"But what do I say? Please!" I begged.
He shrugged. "Not sure. I guess this is not something you can Google either. 'How to sort-of break-up with the strange girl that kissed you in the dark' It's probably not high up there on the search engine."
"But... but..." The pure unadulterated panic must have shown on my face, because for a moment there, his eyes looked sympathetic. He laid a reassuring arm on my shoulder.
"You'll be fine. Just tell her the truth." And with that he walked off. I was lucky our teacher was late for class, so it gave me a few extra minutes to compose and email. But as I wrote it, I was aware that MMK might actually be sitting in the same classroom as me. That would be fucking awkward!
Honesty. Honesty.
Subject: Good bye
Message: Hi there, I know this mail will probably come as a shock, and this whole thing has been a shock to me too. Something happened the other night that made me realize that I am absolutely, totally and madly in love with someone else and always have been. I know we have been messaging each other, but I'm going to have to put an end to it. I will always be grateful for all the advice and help you gave me over my parents divorce, and I'll never forget our kiss in the dark. But I have to go with my heart, and my heart belongs to someone else. I am sorry, and wish you all the best.
Mike.
My heart pounded as I read over the message again. It sounded so weird, formal almost. I closed my eyes and pressed send, hoping I wouldn't hear an email notification sound. I pressed send and waited. I felt bad. But I had to do was was right. I had to do what my heart was telling me to, and that was Maria. It would always be Maria. I knew that now.
I didn't hear a beep and I almost melted into the floor with relief. Good sign. But seconds after I sent the mail, I got a response. It was an error report. No such email address. What? What did that mean? That Mystery Mint Kisser had deleted her account. Why?
I had a sudden vision of her deleting it because she had decided to reveal herself to me today at tennis. Or, she wasn't into me anymore. I was hoping for the second option. Praying for the second option, because if it was number one, and she decided it was time to meet face-to-face, that would be a problem. A big problem.
Class went by in a horrid daze, I couldn't concentrate at all. All I wanted to do was kiss Maria. That was all I could think about. Every second was consumed with thoughts of her. But as cruel fate would have it, it was that one day we didn't have classes together. I would see her from time to time in the corridor. The tension between us when we caught each others eyes was so intense that it felt like it filled the entire corridor. I wondered how now one else could feel it. It was electric. Like the air was set on fire every single time I saw her face.
At once stage I managed to maneuver myself close enough to her that I was able to brush against her hand with mine, and for a second, I wrapped by finger around hers. I was desperate for lunch to come along so I could slide up to her. This time, we weren't going to stay there, because I was planning on taking her somewhere quiet where we could finish what we'd started this morning.
But all those ideas where soon crushed when our couch informed us that the scout needed to be somewhere else that afternoon, and only had limited time to watch us play. He wanted us to play the knock out rounds during lunch, get them out of the way so there would only be semi-finals and finals that afternoon. I couldn't believe I had barely thought about the tournament all day. The most important tournament of my life. I had to get focused.
**
Winning the tournament will go down as the best, and worst moment ever. How can something be both the best and worst at the same time?
I'd killed Chase in the knockouts, I'd barely broken a sweat, hardly had to run a meter. I think he was nervous, because his match temperament was completely out. I think the presence on the scout walking back and forth on the other side of the fence threw him. I actually felt sorry for him, it was arguably the worst game of tennis I'd ever seen him play. But it had given me that extra bit of confidence to walk into the Semi's and walk all over my next opponent. The cherry on top was the message I got from Maria just before stepping onto court again for the final.
Maria: You're playing really well, and as soon as you've won, there's something I want to give you. X X
My heart skipped numerous beats. Maria just telling me that she wanted to kiss me, was a million times better than any real kiss I could get in the dark. I walked onto the court and I glanced up. Maria had a naughty look plastered across her face and bit her bottom lip... fucking hell.
I tried not to thing about it as I won the serve and readied myself. I looked up and few times during the match, and couldn't help but be transported to just about the happiest place I'd ever been every time I saw her. I was tempted to blow her a kiss, but I still had a vague reputation to uphold.
My dad was also there. He'd spent the entire
