The Opposition

Chapter 7: Sadie

 Everyday a scoreboard remains in my head, and I use a piece of my sanity to keep track; hopefully putting a tick on my side. I don't know who I'm playing against. Maddie thought I was playing her. Maybe I'm playing Carter. Or perhaps I'm playing myself. Because if I'm always beating myself, well; then I'll never lose.

I started the day by erasing my scoreboard. Right now, I have one tick on my side. That one's for getting a better grade than Carter on our math test. I think I'm about to add another tick in favour of myself because I swear Carter just looked me up and down and mouthed "fuck." Or maybe he said it and I was too far to hear. Just as I'm about to place a tick right beside my first one, my sanity grips my arm and tells me that "fuck" meant "oh fuck, it's her again," and not "fuck, she looks really pretty."

This weather is really fucking confusing. It's January, but the weather doesn't seem to match. There are faint tracings of snow on the ground, but it's more sweater weather than winter jacket weather. I think it's going to get colder, but I hope it stays like this for longer. I mean, you can wear anything in this weather, as long as your shoes protect your from the partially-snowy ground.

Ana and Angie are still busy talking about some guy from their science class that promposed to a girl while not knowing that next week's dance is nothing like a prom. He went all out with the flowers and candy. I feel bad for the guy, even though I was laughing along with Angie and Ana ten seconds ago. The two are too tangled up in their laughter to notice that Landon and Dimitri each have their eyes trained on one of them; shamelessly checking them out. I don't think they even notice that we've all walked to meet each other just outside of the library. It's late, so the last of the seniors and juniors are pouring out of the building, rubbing their eyes that are probably stinging from staring at quadratic formulas for too long.

Angie and Ana nearly crash into Landon and Dimitri, but Carter and I have our eyes trained on each other. "Conners," I say first, putting him in his place.

"Hey, baby," he smiles.

My eyes widen slightly, searching his. They look fine. Maybe his eyelids look a little heavy, but he's not drunk. Not high. Clearly not in love. I'm stumped. It came out of nowhere. Just this afternoon, we were still continuing to address each other with last names laced with loathing. He's acting drunk, though. His smile is lazy, and his shoulders are slouched. I'm almost scared because Carter has his normal heart rate and normal blood pressure, but he's acting strange. Suspicious. What if it was a "fuck, she looks really pretty" after all?

And that's when I slap myself. Well, I imagine slapping myself. He pieced it together. This 2% difference on our tests has put me at the top of the class, which puts me at the top of the school. Oh. He's doing this to mess with me. Next thing I know, he'll be making out with me on the sides of mansions just to get me all seduced and shit to scoop up Valedictorian. Oh. Fuck. No.

I give him a harsh glare, as if to say: "Go ahead, explain this baby shit."

"What?" He smirks, "Don't like it?"

Fuck–I kind of do.

"Hell no."

"Awe, c'mon. You like it. It gets you all hot and bothered, doesn't it?" He has this stupid, cocky smirk on his face and I'm internally beating my brain up for thinking it's hot.

I seem to have forgotten that we have an audience of four other people, but, when I look at them, they aren't paying the slightest bit of attention to us. Dimitri and Angie are looking at each other like lovesick puppies and I want to clap both of their heads together so they can get together. You don't shoot your shot when there is any sense of uncertainty, but there's none of that here. If they held hands, I'm positive they would each feel some stupid spark like people describe in those romance novels Ana reads. I'm not too fond of Dimitri because the one time I actually talked to him was when he was drunk on Vodka and Carter and Landon were trying to sneak him back into the dorms. They crashed straight into me as I was sneaking out of Randy's dorm. As far as I know, Dimitri isn't a heavy drinker, and that one instance was an accident. Other than that, he doesn't really do anything. He goes to parties and hangs out with his friends, but he spends a majority of his time just staring at people. I really don't know what Angie sees in him. I guess he's attractive, but the way she looks at him seems like it's more than physical attraction. I think she has one class with him, so maybe she knows him better from that.