Play the Game Boy (BWWM)

chapter 18

Faith

I walked off from the refreshments table before walking towards Nadine who stood by one of the corners of the room. She turned in my direction when she noticed me arriving, automatically discerning that something wasn't okay.

"What's up?" she asked me, an inquisitive look on her face.

"I just have a whole lot on my mind right now," I let out, my eyes trailing Meghan's silhouette from across the room. How could she conceal her crush on Brendan for so long without me even realizing? I guess there really was a fine line between love and hate, so narrow I hadn't noticed it was stretching out right before my eyes for years.

"A whole lot like what?" Nadine asked, pressing for a concrete answer. She cocked her head to the side, examining my silent face. "It's Wenthward isn't it?"

My brows furrowed. How'd she know?

"It's always about him," she sighed out. "Just when I thought you guys were going somewhere."

I blinked quickly. "You're keeping up with us?"

I was aware Nadine always wanted me to give Brendan a chance, but to think she was actively rooting for us to get together along the sidelines made me feel odd.

"He's not perfect, but he's great Faith, even if you don't realize it yet. Sure, he's made some stupid decisions in the past, but he's not a bad person. And he genuinely cares about you. Like really. The things he tells Mason about you are just so sweet, I'd be dumb not to believe in him."

I looked up at the colorful portraits of three kids holding hands before us.

"So that's why you've always been on Brendan's side? It's why you've always pushed me to give him a chance? Because of the things he tells Mason?" I asked.

She chuckled. "No, that's not it."

She fully turned towards me and I mimicked her, knowing this conversation would switch gears on me and go deep. She tucked a strand of her jet black hair behind her ear. "When we were fifteen, Mason and I broke up."

Mason and Nadine? Not together? I scrunched my eyebrows. "I never knew that."

"Well, good, because nobody was supposed to know. Except Brendan found out. He noticed how much it affected Mason and instead of being mean to me for breaking his friend's heart, he came to me to understand my point of view. He didn't judge, he just listened. He was just perfect."

My lips were unwillingly pulled into a grin as Nadine uttered the last sentence. It was true, Brendan could be perfect when he wanted to.

"And then somehow we talked about you," she continued. "He really cares about you Faith. He always has. You were the only one out of all of us who always laughed at his jokes, even when they weren't funny, who invited him to hang out with the crew, who made sure he didn't feel out of place. You've always been his person. Now he just wants to be yours."

I rolled my eyes. Everyone kept telling me this as if I was supposed to forget how quickly he simply ditched 'his person' when he felt popular enough.

"If he wanted to be my person, he wouldn't have distanced himself from me the minute he got abs and stopped wearing pastels," I countered.

Nadine sighed. "You only feel that way because Meghan's been in your ear about how much Brendan left you to bite the dust. She's been conditioning you to hate his guts for so long now, you probably don't even know why you feel that way."