On my Block Fanfiction

Nows the time

When Mario finds her, she's lying upside down. Her eyes light with tears but there sliding down the sides of her cheeks, One by one by one.

"Mel", he whispers. "Baby pick yourself up. Your stronger than this."

"I'm not" she says. "I don't know what to do Mario?"

"I can't tell you what to do Mel."
He lies beside her. Now there both upside down looking like the world might end, or fall apart.

"I was selfish." She whispers. "All those years ago. I should have told him Mario."

"You were eighteen and scared. Oscar was dead on becoming leader of the Santos, you did what you had to do. "

"I did what was easy Mario. I took the easy way out and it was a mistake. "

Mario stares at her like she's lost her mind.
"You think Oscar would have let you leave if he knew the truth. You think he would have accepted the fact that you didn't want anything to do with the Santos. You think he would have chosen you over them"

"I never gave him the choice."

"MelStop"!  He pulls her eyes to face him. "Stop blaming yourself. "

"But it was my fault," she whispers.

"No it wasn't, Oscar chose to be a Santos.
It was the only choice he had back then, you know that as well as I. Melani or no Malani, the ending would have been the same. He was doomed from the start. but you weren't Malani. You've got a restauraunt. Your a chef , just like you were supposed to be. "
   "Staying would have changed everything. If you'd have told Oscar, it would have been for worst not the better. "

"You don't know that!"
 
"Really, where is Ceaser now. And Ruby, look what the hell happened to Ruby. This place is poison Mel."

Her heart sinks and she swallows the lump in her throat. Mario is right. Sometimes the past is meant to stay in the past. It doesn't change the fact that maybe Oscar was her better and without him she's her worst. Now, even now without him.

  "Everything else  is a lie." She whispers. At least to Mario she can come clean. It's not like she's ever hid things from him to begin with.
"All of it Mario. I don't own the restaraunt on the Rivera "
He looks at her like she's sprouted horns from her head.
"What, no, I visited. Mel you made lobster and filet minion. I saw with my own eyes."

   "It not mine Mario!  I was only working there, not even as head Chef. I was chopping onions. "

   "But you went to school. Malanie you had your internship with that Chef from France."

  "I let Tyler talk me into it, then working at Les Amis, just until the money fell through. I didn't even see the trap."

  Mario frowns. "Malanie, what are you hiding from?"

  "The relationship I had with Tyler was toxic Mario."

"Malani what the hell does that mean?"

"He manipulated me into thinking we would be partners and he was investing the money. "

"How could you..."

"Fall for that, I know I'm supposed to be smart and perfect and "

"Mel," Mario whispers. "No one expects you to be any of those things."
"
Oh yeah, did you see the way your mother looked at me, like im the prime example of making it. don't expect me to believe that."

"Mel," my mother is proud, she'd be proud regardless.

"I don't know what to do Mario. Tyler is insane.  I just wanted out, and it turned."