#phitty

Jeff was standing in the kitchen, eating a granola bar and giving Megan the stink-eye behind her back. She was sitting on the couch, eating her cereal and reading a magazine, while Michael played Call of Duty next to her. Neither of the boys seemed to have noticed Allison was there, despite the fact that Megan should have at least mentioned her arrival. Finally, Jeff looked up and saw her, immediately making a beeline for her position.

“Schmitty, hey!” he said, giving her a hug. Michael looked up from the screen at the sound of her name but forgot to hit the ‘pause’ button on the controller. “It’s so great to see you!”

Allison hugged him back and returned his enthusiasm over seeing her. “You, too, Jeff. It’s been a while,” she said as they broke apart. She waved to Michael who waved back. “Um, Mike, your head just got blown off,” she pointed out, indicating the screen.

Michael looked back at the screen, distractedly, and shut off the system. He tossed the controller on the coffee table and got up to greet Allison. Or, more accurately, to stand awkwardly in front of her.

Jeff glanced from one to the other for several seconds before announcing that he had to leave. “I got a game,” he said by way of explanation. “Schmitty, I should see you more often. Mike, ol’ buddy, I’ll see you, later.” He gave Michael a light slap on the back, grabbed his coat and keys and left without bothering to say goodbye to Megan, who didn’t seem to be paying attention to them anyway. She tossed the magazine she was flipping through and picked up another one without missing a beat.

“Hey,” Michael said, his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

Allison sort of shrugged and gave him a small smile. “School let out early for Christmas and I wanted to see Bob, so my parents let me fly out to see him before I went home.”

“So you’re here to see Bob?” Michael asked. “Just Bob?”

Allison rolled her eyes at the smile on Michael’s face. “Oh, don’t make me say it, Phelps. You lied to me in New York. You said we’d see each other after Golden Goggles but when I looked for you at the end of the night, you were gone. You know, I waited–“ She cut herself off and waved her hand. “Forget it. Obviously, I wanted to see you, too. I’m here, aren’t I?”

Michael’s smile widened but before he could say something, Megan sighed loudly from her spot on the couch and tossed her magazine on the coffee table. Allison noticed that it was practically overflowing with junk like magazines, half-empty Chinese takeout boxes and empty diet shake bottles.

“Babe, I’m gonna take a shower,” Megan said, ditching her cereal bowl in the sink without rinsing it. “Don’t forget we have reservations at that new place at eight and you promised to take me to the Get Down tonight.” She stood next to Michael with her arms crossed and looked at him, as though Alison was not there.

“I know,” Michael responded. Allison heard a slight stress when he said ‘know’, but decided not to comment on it. “I have time. And I haven’t seen Allison since New York. You know Allison right?”

Megan barely glanced at Allison and just shot her another fake smile. “Don’t take too long, you have to get ready.” With another quick glance at Allison, and yet another fake smile, Megan turned and headed for Michael’s bedroom.

Once she was gone, Allison couldn’t help herself. “I thought you said it wasn’t serious.”

“It’s not,” was all Michael said. He headed back into the living room and dropped onto the couch. “She’s just staying here while her apartment gets fumigated.”

Allison raised an eyebrow. “Really? You fell for that?”

Michael blew out a sigh. “Come on, Schmitty, give me a little credit. I picked her up from her building, I saw the tent myself. Besides, would we really bring all of her stuff here if she was faking it?”

“Fine,” Allison conceded. “Speaking of her stuff, couldn’t she have put all of this in a storage unit, instead of cluttering things up here?”

“She said she needed her stuff,” Michael answered, shrugging. It wasn’t a good explanation and they both knew it. What Allison didn’t know was why Michael was putting up with it.

“Look, Michael, I get that you’re hurting right now,” she said, picking her way through the mess on the floor, which seemed to be mostly Megan’s clothes and shoes. With a hop, skip and a jump, she managed to reach the couch and plopped right down next to Michael. “You’re sad and a little angry and the knowledge that Abbie and Ryan are now in a committed relationship may have possibly driven you insane.”

“It didn’t drive me insane, Schmitty,” Michael retorted, sorting through the landfill that was formerly the coffee table for the Xbox controller.

“I said ‘possibly’,” Allison reiterated, with a roll of her eyes. “Even if it did and you’re currently out of your mind, it does not justify you shacking up with Twitter-happy Tina in there.” She jerked her head towards Michael’s closed bedroom door.

Michael glanced at the door then back at Allison. “Her name’s Megan, and I’m not ‘shacking up’ with anyone,” he insisted, turning to face the flatscreen as his game loaded. “And anyway, what’s it to you if I am? I’m a grown man, Schmitty, I can make my own decisions.”

“Not very good ones, apparently,” Allison commented. “I thought you were done with these kinds of girls.”

Michael didn’t look at her but his brow furrowed, seemingly concentrating on shooting the head off an enemy sniper on screen. “What kind do you mean, exactly?”

Allison threw her hands up in the air, frustrated. “You know, all boobs, no brain. The kind that looks pretty walking down the red carpet but has the personality of cardboard.”

“She’s not that flat,” Michael said, in a feeble attempt to defend Megan. “And she’s not that dumb.”

“Of course, she’s a Mensa candidate, I’m sure,” Allison retorted. “I thought after Abbie, you’d be over the whole arm candy thing. I thought you’d–“ For the second time, Allison stopped herself talking and changed tack at the speed of light. “I swear, Mike, it’s like you’re trying to fuck your life up on purpose.”

A muscle at Michael’s jaw worked visibly as he clenched his teeth. He still wouldn’t look at her. He forced himself to slide over the second mention of Abbie, and said, “Well, it’s my life to fuck up. So, why don’t you just butt the hell out of it, Allison?”

Her name hung heavy in the silence between them. It was one thing to introduce her to Megan as Allison, but when Michael stopped calling her ‘Schmitty’, she knew she had hit a nerve. There was no way, however, that she would apologize for speaking her mind, especially when she knew she had a valid point.

“Fine,” Allison said, coldly, getting up from her seat. “I’ll butt out. Keep living your life with Malibu Barbie. But don’t come crawling to me when this comes back and bites you in the ass. Oh, wait, you don’t do that,” she went on, stomping towards the door and yanking it open. “You just shut yourself in and convince yourself that nobody in the world cares about you. You know what, Michael? You just might be right this time.”

With the finality of death sentence, Allison walked out and slammed the door shut. Michael finally turned to look at her but she was already gone. When he turned back to the TV, it was to find out that his character had been shot in the head. Again.