She Won't Be Lonely Long

"Hannah, I forgot to show you what we bought for you!" Maral squeaked excitedly once they had all flocked back to the car again.

The traffic was bad enough that even Sergio couldn't manuver his way out of it. Maral was in the passengers seat now so Xabi and Hannah were sharing the back.

"You bought me something?" Hannah asked in a low monotone, peering nervously between the opening of the two front seats to evaluate Maral's excitement while she dug through the catastrophy of her over-sized purse.

Once the smooth polyester fabric hit her finger tips, Maral let out a tiny squeak and hastily tossed the garb onto Hannah's lap.

"I already have a jersey though." Hannah said quietly, only paying a quick glance to the wrinkled ball of red nestled in her lap.

"Yeah, you do..." Maral slowly spoke. "You've got Sergio's jersey though."

Hannah narrowed her eyes while unfolding the jersey to hold it in front of her face, the rubbery yellow letters on the back read 14, with ALONSO wrapped above the top of that. Her face shone every shade of red as she let it collapse onto her legs again, peering between Xabi and Maral while Sergio muttured under his breath Spanish curse words, focused on the mess of traffic he was facing.

"Oh, Maral, you shouldn't have..." Hannah whimpered, her eyes darting into her lap when they came to contact with Xabi's.

"You don't like it?" Xabi asked teasingly, a smile growing on his face while she pretended to focus on the patch embroidered to the front of it.

"I like it." she quickly spat defensively. "But she really shouldn't have..."

"I told you I'd buy you something if you were good, and... you weren't very good," her voice rose as she remembered how the day had panned out. "But I still love you." Maral shrugged. "You can wear it to a match."

"I won't be here when football starts." Hannah said as if there were nothing to it, but it was a good slap in the face to Maral.

She turned in her seat to the warmth and nearly unbearable brightness of the sun and was engulfed in thought for the remainder of the ride home. Her plan wasn't working like she wanted it to; She would have to try even harder, although Hannah was already on pins and needles with Maral and Sergio's effort as it was.

Sergio caught up to Maral as she was stomping through their baron garage towards the house and laced fingers with her, hoping that it would help a bit because he knew what Hannah had said was bothering her quite a bit.

"I'm sorry, cariño." Sergio uttered sweetly through her raven-black mane and into her ear.

"It's not over yet." she spat icily, yanking herself from his embrace and swatting him inside.