Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.
~George R.R Martin
Chapter 11.1
Ryder's POV
I dropped Beatrice off at her car before running over to the secondary lot to meet Mateo so we could walk back to his place together.
"How did things go with Maria?" I asked as I greeted him with the handshake we'd learned as kids.
He frowned. "She still hates me, maybe even more so now than usual."
"You know, there's this girl in my Spanish class who seems into you. She's pretty nice."
Mateo was not amused. "Have you met Maria? Does it look like I'm into nice girls?"
Fair enough, Maria is not what I would call 'nice'. "I'm just saying, there are plenty of fish in the sea, why settle for one? Especially one who doesn't even like you back." I shoved my hands in my pockets as we started the walk home.
"Because man, she's Maria. She's perfect, even when she's telling me how much of a loser I am."
"What do you even see in her?" All she does is push him around, use him, and then tell him how horrible he is.
"Everything. She's got a real sense of humor, and I could talk to her for hours—when she's actually talking back. And she's stunning, man. She does this little thing with her nose when she's angry; adorable."
I'm sure he sees that a lot then since she's always angry around him. "Maybe if you tried moving on, she would realize what she's missing out on."
He shook his head. "I couldn't do that. I couldn't date someone else knowing I'm still helplessly in love with Maria."
That would always be the difference between me and him. He was a good person, who cared about other people's feelings, and I was not, never would be.
I am the sole reason Mateo doesn't have any other friends. It's been that way since we were kids. Mateo was the fallen angel and I was the demon straight out of hell. He says he never minds, and that if people can't accept both of us together then they don't need to be a part of his life but I know I weigh him down, even if he won't admit it.
Maybe that's why she was so refreshing. She's probably the only person in the whole school who doesn't know me as the kid with the dead father who's angry at the world. She didn't grow up with me. She didn't hear all the rumors. She didn't have Kavinski to tell her how horrible I am. She didn't stand around the playground and watch as Kavinski and his friends beat the living daylights out of me and Mateo. She never had to see me as the weak, loser kid who only had one friend.
"I will say with your 'plenty of fish in the sea' motto, you must feel great now that you've ended the game with Beatrice," Mateo commented as we made it to his front door.
My face fell as I rubbed the back of my neck. Crap, I knew there was something I was meaning to tell him. "Yeah, about that..."
Mateo deadpanned as we headed down the stairs to his basement, or as he liked to call it, his man cave, filled to the brim with fancy electronics which I still had no clue how to use most of them. He'd tried a couple times to teach me but I usually ended up dying weighing the first few minutes. Now everytime we play it's usually Mateo keeping me from dying and me doing dumb stuff to get us killed. "You didn't end the game, did you?" Mateo asked.
I paced around his game room, the small action slightly calming my nerves since I knew he was about to castigate me for this. "Well, you see, I tried but—"
He didn't even let me finish my sentence. "We literally rehearsed the speech!"
"I know." Believe me, I knew. I don't know what happened. It was such a simple plan.
"Then what happened?"
I spun around, facing Mateo who was seated on the couch. "Marx Jacobson happened. You should have seen the way he was looking at her. It was obvious he just wanted her for sex and she was falling right into his trap."
Mateo's brow raised. "Wasn't that also your original plan?"
"That's beside the point, okay?" My hands began gesturing on their own the more worked up I got, a habit I surly picked up from Mateo over the years. "You should have seen this guy—"
"I have seen this guy, he's in one of my classes."
"Yeah, well, he looks like a troll and yet he had the audacity to stand there and flirt with her like she was even remotely in his league. He called her gorgeous. Gorgeous. That's my thing. That's our thing. I call her gorgeous and she calls me pretty boy."
"You are aware that pretty boy is supposed to be an insult, right?"
"I'm aware." I didn't particularly care. It was our thing.
There was a small moment of silence and then I couldn't believe it, Mateo started laughing. He started laughing at me. I glared at him, staring him up and down. This is not funny. "Dear goodness," he started, "you sound like me. Maybe we do spent too much time together."
I scowled, knowing he was referring to his many speeches about Maria. "I do not sound like you."
He rolled his eyes, grinning. "So you guys are continuing the game?"
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. "Yes..." I trailed off, debating how to word this.
Mateo's eyebrows creased together as all amusement was replaced by concern. "Dear goodness, man, what did you do?"
I rushed through the sentence, hoping if I spoke fast enough he would miss most of it. "I sorta told her that I wanted to be exclusive and she agreed."
It was like watching the scene in slow motion. Mateo's face slowly fell, as he registered what I'd said, his eyes slowly widening. And then in an instant, Mateo was up and out of his seat, pacing alongside me, the two of us looking like complete idiots as we spiraled into chaos. "What do you mean you two are exclusive? You can't be exclusive!"
We looked like a pair of panicking chipmunks from the cartoons as we ran circles around the room. "I know!" I yelled. "I don't know what happened. It's like I can't function around her! She makes my brain all hazy." I was supposed to end the game, that was the plan.
Mateo paused, with me quickly following his lead, before his lips curved up like the Cheshire Cat. "You know who makes my brain all hazy: Maria."
I shot him a dirty look. "That is completely different." That is not even remotely the same.
"How is that any different? You were the one giving me the 'plenty of fish in the sea' speech. You're such a hypocrite. You settled for one! You settled for one fish." The two of us stood at opposite ends of the coffee table, yelling at each other like children.
"I did not! I did not settle. I will call her right now and tell her it was a mistake and that we shouldn't do it," I threatened.
Mateo stuck his tongue out at me. "Perfect, then she can run off to Marx Jacobson. Or any of the other forty guys who have their eyes on her. The baseball team seems pretty curious about her."
I narrowed my eyes on him. Jerk.
The door to the basement came swinging open as Mamá García came storming down the flight of stairs. "Ey! What is the meaning of this?"
We froze, glancing at each other before regressing ten years and yelling over each other, both of us telling a very biased version of what was going on.
"Ey!" She screamed to shut the two of us up instantly. And then she was off, scolding the two of us for being so immature.
Now, I've taken four years of Spanish and grown up in their Spanish speaking household but no matter how many years of Spanish I did, I would never be able to understand Mamá García when she is angry. And by the way Mateo's looking at me right now, I don't think he can either and he's fluent.
She calmed down, smoothing down her skirt to compose herself. "Now, will one of you please explain why you two are fighting like a bunch of niños."
The two of us answered in unison, immediately pointing the blame on the other.
"Ryder finally settled for a girl!"
"Mateo won't shut up about Maria!"
There is no one more terrifying than Mamá García when she's giving you her disappointed look. She turned to me. "Good for you—" she paused, snapping her fingers in a rhythmic movement—"cómo se dice?—don't screw it up," she warned me before moving on to Mateo. "And mijo, get over her. You could do far better than that Mamaguebo."
Dear goodness.
Mateo's cheeks flamed up instantly. "Mamá! You can't say stuff like that." The tips of his ears tinged pink, meanwhile I was trying not to hyperventilate from how hard I was laughing.
Mamá García waved him off. "Eh, she deserves it after all she's put you through."
And with that, she walked off, muttering various complaints under breath, the only one I could successfully translate being "seniors in high school" like she couldn't believe it.
"Did you hear what she called her?" Mateo questioned, clearly scarred for life.
I held onto the couch for support, practically falling to the floor in laughter. I nodded, not able to get any words out. Oh I heard.
"She called her a—" his lips curled. "I can't even repeat it."
"Hey, that's the 'love of your life' she just insulted." I teased.
Mateo's whole face scrunched up as he thought about it. "Can we just go back to the original topic?"
"Dude, I don't even remember what that was." We bounced from topic to topic and ended up arguing like a pair of toddlers.
"You and Beatrice," he clarified. "You can't be exclusive."
I sighed, knowing Mateo was right. I can't be exclusive. I don't do commitment. I'm as flakey as they come. I'm like a croissant, but not the really good kind you get from the bakery, the depressing, slightly molding ones you get from the grocery store, you know, the ones that are about to expire so they mark them at a quarter of the price and toss them on the clearance rack and call it a day. "I know that."
"What happens the next time your mom yells at you and tells you how much of a burden you are, or worse, she tells you how much you're turning into your father. What happens then? Because you can't just run off and sleep with the first girl you meet in an attempt to make yourself feel worse."
I groaned, tearing my hands through my hair as I sat down on the couch. "I don't know."
"What, are you gonna beat yourself black and blue, refuse to eat, drink yourself under the table? Because that's what happened last time you tried to lay of the sex."
He didn't need to remind me. He really didn't need to remind me. The memories were clear as day and I most certainly did not need to relive them. "I'll figure something out." I had to. I didn't have much of a choice.
Mateo didn't believe me in the slightest. "Because you can't sleep with Beatrice, you know that right?"
Of course I knew that. I knew myself and if I slept with her, I'd never speak to her again. I wouldn't even be able to look at her without feeling disgusted with myself. It's what I did with everyone. A plan of pure self destruction clearly. "I'm aware."
"So what then? What's the new plan?" He settled in the chair in front of me, leaning over so that his elbows were rested on his knees.
"I guess I'll just have to win, and avoid my mother."
He completely disregarded my comment about my mother, probably already assuming I would do so by spending all my time at his place. "You're going to try to win the game?"
I nodded. "It can't be that hard, can it?"
Mateo stared at me like I was the dumbest human being in the entire world, as if I'd just asked him if green was a primary color. "I have been trying to get Maria to fall in love with me for nine years. If it was easy, do you still think I'd be single?"
Good point. "I'll just wing it, what's the worst that can happen?"
"The last time you said that Kavinski and his friends about killed the two of us. I don't think I trust your judgment on this."
He had a point, I don't think Mamá García was too pleased to find the two of us stumbling home coated in our own blood. "Okay, well, I don't think Beatrice is planning to try to murder us, so I think we're safe."
"Unless you catch feelings."
"That's not gonna happen." That won't happen.
Mateo deadpanned. "Right? Just like you would never be jealous of a freshman?"
"I was not jealous of that kid."
I was not jealous, he's a freshman. I would never be jealous of him.
"Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night."
I was not jealous.
Mateo rested his elbows on his knees, sighing. "So we're trying to win this thing."
I nodded. "We're trying to win this thing."
A/N
Hi lovies!
First off, thoughts on the books?
And second off, how are you all doing? I feel like I don't hear from you guys as much :( I always love talking to you guys.
Also we did a job fair thing today so we had to pick our careers and I just realized if I don't make it as an author I'm gonna be stuck being an accountant. So let's really hope this book takes off because I really don't want to be an accountant for the rest of my life. But hey, we've sold two whole copies so it's a start.
Also the next (or maybe the one right after) chapter is the one you've all been waiting for: the fish shack with Alexia. I hope it meets your expectations.
Lots of love,
Rachelle <3