Childhood best friends to enemies to lovers.
Alina wants nothing to do with the rebellious bad boy, Liam Somner.
Which is difficult, because he goes to her school. And lives on her street. And keeps showing up at her apartment, and sitting in her ki...
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Liam and Gracie dated in middle school.
It was a long time ago, and a lot has happened since then. But I'll always consider their middle school relationship as the beginning of the end of the four of us. When the four of us ended, everything changed. Before, it was always Oscar, Liam, Gracie and me. And now we're just fragments - parts of a broken whole.
When our friendship circle broke apart, I'm sure it broke us all in different ways, but it seemed to impact Oscar and me most. Oscar developed depression, and I started having anxiety attacks. At the same time, Liam and Gracie started freshman year on a high. They became king and queen of our freshmen cohort, the stars of our year.
Gracie started calling herself Grace Hero, and she gained an amazing Instagram and Youtube following with her music. And Liam established himself as king of the popular boys. When they broke up - as freshmen couples often do - Liam became the stereotypical rebellious playboy. He went to all the parties, skipped school, kissed about half the girls in our year, and had the most detentions out of anyone in the grade.
I never even considered that Liam and I would date. To be honest, I never considered that Liam and Gracie would date either. I was so wrapped up in the idea of having a best friend forever, that I hadn't even considered that one day either of us would want something more than a best friend.
Gracie is beautiful. She can sing. She has the kind of voice that makes the people around her stop and look over at her in wonder. She's talented, effortlessly stylish, dedicated, passionate and hardworking when it comes to her music. I know that one day she's going to be big. And I know that when she gets big, she'll be vindictive and cruel to anyone around her. Because I know that Gracie has a mean streak, and if she's famous it will make her feel powerful, and being powerful makes her cruel. I've seen it firsthand, when she sat on the top rung of our high school hierarchy, the queen bee, and stamped me to the ground.
And Liam...
I don't know what to say about Liam. Because the Liam I knew was reckless, wild, rude. He went to every party, made a move on every girl, slept around and got into fights and made every bad choice he could make. And then he disappeared, and the Liam who has returned has changed. He's still skipping school and he's still getting arrested, but I can't help but think that instead of stupid and angry, now he's just sad.
But he's also smart, and creative, and genuinely caring, when he wants to be. I've seen that, and I know that in my heart.
And I don't know how I feel about him.
Because I hate the part of him who doesn't think of others. He's selfish, and doesn't care for a second about the girls whose hearts he broke, or the property he's destroyed, or his school grades or his mom, who worries about him. He can be just as callous and cruel as Grace, or even more so. And it makes my blood boil when I think about the nights in the summer before junior year, when he would get drunk and angry, and terrorise his own mother so much that Sonja slept at our house for weeks. He was a horrible, vile person, back then.
