All That Matters - A McCann Story

five

five

LONDON

It was Thursday, which meant that Blake was going to his cousins’ funeral and I was pretending to be sick at home. My mom came into my room with a knowingly look as she walked over to my side of the bed. She placed her hand on my head and sighed. “You’re not even warm Mija.”

“Mom, I’m trying to recover from a breaking heart.” I sighed, turning over on my side.

“You can’t hide from Jason forever. He stopped by two times this week. I can’t keep lying for you!” her thick Hispanic accent was coming out which meant she was starting to worry.

“Mom, just for a little while longer.” I begged.

“What did he do?” I couldn’t answer; I just buried myself deeper into my sheets. She pulled the sheets off me. “Okay that’s it! Get up!”

“Mom!”

“No! You don’t have to go to school but you’re not going to sit in your bedroom and mope all day and all night over something you wont talk over. We’re going out and that’s final, so get dressed.” With that she walked out my room.

If there was anything I’ve learned in my seventeen years of living, it’s that when my mom said something she meant it, and I wasn’t about to put her theories to the test.

*

Sitting across from my mom in the Cheesecake Factory, my favorite restaurant, sharing a chocolate fudge cake. This was just step one to her therapy. She calls it the one-day plan. It has turned out to be 99.9% affective for her. I, on the other hand, have never done it before because Jason was my second boyfriend and my first didn’t count because I was in fifth grade. First you eat and get food on your stomach. Next, you go to the mall and have retail therapy. Then, you go to a spa and relax yourself, cleansing your body of all bad vibes. Last, you go home and you confront the problem at hand. She’s always super calm after that. She does it every time she gets mad at me. But instead of buying clothes for herself, she ends up buying me a lot of the stuff. “Mom, I don’t see how this is going to make me feel better. I feel like I’m about to pop.”

“That means it’s working.” She smiled, taking another fork full of food.

I rolled my eyes at her enthusiasm. “Sometimes I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Without me? You wouldn’t be here, and you sure as heck wouldn’t be as beautiful as you are.” She winked.

“You do have a point there.”

JASON

I walked through the church doors with Ryder and Wang. I pulled my suit jacket over my shoulders and fit it to my body. I wasn’t going to lie, I was nervous, and I was sure Wang and Ryder could tell. I didn’t want to be here but if I didn’t show Esteban was going to realize that something wasn’t right and I don’t need any more problems on my hands. The quicker I got this over with, the quicker I could make my way back to London’s house to wait for her to come home from school. Ryder, Wang and I were escorted into a secret room that was hidden amongst many doors in a hallway wedged in between the bathrooms. It looked shady, but I wasn’t questioning anything. My fingers were itching for me to grab a cigarette but sadly, I couldn’t smoke inside a church. When we walked into the dimly lit room I wanted to sit my pants. Esteban looked just as scary as he sounded. He was a husky looking man that looked like if you made him too mad his suit was going to rip to pieces and he would turn into the hulk. He also had this scar that went from the corner of his eye down to top lip. I sat in the seat across from him as Ryder and Wang stood behind me. They were already conditioned to not speak unless spoken too and they knew the story if any questions were asked separately. My dad made sure that we were prepared since he couldn’t be here and speak for his for he had business of his own. Esteban held his arms open and smiled, “Great to finally meet the great McCann.”