Page 31 of My Fake Relationship With the Popular Boy
“What, no thought to get me one?” Madison asked drily.
“Well, if you had a boyfriend, Madison…” Jaxon said teasingly.
“What, a boyfriend like you?” Madison asked, raising her eyebrows. “Yeah, I’d rather die, thanks.”
“Such kind words for the boy your best friend loves,” Jaxon said, putting a hand to his heart. Instead of sounding upset, though, he actually sounded a little happy. “And I think you’ll be changing your tune pretty soon.”
“And why’s that?” Madison tilted her head, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders.
Jaxon smirked and pulled his right arm out from where he had been hiding it behind him. In his hand was another bowl from the ice cream shop.
“I didn’t know what flavour your wanted either so I just got you chocolate,” he said as he handed her the bowl. Madison immediately dug in. “I felt like it was a safe bet.”
“To be clear, though, he didn’t put nearly as much effort into deciding that one,” Sabrina added.
“Come on, let’s keep walking.” Jaxon held his hand out to me. When I grabbed it, he pulled me to my feet. We continued walking the direction we’d been going earlier, luckily turning a different way than Rob and Lewis had just gone. If I never ran into them again, it would be too soon.
Jaxon didn’t let go of my hand, so I didn’t let go either. We let our arms swing between us. I was a little self-conscious about even that amount of PDA where everyone could see us, but I knew it was good for convincing everyone. Jaxon was right that it was good for everyone to believe us, even the people in our class that we never talked to.
After a minute, I glanced behind us. Madison, Sabrina and Eli were walking a few feet behind us, all looking at something on Sabrina’s phone. I doubted they were paying any attention to us so I took advantage of the moment.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” I asked.
“Of course.”
I paused as I thought of the best way to phrase my question.
“Why do you hate Lewis so much?” I asked. “Like, where did your rivalry begin?”
Jaxon pursed his lips. “Anything but that,” he said.
“Seriously, Jaxon,” I said. I squinted a little as I looked up at his face. I did have sunglasses on my head but they were there more as a fashion piece than to be used. “You hate him so muchthat you’re doing all this to get back at him. There must be a reason.”
Jaxon shrugged. “I don’t remember where it started. I guess it’s just always been that way.”
“Please tell me,” I begged. I shook his arm a little. “I’ve always wondered. From my point of view as his friend… it seemed like you just came into our lives and hated him for no reason.”
He sighed deeply and stared forward. I pulled away a little. Clearly this was something he didn’t want to talk about. Although that honestly just made me more curious as to what could have happened, I wouldn’t push the matter if he didn’t want me to.
“It’s not really my story to tell,” he said after a minute of silence.
I wasn’t sure what exactly he meant by that but I respected him not wanting to tell me so I whispered, “I understand.”
He shook his head. “No, you deserve the story. I just won’t get into specifics, okay?”
“You don’t need to?—”
“No. No, I do.” He glanced behind us. I followed his gaze. All three of them were still looking at Sabrina’s phone without a care in the world. In a quiet voice Jaxon said, “Basically, Lewis was a piece of crap towards Eli. And you know Eli — he’s a suffer-in-silence, no conflict kind of guy. But the stuff Lewis was doing to him wasn’t okay and we weren’t going to let him get away with it.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I never knew.”
“I figured you didn’t.” He shrugged then looked at me knowingly. “You’re not exactly a fan of bullies.”
I bit my lip and looked away. Based on that story, he had every right to be angry with me. I’d called him a bully on numerous occasions for what he did to Lewis. It wasn’t anuncommon occurrence for Lewis to come home in tears from whatever Jaxon had said to him. Evidently, I’d gotten a biased report of what transpired between them, which made sense now that I had better understanding of who Lewis really was. It seemed like I was the last one to realize.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t,” Jaxon said. He paused for a minute. “Anyway, because of that, Sabrina and I stepped in a lot to help, but that meant putting a target on our backs from anyone who liked Lewis… or who agreed with what he was saying about Eli.”
