“No,” I say, after a few beats.
An uncomfortable silence passes over us.
“Garcia, look at me.”
I do. His eyes, usually warm, usually cheeky, are hardened.
“Has he asked you out yet?”
My silence is all he needs. His jaw tenses, and that’s when the defensiveness flares up within me. Why is he so pressed about this? Since when did he care so much?
The thread in me snaps. I can’t bear Marlon’s disappointment in me.
“Since when did you care so much about what I do with my love life?” I say, my words sharp. Cutting.
My tone surprises him, his eyes widening, before furrowing into a glare.
“Sinceyouseem to be unable to figure out who’s actually into you or not,” Marlon bites back.
I lurch back. The flame in my chest suddenly grows rampant. It’s no longer warming me. It’s scorching me inside, and I have no other way to release it but through my mouth.
“Shut up,” I say, voice trembling.
“I’m sorry to break it to you Garcia, but if you need me to spell it out, Rafayel isn’t intoyou. Not in the way you want him to be.”
The door opens, and I hear Ria step out.
“Are you guys -”
“And what wouldyouknow?” I snap, but I’m unable to keep my voice steady. Tears spring to my eyes, and I stand up. I need to get away from Marlon, and his words.
“Garcia…”
Marlon’s voice has grown softer, but the walls around me are still closing in. I turn to face the shelves, shaking my head.
“He’s not your perfect romance. He’s not your perfectanything.You’ve got to stop reaching for this idea that everything will fall together like in your books, in your movies, just because of one thing that seemed to have gone right.”
“What the hell would you know?” I bite out, turning to meet his eyes. “You couldn’t even keep Christine.”
I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips. But the damage is done, the fire has burnt, evident in Marlon’s eyes and the way his body tenses. I expect him to fight back. To hurt me just as much. I wish he did.
Instead, he just steps back. A veil falls over his expression.
“Marlon…” I start.
“I just wanted to say, you deserve better.”
There is no malice in his tone, but it is hard. Cold.
“You want a love like your parents, like the ones you read about. Trust me, Rafayel isn’t that. No one would write a story with that.”
He turns to the couch, collecting the car keys that had fallen from his pocket. Without facing me, he says, “Thank you, for hanging out tonight. I hope you feel better.”
I don’t stop him as he reaches the stairs. The game is still paused on the main menu, waiting for us to begin another round. I hear him say goodbye to my parents in the living room, their TV blasting the new Keanu Reeves action movie much too loudly to have heard any of what has just been said up here. I listen to his car’s engine start up, and hear him drive away.
Marlon and I have fought many times in our lives. We’ve fought over him pushing in the food line at family gatherings. We’ve fought over who got the last ice cream stick in the freezer. We fought over maths questions. But this is the first fight that left me feeling numb. Alone.
Ria is still standing there, frozen, unsure. Turning away, I head toward my bedroom, but she follows me soon after.
