by Gen Phan
There was a silence and I waited for a message, but it didn't come. I smiled a self satisfied smile to myself. Yup, I was definitely starting to narrow it down. She had unwittingly given me a clue. A big one. I could draw a big red line through a whole bunch of girls now, because most of them were either organizing the dance, or obsessed with it. I was closing in on her.
"Hey." Maria's voice made me turn around. "Thought I would find you here. So how's the second serve coming?"
"Good. Better." I hadn't even told her that I was going to be practicing my second serve, and yet, she just knew. I smiled at her. "Thanks for asking."
She looked confused for a second or two, "I always ask you shit like that."
"I know. You always know exactly what I'm doing, sometimes even before I do."
"Telepathy." She smiled and shrugged at me. "So...You ready to whip everyone's asses?"
"Yup!" I said. "I hope your gonna have a front row seat?"
"I'm not coming to watch you tomorrow."
"What?" My stomach dropped a bit. "Why wouldn't you come?"
"Because I don't need to. I already know what's going to happen...." She cleared her throat and struck a kind of pose, well, I thought it was a pose. An awkward one.
"Mike Matthews is going to come out and play the best fucking game of tennis that the world, and the scout has ever seen before. He's going to whip everyone's asses, and then he is going to be offered an amazing scholarship to a top university and beat everyone there as well, and then he's going to go on and become a world famous tennis player and go down in the history books when he wins Wimbledon a hundred times in a row! The end."
Maria ended her little speech with a small bow. Her hair flopped forward and when she stood back up, the whole thing came tumbling back into her face. She blew a wayward strand back up, but it just fell down again. She tucked the strand behind her ear and but it was too short to stay there, so just popped back out.
I smiled and without thinking walked up to her and took a headband out of my tennis bag. Without saying anything, I slipped it over her head and then pulled it back up, sweeping all the hair back. Her hair was really soft. Her ear too, I grazed it as I brought the band back over. I fiddled with it a bit, making sure I got it into position and then stood back to admire my work, but before I could look up, I was drawn to Maria's eyes.
They were wide. Unblinking and she was staring straight at me with what looked like shock. Or something else...? I felt a tightness in my chest. A kind of uncomfortable tugging sensation. This was the feeling that I'd had when she'd fallen into my chest last week. I looked at her. Really looked at her. She looked so ridiculously adorkable right now with that orange headband on. She was wearing a stupid shirt with the leaning tower of Pisa on, a sloppy pair of jeans that was hanging off her and desperately needed a belt, or to be thrown away. Her signature old sneakers, laces untied, or nearly untied.
I swallowed. My throat felt a bit tight. Our eyes were still locked and the silence between us was becoming more and more uncomfortable by the second. I wanted to break it, to look away, but I couldn't. My eyes were glued to hers. And hers to mine. I shivered, as if a ghost had just walked through me. My eyes started to hurt from not blinking them, but something told me not to blink.
Don't close your eyes, because the second you do, this moment will be over.
This moment???? What moment?
"Hey!" A voice broke the silence and we both swung around as if we'd just received the fright of our lives.
Jarrod. Fucking Jarrod was standing there, and worst of all, he was holding Maria's bag. Why the fuck was he carrying Maria's bag?
"You ready to go now?" Jarrod asked Maria without even looking in my direction. He said it as if there'd been a whole discussion leading up to this moment that I had not been privy to. Plans had been made. Shit had been spoken about, and not with me.
"Where you going?" I turned and asked Maria. I could hear my tone was bordering on accusatory.
"Um...." Her face fell. It clouded over with a strange look and she quickly averted her eyes. "McKenzie was driving... so, Jarrod offered to give me a lift home cos I knew you were..." She trailed off and looked from me, to Jarrod. My eyes followed hers and rested on Jarrod's face.
I hated his face. He had a smug look on it. I had a sudden image of using his head for serving practice. Maria shot me a quick look and turned away.
"Bye." And she was off.
Jarrod shot me a warning look of sorts before slinging Maria's bag over his shoulder and turning away from me.
I just stood there. Staring after them as she walked away. She was walking away. She was walking away with Jarrod. I put my hand on my stomach; it felt like it was knotting again. I wanted to run after her and grab her by the arm and, and....
Just before they disappeared around the corner Maria gave a quick glance over her shoulder at me. For a split second our eyes met again and then she disappeared.
I felt so alone. Like a little part of me had just been taken away.
Maria
I stood dead center in the middle of my room. Jarrod had just asked me to the dance, so had Mike- in a way- and why had Mike looked at me like that at the court? And looked at Jarrod like that?
I was still wearing the headband he'd given me and I ripped it off. A normal person would probably thing it was disguising, a little moist with sweat, but to me... well, cheese balls, it was the nicest thing he'd ever given me.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember all the details....
Mike's eyes had met mine. He'd looked surprised for a few seconds, and then he'd just stared at me. No blinking. What the hell was going through his mind? For me, the stare had put me right back to that night. The night of the kiss. The feelings that that moment had evoked, transported me back in time to the moment that Mike had his arms around me.
I heard a sound at my window and paniced. It was Mike. Fuck! I threw the head band to the other side of the room and straightened my shirt- why the hell had I just done that? But as the body fell through the window and hit my floor in panting pain, I knew it wasn't him.
"Brett?"
"Ooowww." He winced in pain. "And you guys do this all the time! Fuck!"
I bent down to help him up, "What you doing here?"
"I've come to save your ass Maria." He said collapsing onto my bed.
"What you mean?"
He looked around the room. "Is Mike here?"
"No. Why?"
"Because I don't want him to hear what I'm about to say...ever."
"Okay..." I sat down on the bed next to him, tentative.
"I know everything Maria. I know that you kissed him and I know that you are emailing him and most of all, I know you're now making up all this shit about your divorced parents and fake counseling him."
"WHAT?!" I flew off my bed, "You... you, how?"
Brett looked at me and rolled his eyes. "It's pretty obvious Maria. I would have guessed it anyway if I hadn't been right behind you guys and seen it all happening."
"You saw everything."
"Yup! X rated stuff there."
"Shit." I hung my head in absolute embarrassment. Of course he knew, it made perfect sense now. The way he'd been behaving... he knew.
"Plus I know you've been in love with him for like, your whole life."
"That obvious?" I asked wondering who else knew. My dad knew, Mckenzie knew, did everyone at school know too?
"Clearly not to him." Brett said with another roll of his eyes. "But I'm not here to discuss that."
I looked up, confused. What the fuck else was there to discuss?
"I'm here to save you from the biggest mistake you've ever made.... You have to end this email stuff. Now! This lie is going to rip you guys apart. What do you think is going to happen when he finds out it's you and that you've been lying? It's gone too far Maria. I mean, how the hell do you imagine digging yourself out of this?"
"I don't know." I knew he was right. I knew this whole thing
had gone to far, but I couldn't take it back now. "What do you suggest?"
"Delete that account now and never mail him back. He must never know about this, and I'll never tell him. It ends here. Tonight. You know its' the right thing to do."
I nodded. Sadness rushed in. My emails to Mike had been the only way of telling him how I felt, and he felt the same way. I would never be able to talk to him like that again if I deleted the account.
"What about him? If she just disappears?"
"He'll get over it, trust me." Brett said standing up and putting an arm on my shoulder.
"But... but..." I felt a tear well up.
"I get it. You're getting to tell him how you feel, and he's saying it back. But it's not real Maria. The two of you don't stand a chance if mystery mint kisser is allowed to live."
"We don't stand a chance anyway."
There was a small pause, "I wouldn't be so sure about that."
My head snapped up and I looked at Brett. "Bullshit!"
Brett smiled at me, it was almost conspiratorially. "You just leave that part up to me."
"What you mean?" I felt a tiny flicker of hope rise up. But I made sure to kick it back down quickly. I'd felt hope before and I'd always been disappointed.
"You guys are both just so blind. You need to both see it, really see it."
My legs started to shake. What did he mean? Was he actually implying that Mike.... That he... I couldn't go there.
"But you have to kill mystery mint kisser tonight. No one else needs to find out about this." Brett grabbed my hand, "And don't worry, I'll take this secret to the grave with me."
I threw my arms around Brett. I knew he was a good friend, but up until this point, I hadn't realized how good. Man I loved this guy!
"Now walk me home. My moms cooking macaroni cheese and climbing up your trellis has made me hungry.
"Sure. We can take the stairs this time if you want."
**
Half an hour later I was home and the first thing I did was sit down at my computer to delete the Gmail account. He was right, and I was relieved. I knew that I'd dug myself so deep that there was almost no way to get out. But when I sat down, something felt different. My laptop wasn't totally closed. My pens looked like they had been bumped, one was on the floor.
"Huh?" I picked it up and opened my computer. I must have bumped it, maybe when I threw the headband.
Mike
I stood dead center in the middle of my room. What had just happened with Maria at the courts? I rushed to check my phone, this time not to see if mystery mint kisser had emailed me, but to see if there were any messages from Maria.
None!
I paced a little and then I ran over to my window and looked out. Her curtains were closed, it was late, so she was definitely home. I reached for the pellet gun and fired. It missed my hands were shaking so much. I fired again. Missed.
Fuck! I took aim, forcing my hands to be steadier this time and shot. It hit and I waited for her to pull back the curtain. It felt like I waited forever. I shot again. Again. And still the curtain didn't move.
I was desperate to talk to her right now. To see her even.... Jarrod. Shit, she was probably with Jarrod. This was all wrong. She wasn't supposed to be hanging around with that dick, she was supposed to be hanging with me. We should be eating chocolate right now and playing video games, or I should be over there chatting to her. Laughing. Doing what we always do together...
Although, we don't usually stare into each other's eyes like that. And I don't usually feel what the hell I felt when we did. I paced some more, unable to put into words what was going on inside my brain. Images of Maria and I were flashing through it; it was as if I was watching an internal slide show of our entire relationship play out.
Clicking "See relationship" on Facebook and scrolling through ten years of photos.
I wanted to Whatsap her, but I didn't know what to say. And I didn't want to hear that she and Jarrod were out right now. I sat down on my bed trying to calm down, to silence whatever was going on inside me. But whenever I thought of Maria and where she might be, my heart started pounding and anxiety started closing in around me.
I had a game tomorrow. I needed to focus! This could not be happening right now... whatever this was... so I pushed it away. Down. As far back as I could make it go and walked downstairs to grab some left overs from the fridge.
**
The message woke me up. I had just managed to fall asleep. I grabbed for the phone do quickly that I knocked it off my table. It fell under my bed and I crawled onto the floor, unable to fish it out fast enough.
But it wasn't Maria. It was Brett. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. And what the hell was he doing messaging me at : pm at night anyway.
Brett: You need to come over to my house now!
What the fuck, there was no way, not with the tournament tomorrow.
Mike: No ways.
Brett: It's important. It's about Maria.
Sudden panic gripped me.
Mike: Is she ok?
Brett: She's fine. But I need you to come and see something. Come to the back door.
I didn't need anymore convincing, so I grabbed a warm top, shot down the trellis and started jogging to Brett's house. I was there in about five minutes. I walked around to the backdoor quietly so as not to wake anyone. Brett was standing there waiting for me and ushered me in.
"Shhhh." He put a finger over his lips and I followed him through the house, walking as silently as possible. He lead me to their spare bedroom on the far end, aka Bretts edit suit. He bought a fancy Mac last year and set it up in there, he spends hours down there making strange little movies and messing around. He walked in and he closed the door behind us.
"Right Mike Matthews, I'd like you to take a seat over there." He pointed at the chair that was in front of a screen mounted on a wall.
"What's going on?"
"What's going on, is that you are going to watch a movie and take your head out of your fucking arse... popcorn?"
He reached for a bowl behind him and offered it to me. He had actual popcorn. I shook my head.
"I'm okay."
"Cool. But before I press play I just want you to know that this is potentially life changing. I feel like I should make you sign an indemnity form or some shit like that. Anyway... enough from me, here we go."
He pressed play and the screen flickered to life. And there we were, in black and white and a few years younger. Maria and I.
I remembered that moment immediately. A few summers ago, we'd swum in the lake all day long. Maria had that stupid spikey hair and I would tease her about it. So this is where all Brett's footage went to.
Suddenly some words flew onto the screen.
This is a story about a boy and a girl.
"What's this?" I turned to Brett.
"Keep looking." He pointed back at the TV.
I watched. I was chasing Maria now and she was shrieking with laughter as I caught up and pushed her into the water. We both emerged laughing.
But this is no ordinary love story.
"WHAT?" I whipped around and stared at Brett. He just shook his head and pointed back at the TV screen. Now a weird montage of moments of Maria and I started flashing across the screen. In each one we were laughing. In each one we were smiling at each other. In each one she was looking at me like....
She was looking at me like...
I gasped and my hand flew up over my mouth. My heart started beating faster and faster and faster.
"Jesus Christ!" I looked at Brett again and this time he nodded.
"Yup! Amazing what you can't see sometimes."
I turned back to the screen just as more words flew onto it.
Because he doesn't know that she's in love....
Images and shots of Maria's face flew onto the screen. One after the other after the other. She was always laughing, always with that look and she looked so fucking beautiful. Oh my God! It was as if I ha
d never seen her until this very second.
And he doesn't know that he's in love either...
Another gasp escaped my mouth as I pulled the chair forward. My eyes were glued to the screen. He'd cut together scenes of us over the years. Me sliding up to Maria in the Canteen. Walking with my arm draped over her shoulder. Climbing up her trellis. Waving at her. Carrying her bags to class, the most random scenes ever.
But he is!
And then the footage switched to slow mo. It was Maria and she was dancing. I remembered that night. Giovanni's, her birthday. It was one of the only times I'd ever seen her in a dress and she was smiling and twirling with this creepy looking sixty year old. The shot froze. It was a close up of Maria's face. Her eyes were lit up, her smile was big and wide and she had a few strands of hair flying accorss her face.
NOW WHAT THE FUCK IS THE IDIOT GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
The end: A short film by legendary, Oscar winning filmmaker Brett.
He flicked the TV off. I sat in my chair for a moment in total shock. I was always in the moment. I was always in the middle of it, but like this, looking in, it was all so, so clear. Maria was in love with me. Is in love with me and I... I....
The realization sort of slammed through me. All these years. Ten years. All the chicks I had dated. None of them had ever lasted. The mystery fucking mint kisser they were all.... Whatever. And she was there. Always there.
My brain swirled. My heart raced. Sweaty palms. Dry mouth. Shake legs... and I...and I was in love with her. I'd always been. She was the most important person in my life. She was the first person I wanted to talk to every single morning. The last person I wanted to talk to when I went to bed. How the hell had I not known?
I looked up at Brett with a kind of questioning. And he just shrugged.
"I guess when you see someone everyday, all the time and that person just kind of becomes an extension of you, maybe it's hard to see it for what it really is? Maybe you need a bit of perspective."
"Oh my God I'm... I'm..." I paused. Was I about to say it out loud?
"Say it." Brett urged.
"In love with her?"