You Win

“Hey, I got you that spot in the paper,” Carter said as Maggie and I descended the stairs. He was on the couch in the living room.

I glanced at Maggie. “Uh, actually. I don’t really need it anymore?”

Maggie gave me a thumbs up.

“Are you serious?” he asked, standing up from the couch. “I went through a lot of trouble to get you that and you don’t even want it anymore?”

Maggie’s eyes widened and she slipped out the door.

“Yeah, it was a stupid idea,” I said, slumping down onto the stairs.

Carter came over to me and sat down on the stair below me. “What happened with you and Luke that day?” he asked, all the determination in the world present in his voice.

“Carter—” I started to protest, but he cut me off.

“I want to know, Caroline. He’s my best friend.” His tone was a little softer as he looked at me, but his jaw was still set.

“Then why don’t you ask him?”

“I did,” he said, examining the carpeted stair beneath him, all tension finally gone from his face. “But he wouldn’t tell me anything.”

How could I not tell Carter? He was involved in this whether I liked it or not. And this was just too huge to keep from him, this possible pivoting point in our lives. I sighed, forcing the words out. “You were right. I was going to use him to get revenge on you. Because I knew you’d be pissed—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, leaning away from me like I was toxic.

“Let me finish,” I snapped. I took a deep breath before continuing. “I was going to use him for revenge, but then I decided against it. Luke kissed me. And then you came in and now he thinks I was just using him as a pawn in one of our idiotic fights.”

“But you were,” he said.

“No I wasn’t!” I exclaimed. “I realized it would be a shit thing to do before I did it.”

“Then why did Luke kiss you?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Sure, I had led him on a little. Okay, a lot. But he had been the one to close the gap from me to him.

I buried my head in my hands. “I don’t know,” I mumbled. “I don’t know. But Carter… it wasn’t just a kiss. It was more. It was right.”

I didn’t care about the disturbed look on his face. My heart was fluttering as much as a heart could flutter at the possibilities that kiss had opened up. Until Carter ruined it all. Until I ruined it all. We were both to blame.

“Carter,” I said, looking him in the eyes. We had the same big brown eyes. It was like looking into a mirror. People often mistook us for twins. When we were younger we used to pretend we were twins just to fool people, and then we would run and tell Luke about it and laugh at the gullible grownups we fooled. I swallowed. “Why’d you do it?”

He knew I was talking about the newspaper entry. He broke eye contact and cracked a few knuckles, a habit I despised.

“Do you not want me to be happy?” I asked with a frown. That wasn’t it—I knew that. But then what was it?

“Of course I want you to be happy,” he said harshly. He still wouldn’t look at me. I knew he wasn’t good with mushy-gushy stuff, so this was clearly hard for him.

“Then why?” I asked. “You knew how much I wanted that.”

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal—”

“Don’t lie to me,” I warned.

He heaved a sigh. “It’s really shitty of me, now that I think about it.” I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue. “Remember a few months ago when soccer season was just about to start, and I was really pumped about it because I had finally made Varsity?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you didn’t get to play because—”

“Because you pushed me down the stairs and my ankle got all messed up.”

I stared at him. I knew he’d been mad about that, but only for like, a day. Two days, tops. He was so blasé about it, I didn’t think it mattered that much. Apparently, I was wrong. “Oh,” I said. But wait. Soccer season was something like five months ago. “You really took the whole ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’ thing to heart, didn’t you?”

He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Soccer is my thing. You knew that. I couldn’t play all season because of you. And then you just acted like it was no big deal.”

“Because you acted like it was no big deal.”

“I act like everything is no big deal!”

“You’re such a fuckhead,” I mumbled.

He didn’t take offense, which I was glad for. We were silent for a while. Everything was all jumbled up in a mess of revenge and competition and misconception.

“God,” I said in amazement. “We’ve got this huge mess now.”

“That’s why we made the pact in the first place.” He shot me an accusing glare, but dropped it when I didn’t reciprocate.

He couldn’t place the blame solely on me breaking our stay-away-from-my-friends pact. The Luke kiss was only the final touch of whipped cream on top of the massive piece of pie on our plate. Revenge after revenge after revenge was what led to the pact being broken.

“That’s not why everything is messed up, Carter,” I said, sliding down a step so we were on the same stair and resting my head on his shoulder.

“Then why?” he asked. He didn’t shove me off him or stand up and back away from me. I kept my head on his shoulder and played with a hemp bracelet on his wrist. I swear, we hadn’t had a moment like this since I was six and still believed in the boogeyman.

“Revenge,” I said. “It’s really destructive.” I paused. “I wish I could just close my eyes and everything would be better.”

“Only Mr. Rogers can do that,” Carter replied, amusement in his voice.

“Ah!” I squealed. “Remember when we used to watch that every day? I loved him! Neighborhood of Make-Believe? How genius is that?”

“So many sweaters…” Carter said, like it haunted his dreams. I nudged him. “The only reason I even watched that show was because you loved it so much.”

I remembered Carter, five years old, sitting Indian-style on one end of the couch and me on the other. He always complained about the show, and I’d always told him that he could leave any time. I hadn’t wanted him to, though. Four-year-old me would have never admitted to it, but I’d always looked forward to watching Mr. Rogers with Carter. I would wait all day for him to get back from big-kid school, because Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood just wasn’t as good without Carter.

That was before even Luke. Before everything. Being a kid was so easy. All I’d worried about was if there were still juice boxes in the fridge and why I’d had to stay with some stupid babysitter all day. My parents were never around, always busy doing more important things. And I hadn’t understood that until I went to kindergarten and saw what parents were really supposed to be like.

“Sometimes I think you’re all I have,” I said to Carter. I took my head from his shoulder and looked at him, a grim smirk forming on my face. “Do you know how fucking depressing that is?”

He laughed and fluffed up my hair. And just like that, all was forgiven. We were both beyond ready to move on. The air in the house changed to something lighter. I almost felt like I would start floating to the ceiling.

“Can we make a new pact?” I asked. “One that states neither of us can make any scheme, plot, or plan to inflict harm on the other for the purpose of revenge.”

“Does that mean the old pact is obsolete?” Obsolete. I was the one who had told Carter what that meant, back when he was a sophomore and I was a lowly freshman. It was weird that he could actually use it in a sentence now.

I grinned. “Yes.”

“I see what you’re trying to do,” Carter said slowly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said nonchalantly. But it was clear to us both that I wanted to do away with the old pact so I could have a shot at Luke, with absolutely nothing in my way. But I knew I had to straighten things out with Carter before I could straighten them out with Luke.

Carter laughed a bit and shook his head. He stood from the stair we were on and jumped down the rest. I followed him into the living room where he sat down on the couch and I sprawled onto the clean, carpeted floor. Some soccer game was quietly playing on the TV.

“I’m not okay with this, you know,” Carter said after a few moments of silence.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re okay with it or not,” I said.

“Uh, yeah, it does,” he sputtered. “He’s my best friend, Caroline—”

“I know that!” I said. “How many times are you going to say it?”

“Until it gets through that thick skull of yours,” he said. “I don’t want my best friend to be with my sister. It’s…” He trailed off, searching for words to fit his thoughts. He had never been good with words. That was all me. Just not when it mattered most. “I just don’t like it.”

“It’s not up to you,” I said.

It was up to Luke.