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6. Flashback 3

Carlos Martín.

It all started 8th grade summer.
Our family stays at my Abuela's house every summer in Florida. We stay for almost the whole summer before we head back to Maytown.
Abuela is mom's mom so all of my maternal family stays in Florida for the summer.

It's a 5 hour flight to Florida from Maytown. And all of us come from different places so it's almost night by the time everybody reaches Florida.

All of us siblings(pre-teens and teens basically) sit down in our living room and start watching home alone.
It's our tradition to watch a movie as soon as everyone's home.

Everyone is cozy and watching the movie delightfully. The doorbell rings. And nobody gets up.
Lance says "Perri open the door, you're sitting in the chair... and it's probably the delivery guy so take the money."
Ughh, I forgot I was sitting there. There is only one chair in the entire living room which is the most comfortable so we came up with a rule that whoever sits there needs to answer the door. It's been so long that I forgot to sit in my usual spot.

I walk up to the door and open it by saying, "The delivery was pretty quick.." but when I look it's actually two people and they're definitely not delivery people. It's a guy and girl they look quite similar. He's tall just an inch by me and she's upto his shoulder. He has both his hands in his hoodie pocket and she's holding a box.
"Oh shit, I'm sorry you're not delivery guy..."
"Yay, your glasses work" he cuts me off sarcastically and I'm taken aback.
His sister I assume shoots him a look.
"I didn't know people spoke to air" I say looking at her.
"Uhm, please don't mind him. Is Mrs. De La Rossi home?"she asks me.
"Yes, she is...you are? I ask trying my best to talk with a stranger as anxiety is creeping up on me.
"Oh ya, we moved into the house at the corner of the street a couple weeks ago. Mrs.De La Rossi taught our mom how to make brigadeiros this morning and we brought some."she says.
I step back and in the direction of the kitchen I scream "Abuelllaaaaa.. its for you".
"Dios Mio, who is it Perri? Don't scream again." She says screaming.
I look at her asking for her name and she says "Oh yes um.. Callie".
"It's Callie and her brother."I say.

So we go in settle in the living room. Abuela introduces them to everyone and we continue watching the movie.His name is Carlos and his sister and him moved from Ridgewood. They are actually getting along with us very well.

Just then I see something on his hand... he's a CR. He catches me staring at his hand and looks at me and then at my hand.
I stare at him and he stares at me.
"Uh, Carlos right.. you look parched do you want some water?" I say in an attempt to get him to the kitchen.
He looks at me like 'whuhh' and then answers "yeah, could you show me to the kitchen."
"Yeah follow me.." I get up and walk towards the kitchen hoping none of my cousins especially Lance noticed anything.

As soon as we enter the kitchen we both say
"You're a CR"
I answer first, "Yeah, except my best friend you're the first CR I've ever met."
"Really, you're the 5th one I've met.... When did you become one? And sorry if I seemed rude earlier." He puts his hand at the back of his neck when saying this.
I notice his hair, it's brown and in tiny little ringlets if I weren't freaked out right now I would've complimented his hair.
"I became one a year ago... what about you?"
"2 and a half years ago.. almost 3 i guess" he says.
"Hey meet me at yogo's tomorrow, here add your number" I say passing my phone to him.
" uhm what's yogo's..."
"Come on you haven't been to yogo's yet, it's the best yogurt place in our whole town. It's really good they also have the best vegan options.. if your vegan or something"
"Oh noice, sorry it's a habit."
"Saying noice is ok , I randomly blurt out cool cool cool cool sometimes.'
"You watch b99!!"
"Duh. Also we should go back into the hall..."
"Yeah."

The next day at yogo's Carlos and I meet up. It was kinda awkward at first. Then he started to tell me about something.

Anteros.
Eros's brother or one of the Erotes. The names change according to your source. I remember him telling that. He was far less powerful than Eros and lesser known. But the power he had and the people he recruited gained their power from sources which spread hate.
Anger, jealousy, violence, greed and endless other forms which drew power to him. His recruits spread all the hate in the world. They don't have magical abilities like us, the CR's. They can compel people into doing hateful things. He's doing this cause this earns him privileges over Eros. Also it creates havoc in the world for which only he can put a stop to just because he can. The people spreading all this hate have red rings on their fingers. Only which CR's and they can see. When we look closer some of them have a hint of purple while some dark red almost black color. The ones with purple have goodness in them and we CR's try to change them by finding love. The ones with dark red are out of our hands, we can confront them tell them stop spreading hate but that has resulted in bad consequences. They can turn CR's into one of their own.
This is what Carlos told me. I just took in a lot of information that I had no idea I had to face.

I stared open mouthed at him for a minute. I finally spoke " Woah.."
"I know it's a lot to take in and you are handling it better than me. I freaked so much that the I actually fainted, there's also many things I'm not telling you cause my CR decided to mess with me."
"So some CR told you?"
"Yup, you gotta tell your best friend all this stuff. Apparently the universe finds its way to make us meet and tell other CR's about this stuff.
So someone told me, I tell you, you tell your friend, she tells someone.." I cut him off by saying "I get it, it's a cycle."
"Yeah sorry" and we're laughing like we've known each other years.

After a party at his friend's house and many rounds of truth or dare we both know that we like each other by the end of summer. But we decide not to give into not wanting long distance but still staying in touch with each other.

The next summer I'm reminded of how much I missed him and the fact that I have someone who likes me back unlike someone else I know.
That summer we were staying for about two weeks. It's the second week's start and Carlos doesn't get my calls or texts. Turns out he's getting a new phone so his number is invalid. Callie tells me he's got a new phone a week ago. I confront him asking his number he says that he's forgotten.
It was the day before I come back to Maytown. All these days Carlos dodges giving his number and gave excuses when i asked why he didn't reply to my texts. He seems fine when he's in person but he doesn't on social media.
Finally he decides to speak that day.
"Hey platypus can we talk."
"Ok, are you finally going to give me your number."
"No.." I'm taken aback, I assumed he didn't wanna give it till the last day.
"What do you mean no."
"I don't want to, and I blocked you on my social media."
What the actual fuck.
"Wha.. what, wh..why!"I stammer thinking about just why he did that. I haven't upset him right. I haven't done anything wrong. Why am I putting myself at fault right now. I'm angry without even knowing his reason.
"Perri, don't be mad but I had to. I had to." His sigh seemed genuine.
"But,why!" Questions running in my mind.
"I..Perri please don't be mad.. we're moving from Florida.Again."
"Hu..huh.. oh that's it." I let out some air. "Where are you moving, I'm sure we can meet in between here and there."
"I'm not telling you and we can't meet like that."
"You're not making any sense." I can feel the heat in my eyes.
"I don't want us to be in touch. We have to move on." He is firm with his reply.
"You just went from scared of telling me your moving, to firm." I say to lighten the mood a little and to stop him from his stupid idea of not staying in touch. "And move on from what."
He groans and rubs his temple. " I'm serious, I can't stay like this with you, okay! Us, meeting once a year and what video calling each month. The more time I spend with you the more I think the more I need. I can't just see you like this for a week as if nothing's happening and everything is same when we're not with each other. I know we both feel guilty when we think about someone else who isn't us. We're not dating and never can."
I couldn't hold back my tears. I'm crying cause every word he said is true. But we can't cut each other off from our lives. I wipe my tears before he can see them but the redness from my eyes is probably visible.
"Why are you cutting me off then. I know we can't stay like this but we can't stay separate. How can you just assume that it's automatically gonna be bad, also we already talked about this we can like someone else other than us." The last bit is as true as me not having feelings for him.
His eyes are kinda red now. "Do you think it's easy doing this. Trying to cut you off. When I know I can't. You leaving tomorrow and me not knowing when I'm gonna see you next...I'm sor..sorry, I need to go now."
Thank god this is happening when everyone is downstairs. I don't think they need to witness this. He stands to leave. I grab his hand and turn him to face me. " You're just leaving.." tears are falling down my cheeks "You won't even say...go..goodbye."
His face is breaking me, when I see a tear trickle down his face. I'm going to miss that face. I put both of my palms in his. He stays quiet.
He finally says " I can't, that's too hard for both of us to go.." I have the sudden confidence in me to do one thing. He stops his sentence midway when I kiss him. I just had my first kiss. With Carlos. And I'm never seeing him again.
We both look at each other and he hugs me. He says "That was my first one too. But I'm going away, Perri. We can't so much as look at each other without thinking about what if. What just happened is the exact reason why I'm doing this. I can't say goodbye to you agent Perri." He lets go of me and walks out of the room. I go to the bathroom and cry some more before thinking why didn't I stop him again because you know it would never work. I wash my face and try to wash away his memories.

A/N This chapter is longer than usual to make up for the last one.
What to do u all think of the flashback chapters and present ones should I keep doing it?