Page 48 of Crash & Burn

I don’t deserve them.

I deserve the anger. The frustration. Therage.

That is what I am good at.

Tonight proved it.

Mateo blows out a breath he has been holding and takes a few steps closer to me. My hands are in my pockets, but I feel my nails dig into my palms.

I get why he is accusing me of caring too much about Mia. I have cooled down enough, in more ways than one, to see it clearly too.

I do care about her, and it isn’t the way that Mateo, Theo, or Silas care.

And it can’t happen.

“When you get mad, Eddie, you turn into a different person. You can’t lose it like that. Not if we want to be asked to come back. You are lucky security stepped in when they did, and that the guy was too scared to do anything but listen to them.”

He is right.

If I had punched someone else, someone who came looking for a fight, it could have turned into a brawl in there. The same way I have seen it happened so many times before at Lenny’s.

I just couldn’t control myself.

When I saw that asshole’s hand wrapped around Mia’s arm tightly, it was like I was transported back to my childhood, watching my dad put his hands on my mom, threatening her to stay quiet or he would grab one of Lucia, Carmen, or Isa to take his anger out on.

I was eight the first time I watched it happen, and I remember closing my eyes and praying like my mom taught me. Praying to a god that was allowing my father to take my mom by the arm and throw her into the wall with all his strength. My mom, who put on a happy face the next day, despite wincing every time she picked up one of my sisters. That night, and every night after, I prayed to be like the big, strong characters with super-human strength in the cartoons we watched every morning before school, the cartoons that drowned out my mom crying in her bedroom after my dad left for work.

But I didn’t grow big or strong enough until I was eighteen.

“Don’t worry,” I reassure Mateo, burying the memories and feelings deep down like I always do. “I got heated. I don’t know why you’re reading into it so much.”

I try my hardest to be nonchalant, but I don’t know if it comes off as believable. Talking about Mia as if she isn’t my number one priority is much harder on me than it should be.

But for now, what Mateo doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Mia and I are friends.

Who kissedonce.

And it will never happen again. Itcan’tever happen again.

“I would’ve done it for any girl in that situation,” I explain to further convince him, and I watch as Mateo ponders this. I think he believes it.

“So it wasn’t just because it was Mia?” he asks.

Motherfucker.

How do I explain that I only noticed the situation because it was Mia?

And what does that say about me that I was so concerned about where she was that I couldn’t think straight?

“I would have done it for any girl in that situation,” I repeat.

But Mia isn’t justanygirl, and I hate myself for pretending that she is.

Mateo nods his head, and I think I’m in the clear. “Look, I’m happy to hear you’re looking out for her as a friend, but just make sure itstaysthat way. I’m barely on board with this friendship of yours, but I know it’s good for her to have friends. And I do feel better now knowing you want to protect her the same way I do.”

If he only knew.

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