Over the next few days, Mike and I spent our time taking walks and watching movies. Mostly, we tried to find any way to spend our time together. On my fifth day we decided to switch it up.
“So, I was thinking. Do you maybe want to meet some of my friends today?” Mike asked me over breakfast.
“Oh… Yeah sure,” I said with a touch of uncertainty.
“Don’t worry it won’t be like the first time. These are my guy friends. Please?”
“Ok, sure.” We met up with his 3 friends at the local mall, which must have been half the size of the regular average mall. When we met them I was introduced as simply Lia, and nothing else. We walked around the mall, going in and out of stores, Mike’s fingers laced through mine. Most of his friends were nice; they talked to me, and even joked with me. The only cloud over the day was Nick, Mike’s only friend that seemed to have something against me. He ignored me all day, and a few times I had caught him glaring at me. I put up with it, and didn’t say anything, but by the end of the day it had really started to wear on me.
We left the mall around 3, and when we got back to the house, I tried to bring up the Nick thing casually, “So is Nick always that quiet?” I prodded.
“He’s always more quiet than the rest of us.”
“Oh.”
“Why?”
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice that…he kind of seemed to… have something against me.”
“No. that’s just the way he is.”
“He didn’t say two words to me all day. And he gave me these looks, like I had just run over his dog! You can’t expect me to believe that that’s ‘just the way he is’”
“Maybe you were just imagining.”
“Are you serious? You really think that I imagined those things? Look at me and tell me that you didn’t notice it at all. Tell me that everything seemed completely normal!” he looked down, “Mike! Please, just tell me what’s going on!” He looked up at me, but still didn’t speak, so I walked over and took his hand, “Please.”
“Alright, it’s not anything you did. His sister had a thing for me and I didn’t go for her.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“He has been trying to get me with his sister, and I won’t, so now that I’ve found someone else, he’s p***ed”
“At you…so why did he take it out on me?”
“Because we’re friends. He’ll get over it.”
“So that’s it?”
“What’s it?”
“You’re just going to make an excuse for it and say ‘he’ll get over it?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know; tell him to stop taking his anger out on me!”
“But, he’s my friend.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth I saw the regret on his face. I pulled my hand away from his and turned to leave, “Lia, wait,” Mike said trying to stop me, but this time I didn’t let him. I walked out of the kitchen and stomped up the stairs. Mike followed me to the end of the hall, “Lia, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Please talk to me.” I opened my bedroom door, closed it hard in his face and sunk onto the floor, resting my head on the door. “Ok, you have every reason to be mad. But I will be sitting here until you come out.”
He meant what he said, I heard him outside of my door. Part of me didn’t believe what had just happened. The past few days had been so easy and perfect, and one day we spent around other people and we were fighting. He hadn’t even defended me here at home when no one else was around. I did this and that in my room for 2 hours before I checked to see if Mike was still outside my room. He wasn’t.
What was I doing? He said sorry. I should at least give him the chance to talk. I crossed the hall and stood in front of his bedroom door for a few second before I took a deep breath and knocked.
“What?” he called sounding annoyed. I opened the door and stepped in, “Oh I’m sorry I thought you were my mom.”
“It’s ok. Um, can we talk?”
“Yeah, of course. I didn’t think that you would want to talk to me.”
“I’m sorry that I made you wait outside of my room. And I’m sorry that I walked away from you earlier.”
“You had every reason to be mad.”
“Why didn’t you stand up for me?”
“I should have. I should have told him to stop when we were all together. I should have made sure that he was treating you right. And I shouldn’t have defended him. Please forgive me.”
“I forgive you of course,” I said sitting next to him on the bed, “But, what about next time a friend comes between us? I mean how serious are we?”
“I won’t let any friends come between us,” Mike told me, moving the hair off my shoulder and kissing it, “I’m sorry that I started a fight. I just want to spend the rest of the time you’re here being happy.”
“Me too…we only have two weeks left.”
“Two weeks and one days.”
“What are we going to do when I leave?”
“We don’t have to worry about that now.”
“No, I’m serious. I’m sorry to ruin the mood, but what’s gonna happen between us when I go home?” Mike looked at me.
“Don’t you think that we should see how the next two weeks go? Can’t we just take it day by day for now?”
“I just want to know that what we have right now isn’t just going to disappear when I leave. I don’t want to go home and pretend like this didn’t happen.”
“What we have will never just disappear. And I could never pretend that this didn’t happen.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. And I don’t think that I’m going to just forget about you.”
“Your mom does.”
“My mom is wrong,” Mike said taking his hands off my shoulders.
“I trust you. Don’t worry about your mom.”
“Do you? Do you really trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I trust you too.”
“So I was thinking that we could make some popcorn and watch a movie?” I asked him.
“Not tonight, sorry,” he replied.
“Oh... alright,” my shoulders slumped.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said looking at me. I realized that that was his way of telling me to leave. I got off of his bed and walked out of the door and into my own room. In frustration, I flopped down on my bed. Even when I thought things were fine between us, he had a way of making me feel insecure about what we were doing. And I started to wonder if what Mike and I had was really for the best.