So the Season's Changed Your Face

By February, my dad had completely vacated the house – not a single sock or tie was left behind. In addition to this, he had miserably lost the custody battle, though it seems as if he relinquished me to my mom rather than actually lost. One has to fight in order to lose, and he hadn’t done much fighting. He kept saying he worked too long and too hard, making him a physically absent father, or some shit like that.

Needless to say, the judge ruled in my mom’s favor and granted her full custody. I am pretty resentful of this – I would rather live with my absentee father than my bat-shit crazy mom, who failed to mention she had Borderline Personality Disorder to the judge.

In the court of law, an emotionally absent parent is far better than a physically absent parent anyway.

And while I could have gone back to emancipate myself, I knew deep down that I couldn’t make it on my own and that I would eventually go crawling back to my mom, starving and lice-ridden.

While I sat through numerous court proceedings and watched my parents fight over finances, I discovered something quite disturbing about myself. I came to the realization that I had feelings for Mike. Actual feelings. As I tried to ignore my parents’ bickering, I realized that the only thing that would have made me feel better at that precise moment was Mike. I would have called him and asked him to come over once I had gotten home, but I knew that if he had come over, I would have most definitely done something incredibly stupid.

When it comes down to it, I value our friendship over anything else. I wasn’t about to screw that up with my stupid feelings.

In order to keep my mind off of my developing and very frightening feelings for Mike, I didn’t exactly say no when Sean Van Vleet (yeah, that Sean) asked me if I wanted to “catch a flick on Saturday”.

In my defense, I had nothing better to do on this particular Saturday evening. Mike, who just recently joined a band called Drive Like June, suddenly remembered he had band practice on Saturday and therefore would not be available to entertain me. I could go to the movies with Sean, get some dinner, and perhaps have a good time, or I could stay at home with my drugged up mom, who was getting increasingly testy and irrational as time went by.

Needless to say, I picked the former. We watched Big Fat Liar because Sean wasn’t too keen on seeing Crossroads. Afterwards, he took me to a diner and we shared a plate of chili cheese fries and complained about high school.

I had fun, sure. Sean is a funny and charismatic fellow. But he’s not…my type (and you thought I was going to say Mike!). But as Mike was getting busier and busier on the weekends, I went on more and more dates with Sean. We weren’t together, per se, but we were spending many Saturday nights together. It was nice to get out of the house and to be around someone who wasn’t either raging mad or comatose.

I did miss Mike very much, though. I always enjoyed his company.

Sure, I saw him at school and still ate lunch with him, but something was drastically different between us. I can’t help but feel it is my fault, but I don’t want to bring it up in case something stupid comes out of my mouth instead. I chalked it up to Mike being wrapped up in his band – he had gotten like this when Jodie was in their prime – but I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t just the music that was keeping him away from me.

There was something different in the way he greeted me and said goodbye to me. And his demeanor around Sean was a bit colder than normal. Up until now, Sean and Mike had always gotten along swimmingly. Mike could hardly stand being in the same room as Sean these days.

At first blush, this seemed to be jealously. Just the thought of Mike being jealous of Sean makes my heart flutter – but it can’t be. This is nothing more than me hoping Mike likes me in the same way I like him. I’m just imagining things.

Though, now that I think of it, nothing else provides an answer as to why Mike glares daggers into Sean from across the room. Whenever Mike and I meet eyes, I shoot him a questioning look, as if to ask, “Why the fuck are you being such a douchewad to Sean?”, but he always shakes his head, indicating that I should return to paying attention to the lecture.

Again, I don’t bring it up.

I made the conscious decision to call Mike, seeing as we haven’t had a proper telephone conversation in a little over a month.

It rang once, twice, three times, and then Mrs. Carden answered the phone. I hadn’t really spoken to her since New Year’s Day, and was slightly embarrassed to be talking to her now. “Hi, Mrs. Carden, it’s Vivi.”

“Oh, hi, Vivi!” Mrs. Carden said, sounding somewhat surprised. “We haven’t seen you in awhile. I was starting to think you and Mike had had a falling out or something.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, so I offered what I hope sounded like an amused laugh. “Yeah, no, I guess we’ve just been too busy to hang out. I was wondering if he was home or, you know, busy.”

“Yeah, he’s home. Probably just doing some homework. I’ll put him on,” she said. There was silence for a moment, and then I heard her knock on Mike’s door. The mouthpiece was obviously covered but I could still hear a muffled conversation.

Mike evidently wasn’t too busy, because I heard him take the phone and close the door. “Hey,” he said coolly, though I could tell this was forced.

“Hey there, stranger,” I responded, smiling like a fool to myself. “How have you been?”

“Good? Not much has changed since yesterday,” he answered, and I knew exactly the facial expression he was wearing – he would be squinting right now, his brow furrowed, his right eyebrow slightly raised in confusion.

“I feel like we haven’t talked in forever!” I exclaimed.

“We just talked in US History today,” he commented.

“You know what I mean!”

“Yeah, sorry about not really, you know,” he said, sounding sincerely apologetic. “I’ve just been so busy with-”

“Your band, yeah, I know,” I finished for him, adding a soft laugh so he knew I wasn’t giving him a hard time. “Too busy even for your best friend?” I joked, not able to help myself.

“I was under the impression you spent your Saturday nights with Sean,” he replied, his voice unnaturally even. “How is Sean, by the way?”

“Eh,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Just, ‘eh’?” Mike asked; I could hear his smile. “That doesn’t sound too good.”

“I mean, he’s a great guy,” I tried to correct myself quickly, but Mike made a noise of disbelief. “He’s just…I don’t know. I don’t really like him like that. I mean, I wouldn’t date him.”

“Then why are you dating him?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “It’s something to do. And I get dinner out of it, so that’s nice. And we aren’t dating; we’re just hanging out.”

“So you’re using the guy?” Mike asked, sounding very much amused.

“Well if you want to put it so bluntly, yes, I suppose I am using the guy,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “But it’s not like either one of us is emotionally invested in one another. I mean, we’re just having fun.”

“‘Just having fun’?” Mike asked. “Do you mean fun or fun?”

“Fun, asshole,” I responded, not amused. “I don’t fuck guys I’m not interested in.”

“It was a joke, geez,” Mike said quickly, his teasing manner disappearing instantly from his voice. “I was kidding.”

The conversation was not going as planned. Desperately, I tried to wheel it back onto level playing ground. “So, do you have plans for this evening?”

“I’m supposed to have practice with the guys-”

“I miss you,” I said before my brain could tell me not to.

Mike, seemingly jarred by my comment, did not respond for a moment or two. “Um, uh, yeah, I miss you too, Vivi, um, uh-”

“So…can we do something, then?” I asked, cutting off his annoying and somewhat endearing stammering.

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Mike said, still stumbling over his words. “Of course we can. I just have to talk to the guys. I’ll have to call Tim to tell him I can’t make it to practice or make up some other lie.”

“I don’t want to come between you and the band-”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Mike cut me off, “It’s completely okay. You’re right; we haven’t hung out in awhile. We haven’t hung out in a long time. What did you have in mind? We can do anything you want.”