Page 41 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
And then Jade earlier in the bathroom—no remorse for throwing me under the bus. Had our roles been reversed, and she hadn’t picked a label, I never would’veput her on the Most Likely Tos. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me.
But when Jade heard the wordspeak in high school, she didn’t immediately dismiss them. She didn’t think they didn’t fit me.
It had a good ring to it, she’d said.
I ripped the paper in my hands, dropping the shreds to the ground like confetti. Instead of heading to cheer practice, my anger propelled me toward the double doors with a different destination in mind.
One that wassooff-limits.
The Jefferson High student parking lot was practically empty when I pulled into it. I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Good thing—fewer people to accidentally witness the absolutely insane thing I was about to do.
Bad thing—less of an excuse to not follow through with the absolutely insane thing I was about to do.
I parked three spaces down from the nearest car with a clear view of the football field in the distance in front of me. Figures still milled about on the field, but I wasn’t close enough to pick out a certain quarterback from the lineup.
In my head, I rehearsed the conversation over and over, refusing to let the bomb building in my chest to diffuse all on its own. Refused. I wasn’t going to chicken out.
But objectively, I knew this was a really bad idea.
I picked at the edges of my decaying manicure; a habit Jade hated. She’d smack my fingers away, and then hurry to dig a bottle out of her bag to touch it up for me. A scolding, then a remedy.
I was so careful to never step on Jade’s toes, but she apparently didn’t mind stomping on mine.
Being mad at Jade Dyer wasn’t allowed. She had this way about her that I almost never wanted to be mad at her, and Idefinitelydidn’t want her mad at me. And that was what friendship was, wasn’t it? But I just couldn’t shake the resentment.
I picked off the last fleck of my polish, and now that my hands had nothing else to distract them, I snatched my phone up.
Jade hadn’t texted. Riley had to have filled her in on our argument—probably couldn’t wait to embellish how things went down. And even though I bailed on practice, Jade hadn’t texted. Not once.
I guess that was a good thing—I wasn’t in the mood to rehash it now.
But her silence made me feel sicker.
Ugh, I’d gotten here too early, and with no more polish left to pry off, it was almost a compulsion to check Babble. I couldn’t keep myself fromnotdoing it. One of the fun things about the List was seeing how things blew up after the fact, but this time, the dread only grew as I waited for the webpage to load.
StarBoi28: omg, they put Madison and Landon on the list???
BrentwoodBobs: does anyone else think they’d be cute together? Then Landon could quickly fix his label!
HeartEyes422: gosh, they’d be awkwarddddddd. And Madison’s label? brutal
SmileyFace20: It’s a new 1, right?
HeartEyes422: wrong though?? Nope. At least the TT is self-aware
GirlWithBangs: don’t be bullies, guys ):
People ignored GirlWithBangs’s attempt to tone things down and continued ripping through the labels. My name popped up time and time again—more than anyone’s. More than Landon’s.
The next time I looked up, I found players starting to walk off the field. I slunk down in my seat with a gasp, even though my windows were tinted and theyprobablycouldn’t see in.
Jefferson apparently didn’t have practice uniforms, because all the boys were wearing different colored cutoffs, or their shoulder pads without jerseys on them. At Brentwood, we had an equipment room the boys put their shoulder pads in, but at Jefferson, apparently, they just took them home. Each boy put their pads in the trunk or in the backseat.
I scrunched my nose up. The smell must’ve been horrendous.
My gaze snagged on the final boy to walk off the field.
