Vengeance Is a Syn

“You got the game today?” I asked Zacky on our way to his house.

“Nope, it arrived yesterday night,” Zacky answered.

“Sweet,” I smiled. “I can’t wait to play it!”

“You can’t wait to lose against me!” Zacky smirked.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes playfully.

“You’re so full of yourself!” I said. “I don’t know how I’m still your friend after all these years!”

“That’s quite simple, actually.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, crossing my arms against my chest. “What’s your explanation, then?”

“You just love me!” he grinned, making me laugh.

“Yeah… Keep dreaming,” I chuckled, resuming my walk.

“You’re just in the denial phase right now,” he said, looking at me.

“Looks like I’ll stay in that phase forever, Baker,” I smirked.

“Damn, you’re evil,” he shook his head.

“I am not,” I frowned. “You just dream too much.”

“I don’t dream, it’s called reality!” he said, making me laugh.

“The reality is that today you won’t win,” I said confidently.

He laughed at me and put his arm around my shoulders.

The shortcut to his house included passing in front of our school, and when we were walking past there Gena was leaving with her friends. She spotted us and her features hardened to a frown.

“Zacky…” I mumbled, removing his arm from my shoulders and widening my eyes as I saw his girlfriend storming in our direction. “Zacky, Zacky, Zacky!”

“Don’t worry, she won’t kill you,” Zacky laughed.

“I highly doubt that!”

“You!” Gena groaned as she approached us. She pointed at me and I cocked my eyebrow.

“Me,” I replied, earning a chuckle from Zacky.

“What do you think you’re doing with him?” she asked angrily.

“I… I’m just…”

“She’s coming over my house,” Zacky said firmly.

“What!?” she asked surprised.

“She’s coming over my house,” Zacky repeated.

“I heard you, you dumbass! Why is she going to your house!?”

“Because she’s my friend,” Zacky answered, making Gena mutter something under her breath.

“I don’t care if she’s your friend or not, I don’t want her in your house!”

“And who do you think you are to tell me who I should or should not bring to my house?” Zacky asked, crossing his colorful arms over his chest.

“Your fucking girlfriend!” she replied.

Zacky rubbed his face and sighed.

“You’re not my girlfriend anymore, okay?” I was taken aback by that statement. I thought they were still together. “Look, I’m not in the mood to argue with you right now, okay?”

“Guys, it’s okay, I’ll just go home,” I said, in hopes they would stop arguing at each other.

“Yeah, you do that!” Gena nodded, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Zacky.

“No way,” Zacky said, grabbing my hand. “You’re coming.”

“Then I’ll go with you too,” Gena said dead-seriously.

“Zacky, really, it’s better if I leave…” I said, taking my hand out of his hold.

“No, it’s not. I invited you and you’re coming. Gena’s the one who should leave,” he looked at her.

“Zacky, think about what you’re doing,” Gena said, pulling his arm.

“I’m so fucking tired of you by now,” he sighed. “Please, just leave.”

“No! You’ve got to understand that you made a mistake!” she whined. “You didn’t want to break up with me!”

“I did. We’re over. Just deal with it!”

“No, baby, you don’t mean that!” she clung to his arm. “This is all your fault, isn’t it?” she glared at me.

“What? N-no, of course not!” I answered.

“Oh, yes it is!” she said. “Everything’s always your fault!”

“Don’t talk to her like that, you hear me?” Zacky threatened, hardening his features.

“And you’re defending her!?” she asked surprised. “She’s the reason why we broke up!”

“No, she’s not!” Zacky said. “I broke up with you because I can’t listen to your shit anymore.”

“No, that’s not true! I love you, Zacky, you know that!”

“Hailey, let’s go,” Zacky grabbed my hand and started walking in the other direction.

“You’re gonna pay for this, Hailey!” she groaned.

Zacky kept walking and I looked back, just in time to see Gena glaring at me. The look on her face got me really frightened. It looked like she was about to kill me. But what was she thinking? I have nothing to do with them breaking up. I didn’t even know they had broken up!
“Don’t worry about her, okay?” Zacky woke me up from my thoughts.

“Why? Why does she hate me so much!?” I asked him.

“I don’t know…” Zacky sighed. “I really don’t know…”

“I mean… I never did something to her! I was nice to her in the beginning, I tried to be her friend…” I said, feeling my eyes getting watery. “I just… I don’t… I don’t understand why she hates me so much!”

“Me neither, Hay…” Zacky stroke my hair. “You just try to ignore her…”

“How do you want me to ignore the person who’s always talking shit behind my back?”

“I know it’s hard… But those things can’t affect you.”

I sighed and wiped my eyes. I nodded and Zacky pulled me into a hug, kissing my forehead.

“Let’s go, we decided we’d play and that’s what we’ll do,” I smiled and pushed his hand, making him walk with me and laugh.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders again and kissed my temple.

Once we arrived at his house we started playing video games. We kept playing them until it started to get dark outside.

“Damn… It’s starting to get late…” I said, looking through his bedroom’s window.

“You want to go home?” he asked.

“I’d play this forever, but Matt’s right, I need to return home now…”

“Yeah, I get it…” he smiled.

“Let’s just play one last game!” I suggested.

“Let’s make things a little more interesting…” he smirked.

“How?” I asked, raising my eyebrow at him.

“If you win, I’ll do anything you ask me to do. If I win, you do anything I ask you to do.”

“What if I don’t want to do what you ask me to?”

“I’ll just think you’re a coward,” he shrugged.

I gasped and he laughed.

“Okay, deal!”

We played the last game and, unfortunately, he won.

“Now, now, look who won again!” Zacky grinned triumphantly.

“Come on, I did a little mistake!” I whined. “I want a rematch!”

“No way! You said this was the last game!”

“Okay, okay… You’re right…” I pouted. “Then I should get going, or else Matt will kill me.”

“Wait, wait!” Zacky chuckled. “You won’t run away from our bet!”

“Bet? We bet something!?” I laughed nervously. “I don’t remember that!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he rolled his eyes playfully, making me laugh.

“Okay, what do you want me to do?”

He bit his lip nervously and played with his snakebites before he spoke again.

“Just… Just close your eyes…”

I looked at him with a confused expression. “Close my eyes?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

I hesitantly obeyed him and waited to see what he was going to do.

I heard him moving from the place where he previously was and now I could feel him much closer to me. I could smell his scent and that was telling me that he was really close to my face. He cupped my face and pressed his lips against mine.

My heart stopped and I quickly opened my eyes. This can’t be happening! Oh, shit… This is not good… Why is he doing this? I’m gonna be in so much trouble thanks to this!

I put my hands on his chest and pushed him away from me. I opened my mouth in disbelief and just looked at him.

“Why did you do that!?” I nearly screamed.

“Hailey…” he grabbed my hands but I took them out of his hold.

“You shouldn’t have done that…” I brought my hand to my lips and shook my head.

“Hailey, please. I know that you feel the same way as I do!” he looked at me. “You know what they say: you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone?” he said, sitting down. “Well, it’s true…”

I shook my head again. “Zacky, I-…”

“I’m sorry, Hailey… I shouldn’t have acted that way when we were together!” he apologized. “I can change! I… I was an idiot for letting you go!”

“And you decided to do say that now!?” I glared at him. “Fuck, Zacky! Why did you have to do that!?”

“Because I realized I was an idiot! I want you back, Hailey, please!” he took his hand to my cheek but I just slapped it away.

“No! You can’t do that, you can’t!” I shook my head and rubbed it with my hands. “I love Brian, I really do! I n-…”

“I can be so much better than he is if you want…”

“No, you can’t!” I said. “We were over, we didn’t like each other, that’s why we broke up! What I feel for Brian is different. I never felt that with anybody before. Not you, not anyone!”

“But-…”

“No! Just stop it!” I stood up and tried to retain my tears. “I can’t change what I feel!”

He stood up too and looked at me with sad eyes. “Hailey… I really care about you.”

“I really care about you too, Zack,” I said. “But as my best friend. And right now, I can’t treat you like that, because this thing is kinda messing up with my head.”

He sucked his bottom lip in and nodded, looking down. “Okay.”

“I think it’s best if I leave,” I said, walking to the door.

“You want me to give you a ride home?”

“No. I’ll walk,” I said. “I need to digest what just happened.”

I left his house quickly and started walking, not having a real destination.

I needed to think about what happened. How could I tell Brian that one of his best friends tried to kiss me? How could I tell him that after what we did on the previous days? I just can’t! I can’t do it. I don’t know what to do!

If I tell him it’ll ruin our relationship. I can’t dare loosing what we have. I need him in my life. He’s my support, that person who’s always there for me, the person who always puts me first.

I should be putting him first, and tell him the truth, but that’s not what I’m doing. Am I shallow enough to hide this from him so we can continue together? Then our relationship will be based on a lie. I can’t do that!

This is so damn confusing! Why do bad things always have to happen when everything seems to go well?

Before my mind could explode with all those thoughts, I decided it was better if I talked to the one person I knew that could put some sense into my head. And I started walking to that house.