Page 123 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
“How—how did you?—”
“You neverlisten.” Her voice ended in a hiss, expression darkening. “Didn’t you hear me last night when I told Connor that I know everything? Didn’t you hear me when I told you that you were a bad liar?”
For a moment, I was suspended in confusion, unable to remember. And then it clicked.Deny it all you want, she’d said back at one of our first cheer practices of the year, when she asked if I was going to be meeting Logan.But you’re a bad liar, Madison.
“Did you know this whole time?” My words were breathless, rushed. I found myself repeating the question, unable to comprehend it. “This—this whole time, you knew?”
Jade pursed her lips, not answering. The superiority in her gaze said enough.
A dull wave of panic washed over me, being caught in a full-fledged lie. The secret I’d been holding for weeks finally met the light, only to revealit hadn’t been a secret all along. Jade had known. Every time I looked her in the eye and lied, she knew. When she’d asked me about Logan in my bedroom, she’d known. This entire time, Jade had known.
And she looked like a queen standing over me now, seconds away from instructing an execution.
“Why…” I swallowed against my dry mouth. “Why didn’t you say something? If you knew I was with Logan, why didn’t you say anything?”
I could actually see in real time as Jade thought something through, and I could see the moment she made a decision. Or a realization. Whatever it was, it lit up her eyes. “You don’t even know,” she murmured, one corner of her lip tugging up. “Throughout it all, you never even guessed.”
“Guessed what?”
She opened her mouth as if she were about to launch into it, but then stopped. She pressed her lips together, clearly fighting another smile. In the moonlight, it was terrifying. “It doesn’t matter.” Jade raised her eyebrows. “It’s done now, right? It’s time to let go, isn’t it?”
I knew Jade wanted me to press further. To beg her for forgiveness. I could see the intention on her face as she waited for me to speak. She was waiting for me to stumble over myself, to blurt out an apology, and to cry.
Just as I had when she’d asked me to give up co-captain.
But I didn’t want to. Despite the wave of nausea that’d come from my lie coming to light, I found that I didn’t need to know what Jade knew, or how she knew it. I didn’t need her to forgive me for keeping something from her. For the first time ever,I wasn’t desperate for Jade Dyer tonotbe mad at me, not desperate for her approval.
My shoulders slumped a little with the realization. “Yes,” I replied, feeling something like a tired relief. “It’s time to let go.”
Jade nodded slowly, and her dangling earrings bobbed with the movement. We both stood there for a moment, and I realized, with a dull certainty, that this was surely it. Our friendship couldn’t survive after tonight. Then again, had I really wanted it to? I’d helped Connor essentially screw Jade over—I had to have realized there’d be no coming back from that.
But even now, at the thought of losing a decade old friendship—it was so, so wrong, but I felt nothing but relief.
Jade turned away first. Without another word, she turned on her heel and stalked off down the row of cars. I stood there, swaying in my high heels, nearly reaching a hand out to steady myself on the car.
For a moment, the night was quiet. Almost creepily so. Whenever I thought about Jade finding out about my secret relationship with Logan, the scene had always seemed so much worse in my head. Bigger. Scarier.That was… more painless than I was expecting.
I patted my cheeks, but they were dry. Not a tear in sight.
“Madison!”
“What are you doing out here?”
Logan was breathing hard as he came up behind me, eyes wide. “I saw—I saw Jade pull you out here?—”
“Did you think she was going to skin me alive?” I teased, but there was an edge to my voice. Sure, we were hidden between the cars, but anyone could stumble uponus any second. “I’m okay. You need to be on the field. Halftime is almost over?—”
“She didn’t say anything?” I wasn’t the only one who was on edge. Logan’s eyes weren’t just wide with worry, I realized, but with panic. “Jade didn’t tell you… anything?”
I know about Logan.Even now, when he was in the middle of playing a football game, he was worried about that. “No,” I said, going so far as to offer him a small smile. “She was just mad about Connor.”
Logan let out a sigh of relief, one that seemed to rattle in his chest. His shoulder pads were bulky on his frame, and he hung a hand off the neckline, tugging it as if he needed room to breathe.
And then he raised his eyes to mine. He was backlit by the field lights, so it was impossible to truly tell their color, but I knew them by heart—beautiful, beautiful blue. “You look stunning,” he murmured, swallowing hard. “I?—”
“Jade!” Riley’s voice suddenly cut through the night, sounding way too close. Two cars down. “Where did you go?”
Alarm shot through me, and I saw it reflected in Logan’s eyes. We split apart at once, before we could steal another second. I went deeper into the parking lot while he shot away, back toward the football field. “Riley?” I called, hoping to draw her attention toward me. “I’m right here!”
