Page 6 of (Un)Rivaled

As soon as I opened the door, Elsa curled up on the queen-sized bed in the corner and closed her eyes. However, I was wide awake after the scene upstairs. Between that and my fight with Devyn, my adrenaline was at an all-time high. I walked over to my old bookshelf, the one that hadn’t shifted in over a decade, thumbing through some of my favorite titles. I picked up a sci-fi novel I’d read so often, the pages were faded and bent. As I started thumbing through them, a piece of paper tumbled out from the center, landing at my feet. When I leaned down to grab it, the pictures stared back at me. Once I held the strip inmy hand, I looked over each one and smiled at the memory.

Four images lined up on the paper, all of Devyn and me from one of the summer carnivals when the town sprung for a photo booth. For a moment, I looked at the younger version of myself, but Devyn was really what had all my attention. It was odd—she looked the same yet completely different at the same time. She had the same icy blonde hair pulled into a messy bun, her usually pale skin tanned from a long summer at the beach, the same dark eyes, too mature for our age but also filled with so much life. Now, all I ever got was a scowl; in these pictures, she looked so damn happy.

Devyn’s bright smile was infectious, and I couldn’t stop staring at all the images in a row. We must have taken fifty pictures that day. She had plopped into my lap, not thinking twice about our closeness. We never did back then. My arm was slung around her waist, holding her tight as we made goofy faces at the camera.

It was still early in our friendship, before the trajectory of our lives changed and forced us apart. As I looked at the younger version of myself, my stomach twisted. In every picture, I was staring at Devyn. God, I was already obsessed; I was just too young and dumb to realize it.

Muttering under my breath, I started to tuck the photo strip back into the book but paused. As I closed the cover, I put the book back in its rightful place but kept the photos out of it. Instead, I grabbed the tape from my desk, ripped off a small piece, and put it up on my mirror.

This was ridiculous. One night with Devyn, and I was already back to obsessing over her. But it felt too good to be close to her, to smell the perfume that always lingered a fewseconds after she left the room. I wanted so much more, but there was no way she felt the same.

Shaking my head, I walked away from the mirror. I pulled my shirt over my head and shoved off my jeans before climbing into bed, too emotionally drained to even deal with a shower. As Elsa curled up into my side, I closed my eyes, dreams of a past life haunting me.

THREE

TWELVE YEARS OLD

Someone had invaded my fishing spot.

No, not anyone.Shehad invaded it.

All I wanted was to go down to the ice and try to catch a fish before the sun melted it too much, but nope. That wasn’t going to happen today, not when my favorite secret spot had been invaded yet again.

I toyed with the small rod in my hand, looking over my shoulder. There had to be other places to go. There was that one spot over by Guardian’s Beach. But then again, someone had fallen in last week after a thin patch gave out. I shuddered, not willing to take that risk. No, if I wanted to get the practice in, it had to be here. After all, there were only a couple more weeks until Dad started going up north with his friends. I have to show him I could handle it—that I had the patience to sit and wait for the fish if I wanted to tag along this year. And let’s be honest—I really did need the practice.

But from the moment I saw her sitting there, any plans of fishing left my mind.

Devyn Winters.

My mortal enemy.

Okay, so maybe that was a little harsh. It wasn’t like she stole my toys or kicked my dog. There was just something about Devyn thatirritatedme. We’d known each other almost all our lives–an unfortunate side effect of our dads being best friends. It was no secret they hoped their friendship would pass down to us.

Good luck with that.

Devyn and I never got along, barely able to spend more than ten minutes in a room together without arguing. My parents had sat me down a ton of times, reminding me to be nice to Devyn, but nothing seemed to work. We were too different. Eventually, we’d learned to co-exist. Between weekly dinners and spending all our vacations and holidays together, we weren’t given much of a choice.

Until her dad died, and then, everything changed.

Immediately after the funeral, her mother boarded up their rooms at the Isadora and traded them in for a ritzy apartment in the city. Devyn and her family still visited in the summer and on school breaks, but they stayed close to her grandfather.

But even though she was rarely in town, it seemed like our paths always managed to cross.

Standing at the tree line, I watched her pencil glide across the page. She briefly looked up, squinting to monitor a pair of birds that had landed on the ice. Most of the wildlife had fled before the snow started to fall, but these birds were stubborn, I’d give them that. Wisps of her ice blonde hair untucked from her braids, and she lifted a bare hand to swat them away, unwilling to break her concentration.

I smirked, an evil plan forming in the back of my mind. I crept closer, waiting until she was concentrating on her drawing again to sneak up behind her. But as I took another tiny step closer, my boot pressed into a stick buried in the snow. The resounding crack echoed across the space between us, and Devyn lifted her head ever so slightly. “I know you’re there, Grayson. You might as well come out.”

My head dropped down to my feet, hating Devyn had managed to beat me.Again.I rolled my eyes as I stepped out. “I thought I told you this was my beach?”

“Oh, you were serious about that?” she said, still tracking the movement of the birds. “Guess you’ll have to provide some evidence, and then I’ll move along.” She looked up at me with one of her smug smiles. “Until then, I think I’ll stay. Besides, I was here first, and you know what they say about possession being nine-tenths of the law.”

I ground my teeth, trying to hold back the words on the tip of my tongue.Thiswas the exact reason why Devyn Winters and I could never be friends. Most people assumed it was because she was a girl, but I didn’t give a crap about that. My best friend Wade said it was weird to be friends with girls, but I didn’t see it like that.

No, I couldn’t stand Devyn because she always needed to be right, always needed to prove she was the smartest person in the room. I swear, the girl was born with the ability to win an argument. No matter the topic, every time our paths crossed, she left me feeling dumb, which wasn’t an unusual feeling for me.

I spent most of my days wondering what was wrong with my brain and why it was so hard to focus on anything, especially in school. For the most part, I was able to ignore that internal voice telling me I was stupid. But when I was around Devyn, a girl who was too smart for her own good,that whisper turned into a roar, sure she’d make fun of me if she knew the truth.

The sounds of the birds taking off pulled me back into the moment, watching as she muttered something under her breath. She turned, and her brown eyes cut into me. “Can you just go, Grayson? Please?” A hitch caught in her throat. “I…I can’t do this, not today.”

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