Loving the Enemy

17

Xander

"So Aria said no" Rob said with his arms folded over his chest, sitting on the bench by the wall of the gym.

"Yes," I stated plainly forcing myself to focus all my frustrations on the punching bag giving it hit after hit.

"And you just gave up" Rob sighed "Dude you've got to try harder"

"What do you want? For me to beg her?!" I said hitting the bag three more times simultaneously.

"Calm down man, you'll break the thing" Rob said

"Why do you care! You should be happy, you get to be the new quarterback. Go ahead and celebrate" I angrily moved away from him grabbing my towel to dry off my sweaty face and arms.

"Xander you know I don't want this" he said "not like this anyway"

I took a deep breath, I couldn't needlessly empty all my anger on Rob especially since he had nothing to do with it.

"You should celebrate" I said dryly sitting next to him "you deserve it, truly if there's any other guy on the team just as good as me it's you"

"Man, this feels just wrong" Rob shook his head and put an arm around my shoulder "I don't want to be the quarterback just because they're forcing you to step back"

"I'm the only one to blame Rob" I admitted holding my head in my hands "if I hadn't gotten so carried away with this feud thing I'd never be in this mess"

"Maybe try talking to her one more time she was probably just too angry to think straight then" Rob suggested

"No" I said firmly "if she's willing to go to some boarding school in Europe rather than go with me to the ball then I can take being demoted"

I gritted my teeth angrily even while saying it. The one thing she had to do was go to the ball with me, that was it! It wasn't like I asked to marry her.

I took a shaky breath and gripped the bridge of my nose with two fingers trying to alleviate some of the frustration.

"Listen my mom just texted me, I have to go ASAP" he said looking down at his phone "you think you'll be ok?"

"I'll be fine, you go ahead" I answered lifting my head up "I'll just stay here another five minutes or so"

"K I'll see at school tomorrow" Rob said before leaving.

I looked at the punching bag and suddenly I lost all my energy. Slipping down the bench, I sat on the ground, knee up with an arm laying lazily over it and my back leaning on the bench. This is it, I lost.

"You won, Aria" I muttered to myself "you finally won" thinking back to what she said after the food fight prank.

"The worst I'll probably get is detention while you, on the other hand, might want to appoint another quarterback as you can't go to practice or play in games if you're in detention for next month or so"

I laughed humorlessly to myself, she played the game well even better than me always two steps ahead of me. Even after how furious I was with her I couldn't stop my mind wandering back to her. The other day at the playground when she fell into my arms something about being that close to her gave a jolt to my heart. Like something deeply embedded in me resurfaced and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't ignore it anymore...