Free Just Rules by Anna Casanovas, Carlie Johnson Page A

dinner with the two of them because he says he wants to introduce her to me. Apparently, he forgot that I have already met her, that I was with him the day he asked her out for the first time. I would have said no if I had found a good excuse.
    “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to say hello to that couple over there,” Susana says to us. “She is one of the makeup artists at the station.”
    “Of course,” agrees Tim, very formally.
    Susana smiles at him and ignores me.
    Why does she ignore me? I gave up, and I didn’t say anything to Tim or to her about them since they are together. I’ve been willing to go sit in a corner, but I’m not about to put up with people pretending I don’t exist.
    Never.
    “I like this girl, Mac,” says Tim, holding a beer in one hand. “And we get along really well.”
    “I’m glad,” I tell him, because what else can I say?
    “She’s nothing like Amanda,” he keeps going. “I always fought with her.”
    “You were crazy about Amanda,” I remind him. “You wanted to spend the rest of your life with her.”
    “Yeah, I know.” He shrugs his shoulders and takes a drink. “Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life with Susan. Don’t you think I’d be better off with her instead of Amanda?”
    Just when I’m about to tell him yes, to blurt out what he wants to hear, like he’s matured and that he’s ready for a serious relationship, I see Susan’s reflection in a mirror hanging at the back of the restaurant.
    She’s coming near us, and she’s looking at me. She is so concentrated on looking at the back of my neck and my back, that she doesn’t even realize I caught her.
    She looks at me when she thinks nobody else is looking? Who does she think she is? If she wants to look at me, she can look me in the eye.
    The back of my neck is sweating and I can feel her eyes looking me up and down, fixating on my shoulders. I tilt my head a little to try to make that feeling go away. It’s strange, and I don’t like how it makes me feel.
    She’s almost to the table. I’m sure that if I raise my voice a bit she would be able to hear me easily.
    “No, I don’t think so,” I answer Tim, and I immediately raise my voice a little. “Susan is fake and stuck-up and seems more frigid than an iceberg.” Done. She has heard me. She stops dead in her tracks and stares at the back of my neck, although this time with hate. I can feel her eyes staring at me. Let’s see if she is capable of ignoring me now. I grip the glass of water I’m holding, and I keep going: “a woman who tries so hard to be what she is not, isn’t right in the head, Tim.”
    Susan’s jaw trembles for a second. It is so quick that it is almost as if I had imagined it, yet at the same time, it lasts long enough for me to feel guilty and to feel like standing up and apologizing to her. However, just then Susan walks back to the table.
    Now she is going to insult me or yell at me. And she’s going to demand that Tim take her side.
    And she’ll have to look at me.
    She does nothing.
    Absolutely nothing.
    She walks up to Tim, kisses him on the cheek and immediately sits down and grabs the menu.
    “What do you guys recommend?”
     
     
    The lights on the freeway flash and I’m forced to concentrate on driving again. I’d better not forget that moment. The way she effortless dismissed me.
    I can’t forget that I don’t affect Susana in the least bit. It’s best if I just do what Tim asked me to do, to make sure that she is OK, and to carry on with life as usual.

Chapter 6
    Sixth rule of American football:
    Time-out: each team has three chances to stop the clock per half.
     
    Two weeks later, when Mac had already been lying down alone on his bed for two hours, feeling regretful —again— for having gone out with Kelly, the phone rang. The date turned out to be a complete disaster. Kelly was gorgeous, and she spent the entire night talking about her or flattering him; two topics of conversation he found