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Chapter 2

A date.

Max had sent him on a blind date under the false pretense of it being a tutoring session. Of all the things she had ever done, this took the cake. Sure, he hadn't been moping around the apartment, playing sad songs, and eating his weight in ice cream. But that didn't mean he was over El and ready to start seeing other people yet.

He didn't know what Max was thinking.

His split from El was never supposed to be permanent. He had decided a long time ago, she was the one for him. There was no one who could fill the spot in his heart where she had taken up residence the night he had first set his eyes on her.

"Mike! It's been forever since the last time I saw you!" A voice interrupted his thoughts. Do you want your usual?"

Mike was finally aware of his surroundings, the way Kelley was watching him awkwardly, and how his and El's favorite waitress was waiting to take his order. "Yeah, I'll have my usual. Thanks, Naomi."

Naomi peered over her pad of paper. "El's not with you tonight?"

"Um. . . no. . ." Mike rubbed the back of his neck. "This is Kelley, we're in the same class—"

"I'm his—"

Mike really didn't want her to say she was his date. The more people who knew about the breakup, the more of a reality it became. He felt like he was cheating on El, sitting with somebody else in their favorite place to get dinner.

"Tutor!" Mike blurted out before he could stop himself. "I'm her tutor! She's hopeless in science, so I'm helping her out." He couldn't tell if Kelley looked disappointed or angry by his response. "Could I have two Cokes, please?"

"Could I have water instead? I don't drink soda." Kelley leaned back in her seat and looked at Mike. "So, you must come here a lot since they know your order by heart."

He fidgeted with his utensils. "El and I usually grab dinner here on Friday nights before we went to the movies or something."

Kelley made a face, tapping her perfectly manicured fingers on the table and Mike thought about El's chipped nails, usually painted in a variety of colors and wondered how anybody wanted to be so perfect.

"So, I guess Max made a mistake when she suggested I meet you here for when she set us up."

Mike shrugged. "Max has a tendency to act first and think much later about the consequences or what could go wrong. El usually reminds her to take a second before plunging headfirst into something."

Strike 2! Mike thought to himself, he had dropped El's name again in the span of minutes. According to Lucas, constant chatter about an ex with somebody, you were on a date with automatically ended with a 'game over'. Not that he wanted to score touchdowns or whatever the correct phrase was with Kelley.

"Are you enjoying your classes?" Mike asked lamely, grasping for a subject change.

Kelley shrugged. "It's not like I'm majoring in what I want. I wanted to go to New York City and study fashion. My father thought I needed a degree in something a little more practical. So, I'm majoring in engineering."

"El talked about taking fashion too," Mike said before his brain could catch up with his mouth. "She decided to become a child psychologist though. . . so, she could help kids who had similar backgrounds to her."

Kelley pushed her blonde hair behind her ears and nodded. "I guess in real life, you need to do something that's going to give you the right kind of opportunities." she paused. "So, um, how long did you and El date before you broke up?"

"We've been together. . . I mean, we were going to be together for 10 years in November."

Kelley looked like she was calculating numbers in her head, her eyes widened slightly. "That can't be right! You would have had to have gotten together when you were like. . . 12!"

Mike nodded. "We were about 12 when we saw each other for the first time." He hoped she would ask him how they had met because he loved talking about it. But he knew she wouldn't, this was supposed to be a date. He supposed there was a proper protocol for those things, but being with El had been like skipping a few steps.

"Wow. . . 10 years. That's a really long time to be with someone. Weren't you ever curious what other girls were like?"

"No." He still wasn't. But he knew enough about women that he shouldn't say it aloud. Kelley would probably find it more insulting than cute. Although, he didn't think there was nothing wrong with being a little honest. "If I'm telling the truth, I don't know how to be interested in somebody else."

Kelley sighed. "Well, I guess you just have to meet the right person. . . if there is a right person after El."

Mike didn't think Kelley got that there wouldn't be another 'right person', not even if he wound up spending the rest of his life alone.

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When he got home, he felt a little worse for the wear. He'd sat through dinner with Kelley because he had ordered food and had felt bad about wasting a perfectly good cheeseburger. But he could barely swallow, so it didn't matter anyway.

He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. He could hear sad songs coming from El's bedroom. He considered going to talk to her, he had the gut feeling she knew he had been with someone else, and he wanted her to know it didn't mean anything—

"Mike, are you home?" Lucas yelled, interrupting his train of thought.

Mike walked to the living room. "Yeah, I'm back."

Dustin nodded to the boxes of pizza on the worn-out coffee table. "We have leftovers and we waited for you to start Superman if you're still interested in watching it with us like we'd originally planned."

"Sorry I wasn't here," Mike mumbled, shifting his gaze back towards El's room.

"It's okay, man! We know you didn't want to go!" Dustin assured him.

"We told Max not to do it," Lucas added.

"So, how was your date with somebody who wasn't El?" Dustin asked.

"Terrible!" Mike admitted, omitting the part where he had talked about El all night. It had gotten worse as dinner had progressed, he had broken one of Max's cardinal rules about how not to act in front of women and talked about how beautiful his ex was. He could sense how relieved Kelley was when the evening was finally over.

"At least Max was right about one thing," Lucas muttered.

Mike looked confused. "Huh?"

Lucas waved him off. "It doesn't matter."

"Is El okay?"

"She's fine. Except she accidentally found out that you were going out with somebody tonight. So, we've been subjected to every sad song from the last 20 years."

"You know, now would be the perfect time to go and talk to her. Tell her tonight didn't mean anything," Dustin said, prodding him in the ribs with his elbow.

Lucas smirked. "You could even mention it really was Max's idea just in case she's not sure."

"I don't think she wants to talk to me right now. . ."

"You never know unless you try," Dustin told him. "Come on, at least let her know it didn't mean anything," he repeated. "She really needs to hear it tonight."

Mike knew Dustin was right but before he could go and knock on El's door, Max breezed into the house with a paper bag. She caught a glimpse of Mike and a look of guilt flitted across her face.

"I'm, um, going to talk to El!" she said quickly, looking at the ground as she sprinted off. "Glad to see you made it home safely, Wheeler!"

Before anybody could stop her, she was banging on El's door and demanding to be let in. El ignored her pleas by turning up the music so loud it sounded like it could break the stereo. Mike knew this was her way of telling everyone to leave her alone.

Max sighed in exasperation, giving up a few seconds later, giving the boys the ice cream she picked up and putting on Superman without asking. Lucas for his part avoided saying I told you so and went to the kitchen to scoop out bowls of rocky road for everyone.

Towards the end of the movie, Will came home from the library. He tried to get El to turn down the music to no avail. So, he joined the rest of the party in the living room and sat down, cross-legged on the end of the couch.

"Somebody has to fix this," he said.

"I like sleeping as much as you Will, but I'm not sure there's anything we can do," Max replied from her position on the floor.

Will rolled his eyes. "You're the one who drove her to this."

Max held up her empty bowl. "I tried."

"Not hard enough—" Dustin interjected as the phone rang, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Max stood up. "I'll get it," she said, thankful for a chance to get away from her friends because they so clearly did not get it. She was still waiting for Mike to get angry at her at some point for tricking him the way she had. She could feel the guys' eyes on her as she picked up the receiver, so she turned her back on them. "Hi? Oh, hey Kelley!"

"Tell her I'm not here!" Mike hissed loud enough for her to hear as he shrunk into the couch, panic started to set in like Kelley was on the front porch and not in her own apartment.

He had a sickening thought that maybe she wanted to go on another date with him because tonight hadn't been bad enough. He would have to find the words to tell her that he didn't have the capacity to love anyone else. Not the way he loved El, not period.

Mike just didn't know how to let anyone down easily.

TBC. . .

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Author's Note:

Yeah, mark this chapter down as not knowing how to end it but not knowing how to continue it either. Real talk, I almost deleted this and started from scratch. But I'm trying this whole new thing where I don't chase my version of perfection. If you're still with me, I hope you'll tell me what you thought. . .

Until Next Time!

Love,

Holly