Page 19 of To Love or to Lose
We tumble into the water, and if our friends hadn’t already been skeptical of our feud, they sure as hell are now. I hear the girls gasp in shock at the scene, and Logan’s voice saying, “Oh shit!”
Genevieve pushes away from me as soon as we go underwater, as if I was planning on drowning her at the bottom.
It’s a deep pool, probably twelve feet deep, making it so neither of us are even close to touching the bottom, we’re just bobbing above water.
Thank God we know how to swim.
My white button up is clinging uncomfortably to my chest, and my slacks feel like they are shrinking in on me. I’m glad I took my loafers off after dinner.
Before either of us say anything, Genevieve puts her hands on my shoulders, attempting to push me under again.
I go under easily, not having any leverage against the abruptness of her attack.
When I reach the surface again, I notice she looks almost as disheveled as I do. Her Burberry plaid skirt is practically floating in the water, and the white cardigan that she put on over her tank top is sticking to every curve of her torso.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask her.
“You are such a dick!” She splashes water at me.
“Oh, and you’resomature,” I reply, running my hands through my soaked hair.
“I basically poured my heart out to you, and your response was “maybe you should have taken up sports?” She imitates me with a poor English accent.
“That was you pouring your heart out?” I scoff. “I must have missed the black goo that oozed out onto the pavement.”
“Fuck you, Jameson,” she says, like she means it, which makes a pang of regret run through me. “You may think I’m acting immature about this, but I’m allowed to act childish when something I gave up almost my entire childhood to earn is being taken away from me.” She swims to the opposite side of the pool, toward the steps.
“I’m sorry the system is fucked up, Genevieve, I really am,” I say, swimming to keep up with her. “But you heard the headmaster, we are equal on almost every front. This isn’t the school screwing you over, it’s the luck of the draw that your school was the one that I ended up at.”
“Twenty-seven years,” she states. “It has been twenty-seven years since the last female Valedictorian at Fairwood Prep Academy, and she shared it with a boy.”
Is she being serious?
“I know you think this is a joke, that I’m simply arguing with you because my pride can’t take the fact that someone just as good showed up to take my spot. But the reality is, they hand selected you to come here for this exact reason!” She’s gesturing rapidly with her hands, like this should have been obvious all along. “I could have been the first female Valedictorian who wasn’t accompanied by a boy in Fairwood history, and I almost made it to where the school board would have been forced to let me have it, but you showing up is only helping them stop me.”
She’s out of the pool now, grabbing the towel Eloise is holding out to her.
“I didn’t know whether to step in. I guess I didn’t realize you two were that angry with one another.” Logan holds out his hand. I take it as I step out of the pool. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I say, grabbing the other towel Eloise is holding, then I look toward Genevieve as I run the towel over my hair.
She wraps her towel around her shoulders and gives me one last death glare before she walks inside.
Chapter Six
256 days until graduation
After Friday’s catastrophe of a dinner party, I was forced to admit what happened to Eloise and Winnie.
Eloise, in her usual manner, started asking questions as soon as we got back to Winnie’s house and settled on her canopy bed.
“We need to know what happened between you and Jameson,” she said.
“Yeah,” Winnie added. “You’re our best friend, and yet we had no idea why you hate the exchange student living with one of our closest friends.”
Well, they had a bit of an idea by then, but I knew it was only fair to give them all the information.
“Okay,” I sighed and leaned back against Winnie’s comforter. “But this informationcannotleave this room. Understood?”
