Unplanned | M. Martinez

Pairing: Mario x Diaz!Reader

Timeframe: Season 2

Summary: Y/n and Mario must tell their families about her pregnancy.

masterlist

PART ONE

A/N: This was so much fun to write (also INCREDIBLY sad for me, but that’s moreso bc I’m a very emotional person lmao).

This is a long overdue second part to Planned. 

I initially intended to write this and then write Rewrite as a part 3, but I ultimately decided to make Rewrite a stand-alone because of how much detail I wanted to put into it. 

Think of this, then, as a prelude of sorts :)

My hands shook as I entered the door to my boyfriend’s dorm. Mario was expecting me over to have dinner and watch a movie with him while his roommate was out of town. I would have arrived sooner if it had not been for the notification I got alerting me that I had not had my period in over two months.

“Mario,” I said worriedly the minute I entered his room, slamming the door shut behind me. He was approaching me for our usual kiss ‘hello’ but stopped in his tracks when he realised how panicked I was. “I’m late.”

“What are you talking about?”

I gulped. Mario was a smart guy, even if his brain had the tendency to lag for a minutes. It only took him a few seconds to realise what I was referring to, and what it could mean for us.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” I sighed.

It had not yet began to settle in me until that moment. All I remembered was reading my notification and practically sprinting to Mario’s dorm. He must have noticed my anxiety grow, because he quickly wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

“Hey,” Mario whispered as he rubbed my back soothingly. He then pulled away and placed his hands on the side of my face. I could tell he was scared. Terrified even. Yet, he was trying so hard to be brace for the both of us. “We’ll- We’ll go to Walgreens, get some tests and… and we’ll figure it out from there.”

His words helped keep me from spiralling. There would be plenty of time for that later. About 8 whole months, to be precise. For now, we needed to be sure, and Mario was right. We needed to make the trip to Walgreens first, before we could do any of the freaking out I had already made a head-start on.

“Ok,” I replied, nodding as placed my hands over my eyes momentarily. Mario reached for his wallet and then for my hand, squeezing it gently. “Yeah, let’s go.”

I tried to keep my head clear while he and I sped to the nearest Walgreens to our campus. Test first, panic later, I told myself. However, the closer we got to Walgreens the more I became conscious of just how hard my heart was pounding against my chest. 

Was that a sign of pregnancy?

Mario would catch me beginning to spiral and do his best to calm me down. He squeezed my hand as we dodged pedestrians and oncoming vehicles. He kissed my temple softly as we waited in line. Even when we got home, he pulled me into his embrace briefly before I went into the girls’ bathroom and took the tests. 

Once I was done doing my part for the four different tests we ended up buying, Mario and I sat on the floor of his dorm room and waited for the timer on his phone to sound. He had ordered Chinese takeout for the both of us, but by the time we got back it was already cold, which made no difference.

We were far too antsy to hold anything down.

“Hey,” Mario whispered. My head was rested on his shoulder and our hands were intertwined on my lap. “No matter what happens… I’m with you all the way.”

I let out a weak chuckle and turned my head to kiss the fabric over his shoulder lightly. I knew where Mario’s loyalty laid. I always knew. However, him reaffirming it still gave me some ounce of peace in the whirlwind of panic I was in. That both of us were in.

He reached for phone to check how much time we had left. 

“Two more minutes,” he said. It felt like we had been sitting there in anticipation for a lifetime. I could not tell if I wanted time to move slower or faster. All I knew was that I was not yet ready to make any decisions.

If it were negative, Mario and I would be relieved, I knew that much. Maybe we would laugh about it in a couple months. Maybe we would be extra cautious. Maybe we would even go on to tell our friends about it by the time we were graduated and working in fancy white collar jobs.

If it were negative, we could stay in college.

As guilty as I felt doing it, I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped for just one line. Just one line on all four tests. Even when the sound of the timer rang and filled the previously dauntingly silent room, I continued to hope.

“You check two and I’ll check the other two?”

Mario nodded before reaching for two of the tests, just as I grabbed the other two. I inhaled sharply as I glanced between the two in my hand. I wanted to believe there was just the one prominent line, but I could not deny the faint second one. Not even if I wanted to.

Looking up, Mario and I glanced at the tests we held. I sighed, seeing no point in holding my breath anymore. There were eight lines altogether. Mario squeezed my hand once more, and I wished it brought me comfort.

But it didn’t.

***

The week after we found out, Mario and I packed our things and headed back to Freeridge before the New Year. On the car ride, we did nothing but talk. He practised telling the news to his parents, and I practised telling it to Oscar. 

It was all we could do. 

By the time we reached our neighbourhood, it was dusk. The streetlights were on and people seemed to be gathering at their respective households for when midnight eventually struck.

“Pregnant?!”

After Mario broke the news to his parents mere minutes after we made our surprise entrance, Geny pulled us into the kitchen. This time, I was the one who reached for Mario’s hand and squeezed it gently. His mother was the one person he was most scared to tell, with my brother coming in at a close second.

“Have you two thought about what you’re gonna do?” Geny was technically whispering, but it was just as piercing as when she yelled. I hated the thought of her being mad at us, so I could hardly imagine how Mario was feeling. Much to my surprise, when I looked over at him, he was holding it together.

“We’ve been saving,” he explained calmly. He and I had been putting aside as much money as we could so we could find accomodation together for the following school year. It seemed my birth control and his split condom had other plans for that money. “And I’m gonna look for a job, and Y/n will too after the baby comes.”

Geny huffed. I took it she was somewhat relieved that we were taking my pregnancy seriously. She glanced between the two of us and sighed.

“I am not happy about this,” she began. “In fact, I’m very disappointed… In both of you.”

My breath hitched. It was painful to know her disappointment extended to me as well, especially considering she was the only mother figure I had in my life. Yet, beneath that pain was a small joy. If she was disappointed in me, it meant she had high expectations for me to begin with.

Even with everything that was happening, that meant a lot to me. From the way she looked at me as she spoke, I knew it carried much weight for her too.

“But I’m glad you have a plan,” Geny continued. I glanced up at Mario and smiled when I noticed how quickly his shoulders relaxed. “… And I’m glad you came home.”

Mario kissed his mother’s cheek swiftly before leaving the kitchen. In hindsight, we should have known Geny would come around, but our nerves had us questioning everything on the car ride home. Just as I turned to follow Mario, Geny reached for my and kept me from leaving.

“Mija,” she said softly, prompting me to turn around. It was a relief to her call me that. Part of me feared she would not be so kind to me after finding out I was the reason her son had to leave college.

Geny met my eyes with concern. There was a strange softness to her demeanour now that it was just the two of us. 

“Have you told your brother yet?”

I shook my head. My stomach dropped at the realisation that the hard part was not yet over. Maybe it was for Mario, whose mother meant the world to him. But for me, the girl who had no parents or grandparents present in her life, the har part was yet to come.

“I’m telling him after dinner.”

Geny nodded, before pursing her lips. For a moment, she was stared blankly as she thought. 

“If anything happens…” Before she could specify, Geny quickly stopped herself. Instead, she gripped my hands tightly and looked me in the eye with sincerity. “This is your home too.”

If it were not for the wild animals doing jumping jacks in the pit of my stomach, I would have been greatly comforted by Geny’s promise of a place to stay. However, the prospect of needing to crash there brought me great terror. 

In the midst of all my spiralling, I never once considered the possibility that Oscar would throw me out of our home. When we gathered around the dining table and ate, all I could do was count down the minutes before I would have to face my fate.

After dinner, Mario and I walked with Cesar to my house. My little brother must have known I was a nervous wreck, because he tried to keep my mind occupied by catching me up on what he and his friends had gotten up to over the fall. 

However, by the time we reached our doorstep, Cesar was silent. When Oscar opened the door and let us in, my little brother bolted towards his bedroom and locked his door. Mario and I sat with Oscar at the kitchen table. 

“Why are you back so early?” 

He greeted us somewhat gleefully when he opened the door, but it must have dawned on him that we were back for a reason, because his expression returned to its natural state: half-stoic and half-brooding.

“We- uhm,” I coughed nervously as I shuffle in my seat. I looked over to Mario for moral support, but he looked petrified as he watched my brother chop the vegetable he was using for tamales. “We needed to tell you something… To tell everyone something.”

Oscar did not acknowledge my words. Instead, he just continued chopping. I knew it was him waiting to hear the new fully before deciding how he would react. I always felt nervous when he did that, but it did not come close to how anxious I felt that day.

“I’m pregnant.”

Finally, Oscar put his knife down and stared blankly at the vegetables on his chopping board. I waited for him to say something, but when he remained silent I opted to continue explaining mine and Mario’s situation.

“We found out last week,” I continued. “That’s why we’re back.”

As scared as I was, I inched forward and leaned over the table, trying to get a closer look at Oscar. He was not the most talkative person, but I had never witnessed him be so quiet, especially to me, of all people.

“Say something,” I whispered. 

I desperately needed him to lecture me, because I knew after the lecture he would do everything he could to support me. Even if he knew nothing about pregnancy or about babies. He would be there for me, because even though we grew up with no parents, we always had each other. 

“Mano,” I called out, hoping it would provoke a reaction. “… please.” 

Slowly, Oscar looked up and met my gaze with a steely glare. He inhaled sharply, flaring his nostrils as he did so. I instinctively moved back.

“This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

His voice was not loud. He was not shouting. And yet, I had to keep myself from flinching, because his tone was so cold.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I said uneasily, trying to muster a smile despite how tense the room was. Poor Mario did not dare move a muscle. “Remember the time I left my sunglasses on the barbecue?”

“You think you’re funny?”

“I think I’m trying to ease the tension,” I corrected. 

Perhaps it was a miscalculation on my part. Perhaps a pregnancy announcement was not the appropriate moment for an anecdote, but it was a knee-jerk reaction. I just could not understand.

“Why are you being like this?”

“How’d you think I was gonna be, Y/n?” Now he was beginning to shout. “You’re barely nineteen! You realise that’s the same age mom was when she had me.”

“Woah,” I flinched. 

I thought we had moved past bringing up our parents in the heat of our arguments. I thought we decided they inflicted enough trauma on the two of us and Cesar. I thought we agreed that we did not need to inflict any more onto each other.

“You’ve ruined your life,” Oscar spat, expressing absolutely no remorse for comparing me to our mother. My gaze was beginning to turn into a glare. “You realise that?”

I quickly glanced at Mario and he appeared just as startled as I felt. Though it was a well-known fact that Oscar was an intimidating person, when it came to me that was hardly the case. It seemed he was choosing this moment to prove us both wrong.

Disgruntled, Oscar rose from his seat and turned to head towards the sink. Just as he did, he quickly turned back to face me. I braced myself for his next words. How else was he gonna be cruel and completely humiliate me in my own home and in front of my boyfriend?

“And after everything,” he hissed. “After everything I’ve done for you… to make sure you didn’t end up the same way…”

I scoffed before he could finish his sentence, knowing exactly where he was going with it. I could recount every lecture he gave me about not ending up like our parents. About trying to be better. 

The irony in him lecturing me about following in our mother’s footsteps when he was being so masterfully cruel to me in a way that brought me back to the few times our dad made an appearance.

“Fuck you,” I shouted at him as I stood from my chair. “I didn’t realise we were keeping track of the things we’ve done for each other.”

“Don’t turn this around on me,” Oscar snarled. Of course, he could never do any wrong. Not in his eyes. “You’re the one who fucked up. And now I gotta clean your mess just like I always have to.”

He turned and headed towards the kitchen, which only infuriated me more. He had grown too accustomed to having his way. To being surrounded by people who worshipped the ground he walked on. I furrowed my brows in frustration as I watched him continue on with making his food, like we were suddenly don with our conversation just because he wanted it to be so. 

How could he say that to me? After everything? I could not let him have the last word. Just as I went to follow him, Mario’s hand quickly gripped mine. 

“Y/n-”

I shook my hand free and approached my big brother, much to Mario’s dismay. I knew he was trying to defuse the situation, but it was not the simple. It was clear this was not about us anymore. It was between me and my brother.

“No… You don’t get to talk to me like this, Oscar,” I barked as I walked up to him. He was going to regret ever teaching me to fight back. “You don’t have a monopoly over making sacrifices or cleaning messes.”

Had he forgotten all the times I covered him? Lying to the cops when they questioned me about what he was up to.  Lying to Child Protective Services about his whereabouts so they would not put Cesar in the system. Singlehandedly keeping the fort down when he was locked up.

Never once did I hold it against him, or try to make him feel guilty for putting me in a difficult position time and time again.

When Oscar turned to face me, I sighed defeatedly. As horrible as he was being, I could not keep arguing with him. Not when I already had so much to deal with. 

“I know I messed up,” I admitted. “… and I’m not asking you to be happy about all this. I’m asking you to just support me… Just be my big brother.”

He had a tendency to forget that. He spent so many years fulfilling fatherly responsibilities for Cesar, sometimes he would forget I was not a little kid. That I did not need him to be anything more than what he was for me. My brother.

“From where I stand,” Oscar sneered. “I don’t have a sister anymore.”

My face fell, as did my stomach. I knew he would be mad. I knew he might even say some things that he would later regret and apologise for, but there was no way I could have prepared myself for that. And there was no coming back from it either.

He took a step closer to me and it took everything in me not to cower and move back. I refused to give him that satisfaction. He puffed his chest and glared at me like I was some dude him and his gang mates were trying to intimidate. 

“Take your shit and don’t ever come back here again.”

My eyes watered immediately, but thankfully he turn his back on me and headed for his room. With blurred vision, I trailed after him. I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to scold him for treating me like this when I always had his back when things went south for him.

When we were halfway down the hallway, all I could think about was how small he made me feel. How much joy he seemed to take in making me feel ashamed for something I never asked to happen. How he treated his stupid homies with twice the respect and twice the dignity than he did me.

“Y’know it’s too bad I’m not a Santo,” I shouted at him, hoping he would stop and face me, but he just kept walking. “Maybe then you’d have my back.”

I was so sure that would get a reaction out of him, but I should have known he had too much pride for that. He slammed his door right in my face and left me with nothing left to do but scream at him from where I stood. 

Eventually Mario came and comforted me before helping me gather the rest of my belongings from my bedroom. Eventually Cesar came out to help take my things to Mario’s. But, even when I walked out the door for the last time and headed down the street, I hoped Oscar would come out and say something.

He never did.

***

When April eventually rolled by, I gave up hoping that Oscar would come around. Lugging around a tiny human everywhere I went helped me take my mind off it at times, but as my baby grew so did my worries. I quickly found myself haunted, everywhere I was, by the way Oscar compared me to our mom.

Even as I washed the dirty dishes, one of the few chores Geny and abuelita allowed me to do, I could not keep my worries at bay. It did not help that everyone was out of the house leaving me and my thoughts.

Thankfully, by the time I got to cleaning the dirty plates, the front door burst open and in came Mario bearing food from his job at Dwayne’s barbecue joint.

“Hey, baby,” he called out as he approached the table to put the food down.

“Hey,” I said mindlessly as I turned face him. Just as I did so the wet plate in my hand fell and shattered when it hit the ground, prompting Mario to race to the kitchen.

“Woah, be careful.”

Mario immediately searched for the broom, while I did my best to not cry. As much as I blamed it on the pregnancy hormones, I knew it was not fair to attribute all my emotional outbursts to the fact that I was growing life inside me. A lot of it had to do with my fight with Oscar and my own fears, but it was just easier for me to avoid talking about it.

“Oh my god,” I cried, clasping my hand over my mouth as I wept. The poor plate did not even see it coming. That was upsetting to me on its own, but I knew there was so much more to it than that. Mario did too.

“Baby, it’s ok,” he assured as he swiftly swept and disposed the shards of broken ceramic. “This plate was from Costco. I’m pretty sure my mom has more just like it stored in the garage somewhere.”

Perhaps that alleviated my grief over the broken plate, but it did not exactly fix my relationship with my brother nor did it calm my anxieties about motherhood.

“Y/n? Baby, what’s wrong?”

“… I don’t know,” I whispered, frustrated by it all.

Before I knew it, Mario planted himself on the kitchen floor and leaned his back against the white refrigerator. Smiling, he patted the empty spot beside him.

“Sit with me.”

“I’m not gonna be able to get up again,” I reminded him, as I gestured towards my protruding abdomen. I struggled just getting up from the living room couch. 

“I’ll help you up,” Mario insisted. “Just sit with me for bit.”

I sighed before kneeling down so I could sit beside him. 

“Is this about Oscar?”

“Yeah,” I answered sheepishly. We only talked about what had happened a couple times, and each time I refused to let on how much it was affecting me. Truthfully, it was because if I admitted to that I would eventually have to admit to everything else that was weighing on me. “Him and… everything else.”

I turned to Mario and he did not say anything. Instead he placed his hand over mine and stayed quiet so I could talk. I smiled gratefully, before inhaling sharply. I knew he liked how emotional I was as a pregnant woman but I, for one, hated how suffocated I was by all of feelings that bombarded me constantly.

“This isn’t the life I wanted,” I huffed, tilting my head back so I could stare at the ceiling. It was easier than looking Mario in the eye. I was never good as this. Not like he was. “I always hoped by the time we had kids we’d be able to give them what we never got…”

Yet, there I was, sentencing my kid to the same life I had on the same streets that swallowed up so many of the people in my life. 

“Now I just feel like my mom.”

Young and stupid. Diving headfirst into motherhood when I was nowhere near ready for the responsibility that came with it. Maybe I would end up just like her too. Maybe my baby would grow to resent me just as I did her.

“Baby don’t say that,” Mario spoke. I sniffled as I wiped my eyes. I was not expecting him to get it. How could he?

“We just worked so hard to get out,” I whimpered, thinking back to all the work Mario and I put into school and into our college applications. “And I promised Cesar I would come back and get him out too… but now we’re back with nothing to show for it.”

“I know,” Mario whispered defeatedly.

Everyone in Freeridge had such high hopes for the two of us when we left for college. Everyone was expecting us to make it and to come back and share our joy and our wealth with the people who raised us. Mario and I had every intention of doing that, yet there we were.

“You know the hardest part wasn’t even coming back and telling everyone,” I said honestly. “… It was the look on Oscar’s face when he said he didn’t have a sister anymore.”

Mario could not say anything. Instead he just held my hand and sat in silence with me for a bit. Fortunately, that was all I wanted him to do.

***

Near the end of the month, Ruby had the bright idea of hosting a baby shower. He initially envisioned a huge party with all of Mario’s distant relatives, but after a bit of bribery and begging he eventually agreed to keep it small.

“Ok,” Ruby began as he wheeled in a huge chalkboard he apparently ‘borrowed’ from their high school. “Now we’re each gonna nominate a name for the baby.”

“Oh and just a disclaimer,” Mario said before his little brother could continue. “Y/n and I reserve the right not to choose any of the names you give us.”

While we were mostly confident the kids would come up with decent ideas for  names, we felt it necessary to cover our bases. From what Jamal told me during our many conversations while he waited for Ruby, they got up to a lot over the past year.

“So why are we doing this?” Jasmine asked.

“Because, we’ve been struggling to come up with names for a while,” I answered. “So take this seriously, guys, okay?”

“I’ll go first,” Ruby announced as he reached for the chalk. He pulled out a foot stool and stood on it so he write his name ideas at the top of the board. “If it’s a girl, Marisol. If it’s a boy, Ruby junior.”

I took one look at Mario and bursted out laughing. I knew Ruby was completely serious, as so did Mario, which made it all the more amusing. Before Monse could rise from her seat and announce her name ideas next, there was a loud know at the door.

“I’ll get it.”

Usually I would not have volunteered to answer the door, but it was still daylight and we were expecting abuelita to arrive at any minute with some extra food. However, when I opened the door and realised who it was, I quickly regretted my decision.

“Can we talk?”

Oscar glanced inside before speaking. His tone was quiet, almost sheepish, and I knew then that he was here to make amends. However, that did not mean I could not give him a hard time.

“I thought I wasn’t your sister anymore,” I sneered.

His expression grew even more pained.

“Please?”

I had no idea that word was even in his vocabulary. As hurt and annoyed as I was, I knew I was grateful he was here and that we were speaking to each other the for the first time in months. Closing the door behind me, I waddled towards the seats on the porch and Oscar sat beside me.

“I’m sorry,” he said not a second after he sat himself down. That was yet another phrase I never knew he had the capacity to say. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t have.”

I studied his expression closely. It was nice he was apologising, but that did not exactly explain why he acted to cruelly towards me. I wanted that just as much as I wanted the apology.

“When you told me, I just,” Oscar paused for a minute and thought. After a moments deliberation, he continued on. “I never expected this to happen to you.”

“Neither did I,” I shrugged.

I understood his sentiment, I did. No one expects the girl with the full-ride scholarship and the pressure of overcoming generational poverty to get knocked up. However, if I was able to wrap my head around it enough to get on board while carrying the damn baby, Oscar could have at least accepted it without calling me a failure. 

“I’m just used to you being the one keeping things together,” he added defeatedly.

“That doesn’t make what you did ok,” I argued.

“… I know,” he said bashfully.

“Oscar, look, Mario… he has his mom, his dad and abuelita. But for me, I just have you. You’re all I’ve got. I need to know I can count on you.”

My brother nodded. I could tell it pained him when I phrased the situation like that. It hurt to know that Mario had three people in his corner, yet I had no one. 

“You know, before I was ever Santo. Before I was ever anything… I was your big brother,” Oscar explained, a small smile peeking through as he spoke. “That’s how it will always be.” 

I smiled as I thought about how inseparable we were growing up. Before we had to take on the responsibility of looking after Cesar. Before it hit us that we were practically on our own. Before we had to grow up too quickly. Before all of that, we were just two siblings strolling along the streets of our block like it was our empire.

We found ourselves staring out onto those very streets again from where we sat. Maybe it would not be such a bad place for my kid. 

“I love you, mana,” Oscar said, his eyes still glued to the road in front of us.

“I love you too,” I replied.

Just as I spoke, a mother and her daughter drove by in a battered station wagon, and it sent me back to the worst corners of my childhood memories. Of my mom driving me around in her station wagon and me trying to savour the feeling of her presence before she upped and left again.

”… What if I’m just like them?” I asked quietly.

“You won’t be,” Oscar answered, not a beat after I finished speaking.

“How can you be so sure?”

“You won’t be.”

It should have been enough. It should have been enough to convince me. However, even after we got up and returned to the baby shower, I could not shake the feeling that it was my destiny. That, no matter what I did, I would end up becoming some abominable mix of parents and raise hurt and traumatised kids just as mine did.

I placed my hand on my belly and breathed deeply. In just a matter of months, my fate would unfold. All I could do was hope my baby would make it.

“How are the baby names coming along?” I asked cheerfully, forcing a smile as I glanced at the chalkboard that was now halfway filled with baby names.

“Cesar’s up now,” Mario explained to me as he got out of his seat so I could sit down. I thanked him quietly as I took lowered myself onto his chair and he stood behind me with his hands hovering lazily over my shoulders.

“Ok, if it’s a girl, Elena,” Cesar said as he wrote his idea on the board. “And if it’s a boy… Manuel.”

I grinned. I could not place my finger on it, but something about that name felt right. Call it intuition or instinct. Either way, it was definitely far more appealing than Ruby junior.

“Manuel?” I repeated, before looking up at Mario who matched my expression. It seemed we had at least one name banked. “I really like that one.”

Mario leaned forward and kissed my temple softly. As the baby shower continued, I found myself finally able to cast my worries aside if at least for the time being. I was convinced there would be plenty of time for that later. 

NEXT PART

The 1 | M. Martinez

Pairing: Mario x Turner!Reader

Timeframe:Season 1 - 2

Summary:[Based on The 1 - Taylor Swift] If only she had gone to college with Mario, or if only he stayed in Freeridge with her. Maybe then, they wouldn’t have broken up. Maybe then, he would not be at his parent’s doorstep with his pregnant girlfriend.

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A/N: this is a part of my folklore/evermore-inspired fic collection

It was sunny in Freeridge. Y/n approached the booth Mario sat at and placed two glasses of house lemonade on the table. She had been working at her dad’s barbecue restaurant for so long, navigating the place felt like second-nature to her. Mario loved to just sit and watch his girlfriend

“Thank you baby,” Mario sang, looking up with a grin knowing Y/n could not resist the urge to kiss him quickly before proceeding. After a swift peck and even swifter ‘you’re welcome, baby’, she sat opposite him and pulled glass close to her chest.

Out of habit, Y/n began stirring the ice in glass with the straw it came with. Mario took a sip of his drink but could not ignore his girlfriend’s behaviour. He reached for her free hand and smiled when she gazed up from her glass and met his eyes.

“What’d you wanna tell me?”

All week Y/n had been acting strange. If Mario had not been so preoccupied with his college applications, he likely would have confronted her about it sooner. However, eventually Y/n asked him to meet her at the barbecue joint and he knew she would fess up soon enough.

“My dad wants me to work here full-time,” Y/n announced, a wide smile slowly appearing on her face as she spoke. “I’d be taking on a more managerial role and eventually work my way up to being his business partner.”

She sat frozen for a moment while she surveyed Mario’s reaction. He was the first person she was telling the news to and she was counting on him to be excited with her.

Mario shook his head in amazement and chuckled beneath his breath as he reached out for both of Y/n’s hands. He knew that this was something she’d been hoping for for a long time.

“That’s so good, baby,” Mario exclaimed, intertwining his fingers with hers. He could not help the way his heart swelled when smile grew as she let out a sigh of relief. “I… I’m so excited for you.”

He meant every word. She knew it. Yet, for some reason, something was not sitting right with Y/n. Whether it was his delayed reaction or the way he, too, was acting strange for the past week, she just could not place her finger on it.

“I love you,” she murmured blissfully as she rubbed her thumb against the back of his right hand. Y/n was a blubbering mess the first she said those three words, but since then they came with such ease. Such confidence.

“I love you,” he replied, lifting her hand and pressing them softly against his lips. When Mario met his girlfriend’s gaze, his heart began to race, but not for the usual reason. She could tell something was up.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Her tone was comforting and far from accusatory. Y/n trusted Mario completely. Whatever he was hiding, she was confident he had his reasons for keeping it from her. Reasons Y/n would respect if it did was not so obviously bothering him.

“I applied to U-Cal,” he admitted, purposely averting his eyes. Y/n’s brows rose in surprise. In all their conversations about college and life after high school graduation, he never mentioned applying. She held her breath in anticipation of what he was going to say next. “I got in.”

Y/n exhaled as her mouth fell open. She struggled to fully process it, but she could not keep herself from smiling.

“Mario, that’s amazing!” Y/n gripped his hand tighter, prompting him to finally look back at her. When she looked into his eyes, she took a minute just to bask it in. Her boyfriend, the college attendee. There were very few people she could think of who deserved the opportunity more. “I’m so proud of you, baby.”

Those words were enough to make Mario giddy, but coming from Y/n made it all the more meaningful. All the hours they spent studying together and all the times she helped him cram for the SATs and all the assignments that came before and after. It was all amounting to something for him.

“How’re you feeling?” Y/n asked, trying to maintain her smile despite how riddled she was with worry. In one revelation, there was suddenly a limit placed on the amount of time they had together before he would inevitably leave for college. “Do… Do you know when you have to go?”

“Less than two months.”

“Wow,” Y/n stated blankly. She should have expected it, but hearing aloud just how little time they had left was jarring. Mario was too overjoyed to notice the way Y/n’s bottom lip trembled ever so slightly.

All he could think about was college.

“I know, I’m so excited!” Mario cheered. “They sent a brochure and it’s so cool all the clubs and events they have.”

As her boyfriend named off a handful of the clubs he was interested in learning more about, Y/n nodded along despite being unable to completely focus. Less than two months. They had less than two months to spend together, and he seemed elated by the thought it flying past.

“I just can’t believe it,” Mario sighed. Y/n blinked and channelled her attention back to him. Normally when Mario was happy, it rubbed off significantly onto Y/n. However, this time was different. He was happy because he was going away. How could she not take it personally? “I can’t believe I get to finally leave the house, the block and…”

“And me?”

The words parted from her lips before she knew what she was speaking, but even so, Y/n did not regret it. How could she regret her feelings? How could she ignore how insignificant Mario was making her feel?

“Y/n,” he whispered, his brows crinkling together when he realised how teary-eyed his girlfriend was. Mario struggled to understand where she would get such a crazy thought from. “C'mon, baby, you know that’s not true.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Y/n questioned immediately. “The deadlines for applications closed months ago. You’ve kept this from me for months.”

“That’s…” Mario wanted to say it was not true, but it was. He never meant to keep his application a secret, he just never expected anything to amount from it. Did she truly believe he kept her in the dark maliciously? “That’s not fair.”

Perhaps it was, Y/n thought. Perhaps deep down she knew he never had any intention of hurting her, but it did not change the outcome. Silence filled the, thankfully empty, restaurant for only a moment. In that moment, Y/n was confronted by a terrifyingly burning question.

“What’s gonna happen to us?” She spoke in a quiet voice. One riddled with insecurity and an overwhelming fear of what his answer would be. In an even quieter voice, she added, “What’s gonna happen to me?”

“Why are you doing this?”

Mario was not expecting her to react this way. The Y/n he knew and loved was always so supportive. Always so optimistic. Always so confident that things would work out for the best and they would come out stronger because of it.

However his question only infuriated Y/n more. This was different from her wanting to pick up more hours at the restaurant or him getting cut from the football team.

“I don’t know you just sound like you have this whole plan to leave everything here behind,” Y/n began frustratedly. “I just wanna know if I’m included in that.”

“Oh my god, how can you think that?”

Mario was dumbfounded. Whenever he spoke of moving on to bigger and better things, it always with the assumption that Y/n would be right there with him. It was always so clear to him that she was the one for him, he believed it went without saying.

“Well, how could you make this huge decision without giving me so much as a heads up?”

Mario knew there was not much he could say to defend himself on that front, so he found himself rambling off until his words eventually formed a coherent response.

“You know, I just… I just thought you would be happy for me.”

“Iam happy for you,” Y/n defended. How could he even question that? “I… I just feel blindsided.”

She was always upfront about her plans for after graduation, which was a topic they discussed frequently, so it was not like he did not have an opportunity to let her know sooner. Anytime she mentioned the option of applying for colleges, Mario was quick to dismiss it.

Y/n questioned whether it was intentional, but it was not the case. Mario did not expect to get accepted, so keeping his application a secret was done so to avoid disappointment. If he had known the outcome, Y/n would have been the first to know.

“But you know I’ve wanted out! I’ve told you that so many times,” Mario reasoned. “I’ve always felt suffocated here and- and trapped like I’m just constantly being held back and-”

He lost track of where he was going with his response. In all honestly, Mario did not hear half of what he had said. He was just so desperate to make things right again. To have her fingers intertwined with his once more. It was not until Y/n spoke that he realised his words and their insinuations.

“…You think I’m holding you back?”

His stomach immediately sank. Y/n’s voice was so shaky and quiet it sounded almost unfamiliar at first. Nothing like the confident voice Mario could listen to for days on end. This one was painful to hear, even more-so when he saw tears that began to stream down her cheeks.

If Mario’s words were incoherent beforehand, they were straight foreign by that point. He was, somehow, even more desperate to fix things between them, but it was far more difficult thanks to the hole he dug for himself. Mario reached out for her hands, but she shuffled out of the booth before he could obtain a grasp.

“Y/n-” He called out, but to no avail. She stood up and was headed for the kitchen. “Baby, that’s not-”

“-No, stop,” Y/n interrupted bitterly. He’d said more than enough and while she was not the one going to college, she was most certainly smart enough to take a hint. “Just finish your lemonade and leave and just-”

All of the anger and frustration flooded her senses and clouded her judgement. Y/n inhaled sharply as she though of what to say next. Mario was startled when she looked him in the eye, but it was ultimately her final words that left a lasting impression on him.

“Just don’t ever fucking come back.”

There was not enough time for Mario to process her words and chase after her. By the time she locked herself in the storage room, he was already a tearful mess trying to figure out whether she meant for him to never come back to the barbecue to joint or never come back to Freeridge.

Or, even worse, to never come back to her.

***

Y/n never spoke to Mario again. Never saw him one last time before he left. She never even replied to one of his millions of texts and voicemails. If he truly believed she was holding him back, she was gonna do him a favour and let him go.

In the months after their falling out, Y/n invested all her energy into her job. If there was something wrong with the stocktake, Y/n raced to fix it. If there was an opportunity to learn more about running a restaurant or flipping a patty, Y/n was the first in line to take it up. If there was a grease trap waiting to be cleaned, Y/n already delegated the task to her little brother.

“- And I have Jamal covering for Paula while she’s at the orthodontist,” Y/n explained, tracing next week’s roster with her pen. Dwayne smirked, impressed by how well his daughter was doing in her new role as assistant manager.

“How’d you get Jamal to agree?”

Upon her promotion, Y/n’s most prominent struggle was getting her brother to respect her authority. Jamal used to treasure the way he and Y/n were equals in the restaurant kitchen, because she had some degree of authority over him in every other aspect of life. However, much to his dismay, Y/n was not above adopting her tactics as an older sister to ensuring her subordinates stayed in line.

“I have my ways.”

“She threatened me!” Jamal called out from the kitchen, having overheard Y/n’s and Dwayne’s conversation. She swore that boy had selective super-hearing.

“With love,” Y/n added, even though her dad knew his kids too well to buy it.

Dwayne chuckled as he took the roster off Y/n. She grabbed the timesheet from behind the counter and clocked her and Jamal out for the day before grabbing her bag and keys from the nearby booth.

“How was the convention in Berkeley, by the way?” Dwayne asked.

Y/n had recently come back from a convention about burgers; one she managed to get free admission into thanks to a friend of a friend. The convention itself was nothing spectacular, but all Y/n could think about on the bus ride home was how Mario was among the many students she saw at the U-Cal campus.

All she could think about was how different things would be if she had known he was applying there. Maybe she would have applied too. Maybe they would be meeting in between classes on one of the picnic tables outside the building.

“Good,” Y/n replied shortly. Her dad did not need to know the doubts that filled her mind on the bus trip home to Freeridge. It was not like it would make a difference anyways, and she couldn’t say she was unhappy with how her life after graduation was turning out. “I’ll tell you all about when Jamal and I get back.”

Y/n adjusted her bag strap and furrowed her brows when she turned to face the empty kitchen. Jamal had more than enough time to get the potato salad from the freezer room so they could go to the Martinez’s for New Years Eve dinner, but she could not see him anywhere.

“Jamal, c'mon!”

“Calm down, I’m right here.” Y/n turned around and jumped when she realised her little brother had been standing behind her for a hot minute with the bowl of potato salad gripped in his arms.

“We’ll see you later, dad,” she said as they headed out of the barbecue place for the night, her arm placed loosely over Jamal’s shoulders.

Despite her falling out with Mario, Y/n maintained a good relationship with his family over the course of the latter half of the year. It was easy to do considering how close she was to them when she and Mario were dating and the fact that Jamal and Ruby were constantly getting themselves into trouble and Y/n was their go-to person for help out of it.

When she and Jamal arrived at the house, Geny greeted her with a hug before abuelita quickly whisked her towards the kitchen. Y/n helped set the table as the others moved the furniture around per Geny’s instructions.

“Who’s that?” Ruby asked aloud when he heard a car pull up into the driveway. The only person they were expecting was Monse who was heading over on foot. Geny seemed just as confused as her son.

As if on cue, the door bursted open just as Y/n finished setting the plates. In came an eerily enthusiastic Mario with a blue cap placed backwards on his freshly cut head of hair. The blue cap Y/n got him last spring, she might add.

It was clear there was no way out for her now that she was there and he was too. There was always the option of excusing herself and letting Mario know how affected she still was by their breakup, but Y/n’s pride refused to let her do so.

He greeted his younger siblings, his grandmother and his parents first. They questioned him about the reason for his early return, but he held off on giving them a proper answer. There was someone he wanted to talk to first.

“Hey,” Mario spoke awkwardly as he gently tapped Y/n’s shoulder. She held her breath and turned to face him, smiling nervously as she met his gaze. Both were riddled with mixed emotions. They were both so anxious to speak yet somehow so happy to see each other after months of separation.

“Hi,” Y/n huffed, placing the last bowl of food down on the table.

“Um how- how’ve you been?” Mario asked. Neither one of them were active on social media, so he always wondered how she was doing. Every time she came to mind, which happened very frequently, all he could do was hope she was happy and well.

“Been doing good,” Y/n replied. If you focused solely on her role at the restaurant, her answer rang true. However, if you accounted for all the breakdowns and sleepless nights she endured in between? Not so much, but Mario did not need to know. “You?”

Y/n noticed the way his expression turned sour at her question. She had very little time to contemplate why before Monse eventually came bursting in with a chirpy 'happy new year!’ followed by a bombshell.

“Did y'all know there’s a pregnant white girl on your porch?”

Mario could not bear to look at his parents, so he found himself looking at her, which was somehow worse. Y/n stared blankly at Monse for a moment as she wrapped her head around the news. When she finally did, she turned to Mario and the tension between them grew exponentially.

Eventually he turned to his parents to explain himself, but it was difficult leaving Y/n to deal with the news. He had hoped to be able to tell her himself in private, but he was never the best at knowing the right opportunity to speak.

While Mario and Geny spoke to the pregnant white girl, whose name Y/n learned was Amber, she and the others took their seat at the dining table.

“Are you ok, Y/n?” Jasmine asked, shifting her chair closer to her.

“I don’t know,” Y/n sighed truthfully. She always hoped the next time she’d see Mario they’d patch things up. She never could have anticipated he’d be showing up with a baby on the way.

Once Mario, Geny and Amber finished talking, they came back inside and approached the table. Y/n and Jasmine were in the middle of a heated conversation about the new lip gloss she was using when Mario, out of habit, took his usual seat next to Y/n.

“Ahem.”

Jasmine went silent and glared across Y/n’s shoulder to Amber who stood expectedly. Y/n turned around and was startled to realise how close Amber was standing to where she sat, not to mention how big her belly was. Mario must not have wasted any time in moving on from her.

“Hey…girl,” Amber began. Y/n had never felt so uncomfortable. “Would it be ok if I sat there? Wanna be next to Mario is all.”

“Her name is Y/n,” Jasmine stated pointedly before Y/n could even reply. She was never the kind to wait for a signal before jumping to someone’s defence. “And she was sitting there first.”

There was already so much tension in the room, Y/n did not want to add to the fire. Not to mention when she glanced at Mario his expression was riddled with so much nervousness and so many silent apologies, Y/n could not bring herself to make things harder for him.

“It’s ok, I’ll go,” she said as she got up from her chair.

“Thanks sis,” Amber chirped as she gleefully sat down.

Immediately, Y/n cringed and Mario buried his face in his hands, not able to look her in the eye as she left their end of the table. She had to physically bite her tongue just to keep herself from saying something that a court of law would most definitely use against her.

Y/n made her way to the available seat between Geny and Jamal and was, at the very least, grateful it was away from Mario and Amber.

Everyone sat in silence as Amber finished her 'Super Big Gulp’ with seemingly no clue that so many eyes were staring at her. Just as she finished slurping the last of her drink, she looked up and smiled nervously, finally putting her cup down so dinner could commence.

“I am so sorry about your recent loss, my heart goes out to all of you,” Amber began, extending her arm out and gesturing to the rest of us. Y/n held her breath, hoping for Amber’s sake that she was not about to say something stupid. “And as a beneficiary of white privilege-”

Y/n huffed, squeezing her eyes shut.

“These kinds of tragedies are, like, foreign to me,” Amber continued. Y/n could see Geny gritting her teeth in the corner of her eye. “So on behalf of my people. I am sorry for keeping your people down.”

Jamal looked up at his big sister to see if she, too, caught on to the way Amber was glancing between the two of them and Monse when she finished her sentence. From the way Y/n hands were clenched, it was alarmingly clear that she did.

“By the way this all looks so good, mama,” Amber said to Geny, who rose to say something in retaliation before her husband quickly placed a bread roll in her mouth to keep her from doing so.

***

Jamal never gave her a detailed explanation. All he said was that Y/n owed him one after he covered Paula’s shift and that abuelita needed help sewing a dress because her hands were apparently 'cursed’.

Y/n had been seated at abuelita’s sewing machine for a few minutes when she felt her gaze from the opposite side of the able where she sat. They had been working for around an hour, and abuelita was conscious of how quiet her pseudo-granddaughter was being.

“You’ve been gone for a while,” she stated.

It unlike her. Y/n was always stopping by the house. Whether it was to drop off Ruby after she had to pick him and Jamal up from the cemetery at three in the morning. Or to drop off some extra groceries to make up for all the food Jamal and his friends went through during their countless meetings at the house.

When Y/n turned to face her, abuelita simply looked back at the fabric in her fingers, as though her eyes never left the stitch she was working on.

“I think you know why,” Y/n replied.

A week had passed since Mario and Amber made their arrival, and after the New Years Eve dinner, Y/n could not bring herself to face them again. What was she supposed to do? There was no Youtube tutorial on how to cope with life when your first love makes a comeback with his pregnant girlfriend.

“How are you feeing?“

"I told you, abuelita. I’m fine,” Y/n said softly.

Every time she greeted the Martinez matriarch, without fail, she always asked her how she was. That day was no different, and it had been about an hour since Y/n gave her usual response.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Y/n froze, instantly regretting all the times she previously confided in abuelita. That woman had sixth sense for what the kids in her life were up to, and now Y/n realised she was included too. Abuelita took her glasses off and looked at Y/n. Although she struggled to come up with an answer, the pace of her breath and the way she shifted uncomfortably in her seat was enough for the matriarch to know.

She still cared for him.

Abuelita thought of giving her advice. Of giving her comfort. She imagined it was an incredibly difficult position to be in. Prior to their breakup, everyone was expecting Mario and Y/n to make it.

Before Mario came back, abuelita held onto the hope that they still would. That they would reconcile and make it work. That they would learn from their past argument and become a stronger couple because of it. Y/n held onto the same hope.

However, holding onto that hope appeared pointless now. Mario was the kind of person to do everything in power to ensure his kid grew up in a two-parent household. And Y/n was not the kind of person to get in the way of that. Abuelita knew it true and well.

Yet, even so, she could not help but reach out for Y/n’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze and frowned apologetically. Pobrecita, she thought to herself. Young heartache was a piercing and gruesome pain.

“Abuelita, I bought the white thread you asked for.”

Mario had just arrived home from a trip to the store when he turned and realised Y/n was there. They had not spoken since the New Years Eve dinner, so he was grateful Amber was treating Ruby to lunch. Perhaps then he could get a minute alone with Y/n.

“Ah thank you Mario,” abuelita said as she took the thread from Mario’s hand. She glanced between him and Y/n, contemplating whether she would leave or stay. Much to Y/n’s dismay, abuelita decided to go, leaving her and Mario with nothing but thick tension.

Y/n quietly prayed that Mario would leave as well, but when he did nothing but stand silent, she cough aloud and headed to the kitchen, hoping he would not follow her. She seemed to have no luck.

“Can we talk?” Mario said quietly, gently grasping Y/n’s arm. Her breath hitched at the feeling of his hand and, against her better judgement, she stopped in her tracks.

When she mustered enough courage to look him in the eye, they exchanged a look that only the poets would be able to describe. Suffice to say, it was clear they were both conflicted by the situation they were in and the feelings that never left even after their fight at the barbecue joint.

“I think we both know that’s not a good idea,” Y/n sighed.

“Please,” he begged, his voice beginning to waver at the thought of letting her go again when there was so much left to be said.

She was still as she tried to calculate whether or not sticking around would be abandoning her principles. Mario was a soon-to-be father. He was not hers to have intimate conversations with. Not anymore.

“I’m so sorry,“ Mario whispered.

She did not think he noticed the way she clenched her jaw every time Amber called him 'baby’ or how her hands shook when she had to set an extra plate down for her. But he did, and he had been filled with guilt ever since.

“You don’t have to apologise,” Y/n said.

“Y/n-”

“No really, Mario,” she assured. Perhaps she was kidding herself trying to respond rationally to a situation that had her reeling, but it felt just as ridiculous trying to punish him for a crime that simply did not occur. “We broke up and you… moved on and now you’re having a baby. You did nothing wrong.”

It should have brought him great comfort to hear her say that. After all, it was the very thing he tried to convince himself of after his one-night stand with Amber, after finding out she was pregnant and every moment since. But it did not.

“Then why doesn’t it feel right?”

Y/n was quiet. How was she supposed to respond to that? Mario shook his head. He hated how he felt, but he had little control over the matter. Moreover, talking his feeling out with Y/n was his go-to medicine for conflicted feelings. It came natural to him.

“We were really something, don’t you think so?”

She did not dare answer, even though she was dying to say yes.

“I know I’m responsible for what’s happened and I don’t… I’m not trying to dismiss that, but I just,” Mario paused and thought. “Ever since Amber told me she was pregnant… Even before then. Ever since we broke up, really, I just keep thinking to myself…”

Y/n inhaled sharply and braced herself. She knew where he was going. She would be lying if she said her thoughts did not take her down a similar route.

“If one thing had been different-”

“Don’t,“ Y/n interrupted, her voice growing quiet. She shook her head. He was the one who moved on. He did not also get to be the one haunted by regret and what-ifs. “Don’t do this to me, Mario.”

He pursed his lips and nodded sheepishly. Perhaps it was unfair of him to ask her if she thought about how things would be if they hadn’t broken up. If he had just told her about the damn application sooner. If he had not

Y/n could have sworn he was turning to leave, but just when his feet shifted, he turned back. There was one other question he had. One that had been eating away at him for over two weeks.

“Were you in Berkeley last month?” He huffed. Y/n’s eyes immediately widened, and he took it as a sign of confusion. "I don’t know, I… I passed a bus stop there and I thought it might’ve been you.”

Since seeing her, Mario questioned if it was a sign. Was it meant to be Y/n all along? He was already feeling conflicted by his situation, but seeing the familiar girl at the bus stop sent him spiralling down an endless path of loaded questions that had no clear answer.

There was no way, Y/n tried to convince herself. He could have easily been referring to a different bus stop to the one she sat at while waiting for hers after the burger convention. And even if he was not, what good would it do if he knew it was her?

“No.”

His heart sank. He was not sure what he would have done if she said yes. Maybe he would have believed it was a sign. Maybe he would have held hope. However, now that her answer was no, he had no choice but to let those possibilities go and, with them, her.

Y/n glanced at the clock and cursed herself for sticking around. She was due back at the restaurant in five minutes and Amber was likely to be back in around the same time. She had to cut the conversation off before either of them said something they could not take back.

“Mario.”

“Don’t,” he whispered pleadingly. He may have been away from Freeridge for 5 months, but no amount of time could rid him of the ability to know her tones of voice. And this one was telling him goodbye. “Please don’t say my name like that.”

Like it was the last time. Like she was gonna miss saying it.

Y/n had to turn away for a moment. She could not look at him when he was like that. When he was begging her not to say goodbye to him and to their long history together in Freeridge. Not when she was trying so hard to go.

“Look, maybe if things happened differently, things between us would be different,” she reasoned, hoping it was enough of an answer to the question he never got to ask. “But this is how it’s turned out. I think we should both accept that and… and move on.”

It would have been nice to grow old with her high school sweetheart. It would have been sweet for it to have been Mario. For their epic love story to live to see another era. But it was painfully clear that fate had other plans.

“Yeah,” he sighed after a long moment of deliberation. He was not fully convinced. Perhaps he never would be. But there was nothing else either of them could do. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

Y/n sniffled and wiped her damp cheeks before reach for his shoulder. She contemplated kissing his cheek, for old time’s sake, but decided against it. It would only do more harm than good.

It was a bitter sense of familiarity for Mario; watching Y/n leave and being left with nothing but all the words he wished he had said.

She had looked at him sorrowfully. Her lips parted for a moment, as if she was about to say something, but instead she just walked away. Y/n had said many things to Mario during their time together in Freeridge. Many awful jokes, many corny pick-up lines and many many words.

But, so long as she had a say, goodbye would not be one.

***

A full month had passed and Y/n was doing surprisingly well with keeping her distance. She and Mario managed to avoid each other thanks to her keeping her distance from his home and him eating at any and every other establishment in Freeridge.

She was sitting in the storeroom on step-box, scrolling through Ruby’s instagram page in search for intel on how Mario was doing, when Jamal bursted in.

“Y/n, table four,” he muttered, placing the tray of food he held in his older sister’s hands. She furrowed her brows in annoyance, but not after quickly putting her phone away before Jamal caught on to what she was doing.

“I’m on my break,” Y/n scowled, handing the platter back.

“Customer specifically requested you,” Jamal retorted, shoving the platter back to Y/n whose frustration grew tenfold.

“Customer can bite me,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Customer has annoyingly refused my service three times now, so I’m leaving his food here.”

Jamal placed the platter on a nearby empty shelf before walking away to avoid his sister’s wrath. She grumbled as she went to serve the platter and vowed to get back at him someway somehow after.

It did not take long for Y/n to realise why the customer was so adamant on her service. She could recognise that blue cap anywhere. Y/n hesitantly placed the platter down in front of Mario, but not without glancing back to Jamal and narrowing her eyes.

“Um- Are… Are you free to talk?” Mario asked sheepishly.

Y/n was still looking at Jamal and was puzzled by the way he looked at Mario. There was definitely something he knew that she did not. Given the fact that he was at Amber’s baby shower, Y/n presumed it had something to do with that.

She was far more curious than she was nervous. After all, she had spent the first five minutes of her break cyber-stalking her ex-boyfriend’s little brother. Y/n huffed and reluctantly sat opposite to Mario.

“Everything alright?” She would not have asked has she not noticed how puffy his eyes were. Mario was an emotional man, she knew that better than most people, but he never cried without some reasoning.

“Amber gave birth yesterday,” Mario began. Y/n nodded slowly. She would have jumped to the conclusion that his tears were from the joy of entering fatherhood, but judging from his expression, she knew that was not it. “… It wasn’t mine.”

“Oh, Mario.“ Y/n’s heart sank. Casting aside their history, she knew becoming a father was a big deal to Mario, because family was a big deal to him. She could not imagine how gut-wrenching it must have been to have that taken away from him after months of getting his head around it. "I’m so sorry… Are you ok?”

“I am,” he answered sincerely. After spending the rest of the night eating cake with his family and laughing about what had happened, he got through one way or another. “Obviously, I wasn’t at first, but it’s ok… I guess she just wasn’t the one.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I think you may have dodged a bullet.”

Mario chuckled. His parents and friends had been telling him that the night before but hearing it from Y/n hit different, and it was nice to have a light-hearted conversation with her. He missed them so damn much.

Once his and her laughter faded, Mario got up the courage to ask her the one question he thought about since seeing an old photo of the two of them after two days in Berkeley.

“Did you ever think about me? Or about us?” He cleared his throat before continuing. “Y'know after the last time we were here?”

She was dying to tell him about it all. About all the nights she spent recalling their conversation at the very booth they were sitting in. About all the ways she overanalysed their last exchange before he left for college.

However, now it was different. Now, they had time. Perhaps she would tell him over dinner at his place after she clocked out for the day. In any case, she could settle for the short answer now and bore him with the finer details later.

“…Yeah,” she answered. It felt freeing be able to talk to him without worrying about everything else that was happening. To just tell him how she truly felt. “I thought a lot about how I shouldn’t have left.”

“I should have told you about U-Cal.”

Y/n smiled, grateful to hear him say that. If he had said it five months sooner maybe they would have saved each other a bit of heartache. Nonetheless, he said it and she was thankful.

“I’m guessing you’ll be on the next bus back to Berkeley?”

She was sad to think about it. They were finally somewhat reconciling, but it would only be a matter of time before he was to leave again.

“Actually, I’ve decided to sit this semester out,” he answered, his smile growing when he noticed the way Y/n immediately perked up. “There’s some things I wanna sort out here before I go back.”

“Oh yeah?” She asked teasingly, doing a terrible job at stifling her smirk. “Like what?”

“My mom wants me to repaint the deck.”

Mario grinned, prompting Y/n to scoff offendedly. He laughed as he rose from his seat and slid next to her, reaching for her hands with ease like they were home for his.

“I’m kidding! C'mon, you know it’s you,” he chuckled. From the way she smiled proudly at him, it was clear she did know. Even so, it did not stop him from inching closer to her and meeting her gaze. “It’s always been you.”

It was all he could think about on his way to the barbecue joint. Even as he was brushing his teeth in the morning thinking about what he was gonna say when he finally saw her again.

“I didn’t mean what I said when we were here before,” he whispered, regret still weighing heavy on his chest.

“I know,” Y/n murmured, intertwining her fingers with his.

She came to that realisation a long time ago. She cursed herself for thinking that Mario would intentionally hurt her. The same Mario who carried her books to class and fell asleep in the parking lot waiting for Y/n to finish her shift so he could drive her home.

“I think I just… felt scared, I guess?” Y/n looked up at Mario and he raised his brows in confusion. “You always talked about wanting to get out and it just felt like it’d only be a matter of time before getting out meant leaving me too.”

“When I used to think of where I wanted to be in the future,” Mario began, wrapping one arm around Y/n and his other rested on the table, intertwined with her hands. “Sometimes I saw myself as a successful entrepreneur. Sometimes I’m in the NFL. Sometimes I’m a trophy husband. And sometimes I’m in a fancy office job, living in Brentwood with my seven kids. ”

Y/n bursted out laughing. She had heard the NFL dream and the trophy husband dream, but the office job with seven kids was new. However, she was quite fond of that one and of the idea that he’d be only a few neighbourhoods away.

“But, no matter what,” Mario added. “I was always with you.”

Y/n untangled her fingers and placed them against the side of his face, pulling him closer until their lips were connected. She could feel him grinning, and it only added to her joy.

Maybe they would get to grow old in a townhouse in Brentwood, or a flat on the very block they fell in love in. Maybe he really was the one.

Y/n moved away for a moment and smirked at the way Mario immediately began to pout.

“We’re not having seven kids,” she stated.

“Of course that’s the part you take away from what I said.”

Mario missed her so damn much. He did not waste another second and quickly pulled her close again. Her giggles were muffled by his lips on hers. Eventually her break would be over, or Dwayne would get back, or Jamal would become fed up with having to watch his sister suck faces with his best friend’s brother. But for now, they were gonna make up for lost time.

“When we finish kissing,” Y/n muttered after pulling away momentarily. “I’m gonna need you to explain how you fell for the walking micro-aggression that is Amber.”

“Guess I’m just gonna to have kiss you forever then.”