The Jealousy Game {Completed}

Chapter Eighteen - Fight

 

~Chapter Eighteen - Fight~

Noah's POV –

That afternoon, I sat at the table, staring down at the checkered tablecloth of our mahogany kitchen table, and feeling very sorry for myself.

I couldn't seem to get the image of Logan with his arm around Marley out of my head. The way she looked at me, acted as if she didn't even know - or care - who I was, and walk away as if I meant nothing to her, leaving me completely in the dust like we had no history at all, like she never kissed me, like we never pretended to date. Like she never even cared.

It frustrated me to no end that after everything I'd done to try and keep them apart, somehow Logan had still gotten her. After all of my scheming and endless planning and trying to keep Marley from harm, somehow Logan had still gotten his talons back into her.

And the way she treated me today. She could barely even look at me. She had just turned around and walked away, while I stood there feeling like a ton of bricks had just fallen on me.

Didn't she know how much the silence was eating me up? Didn't she know that she was the only girl I'd ever felt like this for before? The only girl I had ever wanted - or needed. She was different to all of the mindless bimbos that seemed to plague my school. She was sweet and kind and funny and modest, and, most of all, she didn't care what anyone thought about her. She was her own person, strong and independent, and I wanted to be there for her. If only she would let me.

I think the worst part of this all wasn't that all of my planning had gone to waste. It wasn't that they had ended up together and I knew Logan was soon going to revert back to his old ways and walk all over Marley like a welcome mat—though that was a big part of it.

It was that I had begun to fall for Marley.

And I had been stupid and naïve enough to believe that maybe she was falling for me, too.

When we were little, I had thought I loved her. When we were eight I actually planned to ask her to marry me - in that immature way you do when you're young and haven't yet experienced real pain and heartbreak. We could get married under the maple tree in my backyard near the treehouse, with candy wedding rings that would also be our wedding dinner. She could wear her pretty white dress that she always used to wear to Sunday church, and we could live happily ever after.

But I never got the courage to ask her, even though I was sure she probably would've said yes, even if, at the time, it was just for kicks.

I didn't think she felt that way towards me, anyway.

Then we were fourteen, and I turned into this jealous freak when that kid asked her out. Hence the huge argument we had that caused a rift between us, and made us split apart. She was fierce and stubborn, refusing to believe that could be the reason. She was frustrating and complicated and annoying, and she made me wanna tear my hair out and bang my head against a brick wall.

And yet I was still in love with her.

Then we grew further apart until we somehow turned into enemies. But I still loved her—she was just too blindsided by her love for Logan to even notice. I still thought about her, and it took everything in me not to call out to her window at night. But I was stupid, and maybe as hard-headed as her in the fact that I just couldn't overcome the argument and start to renew our friendship.

But finally I started to get over her.

I went out with new girls, started playing football, went to parties, discovered alcohol -  a fact that I'm not proud of. But the taste of beer seemed to make her evaporate from my mind - apparently along with my morals. I made good friends, went on with my life, until she just became a girl of the past, someone I used to like, the girl next door. My enemy that I refused to acknowledge. And it seemed to help numb the feelings I had for her.