---

In the Last Chapter…

Hazelwood’s team is off the to Regionals, and opens strongly. Even though Jason does well, the team teases him for what looks like flirting with a girl from another team; Sammy. Despite Ryan’s words of encouragement, Arlo Guthrie High School clearly wipes the floor with the competition, although Hazelwood doesn’t do too badly. In the last game, Rose comes close to losing the game for the team, and takes it very poorly, having an emotional moment then disappearing into the hallway. Out of nowhere, Jason offers to go get her and tries – and seemingly succeeds – to connect with her emotionally. Even so, he and Sarah sit next to each other on the bus home, and try to get away with fooling around. As he gets off the bus, Jason gets a cryptic warning from Rose that Sarah maybe shouldn’t be trusted…

---

Sarah smiled as she pulled some kind of charm off of her shelf. “Here we go! This is the one. Put it on.”

I took the charm out of her hands gingerly and looked at it. It was some kind of string made up of beads and shiny balls. I held one end of the string as the other end dangled helplessly. “Put it on how?” I asked.

Her smile disappeared. “Y’know, it’s not nice when you make me feel stupid for having hobbies,” she told me.

I shrugged in pure confusion, still holding up the string. “Literally when did I say stupid?” I asked angrily.

“I could hear it in your tone,” she replied, and sighed. “It’s a bracelet. See? This end is the clasp. Let me.” She took the charm and looped it around my wrist. “There we go. What do ya think?”

I turned to the mirror and looked at it. Sarah turned around and kept talking. “And if you think it’s dumb, just say it’s not for you or something.”

“Sarah, you’re getting kind of defensive,” I sighed.

“I’m getting used to being defensive around you,” she countered. 

“I was going to say it’s cute,” I half-chuckled, half-sighed.

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Because it’s yours.”

I paused, looking at my wrist. I wasn’t lying when I said it was cute, but that didn’t mean I wanted it on me. “Oh, uh…”

“Is it still cute now?” Sarah asked, almost taunting me.

“Yes it’s still cute,” I defiantly replied. “I just might put it on my backpack instead or something.”

Happily, Sarah seemed to accept that. “Aw, that sounds cute,” she said with genuine happiness in her tone. She turned back around and fiddled with some more of her crafting supplies, and I took advantage of the opportunity to smack her ass.

“Ahh~!” she moaned, then turned her head around, keeping her ass right where it was. “Jason, you seriously need to behave, you know that?”

I smirked, and hopped off the bed, getting behind her. “Do I?” It was my turn to taunt her. When I was around Sarah, I could get hard at the drop of a hat, and although she might have claimed otherwise, she could get wet just as easily.

“Jason,” she chided as I wrapped my arms around her and began to kiss her neck and grind into her from behind. “Jason… Jasonnnnn…” Her eyes slowly closed and she started moving her hips back into mine, her mouth slowly opening. I started playfully nibbling and kissing her neck, and she just stood there, letting me, grinding her hips back into mine. “God… you’re just awful…” she moaned, turning around and wrapping her arms around me. Before I knew it, I was against the wall, and Sarah was hungrily kissing me, grinding herself against my rock-hard cock. 

Not stopping her grinding, Sarah placed her lips on my neck, kissing and biting like I had moments before. I throbbed in my pants, knowing that my neck was almost as sensitive as hers. I couldn’t help letting one or two whimpers escape my lips, although I tried to pass them off as manlier grunts. Sarah giggled and pressed on, sucking and biting my neck, all the while I gladly ground against her until I practically couldn’t think anymore. With strength I didn’t know I had, I threw her onto the bed and pounced on top of her, pushing my body against her.

Before long, Sarah’s shirt was off and then so was mine. We’d gotten into a groove the last few times we were in her room – we’d be shirtless before long, and just enjoy each other, with her moaning and cooing and saying nice things about me as I played with her nipples or ate her out or something. I never wanted to press it, but I bet she had a crush on me too. I knew that shit would hit the fan if I brought it up, so whatever. She could bring it up when she was ready, and we could address it then and there. I was already single for my whole high school life – I think I could bear waiting a bit longer.

Today was no different. Last time she sucked my dick, and I knew when fair needed to be fair. After a few moments of playing around with our shirts off, I smirked and looked Sarah in the eye while beginning to unbutton her pants. Sarah blushed and bit her lip, looking away but never stopping me.

I grinned as she spread her legs for me. I love when she got like this. Shy but never stopping me, eagerly accepting it but never making me do all the work. It helped that eating pussy was actually really fun and rewarding. It was dumb, but it was kinda like a show of skill or a game – the more practice I got, the more Sarah enjoyed herself, the better I felt about us hanging out. It was like I had something she needed, and whenever I went, “Hey, do you need it?”, she’d fold. That kind of power felt good.

Sarah could probably tell I was enjoying the power. I got into the habit of looking her right in the eye when I ate her out. It was fun; she would occasionally look at me, notice that I was staring right back at her, and blush and look away. It helped that I was getting well acquainted with her most sensitive spots, and could easily make her-

“Mmmh~!” she moaned. “Fuck, fuck, fuuuuck… Yes, yes Jason, right there, fuck that’s so good, keep going, please keep going… I’m gonna – I’m gonna-!” Sarah froze in place for a second, her mouth open in rapture, as her body practically shook with pleasure. She held my head in place and I eagerly kept up my efforts, slathering my tongue all over her most sensitive areas and reaping the rewards. She firmly yet gratefully held my head in place, riding out her orgasm before loosening her grip on me, falling limp and allowing me to slow down before eventually coming up for air.

I sat up on my knees and wiped my mouth, smirking at her. Sarah lazily opened her eyes and chuckled. “You look way too proud of yourself,” she laughed. 

“You look like I just rocked your world,” I countered confidently.

Sarah rolled her eyes but patted the bed next to her. I laid down as she caught her breath, and eventually she shifted over and began to draw lines on my chest, a common way for her to enjoy the afterglow.

“Sucks that I gotta keep doing this in secret though,” I thought out loud after a bit of silence. “I’m kinda glad your parents are home late most weekdays.”

“Of course you’re glad, they’d throw a fit if they knew you had your way with their nun daughter,” Sarah laughed.

I laughed back. “Yeah, I fuckin’ infiltrated your convent,” I continued the joke. “Me and a few others.”

“Uggh, don’t remind me,” Sarah groaned. “It’s already weird and hard trying to keep this whole thing a secret. It’s gonna probably be even weirder in a week or so.”

“Wait, why?”

Sarah stopped tracing lines and shifted to better look me in the eye. “So, uh, it kinda looks like me and Ryan are gonna go steady.”

I stared at Sarah for a bit. Her face fell from nervous to worried. “…What?” she eventually asked. “It’s not like we have to stop. We just have to be a bit more… y’know, covert about this.”

“But… he’ll be your boyfriend,” I confirmed.

Sarash rolled her eyes and got up off the bed. “Are we being jealous again?” she asked in a huff. “It’s not going to change us at all.”

I clearly didn’t read the situation right at all. Fuck. “I thought you said you didn’t want to ever be with him like that. Wasn’t he jealous and possessive?”

“He’s… getting better,” she gingerly admitted, all while putting her shirt on. Once it was on, she pointed at me. “And! If you’re going to react badly to this, that just makes you the jealous and possessive one.”

“Defensive,” I replied sourly. “Um, are we skipping past the part where you’ll be cheating on your boyfriend, like, from the start of the relationship?”

Sarah stared at me. “Yeah,” she eventually said like it was obvious. “Ryan’s not perfect, and I’m not perfect either. If you wanna start being perfect, we can totally stop doing this if you want. Just let me know.”

I was silent as Sarah finished changing. I shook my head. I wanted to get mad, but… what would that even get me here? I was mad, but… Sarah was already preparing to counter everything I said. Letting her know I was mad was not the play. “Well hey, congrats,” I lamely added. “What changed?”

Sarah laughed. “I dunno. He wore me down, I guess,” she admitted. “And I let him know that if we were together, he had to stop being weird about you. So if anything, this kinda makes things better for us. Ryan’s going to be, if anything, less weird to you. And if he’s more weird, I can tell him to step off or we break up. Win-win.”

“And they say romance is dead,” I quipped.

“Jason, I get it. I do. But like, this is my relationship, and I’m gonna do my own relationship my own way, okay?” Sarah asked me meaningfully. “Ryan’s possessive and weird, and I’m a free spirit. I didn’t expect you to judge me about this.”

I remained silent for a bit. “I guess I’ve never been in this situation,” I admitted. “I’m kind of surprised you just told me that openly, ‘hey, by the way, I have a boyfriend now and I’m gonna cheat on him with you.’”

“First of all, we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend yet,” she pointed out. “But second… I’m telling you that because I trust you, and because I like doing this with you, and because… well, because I don’t want to give up either of you.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just say that?” I asked, without a tone of judgment anymore.

“You’d think so, but sadly, the world doesn’t work that way,” Sarah admitted, also losing her judgmental tone. “Ryan wouldn’t accept it. I like him a lot, and in a way, I like you a lot too. Just not that way.”

I laughed nervously. “I thought you were, uh, going to say I was your secret second boyfriend or something,” I replied, pretending not to care.

Sarah laughed. “Nope, not even considering that, don’t worry,” she told me, heartbreakingly genuinely. I was silent for a spell after that, and she caught on. “What is it?”

I didn’t want to tell her the truth. “I guess I just… don’t understand why it’s going in this direction,” I told her, still not lying in the slightest. “You tell me you’re about to start dating the guy, and I’m all like, ‘oh, it must be because there’s love there.’ Then you tell me immediately that we have to be sneaky when we’re cheating. I dunno, it’s like… if that’s your way of approaching this, why cheat at all? Why enter this relationship? I didn’t expect it.”

Sarah listened, and a slideshow of anger and sadness flashed on her face, giving way to a neutral happy look. She shrugged. “I guess I’m just going for it,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think… I guess I also guessed too much about you. If this is weird, we can… stop, if you want.” She paused. “I didn’t think you’d be… so… it, uh, makes me sound bad myself when I say this, but I guess I didn’t expect you to be so moral about this. Do you want to stop, are you upset at me?”

I paused. “I dunno,” I admitted. “Can I think about it?”

Even though she asked, not hearing an immediate ‘no’ clearly hit Sarah where it hurt. She put on what I assume was a brave face regardless. “Uh, yeah, sure,” she admitted quietly. 

***

I chewed slowly. The chicken already wasn’t great, but swallowing anything took a little more effort today. Jeez, I really was heartbroken. I thought it would just roll off my back, but… Sarah meant more to me than I thought. And now it turned out she was just having fun and saying ‘fuck it’ to the consequences. I would say it wasn’t like her, but… did I even know Sarah? Maybe I didn’t.

Hailey walked into the kitchen, putting her dishes in the sink and giving them a quick rinse. As she did, she gave a quick glance my way. “You’re moping,” she observed.

“Okay,” I quietly replied. 

“Missing the computer that much?” she asked.

“No,” I simply replied.

She paused, then gave me a weirded-out face. “Then what?” she demanded. 

I sighed and put down my fork. “Not that it’s any of your business, but…” I began, and Hailey eagerly took a seat at the kitchen island. “There was this girl, and-”

“Ha!” Hailey interrupted, then immediately shut up when she saw the look I was giving her. 

I looked at Hailey for a bit. This was it. I felt my blood boiling, and I felt something give. But this time, I wasn’t going to hit desks or yell. The whole week flashed before my eyes – everything from Rose to Sarah. “You know, if you’re going to be like that, I think I’ve figured out why I never fuckin’ go to you for anything,” I sourly added.

Hailey took in what I said. “Language,” she said quietly.

“Shut up,” I rebutted. “Just shut up and go away.”

“I was just trying to-”

“Laugh when I was telling you about my feelings. I noticed. That’s all this entire family does. We belittle each other’s feelings, we never talk shit out, then we act all shocked when mom hits us or dad brings up divorce again.”

Hailey’s look turned to horrified shock. “Jesus Christ, what’s with you?!” she demanded. 

“What’s ‘with me’ is that I’m just so God damn sick of people not caring about others, that’s what,” I admitted, possibly even to myself.

“Like you have any reason to-”

“I’m mad at myself, too. And I’m going to change,” I told her. “But I’ll tell you this right now. Either I get an apology from you, or you’re going to never know what’s up with me. Not just here: ever. Try being the type of person that makes people want to tell them stuff, Hailey. Otherwise you’re just gonna turn into mom.”

Hailey’s look was no less shocked, but she looked around the apartment to ensure mom and dad weren’t within listening range. “Have you gone insane?” she asked.

“I feel like I’ve done the opposite,” I admitted, then put my elbows on the island and leaned in. “Tell me if I said anything here that isn’t true. You go on ahead and tell me. Have I lied, once? About anything?”

“Yeah,” Hailey huffed. “I didn’t laugh when you told me about your feelings. You were talking about some girl, and like, that was funny, because…” She tried to continue the sentence, but lost her words. “Becauuuuse… I was, like, laughing at the whole, like…”

“Yeah,” I admitted quietly, going back to my dry flavorless chicken. “Well, you sure told me. I guess I should tell you all about what happens to me when you react like this.”

“Why are you suddenly being so high-and-mighty? I laughed once,” Hailey replied sourly.

“I’m not being high-and-mighty,” I rebutted, before taking another bite. “I’m being moral.”

“Oooooh,” Hailey replied in this ‘I’m so impressed’ voice, waving her arms around, then walked out of the kitchen, leaving me alone again. I shrugged and continued eating, and took a few bites, before I heard footsteps walking back in. I didn’t turn my head, and watched Hailey re-enter my field of view. 

She looked uncomfortable, but faced me. “I’m sorry for laughing, alright? There, jeez,” she grumbled.

“Okay, thanks,” I replied. I didn’t expect her to actually say it, but didn’t want to offer her the victory. “There’s this girl in the club I joined. I thought she liked me, but she just told me about how she’s tying the knot with some other boy.”

“Tying the knot?!” Hailey asked incredulously. “They’re getting married?”

Oh, so that’s what that meant. I shook my head. “Never mind. She’s becoming his girlfriend. I thought we had something going on, so…”

Hailey nodded. “Okay,” she replied. “Uh, sorry about that. Is she nice?”

“I thought she was,” I replied thoughtfully, and realized only then that I probably shouldn’t be telling my little sister how we were fooling around. “She’s had her… weirder moments.”

“Weirder?” 

“I can’t really be more specific than that.”

“Then I can’t really help you.”

“I’m not looking for help. I’m just… hurting,” I admitted.

Hailey looked at me for a while, and eventually, reached out and touched my arm. “I’m, uh, sorry you’re hurting, Jason,” she told me clumsily. 

“Thanks,” I admitted. “I’m sorry for getting angry.”

Hailey’s look turned dumbfounded when she heard me say that. She recovered quickly, and took her hand back. “Um, no problem. No problem at all. Uh, thanks for saying that, actually,” she replied in an almost startled voice. She paused, then added, “you’re becoming, uh… a better person.”

“You don’t know that,” I admitted.

“I’m just telling it like it is,” she replied. “This girl must really be nice if she’s… well, I dunno. This is cool though.” She walked away, leaving me alone again, with only the kitchen light above me keeping me in the light. The rest of the room was dark. It matched how I felt perfectly.

I sighed. This was all very dumb… and yet…

***

“And let’s take this one step further,” Jack continued breathlessly. “If we accept that after the universe expands and protons decay, it creates the exact same conditions as pre-Big Bang…”

“Citation needed,” Chadwick, the physics teacher of the school, chuckled humorously, still willing to hear him out. 

“…Then that means the Big Bang can happen not just again, but exactly the same way,” Jack concluded excitedly, ignoring Chadwick. “But then, it gets even crazier! Because if the conditions are one-to-one exactly the same, then literally nothing will change. The universe will be created the exact same way every time.”

The rest of us paused. “…So?” I eventually asked.

“So,” Jack emphatically replied, “that means the conditions for everything are the same. Your birth, your upbringing, every single choice you make, they’re the exact same as all the other times the Big Bang happened. Which means you’re always born, you’re always the person you are, you always independently decide to make the exact same choices. And that means, maybe it’s happened an endless number of times, and this could be the seven billionth time we’re having this very conversation.” Jack sat back, a satisfied grin splashed across his face. 

We all paused again until Rose sighed loudly. “Okay, so Big Bounce was the correct answer,” she dryly noted. “Can we keep playing?”

“Actually, that was the, uh, last question,” Chadwick noted, eyeing the paper. “Otherwise I’m not sure if I would have paused the game to discuss this.”

“The universe will prove me right,” Jack smugly retorted. “Again and again and again.”

“That just means we’re going to literally spend eternity listening to you go on and on,” Ryan countered.

Jack just smirked back and started to get into a debate with Ryan – lighthearted on Jack’s side, less so on Ryan’s – as Rose rolled her eyes and took off from the table to pack up her bag. I followed suit, breaking away from the Alternates table to pack my own bag. Halfway into packing, Rose waved her hand across my vision.

I lifted my head. “Mm?”

“You played Dark Souls before, right?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. Love Dark Souls,” I admitted.

Rose, face blank, nodded, and took out her sketchbook. She opened it to herself and flipped a couple of pages, then closed her eyes and exhaled, slowly handing me the book. “I, uh, drew Artorias. I just saw it online and wanted to draw it. It might help if someone who’s played it sees it.”

Sure enough, a pencil sketch of the eerie yet elegant Abysswalker himself stared back at me. She took one or two creative liberties, but it looked like the knight was commanding the whole page. Every detail was amazing. It looked like Rose could have been a comic book artist.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. Some artists just had the gift, and whatever the gift was, Rose had it. Her sketch was clearly not from a reference – it was him in some new pose. It looked totally like the character I knew, and yet simultaneously like a character Rose owned and controlled. This could have been a poster. I would have bought it, twice. 

Rose rolled her eyes. “Okay, don’t make fun of me,” she snapped, snatching the book back. 

“I’m not!” I protested. “That was amazing. Your characters could fit right in with what FromSoft themselves come up with. You should be a – have you ever thought about being a character designer, for like, video games?”

“No, and I don’t plan to start,” Rose bluntly told me. She stuffed her book back into her bag. “You really liked it that much?”

“A hundred percent, you have real talent,” I admitted, practically feeling everything in the room black out except Rose in that moment.

Rose chuckled in her throat once, keeping her face blank. Slowly, the beginnings of a smile appeared at one corner of her mouth. “Maybe I should look up other Dark Souls bosses and draw them too,” she murmured.

I stayed in place, something rooting me to the floor. “If you did, I’d love to see it,” I told her earnestly.

“Hey Jason?”

“Yeah?”

Rose’s smile grew slightly bigger. “You’re losing your backbone,” she told me flatly, despite her smile. “Stop going all soft on me. You’re actually becoming bearable to talk to.”

I smiled back. “Stop offering to draw things for me. I might start thinking you’re actually okay with being my friend,” I retorted.

Neither of us said anything for a bit, until we heard Candy ask, “What are they doing?” At once, the light flooded back into the room and I was aware that not only were the others all there, but they were all staring at us.

“Hey, it’s better than fighting,” Jack joked. 

I surveyed the room to see that everyone but Chadwick had witnessed our interaction in one way or another. All of them had neutral-to-positive expressions about it, except for… Sarah. Whether she was trying to hide it or not, her face showed that whatever she just saw, she didn’t like.

“You coming, Sarah?” Ryan asked. Sarah didn’t reply with words, and eventually turned and followed him out of the door. The two walked off together, and I caught a glimpse of him grabbing her hand before the door fully closed.

It was only when Jack leaned down next to me in over-exaggerated fashion that I realized in order to witness him grabbing her hand, I leaned in to look out the door. Sheepishly, I pulled back and caught Jack’s gaze. “Looking for something?” he asked.

“I think I saw th- …nah, nothing,” I admitted, then shook my head. I turned back to Jack to see him smiling at me. He pulled back but said nothing more, opting to get his own bag.

Rose was untroubled by the attention we got and slung her bag over her shoulder, walking out without so much as a “see ya.” When she left, only Candy Jack and I remained.

I sighed. “Why does it feel like everything is changing…?” I grumbled.

Candy looked at the closed door. “What, you mean with Rose?” she asked innocently. “It’s probably not bad. You two just had a-”

“Nah, uh, with Sarah,” I admitted. “I think she and Ryan might be… y’know.”

Jack chortled. “Dude, those two have been in a state of ‘might be’ like all year,” he admitted.

“I guess,” I admitted. “Just seems like it’s getting more serious now.” I paused. “And hey, good for them.”

Jack walked up slowly and clapped a hand on my shoulder, and gave me a meaningful look. I waited for him to say something, but he never did. “…What?” I finally asked him.

Jack glanced behind him. Chadwick was fully disengaged, but Candy was nodding at him. Jack turned back to me. “Still want to tell me you don’t have eyes for her?” he asked somewhat quietly.

I wanted to reply immediately but no words came to my mouth. I sputtered for a bit, then eventually looked him in the eye. “…Is that a bad thing?” I finally asked.

Jack smiled and shook my shoulder supportively. “Not at all, brother,” he confirmed, walking away. “But you are kinda setting yourself up for disappointment.”

“Believe me, been there,” Candy added with a sweet smile.

“What, you mean, with Jack?” I asked.

Both of the two gave me weird expressions in response. “Um, no,” Candy replied awkwardly, then the two looked at each other before looking back at me.

“You gotta watch what you say, man, that can cause some awkward tension,” Jack added, his tone changing completely.

“I meant with Sarah,” Candy continued. “You’re not the first person here to… y’know.” I gave her a confused expression before once again catching a look of the gay pride pin on her backpack. 

My eyebrows raised higher and higher in understanding. “Oh,” I eventually slowly replied. “So, you mean… you and her…?”

“We never did anything, but I mean, I caught feelings at one point,” Candy admitted. “I don’t think she swings that way though.”

Wow. Sarah was a regular heartbreaker around here. I shifted my look to Jack. “You too…?” I asked.

He made an X with his arms in front of himself. “Taken,” he reminded me. “She’s also not my type anyway. Believe it or not, I’m just friends with some women.” He gestured again towards Candy. “As tough as that can be to believe, I guess.”

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry about that,” I conceded weakly, then looked back out the door. “So what should I do?”

“About what?” Jack asked innocently.

“About my… f-feelings,” I replied quietly.

“Uh, forget them, I guess,” Jack replied simply. “I dunno. Maybe if you’re feeling bold, you can tell her ab- actually, nah, I don’t see that ending well,” he thought out loud. 

I turned to Candy. “Anything you got for me? You were in my position before, I guess.”

“I don’t think it’s the same position, but…” Candy laughed nervously. “Um, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t think she’s into girls at all, but… she’s into guys. I don’t think I could give you any advice that would, y’know, help.”

I shrugged. “I’m still listening.”

Candy slowly smiled, as if she genuinely appreciated that. “I guess, let her know you’re there for her as a friend regardless, and if it’s meant to be, it’ll work out in the way it’s supposed to. That’s fate, right?”

I didn’t know if I believed in fate. Not to mention, I did not want my destiny to become her side boy. If only these two knew just how complicated the situation was…

***

At the next practice, I caught myself watching Sarah around Ryan more than once. I couldn’t shake the feeling that on some level, she was doing the same thing to me. Still, Regionals were coming up, so our primary focus was on the game. 

“If an event has odds of one to four, what is the percentage probability that it will happen?” Chadwick asked.

Candy buzzed in. “Twenty-five percent?”

“Sorry, no,” Chadwick replied. “The answer was twenty percent.”

Now that we were practicing against other teams, if we got a question wrong, we just lost the points. If Candy’s reaction to getting that question wrong wasn’t an indication, the new rule wasn’t fantastic for morale. I never used to really care about how others were feeling around me, but today of all days, it somehow felt like all of us were… on edge, like we were nervous or something. I knew why I was nervous, but the others… it could have just been a coincidence.

“What band blesses the rains down in Afr-”

Sarah buzzed in. “Toto,” she replied with a small smile. Jack smirked and started to beatbox the tune, before Chadwick, albeit with a humorous smile, indicated for him to stop.

“Correct,” Chadwick noted with a small laugh. “In coding, an angle bracket followed by what letter is used for hyperlink tags in HTML?”

Nobody buzzed in, although Ryan spoke. “I mean, technically it actually isn’t a programming language,” he pointed out.

Rose sighed. “She didn’t say ‘programming,’” she snapped.

“Yeah she did,” Ryan argued. “She said, ‘in programming’-”

“Coding,” Jack corrected him.

“No, I heard-”

“Jeez guys, who cares?” I butted in. “None of us know the answer. Let’s just keep going.”

Chadwick gave all of us a look. “Time. The correct answer was A,” she replied. “40-point themed round: historical correspondence.”

I nudged Rose next to me. “Here we go, it’s us versus Ryan,” I joked in a whisper. Rose didn’t react. 

“What government project originated in a letter sent from Leo Szilard and-”

Ryan buzzed in. “The Manhattan Project,” he answered. 

“Correct,” Chadwick replied. I looked at Rose to wince jokingly but she was staring straight forward. “Whose wife burnt many of the letters he had written to her after he confessed to infidelity-”

I shot Sarah a look.

“-in the Reynolds Affair?”

Sarah met my gaze and immediately looked away, whether she got my message or not. Ryan buzzed in again, blissfully unaware. “Alexander Hamilton,” he replied confidently.

“Correct,” Chadwick confirmed. Sarah looked at me again, a slight blush on her face.

***

“Tecumseh and Sir Isaac Brock,” Ryan answered.

“Correct,” Chadwick replied. “That ends the round. 540 points, not bad at all. Ryan, you were really good this round, congratulations.”

Ryan chuckled, pretending to be modest. “I got a lot of lucky questions, that’s all,” he replied.

The two of them got into a conversation about the nature of trivia as Rose walked up next to me and coughed. “I want to speak to you,” she told me in her usual emotionless tone. “Come to the staircase.”

Uh-oh. This was either good or bad. I opened my mouth to reply, when I heard a voice on my other side. “Actually, I also needed to talk to you, in private,” Sarah butted in. “I guess you can just… pick who you want to talk to first.”

Rose’s face was mostly emotionless before Sarah piped up but at that last sentence, it full-on turned into a scowl. “Um, I asked first,” she added in a weirded-out voice.

“He can still pick,” Sarah replied. “My thing is quick, after all.”

“Damn, ladies,” Jack joked. “There’s only one JAson to go around.” I saw both girls turn from me to him, and judging from their looks, his joke wasn’t taken well. he threw up his hands in mock self-defence and walked off. The two girls turned their attention back to me.

Jeez. Why did I feel like I was on trial here? “Um, well, Rose did ask first. So, uh…” I trailed off lamely. Sarah gave a muted smile and a nod, whereas Rose didn’t even pretend to be amicable. She slunk by me, opening the door to the physics room and walking off down the hallway.

Yeah, this was going to be bad, wasn’t it? I sighed and steeled myself, walking down the hallway until I saw Rose, sitting down on the staircase steps with her arms folded. 

“Alright, let’s rip the bandaid off,” I mumbled. “I’m ready.”

Rose’s expression towards me wasn’t happy. “I did not like how you talked to me and treated me today,” she began. 

“Huh?”

“The way you were speaking, like we’re old friends or something. It’s weird. And you touched me near the end. I don’t recall telling you I’m okay with that.”

“Touched you?” I repeated with incredulity, my eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Do you mean when I nudged you?”

Rose looked away, arms still folded. “You’re still talking to me like you have a crush on me, and it’s weirding me out,” she told me simply. I started to protest and she held up a finger. “And I don’t care if you have one or not. You’re still talking like it, and you need to stop.”

I folded my own arms and shook my head. “And the way we were talking last meeting was a-okay?” I asked. “This is some serious mixed signal territory, Rose.”

“Okay, then let’s stop talking like that altogether,” she replied. “Maybe then you’ll listen to what I want.”

“Rose, we both know that next meeting you’re going to initiate some conversation on friendly terms, and I’m gonna talk back to you in the same way,” I told her with frustration clearly evident in my tone. “And then you’re just going to throw it back in my face. It’s getting old.”

“Sorry, ‘throw it back in your face?’” Rose challenged me, standing up. “Maybe when I tell you my boundaries, you could actually listen like a decent human being instead of immediately make excuses,” she argued. “It’s no wonder that Sarah-”

“Okay, okay, Rose,” I cut in, almost yelling to speak over her. “Are you going to make a legitimate point here or are you just saying anything to make me hurt again?”

Rose was on a mission to keep talking until the word ‘hurt’ was brought up. As soon as it was, she froze in place, then shrunk back. Slowly, she walked back until she sat back down. She didn’t say anything, but neither did I. I said my piece, and was happy to let her do the rest herself.

I heard footsteps behind me, and turned my head to see Sarah come into view. I mimed moving my fingertips across my neck in a ‘no’ motion. “Five more minutes,” I told her.

Sarah clearly didn’t like what I said, but walked off regardless. By the time I looked back, Rose’s face was in her hands. She eventually moved her hands to cover only her mouth and nose, letting her eyes free. She wasn’t crying, but they were red.

A full minute went by. “Yeah, you’re right,” she quietly conceded. “I’m, uh, sorry.”

I paused for an extra second or two. “I’m… sorry that I’m not speaking to you right,” I told her slowly. “But also, like, you… need to tell me what I’m doing wrong. Call me dumb or whatever, but I don’t get it.”

Rose nodded along, then just kept nodding in thought. “Um…” she eventually said, then stood up. “Can I – I’m going to get back to you on that.”

“Jeez,” I mumbled. “Well in the meantime, I don’t know what to fix if-”

“Then don’t fix anything,” Rose told me clearly. “Don’t fix anything. If it’s not broken…”

“…Are you okay?” I asked. 

“Um… sure,” she replied, not convincingly. “I shouldn’t keep Sarah waiting though. For now, uh… yeah, I came into this way too angrily. Pretend… pretend I didn’t do this. Or don’t. Whatever.”

“Rose, you’re kinda scaring me,” I told her. “Is everything okay? If you need to tell me something, you can.”

Rose stared at me for a bit, with me still sitting on the steps and her now facing me. Behind her, I saw Sarah return. Rose turned around to see her. “Nope, I should get out of here,” she admitted, then turned back to me. With Sarah unable to see Rose’s face, Rose took advantage, and gestured with her eyes to Sarah, then… winked at me.

My face only got more confused. What exactly was going on here?

Rose didn’t give me enough time to ask, or even to think it over. Within seconds, she was gone. Sarah watched her leave, then her gaze went from Rose to me. “What was that all about?”

No clue, Sarah. “It was… private,” I told her. 

Sarah’s expression fell, and she walked slowly into the hallway. “Okay, but like, I want to know,” she told me slowly. 

“Huh?”

“Jason… I’m not an idiot. After our talk at my place… the last one we had… suddenly you’re making this big show of talking more to Rose and having private conversations with her. I get what you’re doing here.”

I stared at Sarah. “What are you talking about?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

“I told you that she’s just looking to hurt you again-”

“I can handle that myself, thanks,” I told her, then folded my arms, much like Rose did before. “You know, if I had a tin foil hat…”

I trailed off and let the silence hang in the air. Sarah cocked her head. “What?”

“I don’t think you like that Rose and I are getting along. It really does feel like you’re… jealous.” I laughed. “Which is crazy, considering any time I get even remotely nice to her, she drags me in here and tells us to stop getting so close. That’s what these conversations keep being.” I paused again and slapped my hands on my knees. “Maybe I should have just kept calling her a bitch.”

I expected Sarah to chide me for that, but her mind was elsewhere. “I am not jealous,” she argued. “And even if I was-”

“There we go.”

“-I think I have a right to be cautious when Rose is… Rose. She can be a bitch sometimes. Is. She is a bitch sometimes. A lot of the time. I actually agree with you.”

Sarah was looking everywhere but at me, and was fidgeting with the corner of her shirt. Jeez, what was with these two girls? “Is there, like, some history there I don’t know about?” I asked. “Both of you are being really weird and, y’know what, I’m starting to get sick of being in the middle of it. I want to know what’s going on.”

Sarah stared at me and chewed her lip for a second. “Just as long as you don’t tell her,” she eventually told me in a small voice.

“Sure. Now tell me,” I commanded.

“It’s not like it’s some huge conspiracy,” she grumbled. “We used to be friends. She doesn’t like Ryan, and, well, I do. I got closer to Ryan and I think Rose kind of took that as a betrayal.” She shrugged. “It’s as simple and stupid as that. Okay?”

Ryan was definitely a major douche. I didn’t know if Sarah thought she’d be convincing me with that story, but if anything, I kind of understood Rose’s position. But… “That doesn’t really explain why I have to be in the middle of this.”

Sarah shrugged again. “I think Rose is getting weird about you and me-”

“Nuh-uh,” I cut in. “Sarah, you have been the weird one here. You keep looking at us when we get along, and you keep making it obvious you don’t like when I even speak to her. You can’t frame this as a Rose thing.”

Sarah scoffed. “Wow,” she mumbled. “I thought you were smarter than this, Jason.”

“Guess I’m dumb. Fill me in,” I barked.

“No,” she said defiantly.

“And why are you jealous at all? You literally have Ryan…” I lowered my voice to continue. “…and me. What, me and her can’t even be friends as long as we have this going on?”

“So you do want us to keep doing this,” Sarah taunted me back. “Jason, she cut off a perfectly good friendship for stupid reasons. I’m allowed to judge her, and I’m allowed to not like that you two are getting closer. I think she’s trying to… I think she likes you. Like, like like.”

“Yeah, believe me, you couldn’t be more wrong,” I scoffed, remembering the conversation Rose and I just had.

“But if she did try something with you… would you go for it?” she asked with this tone, like, there was clearly a wrong answer here and she was testing me. Jeez. She was really trying to hammer this one in. 

I shrugged. “It’s not exactly happening right now, so I’m not thinking ab-”

“That’s not what I’m asking. Actually imagine it, Jason. If I’m telling you the truth and she’s trying to get with you-”

“Then she’s doing the worst possible job-”

“Please, just listen to me. If she is, would you go for it?”

As dumb as it sounded, I didn’t even really think about that. I sat back and thought, for possibly the first time, about what I would do. I couldn’t even picture Rose asking me out, so it was hard to picture. “Um, maybe,” I honestly admitted. “She has this kinda-”

“Well don’t,” she said in a sudden flare. “Just trust me, don’t. And if you do, you can consider us over.”

My eyes bugged out. “Okay, can we revisit the part about you getting both Ryan and me?” I asked. She was being such a fuckin’ hypocrite. “So you get both guys but I can’t even get closer with one of the other girls?”

“Oh, get close as you want with Candy,” Sarah immediately pointed out. “She’s great. No worries at all there.”

Yeah, and let me guess, the fact she was a lesbian and wouldn’t have wanted me in a million years had absolutely nothing to do with it being okay that I could be friends with her.

“Just not Rose. Trust me, you’ll thank me.”

“I’m not thanking you now,” I told her. “Sarah, can I be honest? You’re expecting me to be okay with…” I lowered my voice again. “Cheating-”

“Oh, about that. I do not want you looking at me like that whenever cheating is mentioned in Quiz Bowl, that was way out of line.”

I raked my hands over my face. Okay, no one was this dumb for pussy. Abort mission. “Sarah, this is getting too complicated,” I told her, knowing a part of me hated what I was about to say. “I’ve thought about it, and I’m not even comfortable with open cheating, let alone this controlling ‘don’t talk to Rose’ shit. I think… we should… stop fooling around. For now.”

Fuck, did I ever not want to say that. Even as I did, my eyes travelled up her legs. In my mind, I was taking a mental picture of her naked, because I could only guess I wouldn’t be seeing that again for a long time, if ever. 

Sarah also looked shocked. Fuck ‘shocked,’ she looked like she just got struck by lightning. “You…” she slowly repeated, like she couldn’t even comprehend what I was saying. “You’re… telling me…”

Jeez, was this ever twisting the blade. I didn’t even want to tell her this, but if she was gonna be this fuckin’ weird about it, I had to, bare minimum, stop for a while. I’d rather go back to no sex if it meant things would get simpler in this headache of a group.

“I know, it sucks, and I don’t really want to,” I found myself saying. “This is just too weird.”

“But… I thought you enjoyed it…” she told me, her voice getting quieter.

“Fucking loved it,” I agreed. “But let’s at least take a break. You’re official with Ryan-”

“We’re not even official yet,” Sarah argued, sadness clouding her tone. “I was just telling you these things in advance… being good at communicating… it was the right thing to do…”

“Um, sure, okay, it was-”

“So why am I being punished for that?!” she demanded. “This isn’t fair.”

I had to admit, Rose’s BS was way better than this. At least her outbursts could be explained with, “she goes insane and has her period for a bit, then goes back to normal.” With Sarah, it seemed like there were bigger issues here. 

“I’m not punishing you, I’m just stepping back for a bit. This shit is weird.”

Sarah shook her head. “You’re not stepping back,” she said aloud in a faraway voice. “You’re stepping back from me. You’re still going to talk to her.”

“Yo, Sarah,” I replied, losing my patience. “I’m still going to talk to you too. If it makes you better, I’m going to not have sex with her either,” I ended with a joke.

She wasn’t laughing. “I can’t believe you chose her,” she replied in disgust. “We’ll see how that works out for you.” She turned and walked away, leaving me in disbelief.

Well, I made the fuckin’ right choice there. I had no clue if Sarah was trying to make me doubt myself or some shit, but she was acting like it was a her or Rose thing. News flash: I was a loser gamer. I could easily go back to being content to spent my whole night in my room alone once I got my computer back. This wasn’t “Oh noooo, who do I choose to be my lover? Rose or Sarah?!” Right now, both of them kind of sucked, and it’s not like either of them was begging to be my girlfriend either. Maybe the less time I spent around the both of them at the moment, the better.

***

I wasn’t shocked at all that Sarah didn’t message me for a full twenty-four hours after that. I wasn’t shocked either when, after that twenty-four hour period, she sent me a full-paragraph text.

Jason, lets be real here. Youre being very rash and unfair with the choices you’re making. I know that this situation has been strange, and I could have made some better choices here. But youre being very unfair too, and I dont think you’re making the right choices. I feel duty-bound to tell you that this exact kind of situation is what rose wants us to do. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was making this happen. By making the choices you’ve made, youre giving her what she wants. When I say this is unfair, I dont just mean its doing too little for me, but its doing too much for her too. Youre a smart guy, so I hope that this has cleared some things up for you. Im still mad at you, but I think we should maybe hang out after quiz bowl sometime soon and actually talk this out like human beings. 

It was some weird mix of “what the fuck is this” and “yeah okay after our last conversation, I don’t know what I expected.” I wasn’t sure if I was just out of the loop when it came to drama, or if this came across as the dumbest most self-serving shit imaginable. 

Well, thank fuck I had a dumb flip phone that made typing hell. It was just one more reason I had not to respond to this cry for help. 

What did end up shocking me was seeing Rose track me down the next day… during lunch. Normally, she was the kind of girl that was content to leave things, even things she had to say, for when we next saw each other. This time, I guess, she needed to get it out as soon as possible.

She saw me see her before she walked up, and just widened her eyes once in acknowledgement as she walked up. I sat at one of the Loser Tables, so there was no conversation for her to interrupt. With confidence that would make any of the guys at the table salivate, she walked with confidence over and sat next to me.

“I figured out what made me act like I did at Quiz Bowl,” she told me.

“Hello to you too,” I replied awkwardly.

“Hi,” she replied dismissively. “Anyways, I’ve figured it out and it was just something dumb. So, uh, yeah, please ignore what I told you. And you’re right, you should feel allowed to talk to me like a friend. I literally gave you permission. I was wrong.”

I stared at her as she borderline choked out those statements. I wasn’t an expressive guy, but I’m sure even I could picture my confused-ass face. “So what was the dumb thing you figured out?”

“I’m not telling you,” Rose simply replied. “Sorry. Deal with it.”

I sighed. “Guess I’ll have to, jeez,” I mumbled. “You and Sarah have some serious issues.”

She turned to me, something urgent on her face. “What?”

“Well, you with the – oh right, yeah. you don’t know this, but Sarah-” My words caught in my throat. I really didn’t want to explain to Rose what Sarah and I had been doing, especially now that it was over. “Well, whatever. Sorry if the truth hurts or whatever, but you have some serious issues, and so does Sarah. She’s being really weird to me right now.”

“I can guess,” she admitted quietly. “I did tell you to be careful. There’s no winning or losing here.”

I leaned in and, without thinking, put my hand on top of Rose’s. “What do you know?!” I demanded. “You’re hiding something from me here. You’re hiding everything from me, and so is she. Tell me.”

Rose’s gaze traveled down to my hand on top of hers. She shook it off and barked, “Get your hands off me.”

I complied, but didn’t say anything. We stared at each other for a few seconds, but this time, I hoped she could see that I was determined. Shit, fuck, I was angry. This was bullshit and I did nothing to earn it.

“Are you keeping secrets too?” Rose asked simply.

…Okay, I did one thing to earn it. 

“Everyone does, don’t they?” I asked.

“And let me guess, your demand that I tell you everything will not go both ways,” she concluded.

I stared at her for a second, but to even my own surprise, nodded. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“I wish you weren’t my problem.”

“You’re… not,” I replied, weirded out. “Why did you say that?”

Rose was still staring angrily at me, but something about her resolve cracked within her eyes. “Uh, I was just saying things to keep up the, you know, conversational flow,” she admitted. “Whatever. Fuck this. I don’t need this. I’m disengaging.” Shaking her head, she got up and walked away, as confident as ever. 

Jesus Christ. Things were really boiling over. Both girls were getting more upset with me by the day, and I didn’t even… do anything. I thought about running after Rose, but if I did, what even would be the difference between me and Sarah with that bullshit text? Fuck this. Fuck them. If they wanted to be weirdos, they can have their little drama hour to themselves. I didn’t need this.

***

That’s why I cared. I forgot about that. That’s why I stayed, and why I tried to become better, and lived through all the bullshit: I was bored without my computer.

I stared at my ceiling, laying on my bed. Every five minutes that passed came with a new temptation to text Sarah or something. I couldn’t just read library books forever. Happily, the end of the school year was… kind of close. Two-ish months away, or something like that. By then, I could have my computer back, and then I could just go back to how I was before, without looking back. Sure, Quiz Bowl was fun, and the others could be… fun occasionally. But this was always just a temporary thing. It wasn’t like we were going to remain friends afterwards. Maybe once upon a time I thought like that, but I was kind of dumb. 

I sighed, getting up and stopping by my laundry hamper. You know you’re being bored to death when you go, “Oh, sweet, laundry, something to do. Let’s do that.” I picked it up and started to haul it down into the building’s laundry room, ensuring I picked up enough coins in the kitchen before I did. 

I was used to being awkward and quiet when I met someone else in the laundry room, but this time around I could at least acknowledge the other person there. “Hey Hailey,” I sighed, waddling in with the laundry.

She was standing in front of one of the occupied machines. “Hey,” she replied. “You okay?”

“Bored as shit,” I told her honestly. “I can’t fuckin’ wait for the school year to be over.”

“So you can get the computer back?” she guessed, and I nodded. She nodded back, and watched me begin to set up the laundry machine. “Still though, what about quiz bowl and that one girl?”

I blew a raspberry. “Fuck her. Fuck ‘em all. They’re being weird,” I told her as I put my laundry in.

“Oh,” she simply replied, then shifted in place. “Well jeez Jason, I thought you would have cared more. The other day you were, like, pining over her and being really thoughtful and shit. I liked it.”

“Don’t get used to it,” I replied bitterly. “Turns out she’s just a crazy bitch.”

“And it turns out you’re going to keep being the same guy you’ve always been?” Hailey guessed.

“That’s the plan,” I told her, starting the machine.

“That sucks. You seemed like you were, like, growing,” she admitted. “Maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding.”

“Oh it’s definitely a misunderstanding,” I agreed. “But I don’t get to know about it. There’s something bigger here, but they’re all ‘ohhh, you can never know’ and keeping me in the dark.”

“How?” Hailey asked, and saw me roll my eyes. “Short version’s okay!” 

I stared at her for a bit. “There’s something going on with this other girl that I’m becoming friends with,” I began, with Hailey all but clapping at seeing me cave. “The two girls obviously don’t like each other, and the girl I liked? She’s seeing this new guy. Apparently they used to be friends but now they’re not, mostly because the girl I liked got closer with this one guy. The other girl doesn’t like him, so according to the girl I liked, the other girl saw it as this betrayal, her words. But it feels like it’s something bigger or at least different from that. And of course, now that the girl I like is seeing this new guy, it’s game over for me, even though it seemed like she really did like me.”

Hailey nodded along to the whole story, as dumb and complicated as it was. And that was the simple version. “Hmm, okay,” she eventually said. “So, boys can sometimes miss things, or see stuff where it isn’t there. You want my opinion?”

“Not particularly, but if you think it has some-”

“Great, okay,” Hailey cut me off. “So, number one, I think you might be imagining that the girl liked you. No offense, but it sounds like she was just friendly and you saw that as her wanting to kiss you.”

I held my tongue. Hailey was wrong on that one, but she didn’t need to know that. 

“Number two, I can see why you feel like there’s something bigger here. Wanna know my theory?”

“Make me laugh,” I bitterly replied.

“Hey now – so, my theory is: old girl? She dated that guy too. Now, new girl has stolen him. Old girl is pissed, lets new girl know. And now, new girl is getting friendlier with you too, so, old girl gets friendly with you too. Maybe they both want to be friends with you, but they also see this as a competition. Old girl is like, ‘ohh, you stole my boyfriend? I’m going to steal your friend.’ Or even, new girl sees it that way. So, she sees her becoming your friend and goes, ‘oh, she’s just trying to steal you from me to get back at me.’ And now, both girls see you becoming friends with the other as, like, you choosing a side.”

“That sounds like the dumbest thing ever,” I said honestly.

“That’s drama for you,” Hailey laughed with a shrug. “Sometimes I kinda envy you, you know. Staying in your room, happy to be shut off from the world. Trust me, I get I’m like two whole grades younger than you, but I’ve seen so much of this shit. It’s always the dumbest thing ever.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely planning to shut myself off for like a week solid once I get the computer back,” I admitted, then thought about her words. “It doesn’t not make sense, actually. It was really weird – it was like the whole group had this mysterious history and I happened to walk into it.”

“For a trivia team, that makes sense. You’re not gonna be the type to make friends easily if you’re in a trivia team,” she pointed out. “They’ve probably been with each other, and like no one else, for years.”

“You’d be surprised,” I remarked. “All of them seem almost popular, in their own way. They have their stereotypes at least.”

Hailey shrugged. “Either way, don’t, um… don’t give up on both girls immediately, if I can be honest. I meant what I said about you being thoughtful. Whatever you might think of those two girls, they’re making you want to become a better person. Plus, you go back to being… well, being you, as soon as you cut them off. I dunno about you, but my vote is to give at least one of them another chance.”

Insults aside, Hailey kind of had a point. I stared at my spinning laundry, almost hypnotically agreeing with Hailey to do as she says. “I’ll… think about it.”

***

Fate seemed to agree with Hailey. The very next time I got to Quiz Bowl, I was almost late, and I still wasn’t the last one in. That honor, as always, belonged to Rose.

Chadwick gave me an almost telltale shrug when I entered. “Jason, would you mind fetching Rose from the art room again?” she asked. “You’re always the one to get her.”

I accepted my fate and very consciously avoided Sarah’s gaze as I turned around, walking towards the art room. Along the way, I did what I didn’t usually do, and actually thought about the situation. I thought, planned, and made myself a promise. 

When I got there, sure enough, Rose was sitting there, working on a drawing of some kind. I rapped on the open door. “It’s about that time,” I told her.

Rose turned around. “Okay,” she told me, turning back around. “I’ll find my own way there. You can go.”

“I sure can,” I told her, remaining still.

Rose slowly turned to face me again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I stepped inside, closing the door behind me. “I want to ask you a few questions in private. It’s never just us two, even in the staircase.”

Rose looked towards the teacher’s desk, and sighed when she saw no one was there. “Of course she had to step out now,” she grumbled. “I assume you’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer, are you?”

I finished walking towards her, and stopped. I paused for a second. “Nah, I will,” I admitted. “If you say no and walk off, I can’t do anything about it, and won’t. I got into this shit for not respecting you, and we only became friends because I stopped doing that. I’d be dumb to go back on that now.”

“So if I say no, you won’t make me talk?” Rose confirmed.

I nodded. “Yup.”

“Great, then I’ll see you at Quiz Bowl,” Rose replied quickly, picking up her book and slinging her backpack hastily over her shoulder. Before I knew it, she powerwalked out of the room, leaving the door of the art room wide open behind her. 

I sighed. Okay, I didn’t really expect that. I thought that the speech would work, but I guess that was just me being an idiot. Once a secretive bitch, always a secretive bitch. Slowly, I started to walk back out of the art room myself. I was nearly at the door when Rose walked back in, almost colliding with me.

“Jeez!” I called out in shock, moving back.

Rose didn’t say anything until she shut the door, then leaned against it, folding her arms. “You really want to know?” she demanded.

“…Duh!” I exclaimed. “Of course I want to know! I want to know who to trust, and I want to know why everything is becoming a giant headache around me when I’m doing absolutely nothing wrong!”

Rose looked down at the floor, nodding, though she cocked her head at that last part. “Nothing wrong?” she repeated.

“Oh, shut up,” I breathed, albeit with a humorous tone. “But I think I know what’s going on. I won’t ask you to explain anything you don’t want, but… just tell me if I’m right or wrong here.”

Rose’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow,” she mused. “I didn’t take you as the type to make theories and overthink it.”

Yeah, because I wasn’t. Still, Hailey’s theory was a pretty solid one, and it would have been nice to hear it straight from Rose. “I’m wondering… So, Sarah clearly doesn’t like that I’m getting closer to you. You don’t seem to like her either. It’s getting worse now that she and Ryan are closer to becoming a couple. You instinctively push me away when we even get close to acting like we even could be a couple.”

Rose nodded along until the last sentence, as if that one shouldn’t belong in my theory.

“I’m wondering… I feel like you and Ryan used to date or something, and then you two broke up and he went for Sarah. Now you feel betrayed, like she stole your guy, and you don’t want to make it look like you’re rebounding, but she also sees you getting closer to me when she first got close to me as you, like, taking your revenge or something. Am I right, were you and Ryan a thing?”

Rose stared at me for a second or two. “Wow,” she eventually admitted. “Look at you, thinking this through.”

“So I’m right?” I asked in shock.

“No. God no. I would never date Ryan,” she admitted. “But you’re closer to the truth than you might think.”

“How?” I demanded.

“Do you really want to get into it now?” Rose challenged me. 

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation. “I’d even miss Quiz Bowl for this.”

Rose made big, accepting nod motions. “Okay, then let’s start at the beginning,” she said, finding a chair and sitting down. “Me and Ryan weren’t a couple.”

I nodded, finding a chair, which in hindsight was smart. Otherwise, the next thing Rose said would have knocked me on my ass.

“Me and Sarah were.”

---

This piece was made possible via commission. If you enjoy what you’re reading and want your own story written by Bashful Scribe, check out the Commission Page and commission him to make your erotic story ideas come to life.

>>Next Chapter

<<Previous Chapter

<<Back