Bakersville high school
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“Aren’t you going to lunch?” Phoebe, one of Emily’s classmates asked her.
“I’m not that hungry,” she said and offered Phoebe a smile to assure her that she was okay and she was definitely lying.
She was hungry, but she couldn’t go to the cafeteria anymore because she had no one to sit with. Her only other friend, the only one who related to her both inside and outside of school was no longer interested in being friends with her.
She had gotten sick and tired of the same old story, of picking up the same old pieces of Emily’s heart. Jullie had given Emily an ultimatum. She told her that if she kept defending Gabriel and his problematic behavior she
GABRIEL***“Gabriel! Come get the door!” my Mom shouted from downstairs.I rolled my eyes so far back that they almost got stuck. I wanted every part of me to vanish into thin air. If I was asked at that moment what kind of superpower I wanted, it would be the power to be invisible.The power to disappear at any moment. But I knew it couldn’t happen, and I also knew I needed to make it downstairs as quickly as possible before Mom found a reason to get upset. I heaved myself off of my bed and dragged myself to the door.Emily and her Mom were coming over for dinner. When I decided to hate her I forgot the fact that our mothers were inseparable and there would always be a way for us to meet. We would never be e
EMILY *** “She’s great. Everything is going great. It couldn’t be better,” Gabriel said and I couldn't help but smile. My Mom had just asked him how Harper was and not only did he give an update on her, he gave an update on his life as if trying to assure himself that everything was indeed going well. That moment alone gave me so much satisfaction that I knew I needed to go on with what I was doing. If this was what Gabriel looked like when he was scared out of his wits then I would spend the rest of my life trying to get that face from him. Our Moms had planned yet another dinner that we couldn’t get out of and I was actually excited for this one, unlike the other one. I had not seen him ever since he decided to disown me and throw me under the bus, and I had not seen him especially since I had taken back my sense of control and chosen to flip this over on him. He was pretending to hate my guts since I walked into the house but I could see beneath the surface and beneath the su
GABRIEL***Now that I was sitting across from Emily, I could see that she had a crazy look in her eye that I hadn't noticed before and it made me uncomfortable. What was she up to? She knew what I was talking about, but she dared to ask. What game was she playing?I had never shied away from a confrontation but I knew that this was the kind of confrontation I couldn't have in front of our Moms. This was strictly between her and me and so I decided to change the battlefield to my room. She wouldn’t have a chance there. It was as if God was smiling at me that day because she played right into my trap and asked me if I was okay, saying I looked pale. I played along, made it look like I was feeling unwell and to her, like I was running away from whatever she was doing. The crazy look in her eye intensified and I knew I had caught her.There was nothing better than setting a trap for someone who thought they were winning. She didn’t know she would never win against me. She was smart but
EMILY***Has he always had such beautiful eyes?This was the thought that brought me back to my senses because it was a thought I shouldn't have been having. It should have been the last thought on my mind, and even then it was a thought I couldn't afford to consider.But this was a game and I couldn't just end it because of an intrusive thought. I wanted to end it as the winner. Could he hear my heartbeat? It was beating so loud in my ears that I was afraid he could hear it from where he was.I looked down to take a deep breath because what I was about to do was actually going to be uncomfortable, but if it meant winning then I could deal with the discomfort later. I looked up at him and grabbed both of his wrists so that he couldn’t get out of the trap he had made for me. I inched closer to his face until our noses were practically touching. All this time, my heart was beating so loud I could barely hear myself. And then I saw it. The skin on his neck and face had begun to turn re
GABRIEL***“Are you okay?” Harper asked.“Yeah, why?” I answered a bit too quickly.She looked over at my hands and when I looked down I saw that I had snapped the pencil that was in my hand in half. I hadn’t even noticed that it was in my hands, let alone that I had broken in. It was too into my own head, thinking about what had happened over the weekend and getting angry all over again and going through a wave of emotions: confusion, anger, fear, and back to confusion. I had never been as distressed as I was at that moment. My face in the mirror kept coming back to mind and I felt so much shame and embarrassment just thinking about it that I wished I could turn my brain off, even if it was for a second. It was all I could see when I closed my eyes.It haunted me every waking moment, the fact that I had turned red in the face and made Emily’s words true: you mean nothing to me. Although I wouldn't say the same to you. There was no point in hiding it, what she had said was true and
Bakersville high school***“Gabriel hasn’t come by here in a while, is he okay?” Terry asked.Emily froze. She debated quickly on whether lying to her mother was a good idea, but she also didn’t want her to intervene in the situation, because she knew her Mom would go overboard and get everyone else involved and the last thing Emily wanted was for everyone to know what had happened between her and Gabriel.That was the first time they had argued in a long time and he had simply left her room and gone to his, packed up a few of his things, and left. She had seen him around in school, and he looked fine. But she knew that this was a facade. She knew that looking like he was fine was something he did every day even when he had stayed up all night trying to stop his parents from fighting.She felt guilty: she wondered how she could apologize to him but she also knew that he would take that chance to be especially mean and she didn’t feel like going through embarrassment and humiliation o
EMILY***“Hey,” Harry said as he sat down across from me.“Hey,” I said, offering him the friendliest smile I could muster because I didn't want him to think we were enemies, given how things had ended between us during our last interaction.I had texted him and asked him to meet so we could talk things out and he honored my request. I had half feared that he would completely ignore my text, leaving me to be embarrassed but he had come to see me on such short notice as well because I had texted him the night before.If I was being honest, I didn't know what I wanted to talk to him about. I didn’t know if I wanted to work things out or if I wanted to explain myself. It was just like the feeling I'd gotten when I was with my Mom: a part of me wanted to give a clear explanation as to why he was wrong about his theory about Gabriel making me uncomfortable in a way that could be misunderstood. It was simply not true.He didn’t even make me uncomfortable. That was what I wished I could say
GABRIEL***I tapped my finger on my phone screen, thinking of what I wanted to write. I was writing a message to the person who had texted me and I wanted to make sure that it was a message that would make them feel like they were losing because I was sure Emily was involved.I wanted to piss her off and get a punch of my own in after the absolute chaos she had brought into my own life. I needed to get some points on the scoreboard I was sure she had a mental record of. I needed to catch up.What message would piss her off? I needed it to be something that she didn't expect. What had she expected when she got the person to text me and ask me if I was sure I was okay with being exposed? I suspected that it was the response I had given: the fact that I had actually gotten nervous and shown her that I was afraid.She had gotten so much satisfaction from it, I could tell by the way she had acted. The crazy look in her eye shone like something crazy when I showed her I was afraid. The app