"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
