Pretend

T W E N T Y - T W O

I'm the type of girl who avoids confrontations as much as possible. It creates in me a feeling of unease, which makes me fidget a lot. Ergo, it's best for me to avoid confrontations because I don't seem to handle them well. But here I am, waiting for the Wicked Bitch of the West to open her locker so I can slam it in front of her face and confront her. As you can tell, I'm all about having a dramatic entrance.

A few minutes later, she finally stopped flirting with one of her many admirers so I took my chance and walked towards her. Luckily, her face wasn't close to the door of her locker--I wouldn't want to be sued by her mother for ruining Mia's plastic surgery procedures--so I slammed it shut right in front of her face. It caught her totally off-guard and I almost wanted to laugh. Good thing I didn't slip because I didn't want my cool exterior to go away.

"Summer?" she spit. "What the fuck do you want from me?"

I rolled my eyes. "I want to know what you think you'll achieve by spreading to everyone that video of Jace and me dancing and kissing," I told her. "And don't try to play dumb with me. I know it's you. I heard your voice, which seemed to be behind the camera."

She looked speechless, while I looked at her expectantly. "Well?" I asked coldly.

She gave me an apologetic look. Mia? Apologetic? Is the apocalypse coming?

"I swear, that wasn't my intention at all," she said, while shaking her head profusely and looking extremely anxious.

Something is wrong with Mia. She's usually a pretty confident person, so this is very unusual for her. And it kind of made me feel guilty that I made her feel anxious because what if she suffers from anxiety? So I toned it down a bit.

"So what was your intention then?" I asked calmly.

This seemed to catch her off-guard but she shrugged it off. "Can we talk in private about this, please?" she asked me nicely.

Mia? Nice? Is this the real life or is this just fantasy?

I don't know why I quoted the song Bohemian Rhapsody but it seemed to work well for the situation.

Anyway, Mia led me to one of the empty classrooms. She motioned for me to sit down on a chair while she took another chair, placed it in front of me and sat down. I looked at her expectantly, awaiting her explanation.

"Okay, I honestly didn't even notice you and Jace dancing and shit in the first place because I was kinda drunk and all," she began. "I only noticed Austin kissing another girl. I thought that you two were dating, and I wanted to save you from a cheating asshole and I wanted you to end up with Jace so I took my phone out and took a video of them to show you.

"But apparently, my focusing is shit while I'm drunk because I zoomed in on the wrong people. My sending a message to only one person skill is shit too because I pressed 'send to all contacts' instead of your name so yeah, I'm sorry," she finished.

I stared at her for a few seconds, trying to process what she just told me. Even though Austin and I weren't dating at all, freaking Mia Anderson actually did me a favor. She was being nice to me, which is the weirdest thing ever because even when we were friends, she was a bitch to me most of the time. What had changed?

And another thing, she wanted me to end up with Jace? What the hell is going on?!

"You ship me with Jace?" was the only thing that could come out from my mouth.

Mia sighed. "I have to explain another thing to you, or confess. I don't know," she suddenly said. "You remember me, chasing after Jace?"

I nodded. Well, obviously I freaking remember. That was the reason why I got into this whole mess in the first place. The mess being: me, confused about my feelings for Jace and completely avoiding him every chance I get.