"I don't even know where to start," Michael breathes, his face still hidden against my shoulder. I turn a little in his lap and take his face between both of my hands. He is so distraught, so anxious, it pulls at my heartstrings.
"It's okay," I whisper, looking into his eyes. The fear that I see there makes me want to just stop him from talking, but I am dying to know. I have to know. "Start with Luke," I manage to whisper.
Michael seems to get a grasp on his thoughts, and he lays us back in the grass. His arm is still around me and my head still rests on his chest, and it feels odd. The grass is dying with the season, brittle brown instead of soft green. It pokes me through my clothes and I shiver in the wind. I would never do anything like this alone, but with Michael I am comfortable in the chilly weather. It suits him.
"I've known Luke for a long time," Michael starts. I can't see his face, but I can imagine it easily. He rolls me off of him so that we are both laying on our backs, looking up at the bright gray sky. His arm snakes underneath my shoulders and still holds me close. I am glad for the contact.
"How long?" I ask, prompting him along.
"Since high school," he says.
"What?" I ask. Michael is twenty one and Luke just turned twenty two, so high school could not have been that long ago.
"Yeah, we went to school together. We graduated in the same class."
"I thought Luke was older than you?"
"He is. I'm very smart, Katherine." I hear the smirk in his voice and smile. "Luke and I started off as enemies right away. He had always been like the school badass, and-"
"Luke?" I ask incredulously. I cannot imagine anyone ever describing Luke as a badass.
"Yeah, I know," Michael laughs. "But trust me. He used to have a lip ring. Anyway, I skipped over a grade and went straight into high school, so Luke and I were freshmen at the same time. And he did not appreciate being out-badassed."
I can't help the laugh that bursts from my lips. Their entire so called 'rivalry' is over something so petty?
"So Luke and I went four years hating each other, and it's like we were always competing for the same things. He played football, so I signed up to play football... well that one didn't end well for me. But I used to be able to play guitar, so Luke took it up, too... and that one didn't end well for him. Basically, we just couldn't stand each other. I had to beat him in everything, and he tried to beat me in everything."
"Woah," I mumble, trying to wrap my head around a world where Michael plays football and Luke plays guitar.
"We had all of these trivial things that we were competing over, little competitions... jobs, girls, sports. But then, like the biggest one of all, we were competing over our grades."
"I thought you said you hated school," I point out.
"I did. That doesn't mean I wasn't good at it," he says. "Now stop interrupting me, I'm taking a lovely stroll down memory lane with Lucas."
"Sorry," I laugh, ducking my head down to his shoulder. Michael turns his face and kisses the top of my head swiftly before continuing.
"We were seniors," he begins. "That was the worst year for us, everything was really intense and it was like our last chance to upstage the other. So it started with this girl, Emily Allen. She was... I don't know. I'd liked girls before, but I really liked her. She was new to the school that year, and she was a classic good girl. She was my lab partner, and she was gorgeous, and she was way out of my league. But I was so into her, she was so pretty and nice and funny, even to me. She-"
