Battle of the Captains

beginnings and ends

The next day in school was just another regular day at boring Northwood high, except the walls and lockers along the hallways were decorated with school colors and words, chants for spirit week. Everything about the battle, aside the frequent congratulations from some kids at school, was forgotten and it was back to serious school time.

And then Liz pulled me aside while walking with my friends towards the cafeteria to tell me something important.

The last time Liz had to get me alone to tell me something important, she got a boyfriend. The time before that, Clay had just asked her out. What if she was breaking up with him? That would be so awkward since he'd become really good friends with the guys in our group and I'd gotten used to having him around.

"Okay, before you say anything, here me out," Liz said, pulling out her phone from the pocked of her skinny jeans.

"Look, I'm sure that whatever he did, he's sorry about it," I said. Clay and Liz were meant for each other, annoying and sickening as it was, it was true.

"I doubt it," Liz said and handed me her phone with a picture displayed on it.

The photo was dark with colored lights filled with a bunch of blurry teenagers in the background. A party.

The only two people whose faces you could make out were standing together with barely any room to move or breath and they were a centimeter away from kissing. The photographer hadn't gotten a picture of them actually making out but it was a photo that said that was exactly what they were going to do. But it wasn't Liz's boyfriend seconds away from kissing another girl.

It was mine.

Blake and Stacey, the leggy blonde friend who had gotten on my nerves every single time I hung out with Blake and his tag-along friends. Stacey, the attention seeking, boy crazy, Blake hungry, chick who had been out to get me since we started dating.

Liz watched my face for any reaction or any expression but I didn't give her much to look at. I didn't know what to feel. Angry? Depressed? Unworthy? Embarrassed? Indifferent?

Maybe I was feeling it all and my face didn't know what it was supposed to look like then.

I guess I should have seen it coming with Blake's reputation and all that. I guess at the time, I didn't care that this would happen to me. I guess that despite the fact that I seemed to be just as popular as Blake was, that didn't change the fact that I was just another girl to him. Deep down, I suspected that he was using me but did he have to be so open about it? Did he have to show the whole world that his girlfriend, Kody Taylor, was meaningless to him? Now the rest of the guys would see me as disposable, intimidating or not.

I thought back to all the conversations we'd had. He wasn't that horrible but he wasn't amazing enough to cry about, which was why I wasn't crying or breaking down like girl usually did when they found out that their super-hot boyfriend had cheated on them. But he was nice to me and he was one of the only guys who had ever kissed me and he called me pretty and beautiful and gorgeous and a bunch of other things that made the relationship sweet.

I was breaking up with him, I realized. Right after school, I'd be single again.

"Kody?" Liz shook my arm, trying to get my attention.

I guess I wasn't missing out on much.

"Kody?"

"What?"

"Maybe you should talk to him?" she suggested. "Maybe it's not what it looks like. These kinds of things happen all the time. Maybe he was just going to push her away."