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.

masterlist

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.”