Page 34 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
Will you break it?I’d asked.
Logan hadn’t smiled. Hadn’t laughed. Hadn’t said yes or no.
Because he knew he would.
“I thought something about you was off.”
Jade stepped into the alley, eyes snapping with superiority. She came to a stop right beside me, but her attention was fully dedicated to smiting Logan down with her glare. I should’ve been relieved at her presence, but instead, the alley only felt colder.
“You messed with her feelings on a dare? Leading her on? That’s pathetic.”
Logan’s expression hardened again, as if her appearance cooled things off for him, too. The darkness between the buildings slowly began to swallow me, and all at once, my snapping anger vanished. Had Jade been listening in this whole time?
“You took her on her first date, gave her free coffees, called her before bed—was it fun, playing with her feelings?”
Somehow, when Jade rattled them off, the little things I’d been obsessing over the past two weeks sounded so trivial.
“It was fun.” Logan’s voice was flat, no hesitation, though his eyes flicked to me for half a heartbeat. My lips parted. “More fun than I ever thought it could be. Morereal. She showed me that not everyone at Brentwood is rotten to the core. Some hide it better, sure. But some of you?” He looked back to Jade. “You wear the ugliness like a crown.”
Real. Logan admitted to Jade what he couldn’t to me.It was real?
“Careful.” Jade huffed on a breath to feign nonchalance. I could tell she was bothered, though. When she was affected, she refused to break eye contact, trying to assert dominance, and she held Logan’s steadfast. “We’reobsessed with popularity? Says the quarterback of the football team.”
“You don’t get quarterback by being popular. That’s why your boyfriend wasn’t picked.”
Jade’s jaw locked.
“Being the talk of the town might be cool now, but five years from now, who’s going to care? Who’sgoing to remember, except the people you stepped into the ground?”
In the midst of my world falling apart, I thought about Maisie Matthews, the girl I couldn’t even look in the eye.
But Logan wasn’t finished. He had yet to deliver the killing blow. His voice was soft, almost pitying. “Girls like you peak in high school, you know.”
The weight of his words was just like the ones he’d said the other day.Don’t stay stuck in high school. These made me feel just as icky on the inside, as if he’d managed to throw mud all over my cheer uniform. He wasn’t looking at me as he said it, but they rang within me all the same, as if they’d had no other intended target.
Finally, Logan turned to me one last time, blue eyes searching mine. “Iamsorry, Madison,” he said, and that was it.
Without another word, Logan edged around Jade and headed back out of the alley, leaving us behind. I turned and watched him round the corner, something in me tugging once more, the same urge that had drawn me out of Expresso’s to begin with. The toe of my sneaker scuffed on the gravel.
Jade’s hand clamped down on my wrist. “Madison.”
My chest rose and fell fast as if I’d just completed a tumble twist, leaving me out of breath. I couldn’t break away, not from staring out the alley nor from her grip.
“Youcannotgo chasing after a freaking Bulldog.” Now it wasn’t just her voice that snapped, but the fire in her eyes, too. “I already had to lie to everyone at the table. It’s a wonder Riley didn’t blab the second you left. If you go after him now, they’ll never let it go.”
Her words echoed in my ears. A warning of her own,but Logan’s was louder.Girls like you peak in high school, you know.
I stood there staring at her for a moment. In the alley, a shadow covered half of her face, making her strangely menacing. The second she’d shown up, everything had shifted. She’d stepped in, taken ahold of the reins of the conversation and steered it in her direction. And I’d let her. I’d taken the backseat in my own argument, letting Jade fight the battle with Logan for me.
And with Logan gone, it didn’t feel like a battle she’d won, but one we both lost.
“Unless youwantto run after him.” Her voice was strange. Not a question, and not an accusation. As if she genuinely wasn’t sure what I’d choose.
“No,” I said, but the word was almost instinctual. Absent-minded. So I added, stronger, “Of course not.”
Jade’s stare on me was heavy. I stayed quiet and still, knowing I needed to sweep the betrayal under the rug, to forget about it, but I couldn’t get Logan’s words to stop repeating.Girls like you peak in high school.
“Come on, then.” Jade dropped my arm, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Let’s go finish the Most Likely To list.”
