"I- Um…" Zoey fumbled with her words, trying her best to think of an excuse. "I was dumping everything out of my desks, to… reorganize! It'll help me study better!" Zoey hurried over and took the cage from her mother's hands, setting it on the table. Miss Puffycheeks was already curled up into a ball and began sleeping. Her mother looked worried. "Is everything okay, Zoey?"
She nodded, her shoulders tense. "I'm fine, mom. Really." Zoey looked back at Mal and her dad who were still muttering things under their breaths.
It took a moment for her dad to finally speak up. He looked over to the state of Zoey's room, before back at Mike. "My daughter doesn't do things like that. I hope you're not being a bad influence." Mal gave his best cheeky grin to mock Mike's tone while he talked back to the older man without hesitation. "You didn't think you'd be the only influence in her life forever, did you?"
Mr. Morris looked a bit taken aback, which caused 'Mike' to let out a lighthearted chuckle. "Oh, I know, they grow up so fast."
At this point, Zoey's mom was finally paying attention to the conversation between them. "Come on now honey! Don't pester the boy! I'm sure school is stressing them out enough already." The two ladies walked to the men and stood side by side. Zoey laughed nervously. "That's enough now, Mike." She nudged his side with his elbow.
Zoey's father leaned in a bit closer to him with a cold squint. He looked like he was about to scold Mike as if he were his own child. "I'll always be the only male influence in her life." He muttered.
Mal cackled at the tone of the serious comment and swung his arm around Zoey, which shocked her. She knew Mal hated touching. Turns out he liked arguing with people more.
"That's funny," He responded, "Because from what I'm seeing, you're standing in her apartment, which she lives in, with her boyfriend. Boy. Friend." He enunciated it clear enough to get an almost-growl out of her father. Zoey facepalmed as her mother gasped.
Mr. Morris looked furious, eyes darting at Zoey to see her response. "You're dating him?" He spat, with his wife clinging on to his arm and jumping up and down. She looked ecstatic and as oblivious to the mood of the room. "Oh, I knew it! I knew they would fall in love with each other! Isn't it an adorable story?"
Mal smirked and let his fingers graze Zoey's neck seductively, his hand soon running down her shoulder. "Oh, let me guess." He smiled. "She didn't tell you yet?" He leaned a bit closer to her, his lips almost brushing against her neck as his glare was locked with her father. Zoey's face was turning red from shock as Mal hummed. "I can't say it's surprising. We can all see how formidable I must look to you. Having trouble letting go of your little girl?"
Mal didn't get a verbal response, but instead, got a shove to the shoulder from Mr. Morris to put some distance between the couple. It caused him to wince for just a moment, his nose wrinkling from the pain sparking through his stitches, before lowered his gaze and tried to look like it didn't hurt. Zoey had caught on to what happened there, and she wasn't sure if her dad did or not.
"Dad! You can't just push him!" Zoey was obviously upset, walking a bit closer to Mal who was gritting his teeth. You elitist fuck, just wait until I snap your-
Before he could even finish his thought, a blob of warmth jumped onto him. Mal took a surprised step back as Zoey's mom hugged him tightly. "Oh, sweetie! No need to fight! We're so happy you and Zoey are together, welcome to the family!" Mal stood stiff, before slipping the middle finger to her father. Zoey panicked and walked in front of his hand in hopes of her father not seeing. "I'm in college, dad. It's okay if I have a boyfriend. I was going to tell you eventually…"
Her mother finally let the teen go and turned around, taking her husband's wrist. Zoey had a small smile on her face for a moment. She knew Mal didn't like that, but he took it anyway. It was a bit cute. Mal brushed off his shoulder and acted like the hug never happened.
"It's always been hard for him to adjust to news like this." Mrs. Morris complained, crossing her arms at her husband. "We'll need to have a little chat at home! Our daughter's love life is at stake!" Zoey's dad kept his eyes glued on Mike. "I'm not going to regret doing that. You don't need to be touching my daughter. What if he's as garbage as the last kid?"
"Mike is nothing like Jeremy." Zoey piped in, smiling nervously. "Thanks for dropping off Miss Puffycheeks. You should go now."
Zoey's mother waved goodbye to them, dragging her husband out with her. "Don't forget to clean your room, Zoey! You can't live in that mess!" Right as their rushed valedictions were over, Zoey shut the door. Thank god her dad getting a bit out of hand finally got her mom to understand they had to leave. It was kind of sad how that's what it took for her to read a room.
Suddenly, three things in the room dropped at once. Zoey's smile, Mal's hair, and the tension full of fake smiles between them.
Zoey let her fists clench at her sides as she turned back to Mal. "I gave you simple instructions! Don't do anything Mike wouldn't do! And there you go, causing another scene!" She made sure not to yell too loudly, but she couldn't help it. She was frustrated.
Mal crossed his arms, but let them drop when he remembered how stiff his shoulder was. He spoke in his normal, raspy voice, letting out a 'tch' before talking. "What made you think I wanted to listen to you? I don't have to live my life pretending to be Mike." Zoey walked a bit closer to him, arms on her hips.
"Yeah? Well, My parents don't know about the whole Dissociative Identity thing yet! Let alone, that we're dating! That's not how they were supposed to find out!"
Mal shot her a dull glare. "Don't let it get to your head. I only wanted to toy with the guy and piss him off. You can date whoever the fuck you want, but you sure as hell aren't dating me." He then looked at her with a brow raised. "And why is that my problem? Should have warned them before it got out of hand." The corner of his mouth turned up a bit, as he mocked her dad's voice. "That's what you get for being such a bad girl and lying."
"Right. Out of the two of us, I'm the bad one here." Zoey let out an angry 'hmmph'. You didn't have to mess with my dad like that." Mal looked back at the main door. "At least you told him I was nothing like that stupid Jeremy kid."
Zoey sighed. "I didn't say you were nothing like him. Both of you are bullies. I said Mike wasn't anything like him." Mal rolled his eyes to that and didn't respond. She stared at him for a moment, before walking over to the front of her room. "If you hate pretending to be Mike so much, then why were you pretending to be him this whole time?"
Mal followed her, continuing to quarrel. "Why wouldn't I? I might as well have you on my side. You have to know your advantages. It's not my fault I didn't have any fucking energy at the start." Zoey looked back at him, her expression getting a bit softer. "You don't have to manipulate me to have me on your side, Mal. I'm not against you." When she realized she made him a bit uncomfortable, she crossed her arms. "...And do you always have to swear?"
God, he hated that tone she used. That sweet, luring tone that was supposed to soothe any boy who heard it only pushed him even more on the edge. The look she had on her face made him pause for a moment before he decided to ignore her and peek his head inside her room. "Yeah. I do." He looked over to the cage. "…So now there's a rat living here?"
"That makes two of them." Zoey mumbled, loud enough for Mal to hear. "And she isn't a rat, she's an adorable hamster! I love her!" Mal watched her hop through the messy room and stick a finger through the cage to pet her head. When Zoey was done, she turned back to him with an upset face, as if she was just remembering what was surrounding her. "And what did you do to my room?"
Mal looked around at the mess. It looked like a hurricane had came by through her room. "I was searching through it. Who knows what kind of things you have in there. If you're going to live with me, I'm going to look." Zoey looked surprised. "Are you kidding me? What did you expect to find? Drugs? And I'm not living with you, we're living with each other. There's a difference."
Mal eagerly piped up, looking the happiest he had ever been since he's been in control. "Are you saying you have a stash somewhere? How did I miss it?"
Zoey facepalmed. "No! I don't do drugs!"
A pout fell on Mal's face. "Damn, of course you don't. You have a lot of needles though. And a lot of stupid doodles of Mike in your notebooks. By the way, the hearts are tacky." The two looked over at her desk, where all of her sewing equipment and notebooks were rummaged through.
Zoey rubbed her eyes a bit, trying her best not to lose energy. "Whatever. I think they're cute, but you wouldn't understand. Now leave me be." Mal put his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. "Yeah, cute isn't really my style. But pets can be cute. Good to know I have two pets I live with now." He death glared Miss Puffycheeks. "And that thing is not the cute one."
Zoey rolled her eyes. "Oh you think I'm cute, how original." Before he could respond, a smile spread on Zoey's face. "That's funny. Wasn't I the one feeding and taking care of you? If you ask me, you're the pet." Mal looked off to the side in embarrassment, walking off to his room. "Whatever. I didn't need your help. I only did it because I was playing Mike."
Barley, but I still was.
…
Mal hated what he was doing. No- he was disgusted with what he was doing. The red he saw in his lap reminded him of oh too many memories, but he ignored them, and continued staring anyway.
He wrote with scarlet ink, scribbling his thoughts over a paper in Mike's notebook, not bothering to even write on the lines. From far away, it probably looked like a toddler's abstract art. This is so stupid. Mal was frowning. What has my life come to?
Out of everything Sophie once shoved down his throat, journaling was one of the dumbest ones. But, with Mal's memory being a bit… blurry, he figured it was better safe than sorry to start jotting stuff down. At first he only wrote about important events that happened so far, meaning tormenting Jeremy and bothering Zoey's dad, but he soon found himself writing down a few more things.
He cringed as he re-read them. Did he really want to remember Zoey feeding him soup? No one has really done that before. Mal scratched that sentence off as he re read it, and changed it to, 'The soup tasted good.' That's why he wanted to remember it. Because it tasted good. No other reason. Feeling his stomach grumble as he remembered the deliciously warm flavour, Mal looked at his door.
Meanwhile, Zoey was groaning from both her headache and her drowsiness. Doing math for hours was the worst. It felt like her brain was melting. She really hated school sometimes. Think of the end goal, she told herself. Think of how many people you'll be able to help. You have to get there somehow.
Her thoughts were quickly cut off to the sound of her door being slammed open. She jumped up a bit, startled to death by the loud noise interrupting her silence. Mal stood there, not moving, only staring at her.
…Does he always have to be so creepy? Zoey wondered. Does he do that on purpose? Maybe he can't look sane even if he wanted to. Unless he's doing his best to be Mike. But even then, something's a bit off…
Zoey looked at him up and down, almost to check if he was okay. Then she finally spoke. "Yes, Mal?"
Mal's eyebrow was twitching from despair. "I'm fucking hungry. I need something."
Zoey stretched and stood up. Her room was a lot cleaner now, so she found it easy to actually give her legs a break from sitting. "Why don't you order something for us? Just get it delivered to the door."
Mal thought about it for a moment. "Why would I waste my precious money on ordering food? Let alone, ordering food for you too."
That wasn't the response she was expecting. "It's just some dinner. You don't have to worry so much about money, especially with a…" Zoey paused. Mike was literally a millionaire. Sure, he didn't want to use it right now for whatever reason he had, but he still had it. Did Mal… not know?
Mal raised a brow, waiting for her to finish her sentence. "Um… especially with a girlfriend like me!" That got her a glare from the personality, but she smiled at him anyway, picking up her phone. "How about I order us something. What do you want?"
"Spanish food." Mal spoke as if he was commanding her. "And I want churros on the side." Zoey nodded and began punching things on her phone and ordering them food. Soon, she looked back up at him. "Hey, are you like… part Spanish?"
Mal gazed at her. "What? A guy can't just want some fucking Spanish food? If I order a French fry, are you going to ask if I'm part French?"
"In what world are you ordering just a single French fry? And French fries aren't even French." Zoey giggled a bit at her own response before leaning back on her bed. "No, I was asking because, I think you understood some Spanish on the island."
Mal looked puzzled for a moment. Then Zoey remembered about his money saving comment and decided to test her theory. "…You do remember the island, right?" Mal shoved his hands in his pockets, as he usually did. His eyes were shifty as he looked off to the side. "Of course I do. How could I forget? It was… bright."
Zoey looked back down at her phone, pretending not to pay attention to him. "Yeah, Hawaii was amazing. I'm glad you liked it as much as Mike and the others did."
"It was fine." Mal mumbled, heading back to his room to jot it down. He was going to have to remember that. Apparently those memories were from Hawaii.
The response confirmed Zoey's thoughts. He really did forget about the million. That kind of made sense. If Mal knew about it, chances are, he'd be far away from her right now. Although his memory couldn't be completely blank, he seemed to still remember her. That was good.
Zoey opened a new tab in her laptop and checked back at the door, making sure Mal wasn't lurking. She hesitantly typed his name in, just to see what would come up.
A bunch of translations were showing, all from many languages- but most of them hovered over the same idea. Crazy. Wrong. Evil. She looked through a few more pages before the doorbell eventually rung.
"I'll get it!" She called out, walking to the front door. It's not like Mal was going to anyway. She thanked the delivery man and held the bags of food, her head perking up as she heard clicking coming from her bedroom. Zoey moved a bit quickly, only to find Mal sitting on her bed with a wicked smile.
"Well well, someone's got a crush, huh? You already live with me, and now you want to stalk me on your laptop?"
Heat rushed to Zoey's cheeks. "I only left for like, five seconds! How did you sneak in here so fast?" She pushed her laptop to the other side of the bed, keeping it away from him. "And that's not why I was searching your name." Mal snatched one of the bags of food from her, opening it and taking out a churro. He shoved it in his mouth and looked at her, waiting for an explanation. It was probably best to tell him the truth. He was already extremely paranoid of living with someone else, and even though the stalker thing was just a joke, It definitely came from somewhere.
For starters, since he wasn't going to move over, Zoey had to crawl to the side of the bed against the wall. She left a good amount of distance between them to keep him comfortable before finishing her thoughts. "I was just wondering if your name was Spanish."
He took a bite of his paella. "It has a Spanish meaning, if that's what you're wondering. Though I'm sure that's the first thing that popped up." Zoey nodded. "Yeah. So how come you understand Spanish? When did you learn that?"
Mal looked at her as if she was the stupidest girl in the world. "I don't fucking know, Zoey. When did Svetlana learn gymnastics? Why is Manitoba Australian? When did Vito lose all his braincells? Who the fuck asked Chester to be like, a thousand years old?" Although the start of his response was sassy, by the end of it, it sounded like he was a bit confused too. Mal snarled. "And don't even get me started on Mike."
The corners of Zoey's mouth went a bit downwards, but she covered it up while eating her food. She didn't want to lecture him or come off as too upset. She wanted to be able to talk to him, and there was no better time than now. She tried to keep it casual. "So, do you like, hate Mike?" She asked.
Mal looked at her after swallowing another churro. "Cute question. I hate everyone. I despise Mike." Zoey tried to laugh as if it didn't bother her. "Haha, how come?" Mal decided not to comment on her obvious efforts of friendliness.
"Because he took everything from me."