn’t decide. But she couldn’t see straight, either, so . . . she was probably tipsy off her ass. It happened sometimes, but usually Tess was around to keep an eye on her.
“I like you a lot better when you’re drunk, Maria,” he said, sounding totally sober.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling stupidly at him. “What? No.” What was she doing? She just wanted to watch her marathon of . . . what was the show? “Ow, my head hurts,” she said, pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead.
“Do another shot,” he urged. “It’ll help.”
“No. Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “Max, I think you should . . . I think you ssshould . . . go. You should go.”
“You’re kickin’ me out? I thought we were friends.”
“No.” She didn’t want to be friends with him. She wanted to be friends with people like Tess and Michael. She wanted to hang out with them and with her brother. She didn’t want to hang out with Max. “Go,” she said, struggling to get on her hands and knees and then to get to her feet. She had to push on the coffee table in order to help herself up into a standing position. “Oh, it’s bright in here,” she said, shielding her eyes. She felt so disoriented. And dizzy. “Max?” She closed her eyes as the room started to spin. “Could you just--” She wasn’t able to finish, as she lost her balance fell over onto the couch, onto his lap.
“Whoa there,” he said. “One too many?”
It felt like a hell of a lot more than one.
Maria sighed shakily as the story became increasing harder to tell. Tess just looked at her with fearful eyes, clearly understanding where this was going even though she didn’t want to.
“I tried to get up, because I really wanted him to go,” Maria emphasized. “But he wouldn’t let go of me.”
“Max.” She tried to get back up on her feet, but he had his arms wrapped around her mid-section, keeping her close.
“Wait just a minute. You like it here.”
She didn’t. She tried to squirm away from him, but it was no use. She was so weak, and she felt sick, and now she felt scared.
“Yeah, just like that,” he said, grinding his pelvis up into her.
“Stop.”
“Make me.” He lifted her up off his lap only to lay her down on the couch and fall on top of her, grinning menacingly. He looked like a snake. “That’s more like it,” he said, trying to urge her legs apart with his knee.
She tried to keep them together. “Stop it.” She wanted her voice to be loud and forceful, but they didn’t sound that way at all.
He leaned in and kissed her against her will. She could only squeak in protest and try to push him away, but her limbs felt like Jell-o, and his body was like a concrete wall, trapping her on the couch. She couldn’t get away.
“No, Max . . .” She felt him trying to slip his hand up under her shirt. “No . . .” All the energy drained from her body, and tears began to fall out of the corners of her eyes, sliding down her temple as he fought to control her. And she got to a point where he couldn’t fight back, where all she could do was close her eyes and hear his zipper sliding down before slipping away into the safe haven of unconsciousness.
“I don’t really remember . . .” Maria blinked back tears as she tried to keep it together. “I mean, I woke up and it was just done. I think he . . . that it didn’t last very long, and it didn’t hurt. Not physically, at least.” She swallowed hard. “But, um, when I opened my eyes, I could still feel him all over me and . . . I’ve never hated someone so much in my entire life.”
Maria sat up dizzily yet suddenly sober. She first saw Max standing by the couch, getting dressed. Then she took in her own state: her jeans had been taken off and her panties pushed aside, her shirt was pushed up, her abdomen covered in semen. She grabbed a blanket, covered herself up, and slid to the far end of the couch, away from him.
“I’m assuming you won’t say anything to Tess,” he mumbled as he tightened his belt.
It took all the strength she had, but she looked up at him, looking him right in the eye, and spoke to him. “If you don’t tell Tess about what just happened, I will,” she ground out determinedly.
Max looked genuinely concerned to hear her say that for a minute. Just for a minute. But then he chuckled, grabbed his empty champagne bottle, and started for the door. He wasn’t worried. He was the kind of guy who got what he wanted, and apparently he had wanted her. “Thanks for the tour,” he said, grinning at her one last time before he walked out the door.
She ran to the door once he shut it and slid the turned he lock into place. She stepped backward, shocked, horrified, and terrified by what had just happened. She lost her footing and fell on the floor, and even though she didn’t want to, she started to cry. She felt dirty. She felt ashamed. She could still feel him inside her, and that was the worst feeling in the world.
“So . . .” Maria didn’t realize she was crying until she was done talking. “That’s it. That’s why I hate Max as much as I do. That’s why I’ve always known you deserve better. That’s why I’m happy you saw him with Liz yesterday, because the thought of you being with him after . . .” She couldn’t even say it again. She’d already said it twice today.
“Oh my god,” Tess whispered in horror. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Tess was crying, too. “You could’ve told me. You should’ve told me, Maria.”
“I wanted to,” Maria assured her. “But for awhile, I thought Max was gonna do what I wanted. He did break up you. And now I know it was during that time that he and Liz first started up their . . . thing. But then he got back together with you, he ended things with Liz, and he basically told me to tell you. Because he knew I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was just . . . I don’t know, I was scared, Tess,” she admitted. “I was so worried that you’d think I was lying, like you wouldn’t believe me and you’d choose him over me. Or maybe I was just scared that you’d be mad at me for letting it happen. I swear I didn’t want it to happen, but it did, and I know I should’ve done something more to stop it.”
“Oh my god, Maria, this isn’t your fault in any way,” Tess said, hugging her. “Don’t blame yourself. This is something Max did to you. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault, either.”
“But . . . God, you had to put up with him all that time. You had to act like everything was normal whenever I invited him over or whenever he stayed the night.”
Maria finally released her friend from the hug. “Tess, you didn’t know.”
“I should’ve. I just get so wrapped up in my own life sometimes.”
“Michael told me Max is the bad guy,” Maria said, “and I think he’s right. Max is the only bad guy. I didn’t wanna sleep with him, and you didn’t wanna have to consider the possibility.”
“No, you didn’t sleep with him; he took advantage of you,” Tess corrected. “My god, Maria, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Maria said. “I mean, it’s not okay, but . . . I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but . . .” She sighed in frustration. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say here.”
Tess shook her head, holding her jaw tight to keep from breaking down. “It’s just so wrong. It’s so wrong that we have to deal with things like this just because we’re girls.”
“I know,” Maria agreed. There were some really bad guys out there, and she’d had the misfortune of meeting quite a few of them over the years. “But I’m not worried about me,” she said. “I’m worried about you. Because I’m actually doing really good right now. I’ve got a great place to live, great new job, great friends. I’m even doing well in school for a change. But you . . . I hate to say it, Tess, but you’re life’s, like, falling apart right now.”
“Yeah, it is,” Tess acknowledged. “But as long as I have my dad, and you and Michael and Kyle, you know . . . the Core Four.”
Maria managed to laugh a little. “That stupid nickname . . .”
“You guys are such great friends. And you’re my best friend, Maria.”
Relief surged through her. That was really all she wanted to hear. “Even after . . .?”
“Especially after that. I’m so glad you finally told me.”
“Me, too.” It felt good to no longer be keeping such a huge secret. And she’d been a fairly free spirit before this incredible confession. She was really going to be free-spirited now.
“Come here.” Tess opened up her arms, and they hugged again. “We’ve gotta look out for each other, okay?”
Maria smiled. “Yeah, I can think of two boys who might wanna help with that.”
Tess laughed and pulled back from the hug. “Well,” she said, “the truth is out, and we’ve both had a good cry and a good talk to follow . . . so what should we do now?”
Maria glanced into Tess’s bedroom and saw a picture of Max still sitting on her nightstand. She smirked. “I’ve got a few ideas.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria cackled as she tossed a dart at Max’s photo hanging on the wall. “Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha.” Her dart had connected with his chin.
“Take that, jackass.” Tess aimed and threw her own dart. It hit the photo right in between Max’s eyebrows.
“Ooh, take that.” Maria held up her beer bottle and asked, “Another toast?”
“Sure.” Tess knocked her bottle against Maria’s and accidentally spilled some beer onto Maria’s lap. “Oops.”
Maria wiped at the spill with her hand. “Now it looks like I peed my pants,” she grumbled. “Oh, well.” She tilted her head back, downing the rest of her beer, and set the empty bottle down on the coffee table along with the other half dozen empty bottles the two of them had drunk. She picked up another dart, craned her arm backward, aimed even though she couldn’t see straight, and threw it. It landed on Max’s mouth, those stupid lips pulled upward in a sly grin.
“Oh, good one,” Tess remarked.
“Pow! Right in the kisser.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Oh, I’m having so much fun!” Maria chirped happily.
“Me, too,” Tess agreed.
“Hey, but do you realize we’re sitting here getting drunk right after my story about getting drunk and the getting . . . you know. By stupid Max!” She quickly threw another dart, not even attempting to aim, and this one missed the photo and connected with the wall. “Uh-oh.”
“It’s probably not a good idea,” Tess acknowledged.
“No, it’s okay,” Maria assured her. She saw no harm in getting hammered with her friend. “Just so long as you don’t take advantage of me, too.”
“Oh, I would never,” Tess promised. “Only if you were Britney Spears.”
“Goddess!” Maria exclaimed right before there was a knock on the door. “Oh! Who is that?”
“I don’t know,” Tess replied, sounding alert and adventurous, sort of like a safari guide. “What if it’s Max?”
“What if it’s the pizza boy?” They’d ordered two large cheese pizzas an hour ago.
“Get your dart ready just in case,” Tess instructed. Once she and Maria had both picked up their last two darts, she called, “Come in!”
“Come in!” Maria echoed.
Michael and Kyle walked through the door, and Maria and Tess threw their darts on impulse, once again connecting with the wall but almost connecting with the boys.
“Jesus Christ,” Michael said, ducking.
“What the hell was that?” Kyle asked them. “My life just flashed before my eyes. I need to get a life.”
“Sorry, guys, we thought you were Max,” Maria apologized.
Tess giggled. “Good thing we had bad aim that time.”
“I know, right?”
Michael made his way over to them and surveyed the situation. “Okay, I see booze and darts. That doesn’t sound like a smart combination.”
“We’re taking out our rage, Michael,” Maria explained. She made a mean face and growled.
“Lots of rage,” Tess put in.
“And we ordered pizza.”
“Pepperoni.”
“Yes, pepperoni, Michael.” Maria smiled. “No, wait, cheese. It was cheese, wasn’t it?” She couldn’t remember.
“Alright, I think the best thing to do would be to put down the darts and put away the alcohol,” Michael said, reaching for one of many nearly-empty bottles on the coffee table.
“Oh, I can do that.” Maria seized it before he had the chance, unscrewed the lid, tilted her head back, and downed it again. “There. All gone!”
“Yeah.”
“Mine’s gone, too,” Tess said, holding up an empty bottle in her hand. “See? More darts!”
“No, no more darts.” Michael took a dart out of her hand and spoke to Kyle. “Dude, would you help me out?”
Kyle’s came over to study them, his eyes moving back and forth between them. “Think we could get ‘em to make out?”
“Bad Kyle!” Maria hissed. “Naughty! You should never make a girl do something she doesn’t wanna do when she’s drunk.”
“Oh, no-no Kyle’s not bad,” Tess insisted. “He’s good. He’s a good guy. He does good things. It’s good to do good. For the good. Of the good.” She smiled at her own stammering nonsense.
“Girl, you’re so far gone. I’m cuttin’ you off,” Maria informed her, reaching for another bottle on the coffee table.
“I’m cuttin’ you both off,” Michael said, moving behind the couch. “Come on.” He hoisted Maria up by placing his hands beneath her under arms and dragging her up and over the back of the couch.
“Wait, Michael, wait,” she protested, squirming and kicking her feet a little. When he set her down on her own two feet, she could barely stand. “I’m wasted!” she exclaimed, falling against him.
“Kyle, you wanna put Tess to bed?” Michael suggested.
“Take me to bed, Kyle!” Tess shouted, leaping to her feet. “Take me to bed!”
Kyle smiled and gave Michael a thumbs-up. Maria noticed it and said, “Uh-uh, Kyle. Be good.” She barely even noticed that she was walking—or rather that Michael was dragging her—until she was a few feet from the door. “Where’re we going?” she asked him.
“Home.”
“But the pizza . . . and Tess! Bye, BFF!” she hollered.
“Bye, B . . . oh, I can’t spell!”
Maria laughed, accidentally hitting her head on the doorframe as she tried to exit the apartment.
“God, are you okay?” Michael asked concernedly, immediately checking her over for bumps and bruises.
She just kept laughing. “You’re such a good guy, Michael.”
“Alright, let’s get you home.”
“I mean it,” she said, flailing against him. “You’re such a good guy.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael had seen Maria drunk many times. This was definitely the extreme. It was funny, but if she were to have been out in public, it would have been dangerous. He was just glad he would be able to take care of her.
“Womanizer, woman-womanizer, you’re a womanizer,” she sang as he assisted her down the hallway to their apartment. He was practically supporting her entire frame. “Oh! Womanizer, oh, you’re a womanizer, baby!”
“Shh,” he shushed her as she became increasingly loud. He doubted their neighbors wanted to hear Britney Spears tunes at 1:00 in the morning. Or at all, actually. “You’re gonna wake people up.”
“But I’m just practicing,” she said, “for the concert, remember? ‘member, Michael? You got me tickets.”
“I remember.” He inserted his key into the lock and pushed open the door to their living quarters.
“This is where I live,” she chirped, skipping inside. She almost tripped over her own feet and fell down, but somehow, she managed to stay upright. “You drive me crazy!” she sang, keeping with the Britney trend, even adding in a few drunken dance moves as she headed for the bedroom. “I just can’t sleep.” She plopped down on the bed and beamed at him. “You hear that, Michael? I just can’t sleep!” She bounced up and down on the mattress excitedly, looking wide awake.
“I think you need to sleep,” he told her.
“Are you gonna sleep with me?” She giggled. “See how I make that sound all dirty?”
“Yeah, you’re the master,” he said as he pulled back the covers.
“Hey, if I’m the master, then does that make you, like, my slave?” Her eyes lit up as she crawled towards the top of the bed. “I’m so perverted.”
“Comfy?” he asked as she got settled in on the mattress.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, trying to pull the blankets up over her chest.
“Wait, hold on,” he said. “Shoes.” He tossed the blankets back and reached down to unhook her gold sandals from around her feet. They had a number of strappy mechanisms going on at once. Complicated little things.
“You know, you’d make a good boyfriend,” she commented suddenly. “You take off my shoes, you like my singing.”
“Hey, I never said I liked your singing.”
She smiled. “I got you, babe.”
He tossed her shoes onto the floor and teased, “Hey, that’s not Britney.”
“Nope, that’s our song.” She laughed again, then suddenly seemed to grow serious. “Come here,” she said.
He just sat there.
“Come here,” she repeated, reaching up to grab hold of his shirt collar. She pulled him downward, down so that he was halfway lying atop her, his face a mere inches from her own. For a minute, he thought she was going to kiss him. But she probably didn’t want to.
“Do you know how long it’s been,” she asked, “since I’ve had sex?”
Oh, wow. He wasn’t sure what to say or what to do, what she was hoping to accomplish by asking him the question. He sat up slightly, needing to put some distance in between the two of them. There was nothing he wanted more than to have his body near her body, but she was drunk, and he wasn’t like Max. “Not as long as it’s been since I’ve had sex,” he replied.
She laughed. “Hmm.” Her eyes fell closed, she began to breathe contentedly, and all of a sudden, she spoke again. “I love you, Michael.”
His heart skipped a beat. Or two or fifty. Had she just said . . . “What?” he spat, incredulous. He sat up and looked around the room, too shocked to formulate a coherent response. “When did this happen?” He stared down at her, waiting for something, anything. An explanation, some answers, maybe another I love you. But she didn’t say anything. “Maria.” She was fast asleep. “Maria?” He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, gazing down at her and wondering, wondering if her drunken state was allowing her to acknowledge something her sober self wouldn’t. Or maybe he was just getting his hopes up. Regardless, it felt nice to hear someone say that.
He stood up, pulled the covers up over her, and bent to give her a kiss on the forehead. Tomorrow he’d ask her what she meant. Maybe.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess felt fine when she woke up . . . until she sat up. “Uh, too fast,” she groaned, pressing her hand to her head. She sat there for a minute not doing anything in an attempt to alleviate the impending headache. But it was inevitable.
When she got out of bed and walked out into the hallway, she heard noises coming from the kitchen, almost as though someone were rummaging around looking for something. And indeed, that was exactly what Kyle was doing. She wasn’t sure why or what for—she hadn’t even expected him to still be there. But Kyle was full of surprises.
“Hey,” she said.
“Oh, hey.” He reached into her refrigerator and took out two eggs. “Contrary to what it may look like, I’m not robbing you. I’m just making you breakfast. Scrambled eggs. You like?
“Yeah.” She smiled at him, amazed by how considerate a man could be. “Did you spend the night here?”
“Yeah, I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that it took you awhile to get into bed, and then you didn’t wanna stay there.”
She rolled her eyes at herself. “I’m like a two year-old.”
“Well, beer does that to a person,” he said. “Or so I’m told.”
She stood back and watched him grease up the frying pan on top the stove and get to work on her eggs. “So you looked after me last night, and you’re making me breakfast now,” she recapped. “Max would’ve never . . .” She trailed off. It was understood; she didn’t need to say it. Max would have never treated her well. “Thanks,” she said, faintly hearing the sound of her cell phone ringing from inside her purse in the bedroom. “Make yourself some, too.” She went back in the bedroom, glanced at her caller ID, and smiled as she answered the phone. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hey, Tessie,” Ed Harding said, still apparently insistent on using his childhood nickname on her. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” she lied as she strode into the bathroom to find some pain reliever in her medicine closet. This headache was going to get the best of her if she let it.
“How was your Christmas?” he asked.
She hesitated for a moment as the memories played out in her mind, seeing Max and Liz in the backseat of that car . . . “Eventful.” That seemed like a good, honest way to describe it.
“Well, maybe you can tell me about it over dinner tonight.”
She frowned. “Dinner?” How was that going to work? Her dad was in Roswell, and she . . . wasn’t.
“Yeah, I’ve got a job interview up in Santa Fe this afternoon. I figure I might as well come see you and take you out to eat. My treat.”
“Oh.” She wished it were a less hectic time in her life. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to be great company. “Job interview, huh?”
“Yeah, I’m a little stressed out about it.”
“Don’t stress, Dad,” she told him. “You’ll do fine, and then we . . . will have dinner.” She decided it was probably just what she needed to take her mind off other situations.
“Great, I’ll look forward to it all day,” he promised. “I’m assuming your boyfriend can join us.”
“My boyfriend?” she echoed questioningly. Don’t really have one of those anymore. But she did not want her dad to worry about her. At all. He had a job interview to think about, and heart disease ran in their family. Stress at a minimum was all he could handle. She didn’t want him to know about all the Max drama.
She listened as Kyle yelped out in the kitchen, apparently having burnt the eggs or his hand or something. And then an idea dawned on her.
“Yes,” she said, “yes, my boyfriend will be there.” She gazed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, the redness in her eyes, and hoped he wouldn’t be too hard to convince. “I’ll make sure of it.”
After she got off the phone with her dad and took two pain relievers, Tess made her way back out into the kitchen to talk to Kyle. He was using a spatula to put the eggs on her plate and had even made her buttered toast to go along with them. “Alright, somehow these started out as scrambled and ended up sunny side up,” he informed her. “I’m baffled. Is that okay?”
“Fine,” she said, not even really all that hungry. “Hey, Kyle?”
He grinned as he looked at the two sunny side up eggs. “They look like little boobs. Not that I’m perverted.”
She stepped closer toward him, hoping he could get serious for a moment. “Um, I just got off the phone with my dad. Apparently he’s got a job interview in town today, and he’s gonna join me for dinner afterwards.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
“Well, hold on. See, he’s still under the impression I have a boyfriend. As in Max.”
“Oh.” Kyle nodded. “So you gonna set him straight?”
“Well . . . probably not,” she confessed. “Or at least not completely. See, my dad’s kind of a mix of old-fashioned and new-fashioned when it comes to gender roles. He totally thinks I can be independent and be whatever I wanna be in life, but on the other hand, he wants me to have a man to take care of me. Like financially. Like financially and emotionally, you know? Which is why he’s never liked Max, aka: the guy with no knowledge of emotions. So anyway, I’ve always had a boyfriend because I don’t want him to worry about me; I don’t want him to get stressed. Because if gets too stressed, that could be really bad, ‘cause it’s like, we have this history of heart disease in my family and--”
“Whoa, Tess, you’re rambling even more than I do,” Kyle cut in. “That’s a lot of ramble.” He picked up her plate of eggs and toast and tried to hand it to her. “Why don’t you just eat your breakfast and cut to the chase?”
She couldn’t accept breakfast from him until she asked him something really weird. “Will you pretend to be my boyfriend?”
And upon hearing that, Kyle dropped the plate of eggs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael brought a drink for Maria into the bedroom just as she was waking up. Not an alcoholic drink, of course. It looked a little like tar, probably tasted like tar. He was glad he didn’t have to drink it.
“Hey, you’re awake,” he remarked.
“Yeah, sort of.” She sat up and immediately groaned, holding her hand to her head. “Whoa, too fast.”
“Here.” He handed her the concoction and sat down on the side of the bed. “I found a recipe on the Internet. It’s supposed to cure anything you’ve got.”
“Including the hangover from hell?”
“I said anything, didn’t I?”
“Oh, goodie.” She took a sip of the tar-like substance and cringed. “Hmm, that’s definitely property of Chef Michael.”
“Gross?”
“Yeah, but I think it’s supposed to be.” She set the glass down on the bedside table. “So tell me the truth: how badly did I embarrass myself last night?”
He tensed. Last night. It wasn’t as though anything had happened. It wasn’t as though anything had even been about to happen. But the words she’d said had kept him up all night, wondering if they were true.
“No, you didn’t embarrass yourself,” he assured her. “You flexed your vocal chords a little. Nothing major.”
“Britney Spears?” she guessed.
He nodded mutely.
“I knew it. Well, as long as I didn’t say anything weird . . .” She trailed off and looked him in the eye, and even though he wasn’t saying anything, she came to the right conclusion. “Oh my god. I did, didn’t I? I totally said something weird.”
“No, you . . .” He thought about it and realized it was the perfect opportunity to ask her about it. When else was he going to get the chance to find out how she felt? “You might have said something weird.”
“What’d I say?’
“Well, first--”
“First?” she interrupted in horror. “This is a multiple embarrassment?”
He chuckled. “First you asked me if I knew how long you’d gone without sex.”
“Oh, days,” she lamented. “I’m practically dying, but . . . hey. Wait a minute. We can fix that.”
Fix what? he thought. Her sex drought? “We can?” He liked the sound of that.
“Yeah. I desperately need to get laid, so obviously you and I . . .” She drew it out, and he let himself get his hopes up. She was saying that they could . . . since he was a guy and she was a girl . . . it only made sense . . . anatomically speaking . . . “We should go to a party on New Year’s so I can find some random guy to get it on with at midnight!” she exclaimed. “Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“Uh . . .” It wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.
“Yeah!” she chirped excitedly. She picked up the anti-hangover concoction he’d made for her and took another drink of it. “So, uh, was that the weirdest thing I said? ‘Cause that’s not too bad. I’ve said weirder.”
“Yeah,” he said, wishing he hadn’t allowed himself to get hopeful. Realistic was better. “Yeah, that’s the weirdest thing you said. Except . . .”
She froze, mortified. “Except what, Michael?”
Now it was his turn to draw it out. “You might’ve said . . . I mean, the words might’ve come out . . . phonetically . . .” He sighed and cut the crap. “You said you love me.”
She didn’t even flinch. Or twitch. Or look embarrassed or nervous at all. She didn’t even have to blush and avert her glance. “Well, I do,” she said, looking him right in the eye.
And again, he let himself get his hopes up, even though he knew he shouldn’t. He let himself believe it was a pinnacle moment. He even imagined he was hearing the Hallelujah chorus. “Are you serious?”
“Of course.” She sounded serious. “You always let me have all the covers and the first shower in the morning. You brew me disgusting hangover remedies. You listen to me when I talk. You salsa with me. Why wouldn’t I love you?”
The disappointment overcame him. He was pretty sure it was obvious, and how she remained oblivious to it, he did not know. “Oh, so . . . so you love me in the way you love a lifelong friend.”
She smiled as though that were a good thing. “Exactly.”
Maybe it was a good thing. He always wanted to be her friend, no matter what. But he didn’t want to just be her friend forever. He nodded and said, “Well, in that case, I love you, too.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know it meant something much different when he said it.
TBC . . .
-April
He might actually keep it together.
I'm impressed.
Although I do have some stuff in store for him.
It's a really good song.