Carolyn: oops......my Mistake.......Sarah doesn't know about Maria and Dylan being in Carlsbad.......and Michael is in no hurry for that to happen.
Michael has
definitely not been in any hurry to tell Sarah.
Even though he's known for a long time that he needs to.
Has Max really changed that much?
Good question. Maria would say yes. Michael would say no.
Sara: Huh.....friends......good luck with that.
Yeah, that's definitely going to be easier said than done.
Great update April. Always keeping us readers on our toes!
I try!
Thanks for reading and leaving feedback!
Part 18
Another day, another disappointment. It totally wasn’t cheery to think that way, but that was how Tess felt when she returned home. She’d tried to stand up to Stephanie and Kristen today when they’d been berating the girls at practice, but they’d basically just ignored her, or talked over her. It made her feel pathetic. How had she gone from being the vibrant, confident captain of the Roswell Comets cheer squad to being . . . this?
She walked in the door, surveying the vast array of bills in her hand. She only got the mail once a week because it was so damn depressing. There were so many things that needed to be paid. This month, she’d have to call and ask her own parents for help. Next month, she’d call Kyle’s dad and ask him.
Speaking of Kyle . . . he was asleep on the couch. Not even lying down, just sitting there with his head tilted back, mouth slightly open. The TV was still on, and he had the remote in his hand.
He probably hadn’t gotten up off that couch once today.
Fighting back the urge to just scream at the top of her lungs and jolt him awake, Tess slipped into the kitchen, weeding the junk mail out of the stuff that actually mattered. She made two piles on the counter but stopped when she got to a letter addressed to her. It was from NMSU.
What is this? she thought, but she already knew. She’d applied last month, just on a whim, thinking that it somehow might be possible for her to take a class or two during the spring semester. Maybe a theater class or a dance one. Something where she could be creative and expressive and learn while having fun. Fun was a distant memory for her at this point.
When she opened the letter, it was the acceptance she’d been hoping to receive. They wanted her to attend. And why wouldn’t they? She’d been a good student in high school—not on Isabel’s level academically, but at least she hadn’t made porn.
But now . . . staring at that acceptance letter, she wondered why she’d ever even bothered to apply in the first place. It wasn’t feasible. Despite living in a college town, she just didn’t have the money, the time, or the energy to devote to it. So she folded that letter back up, stuffed it in the envelope, and put it in the junk pile. And with one swift sweep of her hand across the counter, she pushed the whole pile into the trash, telling herself that it didn’t matter. It was just one more thing in her life that had to be thrown away.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Are you sure you wanna eat here tonight?” Sarah questioned as she and Michael followed the hostess back to an open table at Yellowbrix Restaurant. “I thought you’d wanna eat here on your birthday.”
“I wanna stay in on my birthday,” he informed her, adding quietly, “maybe fool around with you.”
“Hmm.” She smiled. “Well, that
does sound fun.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“And we barely have any food in the fridge, so it’s not like I could’ve cooked something great tonight anyway.”
Michael laughed at that. “You could cook something great out of dirt and water.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
His eyes immediately locked onto a horrible sight as they shuffled up to their table. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Max and Maria were here, sitting on the other side of the restaurant, over by the window. Dinner for two, it seemed, because Dylan wasn’t with them. They were talking, and Maria was smiling, and thankfully, neither one of them noticed him.
“Here you go,” he hostess said, laying their menus out on the table. “Enjoy.”
“Thank you,” Sarah said, beginning to take a seat.
“Wait a minute.” Michael grabbed her arm and lifted her back up, asking the hostess, “Is there any way we can sit back in that little alcove instead?” He needed to be somewhere where Maria couldn’t see him, because that was too risky. If she or Max came up to him and said something, Sarah wouldn’t know what to think.
“Sure, come with me,” the hostess said, picking up the menus again. She walked at a brisk pace through the rows of tables and to the back.
“But Michael, this is our spot,” Sarah protested as he pressed gently on her back, urging her forward. “That’s where we sat on our first date.”
“I know, but I kinda wanna switch it up.” He felt relieved when they made it back to the alcove. Max surely hadn’t seen him, because his back was to him. And Maria must not have seen him, either, because she was now laughing at something Max had said.
Whatever. The guy wasn’t even funny.
“Alright,
here you go,” the hostess said, once again setting their menus down on the table for them. “Your waiter will be with you shortly. You two enjoy.”
“Thank you,” Sarah said again, starting to take a seat on the wrong side of the table.
“Oh . . .” Michael pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit there instead.
“Oh. Okay.” She switched over to the other side of the table, the side where
her back would be to Max and Maria.
Perfect. Now if either Maria or Max noticed them and started to saunter on over there, he could give them a warning look and get them to go away.
“See? It’s cozy back here,” he remarked, sitting down across from her.
“I guess,” she said, flipping open her menu. “What’re you having?”
“Uh . . .” This was going to be hard to play it cool tonight and not get caught looking over her shoulder, spying on the gruesome twosome. “I don’t know. What’re you having?”
“Maybe a salad . . .” she pondered, her eyes glued on the menu.
“Then I’ll have that, too.” He frowned Max reached over and caressed Maria’s hand across the table. What the hell was
that?
“
You’ll have a salad?” she asked skeptically, giving him a raised-eyebrow look.
“Sure,” he said, trying to cover his own distractedness as he waved a waiter carrying a bottle of wine over to them. “Or a steak.”
“I might have a steak,” she said. “We could split a salad.”
“I don’t want a salad.”
“But you just said--”
Thankfully, the waiter was at their table just in the nick of the time with a smile on his face. “Yes? Can I help you?” he asked.
“Can I get one of those?” he asked, pointing to the bottle. Sarah loved white wine, and even though he was partial to the red, he’d drink this for her.
“Of course,” the waiter said. “One bottle?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Sarah grinned and gave him a little kick under the table when the waiter was gone. “Bad,” she teased. “You’re not twenty-one quite yet.”
“Close enough.” He hadn’t been carded once since his seventeenth birthday, and back then, his fake ID alias of Ricardo Fuego had usually gotten the job done. Only on rare occasions had anyone blocked his effort to score an alcoholic beverage, and one of those people had been . . .
Maria. He snuck another glance at her when Sarah’s eyes drifted down to her menu again. He hated seeing her out with Max. It just didn’t seem right. And what was worse was that they looked like they were on a date. She was wearing a fancy black dress, and Max had on a casual suit.
Michael looked down at his own outfit, suddenly wishing he’d tried a little harder. Not for Maria, but for Sarah. She was donning this sexy, strapless green dress, and he was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. He was underwhelming.
“Are you sure you wanna pay for a whole bottle of wine?” she asked, trailing her finger down the menu as she perused some of the sandwiches.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” Hell, he was probably going to be the one to drink most of it.
“If we each get a steak, this is gonna be expensive,” she warned.
“That’s alright.” Even though he’d planned on offering up a more engaging conversation tonight, he felt like he was speechless as he helplessly watched Max and Maria both lean forward, meeting halfway across the table, and kiss. Just like any regular couple would do. Except this couple made him sick to his stomach. He wouldn’t be able to eat half his steak at this rate.
“Should I maybe get seafood?” Sarah asked, and he immediately jerked his attention back to her.
“Get whatever you want,” he urged, finally picking up his own menu. He peered down hard at all the food items listed there, determined not to look up again until he had to. And even then, he was only going to look at Sarah this time, only going to focus on her. Because nothing and no one sitting behind her really mattered anymore.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael wasn’t ‘appreciating music’ outside today. There was some hippie-wannabe sitting on the grass instead today, strumming an acoustic guitar that was
so out of tune, it actually made Maria’s ears hurt. He was singing a self-written song about the greatness of water. Maria headed right past him and scampered into Lecuona Hall.
She was cutting it close. The professor was already there, but he appeared to be having technical problems with some online video he was trying to show them to start the class. Since he was hunched over the computer, attempting to figure it out, Maria slinked into the room unnoticed and subtly looked for Michael. There he was, right in the back. Maria quickly sat down beside him, but he didn’t say anything.
What a great friend you are, she thought sarcastically, wishing he would at least try to make an effort.
Way to go.
“Saw you at the restaurant last night,” she remarked, figuring it was okay to start up a conversation since their professor didn’t seem to be having any luck getting his video to play. Other people in the class were talking, too.
“What restaurant?” he asked.
She gave him a look. “Are you seriously gonna play dumb with me?”
“It’s not hard for me to play dumb,” he said. Once he realized that he’d basically just insulted himself, he scrunched up his face in confusion and said, “Wait.”
She smiled and laughed a little. “I noticed you when I was about halfway through my dessert.” It had startled her in the moment, but she’d hidden it well. Max hadn’t seen Michael there, but she knew Michael had seen her and Max. From where he was sitting, he would have had the perfect view of them.
“Was that Sarah with you?” she asked hesitantly. He and the dark-haired girl had definitely looked couple-y. They hadn’t kissed or overtly flirted or anything like that. It was just a vibe.
When he didn’t answer her question, she asked it again, “Was that her?”
Finally, he nodded. “Yeah.”
Maria nodded, too, taking that in. So
that was Sarah. She hadn’t pictured her like that. As awful and self-centered as it sounded, she’d sort of figured that Michael would date another blonde. Like her.
“She’s pretty,” Maria commented. “Or I mean, she
seems pretty. I couldn’t really see anything except the back of her head. She has nice hair.” It was this shiny shampoo commercial stuff. Totally unbelievable that some people actually had hair like that.
“She’s beautiful,” Michael agreed. “What were you and Max doin’ there?”
Oh, of course he’d shifted the conversation to the two of them. Leave it to Michael. “We were . . . celebrating,” she told him vaguely.
“Celebrating what?”
“Just . . . his birthday,” she lied easily.
“Then where was Dylan?”
Dammit. So much for that. “Okay, fine, it was actually our anniversary,” she informed him bluntly. “One year since we officially got back together.”
“Mmm.” Michael pressed held his mouth together tightly, angrily. “How sweet.”
It actually had been. Max had surprised her with that dinner last night, and Liz had been nice enough to agree to watch Dylan. “Can’t you just be happy for me?” she whined.
“Nope.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head in annoyance, convinced that he had to be the most stubborn, annoying person on the planet.
The spent the rest of the class in blissful silence, because the professor got the video to work, and they watched. Or at least Michael watched, because Maria mostly dazed off. Michael, however, took notes on the damn video and everything.
Notes. That alone had her fascinated. Since when did Michael Guerin pay attention, let alone write everything down so he could review it later?
This was craziness.
Once class got out, she had to walk extra fast to keep up with him. One of his steps was like two of hers. But she wasn’t about to just let him take off and get away. There was a lot that she wanted to say to him, a lot that she hadn’t gotten to say because their conversations had been so heavily dominated by Max lately.
“Hey,” she said, struggling to keep up with him as he strode down the long hall towards the exit, “in the interest of being your
friend . . . I wanted to say I’m really sorry. About your dad.”
That got him to slow down a bit. Not stop entirely, but at least slow down.
“I can’t believe . . .” She shuddered just thinking about it. Andy Guerin had never been a big fan of hers, and she’d never gotten to know him well. But still . . . it was hard to think that he was just gone. “I’m sorry.”
He snorted. “Why? I’m not.”
She gave him a hard, incredulous look. “Michael . . .” How could he say that?
“What? He hated me,” Michael reminded her. “And I hated him.”
Sometimes she hated her mom, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love her deep down. “But he’s still your dad,” she pointed out.
“He
was,” Michael corrected, practically shoving open the big double doors that led them outside. “He’s not anymore.”
“He always will be,” she argued. Maybe that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was the truth.
He stopped right out there on the steps, staring out across campus, looking contemplative. She wished she could read his mind, see what he was thinking. Chances were, whenever he thought about his dad, it was a turbulent, confusing thing for him.
“I’m glad he’s gone,” he muttered, barely loud enough for her to hear. “I don’t care if it makes me an ass to say that.”
It didn’t, but it was still a brutal admission. But it was okay. He had earned the right to feel however he wanted to feel about that man, and she figured she shouldn’t judge him for it. “It must’ve been hard on your mom,” she noted, gently seguing when she added, “and Tina.”
Michael held onto both straps of his backpack and looked down at his feet glumly. “Yep.”
Maria tugged down on the sleeves of her shirt, hesitantly asking, “So she’s really . . .”
There was no need to finish the question. He just nodded silently.
She sighed heavily, hating the thought of it. It filled her with dread for everyone involved. Mostly for Tina, but for that little baby, too. Everything was going to be so terrifying and uncertain.
Talking about something other than Max must have softened him up a little, because he took off his backpack and sat down on the steps, and he didn’t object when she sat down beside him. Other students stepped around them, entering the building without paying much attention to them. No pointed fingers, no gossip, no Twitter pictures. It was nice.
“God, she’s so young,” Maria lamented. “She’s younger than I was.”
“She’s naïve,” Michael added.
“So does that mean . . . she’s gonna try to raise it?”
“I guess.” He shrugged. “Who knows? I’m tryin’ to convince her to give it up for adoption.”
“Yeah.” That would be the best choice for someone like her. That was the best choice for anyone her age. “Who’s the father?” she asked, not to be nosy, but just because she cared and wanted to know. “Is it that kid she used to date? What was his name? Todd? Paul? Something.”
“No, apparently they were just a fifth grade thing.” He rolled his eyes, as if the whole thing annoyed him. “This kid Nicholas . . . he’s in ninth grade. They started dating at her first junior high dance last year.” His eyes took on a sad gleam as he recalled, “I remember her calling me when she got home. And she was telling me about him, about how he asked her to dance for every slow song. She said it was the best night of her life.”
Maria felt tears sting the corners of her eyes, but she dabbed them away. “Sounds familiar,” she said. She’d had several ‘best nights of her life’ getting high and partying with Max, or at least she’d thought so. But now, looking back at the nights she actually
could remember . . . they didn’t seem great at all. It all seemed like a different life, a waste of one.
“Do you think we’re partly to blame?” she whimpered worriedly, unable not to voice that fear. Ever since Michael had told her about Tina, she’d been thinking about it, wondering.
“Probably,” he admitted. “I don’t know.”
“Because we . . .” She wasn’t exactly trying to walk down memory lane with him, but the truth was, when she thought of the best nights of
her life, those nights with him were the ones that came to mind. And there had been
so many of them. Right under Andy and Krista’s roof.
“We had sex a lot,” he stated simply. It was like it wasn’t even hard for him to say it.
“Well . . .” That was one way of putting it. “Yeah, we weren’t exactly subtle. She knew what was going on. And your mom always worried about it.”
“I know.”
“We were irresponsible,” she regretted. “I mean, not necessarily with each other, but with her. We knew she was young and impressionable, but we were just so wrapped up in each other . . .”
“We set a bad example,” he filled in.
“Yeah. And I feel horrible.” That had never been her intention. She should have listened to Krista closer and made
sure Tina had been completely oblivious. “I feel like she saw us together, and she saw us with Dylan, and we were really happy. I mean, we got
engaged.” She subconsciously touched her barren left ring finger, where that small diamond used to sit until she’d accidentally lost it down the drain. “You wanted to
adopt Dylan.”
“I know.”
“The whole thing was, like, this whirlwind, and she must have thought it looked so romantic.”
He surprised her when he interjected, “It
was romantic.” But then he added, “At the time.”
She nodded sadly. “Yeah, at the time.” Tina probably hadn’t dwelled on the part where it had all blown up in their faces, though. Young girls didn’t do that. Young girls believed in fairytales and grew up too fast in order to try to live one. Tina was just like her in that regard, just a little bit younger and probably even more unprepared.
“Michael . . .” She wanted to apologize for this, too, for what
her presence in his life may have irrevocably done to Tina’s. But she didn’t get the chance, because his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, and she peered over at the screen.
Crazy Girl? Was that Isabel or something?
“Sarah,” he said, his thumb hovering over the answer button for a second before he suddenly pressed
ignore. He put his phone back in his pocket, grabbed his backpack, and got up. “I gotta go,” he announced, quickly traversing the steps.
“Wait!” she called, getting up and hurrying after him. She managed to catch up with him before he’d gone too far. “Um . . .” Maybe it wasn’t her place to ask, but wanted to know. “Have you told Sarah that you and I are . . . talking again?” She was going to feel really bad if he’d been completely honest with her and she hadn’t been with Max.
Looking her right in the eye, he answered, “Of course.”
She smiled politely.
Of course.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sarah never ceased to amaze Michael. She had this endless energy that he really admired and sometimes envied. Her job was way tougher than his was, and her classes were way more demanding, yet she rarely was lazy or boring or enthused. Tonight was no different. She literally bounced up and down on the bed, entertaining the hell out of him with her adorableness as he just lay back and watched her. “Happy birthday!” she exclaimed. “Happy birthday!”
“It’s not my birthday yet,” he reminded her. “Not until midnight.”
“Midnight, huh?” She jumped on either side of him, them plopped down and proposed, “Well, we’ll just have to stay awake and ring it in like it’s the new year.”
“That’s four hours,” he pointed out. “Long time.”
“It is,” she agreed, lying down next to him. “
Whatever will we do to pass the time?”
He grinned, knowing
exactly what they could and would do. “I don’t know,” he said. “Got any bright ideas?”
“Well . . .” She rubbed her leg against his, and that sensation alone was enough to drive him insane. He’d stripped down to his boxers and a t-shirt, and he probably looked like a slob; but
she was wearing one of his button-down shirts and silky pink panties, and she looked hot as hell. “Whatever it is has to be time-consuming,” she declared. “Obviously fun. And something we can do together.”
“That narrows it down.”
“It really does.” She was starting to get that gleam in her eyes, and when she lay down on her back and arched her chest up, he nearly lost it. “Wanna open your first present?” she asked seductively. And as if she were embarrassed by being seductive, she followed that up with a giggle.
“Sure.” He propped himself up and got to work on the shirt, undoing the first button, then the second, getting sneak peeks of her skin underneath. No bra. Perfect.
Or . . . maybe not so perfect, because for some reason, when he got down to the third button, which was just around her bellybutton, he hesitated, his fingers playing idly with the fabric.
“Don’t stop,” she said, squirming a bit.
He wanted to keep going, but it was like . . . all of a sudden, there was just this block. A big fucking stop sign in his head that wouldn’t allow him to continue on. Here she was, sprawled out for him, all eager to be with him tonight, and he was keeping things from her. Important things. Things that she deserved to know.
Things that would upset her.
“Michael, don’t tease me,” she said, reaching down to pop open the button herself.
He moved her hand aside before she had a chance to. Well, there was probably no going back now. Hesitating before sex was something he just
didn’t do. He’d already given her enough reason to be curious at this point.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Crap. Why did this have to happen to him tonight of all nights? Why right here, right now? Why in this moment of all moments did he have to have an attack of the conscience and spill the beans? Couldn’t he have had that right away at the beginning of all of this?
Cursing himself for not just being honest right from the start, he sat up, trying to find the words to explain something that might be very difficult for her to hear. He wanted to be honest, but he didn’t want to hurt her.
“Michael?” She sounded genuinely concerned now as she sat up beside him. Her playfulness was gone, and her hand was on his shoulder.
“I need to tell you something,” he revealed quietly, ashamed.
She didn’t spook or get panicked or assume the worst. Instead, she merely encouraged him by saying, “Okay.”
He shook his head.
Not okay. It wasn’t okay. “You’re not gonna like it,” he warned.
“Michael, what is it? Just tell me.”
He didn’t want to. But it was time. It was past time.
Sighing, feeling weighed down with a sense of guilt he’d somehow managed to overlook until now, he said, “It’s Maria.”
“Maria?” she echoed. She said it casually, questioningly, but he knew she realized right away who he was talking about. “Your ex-girlfriend?”
He nodded glumly. “She moved here.”
“To Carlsbad.” She took that in, rubbing his shoulder now, as if
he would somehow need support because of this. Always taking care of him. That was Sarah. But she was also smart, which was why she pointedly asked, “And you know this
how?”
He swallowed the lump in his throat, unable to look her in the eye when he admitted, “I have a class with her.”
Sarah stopped rubbing his shoulder, and gradually, she withdrew her hand altogether. She put her hands in her lap and looked down, suddenly very quiet. Too quiet. At last, she squeaked out a tiny, “What?” and it almost broke his heart.
“I’m sorry.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, feeling like he didn’t even deserve to be close to her.
“I don’t understand,” she whimpered, tucking her legs beneath her. “You have a class with her and you didn’t tell me?”
He nodded remorsefully.
“Which one?”
The one where I don’t pay any attention to what we’re learning, he thought before responding, “Music Appreciation.”
She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously and quickly got up off the bed. Almost as if she were self-conscious suddenly, she re-buttoned the shirt she was wearing. “So you’re taking that class because she is?” she asked. “You don’t really need to?”
She was exactly right, and he had that whole honesty thing going . . . but somehow, admitting that much just seemed a little too honest. It would freak her out, and it would be hard for her to understand that he was in that class mostly just because of . . . curiosity. Because seeing Maria again after all these years had just . . . intrigued him.
“I needed a fine arts class,” he maintained. “I didn’t know she was in it until I showed up for my first day.”
She breathed a small sigh of relief, but she still looked nervous. And not very happy with him. Frowning, she deduced, “So you’ve known she’s in Carlsbad for . . . what, a couple weeks now?”
“Pretty much.”
“And you’re just now telling me?”
“I’m sorry.” He had a feeling that he was going to be saying that a lot tonight.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t know.” There was no good reason, no explanation, nothing he could say to justify the secrecy. He was in the wrong here.
“You should’ve told me.”
“I know,” he acknowledged. “I know I should’ve. There’s no excuse. I just—my head was spinning when I saw her again. ‘cause I never thought I would. And then all of a sudden, there she was, and there was Dylan, and--”
“Dylan?” she cut in meekly. “Is that . . . that’s her son, right?”
“Right.”
“Where did you see him?”
He exhaled heavily again and revealed, “At the elementary school.”
“The school,” she echoed. “He goes there?”
“Yeah.”
She fell silent for a moment, and he could see that she was thinking. Smart girl that she was, it didn’t take her long to start putting some pieces of the puzzle together. “Oh my god,” she said, holding her hand to her forehead. “So that day that you freaked out on that guy? Who was that, Michael? Was that, like, Maria’s new boyfriend or something?”
New boyfriend, old boyfriend . . . either term was applicable. “That was Dylan’s father,” he explained. “Max. He’s the guy who . . . you know.”
“From out on the bridge that night.”
“Yeah.” No need to go into any detail. He’d told her all about it years ago.
“What was he doing there?”
Michael shrugged, trying to disguise his anger. “He’s Dylan’s dad. He and Maria are back together.”
“And when you saw him, you just . . .” She trailed off.
“It was just like an instinct.” He’d made a lot of mistakes these past couple of weeks, but as far as he was concerned, pummeling Max wasn’t one of them. “Do you get that?”
“I mean . . . I guess,” she said weakly. “I’ve never had that kind of bond with a kid before, though. I . . .” A small cry escaped her, and she got this pained look on her face. He felt horrible that he was the reason for it being there, so he walked around the bed and tried to reach out to her.
“No, just . . .” She backed away, holding her hands up. “Michael, what I
don’t get is that you didn’t tell me about any of this. These three people had this huge impact on your life—you loved two of them and hated one—and all of a sudden they’re back in your life, and you don’t tell me?” She looked at him incredulously, accusatorily. “I mean, God, you’d be the
first person I’d tell!”
“Sarah . . .” He tried to take her hand, but she moved past him and stormed around the other side of the bed to the dresser, pulling open the second drawer.
“God, and here I am, dressing up for you, dancing around, trying to
seduce you?” She quickly yanked on a pair of black drawstring shorts to cover herself up from him some more. “How could you do this, Michael? How could you lie to me?”
“I didn’t mean to,” he insisted.
“But you did.” There were tears in her eyes that almost killed him. The longer she looked at him, the closer they came to spilling over. “I kept asking you if you were okay, asking if something was wrong, and you let me think you were just stressed out about Tina’s situation.”
“I am.”
“But then there’s this. And you didn’t say
anything.” She looked down at the floor, her hair falling forward to slide her face. He wasn’t sure if she was crying until he saw her wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” he apologized again, walking towards her. She still wouldn’t let him get close, though. “You gotta believe me.”
“No, I do believe you,” she whimpered. “I’m just mad at you.”
“There’s nothing going on with me and Maria.”
She gave him a strange look. “I didn’t say there was.”
“I know, I just . . .” He felt flustered, and that made him think anything he said was going to sound lame. “I wanted to make sure you knew . . .”
“I
know, Michael.” For some reason, this was making her cry even harder. “You lied to me, but you’re not cheating on me. How can you even think I would assume that? Don’t you know me better than that?”
Oh, shit, he thought. This was all going to hell in a handbasket. Try as he might, he just couldn’t think of a way to salvage anything about this night.
“All you had to do was tell me,” she said, “right from the start.” Stomping past him on her way to the bathroom, she literally stiff-armed him like he used to do to guys on the football field. She flipped on the bathroom light and looked at herself in the mirror, shaking her head, wiping away the mascara tracks that had started to run. “I wouldn’t have been angry,” she told him. “I would’ve helped you deal with it.”
Slowly, he shuffled into the bathroom with her, standing behind her, looking at their pitiful reflections in the mirror. They didn’t look like that happy couple they usually were. She looked more hurt than he’d ever seen her, and he looked like . . . well, he just looked like a dick.
“I don’t know what to say,” he admitted, “except I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I know,” she muttered agitatedly. “I just . . .” Pressing her lips tightly together, she trailed off.
“You can be mad at me as long as you want,” he said, tentatively rubbing her shoulder.
She flinched away from him and stomped out of the bathroom. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t be around you right now.”
He followed her out, willing to follow her wherever she went. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know, just out,” was her swift response. “Out for a walk.”
“What?” Not gonna happen. “I’m not gonna let you go ‘out for a walk’ on campus at night by yourself. No way.”
“I need to clear my head,” she insisted. “I need some space to process this.”
“Fine, then I’ll go for a walk,” he offered. That sounded like a much safer idea.
“Maybe you should . . .” She looked down at her feet, then back up at him sadly, and suggested, “Maybe you should walk over to Tess and Kyle’s and . . . spend the night there.”
Hearing her say that made him feel like she had her hand around his heart and had just squeezed violently. Since they’d moved into this place last year, he and Sarah had rarely ever spent a night apart. Only when she went home to Las Cruces without him or he went to Roswell without her. Every other night, they were together. They fell asleep together, they woke up together . . .
But she didn’t want to do that tonight. And he understood. What choice did he have but to respect her decision and agree to it?
“Alright,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want,” she confirmed readily. “Just go, Michael.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she sulked back to the bed and lay down on her side, covering up, closing her eyes. He suspected she would cry pretty hard once he left. Part of him thought about sitting outside the door, but it would be too hard to hear her.
So he got dressed and left, not because
he wanted to, but because she needed that space. Just for tonight. Hopefully nothing more than that. For this one night and one night only, he was going to have to sleep somewhere else.
TBC . . .
-April