Loving Mari- Ebook

Too young.

Too dumb.

Too different.

Micah Kennedy and Mariella Cerulli have heard it all since they fell in love five years ago. But they’re eighteen, celebrating the end of high school, and determined to walk their own path.

Even if that means fighting for what they want, and taking a punch for it afterward.

One night of passion, surrounded by butterflies, flushed with the hubris of first love, will set them on the path to heartbreak.

Toward a disaster eleven years in the making…

• Mental health struggles
• On Page Violence

Micah

Aged: Eighteen

The gym smells like sweat and floor polish. Body heat surrounds us. It makes me want to punch the boys and shove the girls away from us. When I inhale to steady myself, I get a whiff of the cheap perfume layered too thick over the girls. It mingles with the too heavy cologne liberally sprayed by their dates.

It’s hell on my sinuses.

Especially after my last fight.

I shouldn’t have let Ronan get one punch in.

Mari always tells me to end them, but I prefer to make my fights sporting, at least.

Taking in the gowns that glitter beneath the string lights and the banner that hangs over the empty stage, I bury my nose in Mari’s neck. Soft, sweet-smelling, with an undertone of elegance. She has worn something different tonight. Probably loaned to her by Jenn.

As much as I like it, I prefer the cheap body spray she usually wears.

It’s familiar.

Comforting.

And I need all the comfort I can find tonight.

The DJ keeps shouting into his mic like he’s hosting a club, but the speakers crackle and the songs bleed into each other until it’s nothing, but background static dressed up as celebration. The laughter of classmates spikes too loud, too forced. Kids are twirling like they know what they’re doing, but under the surface it smells of nerves, hormones, and desperation.

It’s familiar to me since I’m labouring under the same struggle. 

Teachers hover at the edges, pretending to supervise, but their eyes are glazed with boredom. Nobody’s watching closely. Nobody except me. I’m always watching. Always measuring the space between Mari and every other set of hands, every stare that lingers too long.

When Mari is enveloped into her gaggle of girlfriends, I stand against the wall, jacket too tight across my shoulders, and I can feel every set of eyes that slides across me.

Too tall.

Too broad.

Too scary.

None of their judgements matter.

Because she’s here... and she’s mine. 

Her friends orbit around her like moths circling light, pulling at her skirt, giggling in her ear, nudging her toward the boys who hover close enough to hope for a chance with her. But Mari doesn’t see them. Doesn’t even notice the eyes dragging over her. Her gaze finds me across the room, unwavering, and something in my chest breaks open.

I don’t belong here. 

Never have. 

But my girl does. 

She could shine anywhere, fit everywhere. The only reason I’m not tearing my way out of this crowded hell is because she wants me here, because she asked me to come with, because she pleaded with me to stay the entire party.

Mari moves like she’s the only thing worth watching. The dress she saved for, borrowed jewellery catching the light, her hair loose in soft, dark waves that brush her bare shoulders. Everyone else fades into the surrounding shadows. She doesn’t know it, but she glows. And she doesn’t notice them watching her—only me. That’s the part that undoes me every time. Out of all of them, she looks at me like I’m not a beast. Like I’m something better.

I don’t dance. 

My size makes people step back, makes partners stumble, makes teachers frustrated. But Mari drags me out anyway. Her hand slides into mine, small and delicate. Pulling. Coaxing. Her laugh makes my chest swell. The love in her eyes softens my hard and usually unmovable scowl. She sways, and I let her guide me, because there’s no way I can argue with her when she smiles up at me like that.

“See?” she whispers. Her cheek brushes my arm because I’m too tall for her to whisper in my ear. “You’re not as terrible as you think.”

I grunt, but the corner of my mouth betrays me. Her giggle when my lips twitch into the smile I save for her alone makes my life worthwhile. My hands have a mind of their own, grazing her slight curves as I trail them upward. I know the moment Mari accepts her fate because her chest inflates, then deflates before she tips her head backward.

Holding her beneath her arms, I lift her high and spin her in a circle.

She doesn’t clutch at me.

She shows no signs of fear.

Because she trusts me to keep her safe.

My footwork on the dance floor is dubious at best.

My footwork on the canvas surface of an octagon is better than most.

It’s those skills that allow me to twirl my girl beneath the disco ball while everyone else watches. I’m graceful. Enthralled by her beauty. Lost in the moment. She is perfection. Eyes locked on mine. Love clear to see. 

Until we’re swarmed by Mari’s friends and their dates and I’m forced to lower her to her feet so she can receive their compliments. I’m an outcast with no clue how I landed a social butterfly’s heart, so I do what I do best.

I fade into the background.

Arms crossed.

Eyes fixed on my girl.

A nobody to everyone else.

Mari’s guardian until the day I die.

I don’t trust anyone in this room. Not the boys eyeing her, not the girls whispering when they think she can’t hear. Even the teachers would rather pretend I’m not here at all. I can feel trouble humming under the surface, the way it always does when too many bodies cram together, restless and loud. It’s only a matter of time. 

And when it comes, I’ll step in. 

I always do.

The rest of the dance crawls until it doesn’t. One minute, I’m watching her spin with her friends in the twinkling lights. The next, our teachers and chaperons are shooing us out into the humid dark of the parking lot.

Voices carry, laughter sharp and uneven.

Everyone’s restless, buzzing with the high of graduation.

That’s when it happens.

A shove. A shout. Some idiot I don’t even know pushes Mari’s cousin against the hood of a car, mouthing off about something that doesn’t matter. I see red before I even register the words.

I step in.

Like I was primed to do from the start. 

The crowd shifts instantly, kids circling like sharks smelling blood. Someone eggs it on with a shout. Phones already out to record. Mari’s cousin’s face is pale, his palms flat against the hood like he’s bracing for the next shove.

The kid squaring up to him is loud, all unearned swagger, bigger than some but still half my size. His friends jeer behind him, deliberately stoking the fire. I shoulder my way through, putting myself between them before Mari’s cousin takes the hit meant for him.

I can feel Mari’s eyes on me, wide and unblinking, but I don’t look back. My blood’s already humming. My pulse is already steadying into the cold rhythm I know too well.

The kid’s got maybe fifty pounds on Mari’s cousin but he’s still half my size. Doesn’t stop him from squaring up when I shoulder him back. His fist snaps out. I let it land. Split lip. The sting is sharp enough to ground me, to remind me not to break him in half in front of everyone.

Then I finish it.

One hit.

His knees buckle.

His body slumps against the car before his buddies drag him off.

Not much of a fight, not for me.

There never is.

The crowd gasps as he drops. Phones lower. Some kids mutter about me being a psycho. Others look like they’ve just seen their first real fight. None of it matters to me. The only thing that matters is Mari. She hasn’t flinched. She hasn’t looked away. She’s moving toward me, her chin high, eyes locked on mine like I’m the only thing she sees. Not scared. Just worried. Always worried.

I swipe at my bloodied lip with the back of my hand, ignoring the taste of iron in my mouth. What sticks in my psyche is the way Mari’s eyes go wide, the amber depths glinting in the streetlights. Not scared for me. Never scared of me. Just worried. Always worried.

“That was shitty,” she breathes. As the crowd thins, Mari presses closer to me as the crowd thins. Ignoring the ones who are still muttering about the fight, we head for my piece of shit Jeep. “You okay?” 

“Fine.” 

My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to, but it steadies when her fingers ghost over mine. She doesn’t let go, not even when we start walking. She doesn’t have to say it because. I know she’s about to scold me for stepping in. For fighting. For bleeding. 

For some reason, she doesn’t. 

Instead, she just squeezes my hand tighter. 

It takes two cranks of the key for the engine to ignite. When it does, I drive her away from the noise, away from the parking lot, toward the edge of the suburb where the air smells of cut grass and warm earth. My girl keeps glancing up at me like she wants to ask where we’re going, but she trusts me too much to speak it aloud. 

It makes me ache. 

A bruising kind of ache that no fight has ever caused. 

She’s my solitary soft spot. 

The only thing in my life that could truly hurt me. 

The lights of the butterfly garden flicker against the night sky after I help her out of my Jeep and lead her to the entrance. Closed, the sign says, but I slip the gate open with a key I shouldn’t have. Money talks in this town. Especially dirty, fight money. And I’d spend every last dollar I have if it meant she’d look at me the way she’s looking now—half disbelief, half wonder. 

“You didn’t.” Her whisper of disbelief morphs into a laugh. 

“Wanted it to be just us.” 

I shrug, trying to play it off. 

My chest inflates with burning pride. 

Mari steps through the gate as if she’s crossing into another world. 

She pulls me along by the hand. 

Into a night that belongs to us.