Dear María

For the rest of the day, we talked and hang around. Zack and Olga were getting pretty close, they seemed happy to find someone they could talk about gyms and sports and stuff like that. María, me and the rest of the guys have been talking about some of our tour adventures so far and she explained us a bit of her experience and told us a bit about her first years of horse riding. Never mentioning what happened previously with that unknown guy. That’s what our next twelve hours consisted of, talking and hanging around. Alex made a comment on how equestrian chicks are better in bed, reffering to basically to Lisa, who is also into equestrian stuff, and María.
But I knew something was dead wrong with María. Everytime I asked her about the thing in Montpellier she’d change the subject immediately. She was hiding something from me, and it couldn’t be any good. Who was that kid, anyway? Oriol seemed to know him, Stella surely did know him and Ruben’s face when he saw Stella pin back her ears held so much hatred. Think, Jack, think.
It was 5pm and I was on my bunk trying to figure out what was wrong with María when my phone rang beside me. I opened it to see who was calling me. Unknown number. I shrugged, it was probably a fan or a mistaken person.
“Hello?”
“Don’t you dare get near María one more time or else” said an pissed voice.
“Why shouldn’t I? Who the fuck are you? I’m not sure if you know, but María and I-“
“I’m her fucking boyfriend, so stay away from her and don’t touch her” I froze. She had another boyfriend behind my back? W-Was she cheating on me? No, that was impossible, María would never do that. Maybe he was just one of those creeper fans.
“Prove it, asshole, you stay away from her, you fucking creep” I snapped. The voice chuckled, I could feel his smirk from the other side of the line.
“Just google María Mussons and Mikel or Mikel Iglesias and María and you’ll see” with that he hung up. I unconsciouly did what he said; I opened my laptop and googled it.
There were thousands of photos of a younger version of María with a tall guy with brown, almost black hair, he had brown eyes and a tanned skin. The pictures showed María and I guess this guy was Mikel, kissing and hugging. María looked so damn happy, nothing compared to now. I didn’t even bother to read the dates of these photos when I closed my laptop and rushed out of the bus, walking straight to the equestrian center she was staying in. I ignored Rian and Zack’s strange looks when they looked at me and got to the center.
Stella was in her temporary stall, pacing around with her ears pinned back. That’s when I remembered that she actually kicked a guy yesterday, which reminded me: that same guy she kicked was the same fucking guy in the photos, and surely he was the one who called me earlier.
I made up a small story in my head to see if that explained everything: María and Mikel were dating for a long time, he had to get away from María and she took it in quite bad, but she still knew they were together. Stella, Ruben and Oriol, on the other hand, took her momentary sadness for a heartbreak and that made Stella kick him, Ruben eye him murderously and Oriol act so defensively. But why did María cry? I felt like I was missing two important facts here, but I forgot about them as soon as I saw María walk in a little cottage next to the stalls with Stella’s saddle and bridle in hand. She was inside for five seconds before walking out with nothing on her hands. I walked up to her. I think she saw I was pissed when she took a step back, shocked. I couldn’t care less right now. I loved her, but I needed this sorted out.
“Hi” she whispered.
“Who is Mikel, María?” I asked, impatiently. She froze in place and her face went completely white. In my eyes, she looked busted, but maybe that was my anger filling up inside me.
“W-Why do you wanna know?” she managed to say. Seriously, María?!
“Oh, I don’t know” I spit out sarcastically, “Maybe because some fucking guy called me a few minutes ago threatening me to stay away from you, claiming to be your boyfriend and telling me to google you and some dude called Mikel, who, in my opinion, looks exactly as that kid Stella kicked yesterday” I glared at her. I saw her eyes sparkle, about to cry, and a part of me wanted to ask her again softly and hold her in my arms, but I couldn’t give her that. She shook her head and a tear fell from her eye, she quickly wiped it away and took a deep breath.
“Someone called you?” she asked, not daring to look at me.
“Yes, that’s why I’m here! I think you’d do the same if some random person called you and claimed to be my girlfriend, right?” I raised my voice. Jack, stop, she’s crying. So what? I need this sorted out now, I couldn’t leave Montpellier without an answer, although her reaction was already giving me one.
She was looking down with a horrified expression in her face and her lips were starting to turn blue. I saw in her eyes a part of her was telling her to tell me the truth, but another part of her was ready to shut herself down completely. She looked like a beaten puppy, cornered and helpless.
Jack, stop, you are hurting her. Give her some time, you just fucking came to her and attacked her with this! Give her some time to react! No, I want her to tell me the truth.
We stayed like that for a few second before I let out a sarcastic laugh, causing her to look up.
“Well, then that’s all I needed” I scoffed, turning around and starting to walk away.
“Jack, please, don’t go” she begged quietly. I turned around furiously.
“Don’t go?” I almost shouted at her. “Don’t go? Just tell me the truth!”
“I-I can’t!” she said, tears now falling from her eyes. She tried to wipe them away, but they kept falling. I couldn’t stand looking at her like this when I was trying to keep my angry face, so I turned around and walked away.
“When you can, call me, I’m sure it would hurt less” I shouted.
“You have no idea” I heard her mumur to herself, but I kept walking to the bus. We were leaving in an hour or so, anyways.

Notes

Aw, Jack's confused, María's now broken and Mikel's getting what he wants.
Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Title credit: This Is What Makes Us Girls by Lana del Rey.