It Starts Here / 𝗯𝘅𝗯 (✓)

10: Heartthrobs and jealousy

CHAPTER TEN
Seventeen years old

"I'm telling you!" Ares says as Sara's eyebrows are raised. "He's like a bad copy of every heartthrob in existence—the definition of one! You know, one of those guys who just watched Grease and now thinks they're the shit. It's weird!"

"This is weird," Sara shoots back as she curls her legs under her and continues braiding her hair. "Why are you so pissed about it? Felix likes him."

"And," Ares continues, his hands in the air, "what is even going on with that? He likes him? Nathan is a copy of a stupid heartthrob and looks like a beaver."

Sara sighs. "He doesn't look like a beaver."

"How can you say that with a straight face? Of course, he does!" Ares argues as he stares at his legs leaning against the wall. Sara nudges him and he hands over the hair tie on his wrist. "A beaver," he continues, "and an angry... snail? I don't know."

"A snail?"

"Yes!"

"You've lost your mind," Sara laughs. She swings back her braid and Ares turns his head to the side when she leans back against Ares' bedroom wall right beside his legs. "But it's whatever. You can say whatever you want to because I like Nathan. And so does Keyomii."

"Right."

"And Felix doesn't care about what you think."

"What! Of course, he does. I'm his best friend." Ares shakes his head before shifting into a normal position in the bed, looking at Sara whose eyebrows are still raised. "He cares."

"Well," she says, "he shouldn't because right now you just sound like a jealous boyfriend."

Ares doesn't think his eyes would widen this much at the comment, but that's what happens as he sputters, "Wh—What! I'm sorry, jealous? I'm not jealous—I'm just looking out for him."

"For beaver-looking heartthrobs?" When Ares looks at her like it's obvious, Sara rolls her eyes, but Sara always rolls her eyes while smiling, so it doesn't have the effect he thinks it's supposed to have. "You're crazy, Ares. Felix is doing fine on his own. Just let him have this."

"What do you mean 'let him have this'?"

"I don't know," Sara says, but she continues like she does. "Maybe it's a good thing that he gets to have someone that isn't directly linked to you."

Ares blinks. "Teddy isn't linked to me."

"What do you mean? Teddy loves you!"

"Teddy would skin me alive if she ever got the chance—but even if she was linked to me—which she is not—why is that a bad thing? We share friends, that's not... bad."

"I'm not saying it's inherently bad. I'm just saying that it's not the worst thing when he has found a boyfriend we don't know everything about." She shrugs. "Besides, I'm sorry, Ares, but I think you're overreacting right now."

"I'm not overreacting," Ares says, but Sara has already lifted her hands in defeat and Ares wishes she would continue fighting him on this. It feels more like a dismissed 'if you won't realize you're wrong, then fine' rather than a 'okay, you win'. 

"Now," she says, reaching for her book on Ares' nightstand, "let's talk about this book, okay? I have so many thoughts I think I'm going to explode—"

Seventeen-year-old Felix has a boyfriend and seventeen-year-old Ares is not a fan.