Foes & Cons by Carrie Aarons (i am malala young readers edition .txt) 📗

And I was pleasantly surprised to find that, before my ex-best friend’s outburst at me being there, I was having a lot of fun. Nate, Laura, and I had all gotten ready together, the two of us girls doing our hair and Nate sifting through old yearbooks on my bed. We put on our favorite playlist as Laura drove us up to Hailey’s ranch house. I was nervous about the comments or treatment I’d get at the party, but once we settled in, I found that no one really cared about my being there.

In fact, I joined in on some of the group drinking games, and was actually decent at flip cup. Over the course of the last two hours, I started to feel … normal. I was blending in, there was a friendliness being paid toward me. No one picked on me, or made lewd comments.

Honestly, it wasn’t what I expected at all.

But what I never expected to happen was me, in Sawyer’s truck, getting a ride home from the one person who hated me more than anything. It’s strangely quiet in the cab of his Jeep, and my drunk self thought that this is the precise moment to laugh.

I chuckle, which turns into a cackle, which then turns into a snort. After a minute, I’m full on belly laughing next to him.

“What?” he bites out, whipping his gaze to me.

Those emerald eyes burn hot as they rove over me, and I squirm in the passenger seat. Even when he’s angry as all get out, he can still make me have dirty, dirty thoughts. And we’re alone. In the middle of nowhere on some back road in our hometown.

“I mean, I had to get you back for the Spirit Night theme. You know that, right?” As if reasoning with him is going to stop this feud.

“By wrecking my truck? Real fucking mature, Blair.” His voice is ice.

“You stole the one thing you know is really important to me in terms of school. I don’t give a shit about your little pranks, or making it so that no one wants to date me. But you went below the belt hijacking that class cabinet meeting. So I had to hit you back where it hurt.”

Laura and I decided to “decorate” his Jeep as a little revenge prank. Honestly, it was fun, and Sawyer played right into our hands. We knew exactly where he’d be tonight, and that everyone would be too drunk to look into the dark and notice two girls taping tampons all over the senior soccer stud’s prized possession.

Part of me is pissed that the whole party won’t get to see our handiwork in the light of day. Laura and I know that most of our fellow classmates slept off their hangovers at the ranch in their cars, or the bedrooms if they were lucky enough to score one.

But Laura getting too drunk and forfeiting her designated driver duties kind of ruined that plan. Serves her right, as it landed me in the carpool from hell.

“You always knew how to strike harder than I did,” he mutters.

Guilt flashes through me at how I ended our friendship, but I try to remind myself that he stole my final theme. And then there is the pros and cons list.

“I’m not quite sure about that.” I chuckle sardonically as flashes of our hometown whip past the passenger window.

Sawyer is all control and blunt maleness in the driver’s seat, and it almost hurts to look at him. Because my lord, he’s attractive when I’m sober, but he’s extremely attractive when I’m drunk. Dangerously so, because I’m considering leaning over the console to touch the divot where I know his dimple flashes on his cheek when he smiles.

Not that he’s smiling now. His thick brown eyebrows are slanted over those stern green eyes, and the muscles of his bicep pop with barely held restraint under his T-shirt sleeves as he one-hands the wheel. His knuckles are thick and I’m not sure why hands and fingers are suddenly the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, but as he grips the leather, I’m stunned to discover that they are.

“Why’d you do it?”

His voice is barely above a whisper, and it’s the first non-confrontational sentence he’s spoken to me in two years. It’s simply a question, and I can tell from the tone in his voice that he’s not asking why I doused his car in female menstrual products. He’s asking about two years ago, about us coming out of that closet and the entire landscape of our friendship changing.

My gaze swings to him, but he’s facing forward, as if trying to solve a puzzle out of the traffic lines painted onto the pavement.

How am I going to explain to him that I found his list? That I read his private thoughts, where he skewered me and broke down every confidence I ever believed in.

In two years, I’ve never come clean. It strikes me now that Sawyer thought I ended our friendship randomly, out of the blue. It is, now that I think of it, pretty unfair that he has just been left hanging with no excuse or reason from me.

But then I think of his pros and cons, and my heart breaks all over again. And I transform into that warped, damaged person I’ve been all along. No party or faux-acceptance from my peers can make me shiny and new.

“Clearly, if the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that we never had anything in common. We were forced together because of our parents, and I’m glad, for one, that we ended that charade. I mean, look how much you despise me. Isn’t honesty better? I just did us a favor.”

The lies coming out of my mouth deal blow after blow to my already damaged heart. I’m spitting untruths, but I’m doing myself a favor. Haven’t I always known that if I didn’t cut him out before