GABRIEL***I was supposed to meet Harper that day but I didn't bother going. I made an excuse about feeling extra tired and I felt bad about it but I would feel worse if I went and then proceeded to be distracted the whole time. I was distracted. I had been ever since I saw Emily and Harry at the cafe. It had been days since but I couldn't help but think about the interaction and how it had made me feel.Jealous. It had made me feel jealous and I needed to admit it, even though admitting it annoyed me. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't my heart just function normally, loving the people who loved me as normal people did? Why did it have to keep beating for someone it hated at the same time? Why couldn't it pick a side?I was getting sick and tired of the back and forth, of loving and hating and loving again. I wished I could turn my feelings on and off as I pleased. I would turn on feelings of love for Harper and turn off all the feelings I had for Emily, even the ones of hate. I
EMILY***I had one less thing to worry about now that I had wrapped things up with Harry. It freed me up to focus on the other thing that was worrying me, which was Gabriel and his infuriating response to the text I had sent him through Tiffany.It still made my blood boil when I thought about it, and it was almost two weeks since he sent it. It was just as well that we had not met in that time because I couldn't possibly imagine seeing his face. He would know I was angry because I couldn't hide it.He wouldn't know why but he would get some strange satisfaction from it given that he needed a win. I needed to work fast. I had given him enough time to gloat, whether he knew that it was a chance I'd given him or not. I needed to put him back in his place and make him quiver once again. The scores were one to one on my scoreboard and I needed to get a few punches in while he was still unaware of what was happening.For all he knew, he was just being threatened by someone behind a phone
GABRIEL***"You don’t look too happy to be going over to Emily’s. Is everything okay?" Mom asked.I was driving us to dinner and my jaw was clenched so hard I was surprised I hadn't snapped a tooth. I was not happy and everything was not okay. I had gotten a text two days before that had yet again done a good job of shaking me to my core. I had begun to get scared when my phone buzzed and I had hoped to ignore that message but I knew I couldn't ignore it for any longer. I would just have to open it.I think you’re saying that because you think I'm exposing what happened to you growing up. That's not it. It wouldn't do me any good to expose that because you're the victim. What I am about to expose shows you for who you really are. A monster. If Emily had hoped that this message would have me shaking, she was right. She was right and it infuriated me that she was right. The scores had changed. It was two to one now. But this was no longer funny. This was turning serious quicker than
Bakersville High School***“Are you okay?” Julie asked Emily who was mindlessly picking at her food.“I am, I'm just not that hungry,” Emily said.She was lying, but she couldn’t tell Julie the truth and the truth was that she could feel Gabriel beginning to ignore her again. His passing her in the halls had only been the first step and she began to notice that he was doing it more often, but not doing it completely, giving her crumbs of his attention in school so that she couldn’t say he had gone back to how he was before.She was bothered.She didn’t know how to feel. Had she counted her luck a bit too early? Had she called it too soon? Had she been too gullible to see that Gabriel was just insuring himself by making sure she was happy so that he still had that shoulder to lean on? Had she been played without even knowing it? She was sad. She was angry. She was confused. She was offended.She felt herself swaying again in the line between love and hate. She was losing control. She
EMILY***I looked outside from my bedroom window. Gabriel and his mom were supposed to get there at any moment. I was so excited I debated being the one who waited for him at the door but I didn't want to seem too enthusiastic about the fact that he was coming over. I didn’t want to explain to my Mom that it wasn’t what she thought.I was still struggling to explain to her why I had turned red in the face the last time we were at his place. I decided to just keep my cool and watch from the window. Soon enough I saw their car get into our driveway and I couldn't contain my excitement. I almost flew out of the room and down the stairs but I had to keep my cool. I couldn’t be too excited because what if he wasn’t angry?I would get disappointed. He would watch me get disappointed. The scores would change in his favor. I couldn’t have that. I needed to be composed. It was the only way out of this situation. I took a few deep breaths and waited to hear my Mom at the door before I went dow
EMILY***What had I done?I shoved Gabriel off of me.“Emily I’m-““You have to go,” I said, pushing him away from me. I couldn’t look him in the face and I looked away until I heard my door close behind me. I made my way to the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I splashed water on my face a few times until it cooled down.I had kissed Gabriel Ford.I had kissed Gabriel Ford. I had pulled his face towards mine and I had kissed him.I felt my knees go weak and I collapsed on the bathroom floor.This was definitely not what I had planned. I had planned to get him to beg for forgiveness, but I ended up kissing him. What was wrong with me? I slapped myself across the cheek. I must have been mad. I decided that what had happened was just a dream. A bad dream.I made my way out of the bathroom and onto my bed and told myself that I would wake up the next day and it would be like nothing happened because nothing happened. But I got up just as suddenly as I had laid down. I needed to g
GABRIEL***“What about us?” I asked, leaning closer to her. Every part of my body was telling me to stop, to back up, and to walk out but I didn't want to listen to reason. “This,” she said, pulling my head towards her.The statement Harper made that there’s a very thin line between love and hate had never felt as true as it did at that moment. I could feel the lines blurring, but the moment was over as soon as it began. She pushed me off of her.“You have to go,” she said as she turned to face the wall.I didn’t know what to think or feel at that moment. I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath until she stepped away from me. I took in a deep breath and tried to calm down but my heart could not stop pounding. She was waiting for me to leave. She would not turn around to look at me until I left and I wasn't willing to say as well. I was uncomfortable. I felt guilty. I had done something wrong. I walked out of the room and closed the door behind her. I made my way downstairs a
EMILY***It was Monday. The day I had dreaded the most had arrived. I couldn’t avoid the inevitable much longer. Mom had volunteered to drive me to school early in the morning and I couldn't get out of it. She spent the drive trying to get the same information out of me that she had been trying to get for a whole day: what had happened between Gabriel and me?I had given her the same answer a million times: nothing had happened and she needed to worry about her drinking, not me. I would repeat it for as long as I needed to. I went to my dorm to put my bag of clothes that I had carried home for my Mom to wash then I went for my first class of the day.I had only one class and usually, it was something I liked because it meant I could ease into the week but now I hated it because it meant that all I had was time, time in which I was idle to play and replay what had happened between Gabriel and me in my room on Saturday night. I wished I could turn my brain off.I had gone through almos