It's Complicated

Chapter 15

"I listened to your CD yesterday," I told Mario. We were at our locker on Monday morning, and it felt like a good time to say something since the halls were mostly empty. It was between periods, and most students had classes on the other side of the building. "I just had one question."

"Shoot," he told me absently while putting his Spanish textbook in his bag.

"Who's Julia? You mentioned her in the songs a few times."

He froze. "Um." His eyes were wider than normal when he looked at me. "I forgot about that. Julia was my first girlfriend. We broke up a long time ago."

I gave a nod, unsure of how I felt about this information. "How long did you date her?"

His shoulders relaxed slightly. "For a few months." He scratched his head. "If I'm honest, I knew that we'd never work from the beginning. Evidence following your heart isn't always the best thing to do."

I nodded with a frown. I'd always been inclined to follow my heart, and that was how I'd fallen asleep to him the last two nights. The more I tried to figure out where my heart was, the more scared I became. Someone was going to get hurt, and I couldn't stand that. "Maybe not," I responded. My gaze lingered on my locker another moment and before I eventually turned and headed towards our second class.

Mario pulled out his Spanish textbook. "I can't believe you're taking Spanish and they put me in that class." He shook his head. "I mean, my name should have given away that I'm fluent in it!"

I forced a smile. "You're forgetting that there are some who don't know Spanish."

He frowned at me. "Come on, Daze. It's not that often that Spanish people can't speak it."

"You could ask them to transfer you to French."

"I'm fluent in that, too."

I glanced at him, surprised. "How many languages do you speak, anyway?"

He gave me a shy smile. "I'm fluent in five and know enough to get by of two others."

I stopped in the middle of the hallway. He followed suit and turned to me. "Seriously?"

He grinned at me, said something in another language, and resumed walking to our class.

I jogged to catch up. "What?"

He chuckled. "That was Portuguese. I said, 'I'm very serious.'"

I mulled over this knowledge until lunch. When we all sat down, I poked Mario. "Say something."

He absently stirred around the school lunch he got. "Like what?"

I shrugged. "I don't care. Do it in another language." This got the attention of everyone at the table. Dan was the only one who didn't look up.

"Which one?"

"What do you speak?"

He held up a hand and began counting them off. "English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and a little of German and Latin."

"Portuguese."

He rolled his eyes. "How about I just sing for the table?" He theatrically gestured to everyone else as he spoke.

I grinned at him. "That would be great. Know anything in Portuguese?"

He lightly elbowed me. "Just eat." He took a bite of his lunch, filling his mouth and slowly chewing.

Everyone at our table was now watching us. Susan glanced at him. "Can you really speak Portuguese?" He nodded, taking another bite. "Can you sing, too?" He warily nodded. "Sing for us!" She leaned forward, waiting.