Page 79 of You Started It

“How is he?”

“Alive. You want a ride home?” I ask.

Ben nods and I appreciate that he’s not pressing for a deeper response, because right now, I don’t have one. He gets in the passenger seat while I get in the driver’s side and turn the engine. My radio blares on, playing some annoying song Axel loves.

“Sorry,” I say, reaching for the knob to turn down the volume. “Was drowning out my thoughts on the drive to school this morning. So where’s Olivia? Surprised the two of you aren’t dressed in some matching couple’s costume.”

Ben barks out a laugh. “Yeah. If she’d had her way, we would have been. I mean, that was the plan, but things kind of took a turn this weekend for us.”

I pull out of the parking lot and glance at Ben. “I thought you made up after the whole tutoring and text message debacle.”

“I thought so too,” he says, his head tilted down. “We broke up.”

“Must be something in the air. Axel and I have also decided to end things,” I state simply, while continuing to drive.

“Oh,” Ben responds.

When I turn onto Ben and Axel’s street a few minutes later, my heart aches. A flashback of the night I met Axel flickers through my mind like an old black-and-white movie. I make a sharp turn onto Ben’s driveway and park.

“Want to talk about it?” Ben asks. “Share war stories?”

“Not really,” I say, staring straight ahead.

“Can I talk about it then?” Ben asks. I guess with Olivia gone, I’m the only quasi-friend he has left. So much for all that enlightenment he’d achieved working at the camp over the summer. He seems to be back to where he was before he left me. Nothing to show for two months in the inner circle with Olivia Chen. Because of course her friends would choose her over Ben.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to face him. “Go ahead.”

He matches my pose, all excited, like he’s been waiting all day to talk to someone—me—about this. “She brought up the fact that I’d lied about you tutoring me. Again. It spiraled from there.”

I guess my words got through to Olivia after all. “Spiraled how?”

He lifts his shoulders. “I asked her to show me Axel’s text. I wanted to see how she replied to it.”

“And?”

“She got defensive. Claimed she’d deleted their exchange and didn’t understand why I wanted to see her responses anyway. She accused me of not trusting her. Which is just so ironic I could puke. But if my enemy is DMing my girlfriend, I think I have a right to see the messages.”

“Enemy?” I ask, side-eyeing Ben. Axel is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t consider him anyone’s enemy. Even now. I don’t hate Axel. I’m just disappointed. And hurt. Maybe I’m pushing him away as an act of self-preservation. I guess I’m more like my mother than I care to admit.

Ben continues. “The guy is dating my ex-girlfriend and trying to get with my new girlfriend. I think it’s fair to call him an enemy. I’m sure you don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings for Olivia.”

“No. I don’t. But, at a certain point, you have to decide whether or not to trust someone. And as far as I can see, Olivia hasn’t given you any reason not to trust her.”

Ben thumps his head against the headrest, exhaling a loud breath. “I’ve really screwed things up.”

“Just say you’re sorry.”

“It’s not that easy. I said some things. Things I can’t take back. Things I’m not sure I need to take back.”

“What did you say, Ben?” I ask, running a hand over my stomach, as a baby cramp pulses.

“You know how some people have a tell? Like when my mom makes brussels sprouts for dinner, she pulls at her earlobe, and how my dad swallows a lot when he’s about to tell my mom he has to go on another business trip?”

“Sure,” I say with a shrug, trying to ignore the memory of when Ben and I discovered his mom’s earlobe quirk. We laughed about it and then went to his room. We made out and it got pretty intense. It’s why we had to come up with that winter formal plan. Ben didn’t want us to lose focus and have our first time be rushed and unmemorable. He was always so adamant about not getting lost in the moment.

Lost together.

Like me and Axel.

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