Chapter 11
The Brentwood halls felt different Tuesday morning as I walked down them, pretending to be absorbed in my phone to avoid making eye contact with anyone.
There were two things on my mind that made it impossible to feel like anything other than a bug under a microscope. After my doomscrolling yesterday in my car, I hadn’t had the heart to open Babble again, too afraid of the comments I’d find waiting for me like a ticking time bomb.
And then there was the bigger problem. I was afraid the second I looked at anyone, they’d see that I’d committed treason of the highest order.
Or, well, planned to commit treason of the highest order.
I’ve got a date with a Bulldog at six-thirty.
“Morning, sunshine.” A sudden jerk on my ponytail had my head pulling backward, literally yanking me from my thoughts. “You look a little tired.”
I swatted Kyle’s hand off. “I do not,” I said. “I look perfect.”
And I did. I’d made sure that my blonde hair was pulled back into a smooth braid, that my makeup was immaculately done, and that my clothes did not look frumpy.
No sweatshirts and leggings today—I could not look like I was wallowing in light of the MLTs.
I needed to look confident, cool, and collected.
Even if I felt like a bee buzzing in a glass jar while people took turns shaking it.
Kyle took my zero eye contact as encouragement, and inched closer. “You and Jade fighting over the label?”
“Of course not.”
“Really? I’d be upset if I were you.”
I could tell he was fishing. “Butt out, Kyle.”
Kyle tapped my cheek, pulling his hand back before I could bat it away. “I’m allowed to be worried about you, Maddie.”
The thing with Kyle was that he seemed trustworthy—and would swear he was—but wouldn’t hesitate to run his mouth if backed into a corner. As flirty as he was, I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. “She’s not angry. No one’s angry. It’s just a meaningless label, like the rest of them.”
I could feel his gaze roam my face. “I heard you asked Landon out over the summer.”
I looked up at him in surprise. “Landon told you?”
“Jade.”
When would Jade have told Kyle anything about that? Or did she tell Connor, and Connor told Kyle? I squeezed my eyes shut, head already aching.
“He went out on a date last night. Landon. With Lacey Churchill.”
I slammed my locker door shut, staring at the slats in the painted blue metal.
I could not deal with anything else—not Jade gossiping about my love life, not Connor telling his friends, and definitely not Landon going on a date with one of Brentwood High’s outcasts.
My brain felt as if it was going to explode with the bombardment of information, filling to the brim and leaking over.
“You know,” Kyle went on when I didn’t reply, unaware of how close I was to snapping. “If Landon doesn’t want you, Mads, I have dibs.”
I finally faced Kyle fully, finding his expression nothing short of serious. “I am not a football you can pass around. And you can call dibs all you want, Kyle, but it’s never going to happen.”
Since he wasn’t walking away first, I was going to. Clutching my first period textbook to my chest, I pivoted, ready to leave him in the dust. A hand grabbed my wrist, and I pulled my other back to slap Kyle into the next century, but it wasn’t the pushy defensive lineman—it was Jade.
“We need to talk,” Jade said, no room for argument. Her grip on me was firm, almost painful, like a bracelet that was too tight.
My heart skyrocketed all at once in my chest, panic biting its teeth into my skin. She knows, she knows, she knows.
Kyle readjusted how he leaned against the lockers, looking like he was getting comfortable to eavesdrop. Thankfully, Jade noticed, and tugged my arm. “Follow me.”
With each step we took, nerves slithered their way through my entire body. I immediately regretted skipping practice yesterday. Now, though, as the consequences to my actions loomed closer and closer with each step behind her, I regretted it. Majorly.
Or maybe it was worse than that. But how could she have found out about yesterday with Logan? Did someone from his football team recognize me? Even if they had, who would’ve spread the information back to her?
Since the bell was set to go off in five minutes, most students in the freshman hallway had gone to their classes. We went to the west staircase, and she opened the door underneath the stairs that led to the sport equipment closet—one the Top Tier utilized often for… different things.
Jade pulled me inside and yanked the cord to the exposed bulb, and the tiny room brightened, revealing her shining eyes.
The interior was filled with boxes and other sports equipment, and I was near hyperventilating on dust when she faced me.
Defuse the situation, every instinct in me screamed.
Apologize. Talk her down. Don’t make her mad.
“Jade,” I tried to say, but her name came out in a desperate gasp for air. “I—”
“You didn’t text me yesterday,” she said.
I didn’t text her. Okay. So this was about cheer. “I had a lot of homework,” I replied, pulling out the answer I’d rehearsed over and over. “I wasn’t feeling good after school, and—”
“Decided that you’d skip practice without notice? You know no-shows aren’t allowed.”
“I told Riley to tell you.”
I hadn’t, but it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that Riley wouldn’t have passed along the message—and if Jade tried to fact check, and Riley denied it, it was still plausible Riley would lie due to our “irreconcilable differences.” And if Jade believed her over me…
I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
“That isn’t co-captain behavior, you know. I’d expect it out of Jen or Gina, but not out of you.”
She was right about that, as per usual. I should’ve texted her I wasn’t going to show. No, I should’ve shown up. What she said—that isn’t co-captain behavior—caused more unease to surface, manifesting as a weight on my chest.
“I’m sorry,” Jade said suddenly, surprising me. I realized her eyes weren’t shining because of the light—there were tears building there. “I shouldn’t have put you on the list. Not for that label. It was… mean.”
I opened my mouth, but the words didn’t immediately come. She was apologizing, and Jade never apologized first. Like, ever. It was so disarming that for a long second, all I could do was blink open-mouthed at her.
“I knew you really liked Logan, and I made a joke of it all.” Jade pressed her hand against her face, muffling her voice. “If anyone should’ve been voted to peak in high school, it should’ve been me, swear to God.”
“Don’t say that,” I immediately objected, reaching out and rubbing her upper arm. “Seriously. You’re not going to peak in high school. Neither of us will.”
“Please don’t be mad at me,” she begged, drawing her other hand up to hide more of her face as she cried into her palms. The bracelets on her wrist jingled. “You’re the only person I’ve got—the only one who truly gets me, Mads. Please—please don’t be mad at me.”
My heart twinged at the crack in her voice, and without another thought, I wrapped my arms around her.
A part of me actually felt happy at her tears, only because it appeased all the fears that’d been brewing in my mind over the past few weeks.
Jade did still care about our friendship.
She did still care about me. She wasn’t trying to shove me out of the friend group.
And then I felt horrible, horrible, horrible for being happy. What was wrong with me?
“It’s—it’s not a big deal,” I told her, rubbing circles into the back of her cardigan. Jade didn’t hug me back, but continued to sniff into her hands. “I’m not mad. How could I be mad at you? You’re my best friend.”
She didn’t answer, but leaned more of her weight into me.
“Are you mad that I’m co-captain?”
“Of course not,” she murmured into my shoulder. Echoing me, she said, “You’re my best friend.”
“It did hurt my feelings before,” I admitted, feeling a little emboldened to tell the truth since she leaned so heavily on me. “The label. But I know you didn’t mean anything by it. You didn’t make that label to hurt me or to make me upset. I know that.”
“I know you really liked him.” Now her hands fell from her face to wiggle down between us, and she finally hugged me back. “If you wanted to date him, I wouldn’t tell the others.”
I stiffened, sure I’d heard her wrong. She must’ve been really worried about me being upset. For Jade, that offer was sacrilegious.
I almost confessed. The words, almost painful in their guilt, sat at the tip of my tongue, begging for release.
Secrets from Jade were forbidden, and the relief of just being honest was almost too sweet to deny.
But she didn’t need to know this one. It was a one-and-done thing after all.
After today, Logan Castle wouldn’t matter. What was one white lie?
“It wasn’t meant to be,” I said, thankful she wasn’t looking at me. I was sure the lie was all over my face. I forced my voice lighter, hoping to convince her with my false cheer. “I mean, come on. Could you imagine me with a Bulldog? Pass.”
She huffed out a breath, one I couldn’t tell if it was a sigh or a laugh. “I trust you ’til the end, Mads.”
She trusted me, and here I was, throwing it back in her face. But it was just this once. One time to prove to myself that I wasn’t shallow enough to let the Brentwood/Jefferson war stop me in my tracks. After one date, I could walk away from Logan. And I would.
“And I’ll follow you ’til the end,” I returned.
Overhead, the bell rang, declaring both of us tardy, but neither of us immediately moved. I was surprised—Jade made such a fuss about tardies last week. “We should go,” I said finally, giving her back one more pat before grabbing her shoulders. “Let’s make sure your makeup isn’t too smudged.”
Jade had her head ducked as I peeled her back from our hug, her hair hanging in her face.
She sniffed hard and quickly patted her cheeks, wiping at her skin.
“Thank God I used waterproof mascara, huh?” she said, and brushed past me.
“Let’s go. Maybe we can convince Mrs. Diego to not give us tardies. ”
She ducked out of the closet first. I looked down at my shirt, expecting to find her tears soaked into the light fabric, but there were no marks. It was because when Jade had pulled away, her cheeks had been completely dry.