“It’s a bit of a long story,” Eli said. It was easy to tell that what he really meant wasyou’re not going to like this.
“I’ve got time,” I said drily.
He sighed. “Well, Lewis has had a crush on you for as long as Jaxon has and they both know it. They’ve both known the whole time, that is. And sometimes around the middle of grade nine — you know, when they really started to hate each other — Lewis told Jaxon that you never have and never would like Jaxon and that Lewis had already won.”
My lip curled in disgust. Lewis had already won? What was I — a prized pig?
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?”
“I’m sorry,” Eli said. “I should have. I didn’t tell you when it happened because you and I weren’t really close friends yet, but I should have at some point. I’m really sorry.”
I shook my head. Some of my red hair fell in my eyes and I impatiently tucked it behind my ears again. My hair was getting too long and I desperately needed to cut it.
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “Honestly, I’m not sure if I would have believed you if you had told me back then.”
When I started high school, Lewis and Madison were my only close friends. I couldn’t afford to believe Lewis was a bad person. Obviously, a lot had changed since then.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Eli said, “what exactly did Lewis say to you that made you this upset?”
I didn’t mind him asking but I really didn’t want to tell him either. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, or even that I didn’t really want him to know. It was just that I wasn’t ready to repeat what Lewis had said to me yet. The wound was still a little too fresh.
“He just made a comment about my mom,” I said. Eli was one of few people who knew about my family issues. My motherwasn’t in my life anymore and hadn’t been for many years now, but her words continued to haunt me, even with her gone.
“If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here,” Eli said. I just nodded, hoping he would understand that I wanted to move on. He immediately launched back into what he was saying before. “Anyway, after Lewis said that, Jaxon said he bet that he could get you to go out with him first and Lewis took the bet. So, really, they’ve both been trying to get you to go out with them for the past four years. They’ve each just had a different tactic, I guess.”
How had I never noticed that before? Was that all my friendship with Lewis was — a way for him to win the bet? And how much of Jaxon asking me out had really been a joke liked I’d thought?
“Four years,” I said, completely gobsmacked. “This has been going on for four years and I never knew.”
“To be fair, I’m not sure how much they’ve both cared about it for the past couple of years,” Eli said. “Honestly, I haven’t heard Jaxon mention it in a while. Not since the ninth grade, probably.”
I looked at him dubiously. “He greets me with pick-up lines every day, Eli.”
“But he’s not being serious about it,” he said. “He’s matured a lot since he made that bet. That’s why him asking you out turned into a joke over the years. He realized that the bet was made in bad taste and decided not to keep going with it.”
“Then why are you bringing it up now?”
Eli looked uncomfortable again. “Well, that’s the thing… Jaxon ran into Lewis yesterday and apparently, Lewis made some comment about the bet and how Jaxon was going to lose. And you know how Jaxon is about losing, especially to Lewis.”
“So he asked me out yesterday,” I finished for him.
“Yes,” Eli said. “Which, I agree, was a bad move and I did tell him that when he mentioned it yesterday.”
“Well, that’s something at least,” I muttered.
Maybe that was why Lewis was in such a bad mood the other day. If he ran into Jaxon before meeting up with me, then he was probably annoyed. Not that anything excused the stuff he said to me. If anything, all of this just made it worse.
“I’m going to kill them,” I said.
“Please don’t,” Eli said. His wavy brown hair flopped around as he tilted his head and stared at me with wide eyes. “I promise they’ve both grown a lot since this all started.”
“Clearly they haven’t if it’s still going on!” I snapped. Even Eli didn’t have a response to that. “And if either of them think I’m going out with them after all of this, then they are out of their minds.”
three
I wasthe queen of jinxing myself and that day was no different. Apparently me saying that I was never going to date either of the boys meant that they were everywhere I went. Or maybe that was normal but the reason I noticed it then was because every time I saw either of them, I got an intense urge to punch them. Ignorance was bliss when it came to people betting on you.
If I was being entirely honest, I did consider going through with punching each of them once or twice. While I did try to keep my head down at school, I had gotten into fights before and I was willing to do it again if the need arose. The main thing that held me back was my desire not to get detention. I wasn’t risking not being allowed on the grad trip because of those two assholes, no matter how much they tested me.
