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

that last part of the sentence, that it strikes me; she wanted to be with me, too. All this time, I thought she rejected me because she never wanted anything romantic between us. Now I know that we are just two sides of the same coin, struggling to come to terms with both falling in love with our best friend.

“And you ruined any chance we ever could have had.” I can’t see past my anger right now, can’t apologize for the way I made her feel.

The fury poisoning my veins right now needs to be unleashed, but I know it’ll be like dropping an atom bomb, something we can’t come back from, if I stay here.

So without another word, and with Blair yelling at my retreating back, I make a break for it.

I got the answers I’ve been asking for all this time. Except now that I have them, I don’t want them at all.

20

Sawyer

Students swarm the halls, the in between time as they pass from one class to another filled with shouts, anxiety, and frantically switching new and old books in and out of lockers.

I’m moseying, as I’ve done most days of this year. I’m a senior, and a pretty secure one in my studies at that. I know what I want to go to college for, and I’ve got a pretty good handle going on my honors classes. Also, being one of the more well-known students, read popular, in school affords me more privileges when it comes to teacher’s leniency. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is, and I take advantage of it.

With my back to the cool metal of my locker, I casually sip a can of Dr. Pepper and watch the chaos. It’s going to be weird, leaving this place where I’m top dog. Next year, I’ll be a small fish in an enormous pond, and I’m kind of looking forward to it. There will be no expectations, no assumptions about who I am or a rep I have to protect, so to say.

Perhaps that will be the best thing for me. Look how protecting my reputation hurt the one person I love most. If I wasn’t so concerned with how others view me, if I never wrote that list, who knows what would have happened between Blair and me.

I’ve had a few days to process everything that went down at Blair’s house, and the anger has left me. Mostly. I’m still kind of ticked that she was sneaking around in my room, but I’m positive she never thought she’d find something like that.

What I did, reducing her worth to such a shallow, surface level, hurt way worse. That betrayal is by far greater than what she did to me. I can see it now, the internal debate she would have with herself after she found it. I can see it now, the pain in her eyes the night of the seven minutes in heaven debacle. The last night we were truly friends.

Although, I guess we weren’t, by that point. How strange is it that I was going to go for it, I was going to kiss her … and meanwhile, Blair was trying not to break down at how badly I hurt her.

No, neither of us were justified in how we behaved afterward. She should have confessed that she found the list, and we could have dealt with it. Maybe it would have ended our friendship anyway, but we could have done so without all the mudslinging. Now, there are so many events to point to where I was a complete asshole, and I wish I could take them all back.

Across the hall, I spot her long chestnut hair. Blair is walking between Nate and Laura, the three of them in an animated conversation. My gaze falls to her ass, snug and round in a pair of curve-hugging jeans. Even though we’re in a hall full of students and teachers, I spring a middie. My cock stiffens, wondering just how it would feel rubbing up against those perky cheeks. What would my hands feel like as they teased up and under her sweater, what sounds would she make against my ears as my fingers—

Fuck, I need to get a handle on myself. With the way my dirty mind is going, I’ll be trying to rub one out in the bathroom in about two seconds.

But every time I’m around her now, whether she’s aware of my presence or not, I’m more and more drawn to her. It’s as if that kiss, and the subsequent fight, has unleashed something primal between us. Now that I know why she distanced herself, why she made me hate her and I did the same in turn …

I can try to fix it.

This is it, our final year in Chester. Come August, we’ll go off to college, and I may never get this chance again. The chance to tell her how profoundly sorry I am, even if my trust is bruised a little from how she’d gone through my things to find the list. In the grand scheme of things, what I’ve done is way worse than her prying eyes.

Why the hell did I write that dumb pros and cons list in the first place? I was a scared, stupid kid. Not that I am much wiser now, but I know I want her and I know I’ll humble myself, grovel and apologize, put on public grand gestures, to do so.

My eyes track her until she’s all but out of sight, lost in the sea of teenage bodies. What would it be like to hold her hand, walk her to class, kiss her before we had to separate? What would it be like if I got to drive her home and sneak up to her room before her dad got home? To ask her to prom, to spend every bit of time left in our hometown together. Aren’t these the scenarios I’ve always secretly dreamed of?

I don’t need