Mileven in Heaven

Boys Will Be Boys

It was all planned out. Mike and El had made reservations to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant just for the hell of it. Sitting at a table with her lovely dress on, she waited for him to come. 15 minutes had passed and she assumed he was just late, then 30 and she started to worry, then an hour and she knew something was wrong. Only a little after an hour, the waiter came up to her and nicely asked her to give up her seat. She called her dad and he came to get her. She was hurt and confused.

The next day, she debated over calling him versus letting him call her and apologize. She decided to wait. She didn't owe him anything. Instead, she called Max.

"Mike stood me up last night. We made reservations and everything..." she revealed.

"Shit, seriously?"

"Yeah..."

"What a dick move. I'm really sorry, El. I'm sure he had a good reason for it."

"Well, then he should've just said so!"

"True. Well, Lucas pissed me off too, so how 'bout we hang out today? We could go to the zoo and get ice cream."

"I've always wanted to go to the zoo! How'd you know?"

"I hear things..."

"That sounds great."

"Sweet! I'll pick you up at 1:30."

"Sounds good. Thanks again, Max."

"It's nothing. See you in a bit!"

"Bye!"

Not long after that, the phone rang.

*rings*

*picks up*

"Hello?" she said.

"Hey, it's me."

"Hey."

*long pause*

"*sighs* Look, I can explain."

"Explain what? Why you didn't show up last night?"

"Yeah, that...*sighs* I was playing Zork and I just got so caught up in trying to get to the next level, that I was already running late and then after a while, I just figured there was no point in showing up if I was already going to be that late."

"And it didn't occur to you to call?"

"No, it did, but I just *sighs* I don't know, I-I messed up."

"Yeah, clearly you did."

"El, I'm so sorry! It won't happen again, I promise."

"Save your promises for later. It already happened. How can I know that it won't happen again?"

"Because you know me. I would never ditch you on purpose, I'm not that guy!"

"Whatever..."

"El, I'm sorry."

"You know, Mike, I know that we ditch our friends sometimes to be together, but I never thought that you'd be the one to ditch me. So just fuck off, okay?"

"El, please! Let's just hang out today, I promise I'll make it up to you."

"Stop saying that, promising me things when you don't know if you can keep them. Besides, I'm hanging out with Max today, so I can't."

"Okay, well, I love you."

*hangs up*

It was the first time he had said it and she hadn't said it back. It stung a little, a lot more than he thought it would.