Love Comes From Strange Places

9

Step one: figure out your feelings.

When Neve started walking home from school Reed walked up to her.

"Are you ignoring me?" She asked.

"No." Neve said. "Not you."

"Then you're ignoring Kai which is even weirder." Reed said. "What's going on."

Neve was about to tell Reed when Emerald popped up behind them, "What are you guys talking about?" She asked.

"Neve is going to tell me why she's mad at Kai."

"Oh that's just because he kissed her." Emerald said casually.

"Emerald!" Neve yelled.

"Oh wow." Reed said. "Out of all things I was not expecting that."

"I was." Emerald said. "Can't you see it? It's the perfect love story. Two guys love a girl. Ones really hot and amazing and the other's her best friend. At the end she is loyal and picks the best friend over the hot guy even though he's obviously the better choice. It's adorable. You should totally pick Kai, Neve."

"Why does she have to pick one?" Reed asked.

"Oh you haven't heard my master plan yet." Emerald went on to explain her entire plan to Reed. Neve was not interested in listening to it again so she spent the whole time staring at the ground.

"So that's my master plan. Do you like it?" Emerald asked, waiting for Reed's opinion. Neve knew that Reed's opinion on things mattered very much to Emerald. Even if she didn't agree with Reed, she needed to know what she thought so that she could plan out her responses correctly.

"No." Reed said. Emerald's face fell. "It's a horrible and stereotypical plan. It objectifies the girl making her feel like she would have to choose one and that one of them has to have her forever, and making two guys fight over someone is just stupid. If I was Neve in the situation I would just leave both of the boys crying and do something else."

"That's stupid though." Emerald said. "She has to like one of them. That's how it goes."

"It's not."

"It is."

"It's not."

"It is."

Reed and Emerald kept going back and forth. Strangely, Neve was agreeing with Emerald. She had to like one of them. That's how it works. The question was, which one?

Emmett was arguably hot. Everyone knew it, even the other boys. He was most popular boy in school. He would be the best choice for her reputation and the most understandable option, but if she chose Emmett she would lose her best friend. There seemed to be no good choices in the situation. She would have to learn how to read her feelings better.

She started keeping graphs of how many times she subconsciously looked at each of them. Emmett average: 20 times a day. Kai average: 25 times a day. She would sit with Kai at lunch and notice every little thing that went through her mind when he talked. She stopped pushing Emmett away when he tried to talk to her. She, again, would try to pay attention to everything she did when she talked with him.

She discovered that Emmett was a lot nicer than she had thought. He was very funny and didn't act like as much of a dude-bro than she expected. A dude-bro was her and her friends code for one of those guys that only cared about sports and talked with extra deep voices and tried to act cool and intimidating but was kind of failing at it.

Neve kept track of the pros and cons of each of them. She would write down everything. Millions of paper scattered the floor of her room. She spent less time with her other friends and her sister. She wanted to focus only on her feelings until she figured out which one she liked more.

She started doing worse in her classes. She kept forgetting to study or do her homework. She was too busy with step one.

She was too busy with step one to do anything anymore.

"What are you doing? Why are there papers everywhere?" Harper asked her one day.

"It's none of your business Harper." Neve said, pushed Harper out of the room and shut her door.

She had all her notes set up on her wall like a case board. She studied the papers for what seemed like the hundredth time but still found nothing. There was no clear answer. That meant she needed more notes. And more notes. And more notes.

Soon the only people she talked to were Emmett and Kai. She was too busy for Reed and Emerald, too busy for Harper, even too busy for her parents.

She loved spending time with Kai and Emmett. She was confused about why she didn't love spending time with one of them more. She had to like one better, but they were both equally funny. Equally kind. Equally wonderful people. Equal. They couldn't be equal. If they were equal then she wouldn't be able to complete step one. If she couldn't complete step one then she couldn't move on to step two, and if she couldn't move onto step two she wouldn't finish all the steps and get out of this nightmare.

"Are you okay?" Emmett asked her one day. She nodded, nervous that he had seen her write something down in her notebook which she brought with her everywhere now. "You seem stressed. Are you sure."

She nodded again and then said, "Totally fine." Lie. "I'm not stressed at all." Another lie.

"Okay." Emmett said. He didn't sound like he believed her.

Kai noticed something was up too. They had never mentioned the kiss but the awkwardness was still there. Neve was clearly stressed and nervous. She had a reason to be. It had be three weeks and she still had no answers. Papers and faces started to haunt her. She couldn't escape from the decision she had to make, and she was losing everyone she cared about in the process.

A/N: Well that was depressing. I feel so bad for her. I have another shout out! This time I wanted to say thank you to anu_chan_ . You have been here since the beginning and are always so supportive. ❤️. Emma.