“Because I let you be captain,” I say, my eyes blinking out the words slowly because, yes, they are painful to say. But I don’t pause in saying them. I answer quickly.
“That’s right. You made me captain, sacrificing your own desire to be a leader for the good of the team,” he says, his words patronizing and dripping with condescension. “I’m pretty sure that falls into the category of duty, would you agree?”
“I’ll agree,” I say, my expression still flat as it was when he began. Nothing he’s saying is surprising me. It won’t.
“Then let me ask you this—your sacrifice…how did it make you feel?”
He’s so sure he has me. I could cave so easily. I would look better if I caved, better in the eyes of my best friend Izzy who is sitting next to me. She’s the one who asked me to let him be captain. She wanted to win, to carry home a heavy golden cup engraved with the word CHAMPION, to have a line on her resume that she was preparing for expensive colleges back East that said the same. Out of duty to my friend, I voted for Nico. Raising my hand felt like swallowing acid, and if I had it to do over, I would never make that mistake again.
“Well?” he prompts.
“It made me feel ashamed. It made me sick with regret. It’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made, and I took absolutely zero pleasure from it.”
The chuckles from the back of our classroom are faint, and Mr. Huffman’s warning with the wave of his hand and finger-hush over his lips does little to quiet them. The bell rings, and our teacher begins to recite out page numbers for our next reading. Nico and I don’t bother to write them down. I’m sure, like me, he’s finished his already.
The rustling of papers and chatter—about the weekend’s party, about tonight’s game, about my quarterback brother and whoever he’s dating—takes over the present, but Nico and I remain in our seats in the very-near past. We’re locked in our duel. My stomach is twitching with the nervous patter of my racing heart. It isn’t because of his eyes or smirk or tight T-shirt and somehow unbelievably-masculine seated position. I notice those things, but I dismiss them. It’s because I’ve been in the ring with him, and I’ve come out victorious. I want to cheer! I want high fives. I want to whisper yes, and clutch my fist to my gut in celebration.
Neither of us moves or speaks until Mr. Huffman calls our names, stirring us from our locked positions as he kicks down the stop on his door, signaling he has hall duty. I’m the first to break. I tell myself it’s because I have things to do. I need to get to the video room, to gather my equipment and make it to Dad’s coaching office before the football team files in. I have a deadline that Nico doesn’t have. But that’s not why I’m moving. I’m moving because I know he won’t. He’ll just sit there and continue to stare, and no matter how right I believe I am, he’ll make me think I’m wrong.
“I think I need to ask my question again, Reagan,” he says, and my chest seizes under the rush of numbness pouring through both it and my veins like morphine. He’s tapped into my nerves by just saying my name. He’s trying to make me angry. He wants me to emote. But I won’t. I won this time, and he’s going to have to swallow that pill. I’m not going to play a war of words that doesn’t matter.
My lips pursed, I raise my brows as I look at him and stand, my bags gathered over my shoulder and my books clutched against my chest. I look away when he doesn’t speak immediately, moving to the opened doorway, ready to disappear into our crowded high school hallway. His voice at my shoulder slows me down.
“Your confession—just now—that you only admitted, for your own pleasure of beating me in some silly, meaningless, classroom debate over a book that’s older than the bricks that built our school…” he slows, and I turn just enough to catch the dimple. “How did that make you feel?”
I part my lips to answer, ready to reject him, to refuse to walk down this path, but I can’t. A small breath escapes me, and my heart beat slows into a steady, obnoxious drum. I close my mouth, because there’s really no need for me to answer. Nico doesn’t wait to hear one. He pushes his hair from his eyes and tugs his bag tight against his shoulder, tucking his long board against his side. His lip ticks up just enough to push the dimple even deeper as he takes three or four steps backward before turning away and becoming lost in the crowd before me, always a step ahead.
I wait for nearly a minute, leaned against the doorway, my mind retracing every word I said, looking for the flaw in his argument, until I realize just how obsessed I’ve become over the last hour, over beating him. I chuckle to myself, glancing at his seat and mine, then shake my head while my teeth saw at my lip.
I answer his question in my head as I begin my trek to the football locker rooms. Beating Nico in a debate felt great. It felt amazing in those small breaths of a moment where I thought I had. But I hadn’t really.
Smug asshole was right all along.
Even worse, he doesn’t care who knows.
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