No One Does It Better

MIKES POV.

She was back, she was actually back. I was still having trouble getting my head around that. It had been around three years since I had seen her, not that I had anyone else to blame but myself for that. But still, she was here and it was great just seeing her face and her smile. She looked a little different… She looked happy.

“Are you alright bro?” Vic asked as he poured himself some water. “You’ve been sitting here for over an hour staring at the table.” He said examining my facial expression. I quickly smiled and nodded my head.
“Yeah, I’m all good.” I sighed getting up as Vic nodded and left the room. My phone started to ring on the table. I picked it up and saw that Shanna was ringing. Running my fingers through my hair, I quickly answered.

“Hi Sha-” I began
“You said you’d be here ten minutes ago.” She interrupted whinging.
“Oh, sorry. I’ll leave now.” I said grabbing my car keys.
“Just hurry up” She said hanging up.
“Bitch” I mumbled as I put my phone in my back pocket. I climbed into my car and started the engine. Going to Shanna’s house was never something I liked to do. She only ever invited me there when her friends were there so that they could see how ‘perfect’ her life was, normally she would just rock up here…uninvited… I couldn’t stand her friends, all they did was sit around and talk about other people or how much their own pathetic lives sucked.
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I knocked on Shanna’s door wishing I was anywhere else but there. She opened the door giving my a wide smile.
“Hi Michael” She said moving in to kiss me. She pulled back scrunching up her face. “I told you to quit smoking and right now you taste like smoke. What the fuck.” She said putting her hands on her hips making me roll my eyes.
“It’s not that fucking easy, Shanna.” I said before walking past her into her house. I heard her scoff from behind me. I walked into the living room and sat on the couch as everyone one of her friends looked at me waiting for me to say something to them. Shanna walked in shortly after me with a big fake smile plastered on her face. She sat on my lap leaning into my chest. All her friends mumbled an ‘aww’ in unison making me roll my eyes.
“So, tell us what we are doing for your birthday Mike?” One of the girls said looking from me to Shanna.
“My birthday isn’t for another 2 months.” I said giving her a bored look.
“Oh, well we should start planning then”
They were obviously stupid if they thought they were going to have something to do with this.
“Maybe Mike could take us all to Vegas” Shanna said clapping her hands excitedly as all of her pitiful friends squealed. I turned confused to face Shanna.
“Wait let me get this straight. You want ME to pay for you and YOUR friends to go to Vegas on MY birthday, which isn’t for another fucking 2 months?” I said angrily. Shanna just looked up at me pouting.
“It’s not like you can’t afford it and you do love me right Mikey?” She said rubbing higher and higher up my leg. She began batting her eye lids at me. GOD I hate when she does that. I looked at her shocked before standing up.
“What the fuck? You’re such a gold digger. I’m leaving. And DON’T call me ‘Mikey’” I said storming out of her house. I was so sick of Shanna taking advantage of my money.
I sat in my car and pulled out my phone, I started angrily dialling Jessie’s number. It only rang through a couple of times before she picked it up.
“Hello?” hearing her voice instantly calmed me down.
“Hi Jessie” I said with a smile breaking across my face.
“What’s up?”
“I was uh, just wondering if you’re busy tonight?” I said quickly.
“Yeah, I’m going out to dinner with a friend, sorry.” She said.
I was starting to wish that I hadn’t asked to save my self from being turned down.
We were both awkwardly silent for a minute before she spoke up.
“I’m free Monday for lunch though...If you want to talk.”
“Oh...Great, Meet at Cafe Charter?” I said smiling
“Yeah, sounds good.” She said.
“Well I’ll see you then” I said getting ready to hang up the phone
“Mike...” She said quickly
“Yeah?”
“.....Do you remember when you wanted to be a photographer?” She said chuckling
I let out a low laugh before answering.
“Yeah, yeah I do” I said shaking my head as she let out a laugh
“You could barely hold the camera still”
“I miss those days” I said quietly.
I heard her softly sigh to herself.
“I’ll see you Monday Mikey”
“Bye Jessie” I said before hanging up.

---

If I was given the opportunity to go back and change one thing I had done. I would go back and change the day that ruined things for Jessie and I. If I would have known that loosing Jessie would be the consequence there would have been no way that things would have went down the same.

Vic walked into my room and sat down at my desk. I stared at him blankly as he ran his fingers through his hair. I knew that I was about to get a lecture from him.
“Did you see Shanna today?” He asked
“Yeah, I went to her house” I said as Vic gave me a look. Vic had never liked Shanna since the first time they met. We were at a party and Vic had introduced himself as my older brother, Shanna then proceeded to ask him how long he had known me for..... Intelligence is a big thing for Vic.
“Did you tell her about Jessie?” he asked cautiously.
“Yeah because that would be a fan-fucking-tastic idea” I said sarcastically. “I’m seeing Jessie Monday though” I added
Vic just smiled.
“I know.”
“How do you know?” I asked confused.
“I wasn’t the one who had a falling out with her Mike. I didn’t lose contact with her.” He said looking me directly in the eye. I rubbed hard at my eyes before collapsing onto my bed.
“So you saw her behind my back when I was sent to live here?” I asked frustrated. Vic shook his head.
“They didn’t let me see her either Mike.” He paused “But we’d text each other almost everyday....She made me promise not to tell you” He said looking a little guilty “I was all she had to talk to Mike and even then she only really wanted to talk to you.”
I wasn’t mad at Vic. I knew he was just trying to do the right thing....as always. I groaned angrily.
“I screwed everything up Vic. She’s not going to forgive me.” I said sitting up looking him the eyes. I could feel tears welling up as he looked back at me with sad eyes.
“She’ll forgive you.” Vic said sounding overly certain.
“How can you be so sure” I said as my voice cracked
“Mike...I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you used to look at her and the same with her. She misses you.”
“Jessie said that?” I asked as Vic shook his head
“She didn’t need to say it.”
“But, she has a boyfriend and she loves him Vic. She’s happy.” I said putting my head in my hands. I heard him stand up and sigh.
“If I remember correctly, Jessie was quite good at acting like something she’s not.” Vic said giving me a smile. I looked at him puzzled. “Our parents never really could tell that she was drunk.” He said giving me a smirk. “Just don’t give up on her bro.” He said playfully hitting my arm before walking out. I let out a chuckle thinking of all the times we came home in the middle of the night forcing ourselves to act sober. They really never could tell.

END MIKES POV

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“I’m bored!” Mike yelled as he threw a pillow from under his head at the TV that was playing 80’s music videos. I laughed as I collapsed onto my bed next to him.
“What is there to do at 2 in the morning?” I asked he tapped his fingers on his stomach to the beat of the song.
“Wanna go for a walk?” He said looking at me.
“Yeah, sure” I said shrugging. “But lets take the window, Dad is asleep on the couch” Mike nodded as he walked over to the window. Getting to the ground from a two story house was a lot harder than it seemed in movies. I swear I stood on the roof for a good 15 minutes as Mike yelled at me from the ground to hurry up. He ended up having to climb back up to help me get down.
“You seriously suck” He said laughing after we finally started walking.
“Not my fault that I didn’t want to die” I said shrugging my shoulders. “Where are we going to go?” I asked him. He started looking around us.
“How about there?” He said pointing at fence with a sign on it. Mike walked up to it as he read out loud what it said on it. “Private property. Intruders will be persecuted” He looked at me as he raised his eyebrows “sound fun?”
“Hell yeah” I said as he walked closer to me. He put out his hands for me stand on as a boost. Once I got over he jumped over the fence with ease. I looked at him shocked.
“Not all of us are graced with my beautiful height” He said proudly
“what do you think this is?” He added as we looked around. It was too dark to see anything besides a path in front of us. Mike grabbed my hand and started walking.

“So I heard that you and Harry Johnson are becoming awfully close” Mike stated awkwardly.
“I, Uh yeah I guess, he kind of asked me to go out on a date with him.” I said rubbing the back of my neck. Mike let out a noise of frustration.
“Please don’t go” he said looking me in the eye “I don’t trust him, and he’s not good enough for my Jessie anyway.”
Normally when Mike told me not to see boys I would just get angry but he would always end up being right. This time was different. Something about him calling me ‘his’ made everything inside of me freeze.
“Okay, but I already told dad I was going out” I said.
“Then we’ll have an old fashioned movie marathon at my place” He said as he pulled me into his lanky side. We heard voices from the bushes and saw torches being shone around. Mike grabbed on to my hand tighter as we broke out in a sprint further down the path. We ran for around 10 minutes before we were confronted by a small cliff. We climbed through some bushes and sat on the edge of the cliff. “That was close” Mike said out of breath “Imagine what my parents would say if we got caught.” He said chuckling.
“I think you would end up in hospital”
“I think I would end up in a morgue.” Mike said linking his hand with mine. “They’d probably take you too.”
“We’re in this together baby” I joked winking at him as he laughed.
“Do you realise in 6 months we will never have to go back to school again. We’ll be free” Mike said smiling to himself. I nodded looking up at him.
“You better not go travel the world without me Mr Fuentes” I said as his eyes met mine.
“What’s the point of travelling if I don’t have you there?” He said brushing a piece of hair out of my face. I didn’t move an inch as his face moved closer to mine. There were only centimetres between our lips when torches were shone in our faces.

--

Mike and I exchanged scared looks as we sat in the back of a police car. “You do realise that being on private government property is against the law? The police man said looking back at us.
“We um, uh. Well we...” Mike stuttered looking at me with wide eyes.
“We weren’t aware that it was private government property sir” I said cutting in. The police man just scoffed as he pulled into the station. We were lead into a room with Mike’s parents sitting talking to an officer. They gave both Mike and I looks that could of made Hitler cry. Mike turned to look at me.
“We are so fucked” he whispered under his breath. I nodded knowing we were in for it.