Page 33 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
I actually had to take a step back.
Logan still had yet to look at me since we stepped into the alley, but I could see his eyes dart to the side, as if he was considering bolting. He felt like a stranger in Logan’s skin. The sweet, funny boy I’d spent the last few weeks getting to know had vanished, and in his place was someone I didn’t recognize—flat, distant, unfeeling.
Enemy.
“So, what?” I demanded, surprised by how thick my voice had become in a few moments of silence. “Get a Brentwood cheerleader to fall for you while you laugh about her behind her back?”
“You didn’t fall for me.”
“You don’t know how I feel.” My voice was a snap, and the next part was almost impossible to speak aloud. “None of it—none of it meantanythingto you?”
Logan’s lips parted, but for a second, he didn’t speak. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it?—”
“It doesn’t,” he said, softer now, like he was trying to convince himself. Logan still couldn’t look at me, that beautiful blue-eyed gaze directed almost stonily at the mouth of the alley. “Even if I told you that—that I started to care about you—it wouldn’t change anything.”
I imagined slamming his back into the alleyway wall. “It would changeeverything, Logan.”
“Would it?” Logan’s gaze swiveled at last, snapping to mine, and it was like a lightning strike. Stormy, relentless,with something alive and dangerous stirring in those blue depths. My chest tightened as if the air between us had thickened, and I felt it in my stomach first—a sick twist I couldn’t fight. “You’d choose me?”
You’d choose me?The words echoed in my head, innocent on their own, traitorous within context. My eyes drifted down to his varsity jacket, where the JH stitching on one side of his chest, and a bulldog baring its teeth on the other. “The captain of Brentwood High’s cheer squad choosing the Jefferson quarterback?” I muttered with a scoff, but I felt rattled to my core.
“Exactly.” He gave a small, almost unconscious nod. “You say it like it’s against the law.”
“You—you don’t evenknow.” It definitelywasagainst the law—at least Brentwood High law. Definitely Top Tier law. I’d be dethroned. I’d be lucky if they let me keep my head. Jade would… never forgive me. “I’m in the Top Tier. I’m not just some nobody. I’m not?—”
“You are so caught up in it all,” Logan murmured almost sadly. “You’d never choose me over your school spirit. Even if you actually liked me.”
Logan’s words hit me almost like actual blows. “Idolike?—”
“You don’tknowme, Madison.” His emphasis was strong, shaking his voice. He looked smaller than he had in weeks, not the confident, easy smile I’d grown to adore—just a boy weighed down. “You just liked the idea of me. A boyfriend new to the school to hold your hand when you walked down the hall. A popularity boost.”
I could feel my cheer shoes slipping on the shaky ground beneath me. He knew. Somehow, he’dalwaysknown. All those daydreams—the next power couple, him looking cute on my arm, the silent approval from theTop Tier—it had been there in my mind, and he’d known it all along.
“You liked the optics of me, but you didn’t likeme,” he went on, almost a whisper. “So it doesn’t matter… if I like you.”
Optics.A word so familiar to me, one of the Top Tier’s commandments, now tumbled out like a curse from his lips.
But immediately, the urge to deny it rose within me. I wasn’t sure where it came from. Logan wasn’t wrong—Ihadfantasized about how great we’d look in the Brentwood halls. But even though I’d looked forward to flaunting him to the student body, I’d looked forward to our private phone calls all the same. Even though I couldn’t want for everyone to see his smile, I’d treasured his laughs that were just for me.
And even now, there was an undeniable tug in my chest, the same one I’d felt the day we met, accompanied by a stab of pain. And the pain didn’t feel like guilt, nor disappointment over not getting what I wanted.
It felt like heartbreak.
Even still, I lifted my chin. “You’re pointing fingers at me for being loyal to my school, but you’re no better. You—you went into Brentwood to mess with someone’s head. It was a test. A game. Ajoke.” The alleyway suddenly felt so cold, the sun hidden by the brick buildings, leaving goosebumps along my skin. “You were there on a dare. You’re no better than me.”
Logan flinched again, like a dog caught in the rain, posture shrinking. In fact, he was worse. Way worse. He made it out to sound like I was the shallow, superficial one, when he was the true puppet master in allof this—setting me up while knowing exactly how this would end.
Logan tipped his head down so a lock of hair fell into his eyes. In the shadows like this, he looked more like the boy I’d grown used to—quiet, soft-spoken, almost harmless. It made it worse. “No,” Logan quietly agreed. “I’m no better.”
And that was it. No excuse, no rebuttal, no defensiveness. I hated the sight of his sad puppy-dog eyes, but couldn’t bring myself to look away. I couldn’t bring myself to walk away, either, knowing that if I turned my back now, it’d be well and truly over.
Logan’s hand stretched out suddenly, as if his control slipped in that final moment. He reached for my hand where it curled into a fist, stopping just short of grabbing it.
His fingertips grazed my whitened knuckles, and despite everything, it caused energy to race up my arm. “I’m sorry that I went along with this,” Logan murmured as he dropped his hand back to his side. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful with your heart.”
You wear your heart on your sleeve, he’d said.You should be more careful with it.
