Chapter 28 #3
She dragged me out to the parking lot, away from all the girls who were trying to trail after us. Riley stopped them, knowing to give us privacy, keeping them back while Jade pulled me further and further into the darkness.
I pulled my wrist from her crushing grip between two SUVs. “Jade,” I said, swallowing hard.
In a slow, horror-movie pivot, she turned to me. The football field lights were bright enough that I could see some of the features of her face, but most of it was in shadow.
“It’s done,” I said slowly, fighting the urge to take a step backward. “It’s over. It’s… time to let go now.”
“Let go?” Her voice was incredulous, borderline wild. Her heels crunched on the gravel of the parking lot as she took a step forward, scoffing out a harsh laugh. “Let go of everything I’ve worked for? Let go of my top spot—why? Because you want it?”
My forehead crinkled. “Jade.”
“That is it.” She came closer until her reflection joined mine in the window of the SUV. “Knock me down so you can step up?”
“Jade, that’s not—”
“I should’ve known when you didn’t even try to convince Coach about being co-captain. You were probably scheming about how to get rid of me since she announced it. To have it all for yourself.”
“No!” My voice cracked in the night. “I couldn’t care less about any of it!”
“Liar.”
“Jade, this is too far. Blackmailing Connor and Maisie, humiliating Lacey and Landon.” My head spun as the list stretched on. “Breaking Jefferson’s quarterback’s leg, blackballing Hudson Bishop, sabotaging Maisie’s cheer tryouts—”
She rolled her eyes. “You were the one who sabotaged Maisie.”
“Because you told me to! And, yes, I did it, but I never would’ve dreamed of doing it on my own.
” Time and time again, I’d tried to back out of the idea, but Jade pushed me forward.
Like she always did. I reached for her hand now.
“Jade, I might like being popular, but not when I have to hurt other people in the process. If I have to push people down to be on top, I don’t want it. ”
Jade looked at me as if all of that had been spoken in another language. “Gosh,” Jade said on a small sigh. Her lip curled. “You’re such a hypocrite.”
I flinched at the bite in her voice. “Jade, I—”
“I know about Logan.”
Everything stopped. The tension building, brewing, all seemed to slam to a halt as her words knocked around in my head. I know about Logan. The space between the cars suddenly seemed far too small for two people to stand in it, not with how large Jade seemed to have grown in an instant.
“I know you’ve been sneaking around behind our backs,” she plowed ahead, eyes flashing. “So hop off your high-and-mighty podium before you break your neck.”
“How—how did you—”
“You never listen.” Her voice ended in a hiss, expression darkening. “Didn’t you hear me last night when I told Connor that I know everything? Didn’t you hear me when I told you that you were a bad liar?”
For a moment, I was suspended in confusion, unable to remember. And then it clicked. Deny it all you want, she’d said back at one of our first cheer practices of the year, when she asked if I was going to be meeting Logan. But you’re a bad liar, Madison.
“Did you know this whole time?” My words were breathless, rushed. I found myself repeating the question, unable to comprehend it. “This—this whole time, you knew?”
Jade pursed her lips, not answering. The superiority in her gaze said enough.
A dull wave of panic washed over me, being caught in a full-fledged lie.
The secret I’d been holding for weeks finally met the light, only to reveal it hadn’t been a secret all along.
Jade had known. Every time I looked her in the eye and lied, she knew.
When she’d asked me about Logan in my bedroom, she’d known. This entire time, Jade had known.
And she looked like a queen standing over me now, seconds away from instructing an execution.
“Why…” I swallowed against my dry mouth. “Why didn’t you say something? If you knew I was with Logan, why didn’t you say anything?”
I could actually see in real time as Jade thought something through, and I could see the moment she made a decision. Or a realization. Whatever it was, it lit up her eyes. “You don’t even know,” she murmured, one corner of her lip tugging up. “Throughout it all, you never even guessed.”
“Guessed what?”
She opened her mouth as if she were about to launch into it, but then stopped. She pressed her lips together, clearly fighting another smile. In the moonlight, it was terrifying. “It doesn’t matter.” Jade raised her eyebrows. “It’s done now, right? It’s time to let go, isn’t it?”
I knew Jade wanted me to press further. To beg her for forgiveness. I could see the intention on her face as she waited for me to speak. She was waiting for me to stumble over myself, to blurt out an apology, and to cry.
Just as I had when she’d asked me to give up co-captain.
But I didn’t want to. Despite the wave of nausea that’d come from my lie coming to light, I found that I didn’t need to know what Jade knew, or how she knew it.
I didn’t need her to forgive me for keeping something from her.
For the first time ever, I wasn’t desperate for Jade Dyer to not be mad at me, not desperate for her approval.
My shoulders slumped a little with the realization. “Yes,” I replied, feeling something like a tired relief. “It’s time to let go.”
Jade nodded slowly, and her dangling earrings bobbed with the movement.
We both stood there for a moment, and I realized, with a dull certainty, that this was surely it.
Our friendship couldn’t survive after tonight.
Then again, had I really wanted it to? I’d helped Connor essentially screw Jade over—I had to have realized there’d be no coming back from that.
But even now, at the thought of losing a decade old friendship—it was so, so wrong, but I felt nothing but relief.
Jade turned away first. Without another word, she turned on her heel and stalked off down the row of cars. I stood there, swaying in my high heels, nearly reaching a hand out to steady myself on the car.
For a moment, the night was quiet. Almost creepily so. Whenever I thought about Jade finding out about my secret relationship with Logan, the scene had always seemed so much worse in my head. Bigger. Scarier. That was… more painless than I was expecting.
I patted my cheeks, but they were dry. Not a tear in sight.
“Madison!”
“What are you doing out here?”
Logan was breathing hard as he came up behind me, eyes wide. “I saw—I saw Jade pull you out here—”
“Did you think she was going to skin me alive?” I teased, but there was an edge to my voice. Sure, we were hidden between the cars, but anyone could stumble upon us any second. “I’m okay. You need to be on the field. Halftime is almost over—”
“She didn’t say anything?” I wasn’t the only one who was on edge. Logan’s eyes weren’t just wide with worry, I realized, but with panic. “Jade didn’t tell you… anything?”
I know about Logan. Even now, when he was in the middle of playing a football game, he was worried about that. “No,” I said, going so far as to offer him a small smile. “She was just mad about Connor.”
Logan let out a sigh of relief, one that seemed to rattle in his chest. His shoulder pads were bulky on his frame, and he hung a hand off the neckline, tugging it as if he needed room to breathe.
And then he raised his eyes to mine. He was backlit by the field lights, so it was impossible to truly tell their color, but I knew them by heart—beautiful, beautiful blue. “You look stunning,” he murmured, swallowing hard. “I—”
“Jade!” Riley’s voice suddenly cut through the night, sounding way too close. Two cars down. “Where did you go?”
Alarm shot through me, and I saw it reflected in Logan’s eyes. We split apart at once, before we could steal another second. I went deeper into the parking lot while he shot away, back toward the football field. “Riley?” I called, hoping to draw her attention toward me. “I’m right here!”
She came around the front of a car then, frowning with her phone lit up in her hand. “Where’s Jade?”
“I think she left.” My body trembled from the adrenaline, but I hoped Riley would blame the cold. “Is half-time over yet?”
Riley crinkled her nose. “There’s still, like, five minutes.”
“Good.” Picking up the bottom skirt of my dress, I started walking off to the direction of where I knew Mom parked her car. “Plenty of time to change into my uniform.”
Riley didn’t follow, but her voice did. “You’re going to cheer?”
“It’s my last homecoming game,” I said. And, really, I knew it was my last game. I’d already asked Coach to cut me, and after what helping Connor and possibly severing ties with Jade, there was no way we could be co-captains together. Jade got her wish, like she always did. “As if I’d miss it.”