Know Your Enemy

“Did I just see what I think I saw?” Liam gasped the second we were out of earshot from Lana and Zayn. The two whores had just emerged from the janitor’s closet, and it certainly didn’t take a genius to figure out what, exactly, had been happening behind the heavy wooden door. I’d been tempted to make a remark, but childish jibes like that were no longer going to serve my function.

“What’s that?” I asked conversationally, trying to pretend like I was being totally and completely normal. I reached up and patted my ponytail, making sure that it was still curling properly, as I walked through the door Liam held open for me.

“You just walked straight past Lana. You didn’t even really look at her.” He laughed a short, punctuated laugh before continuing, “Are you sure you’re Clara Osbourne and you haven’t been taken over by some kind of alien?”

I shot him a fast look. “Of course not. I just…” I glanced over at him and decided in that moment that I needed to tell him the truth. Liam had been nothing but a great friend to me for years, and if anyone deserved to hear my real intentions, it was him.

Without a word of explanation, I grabbed his upper arm, pretending not to notice the way his muscles corded underneath his skin, and dragged him under the bleachers. It was cold and dirty under the seats where spectators sat during the oh-so-popular football games, the dirt covered with litter and bugs feasting on any remaining food, but it was the only place we’d be able to get any privacy.

“Um, Clara?” Liam questioned, his tone suddenly uneasy and suspicious. “Why did you drag me under here?”

“Because I don’t want anyone to hear,” I muttered. “Look, really, I just want to make things less dramatic between Lana and me because I feel awful about the way Harlow acted when the two of us fought. Harlow was a really sweet girl, and I feel awful that I made her feel so uncomfortable about being friends with me, and I want to fix things.”

Liam blinked, like he was completely shocked by the words of peace that had just tumbled from my mouth. “That’s…very mature of you.”

“Thank you.” I gave him a small smile and brushed my fingers against his in gratitude. “But this will stay between us, right? I don’t want other people thinking that I’m weak or anything.”

“Did you ever think…?” Liam cleared his throat and straightened up, pulling his hand far away from where my fingers still rested like I gave him an electric shock. “Did you ever think that you could be the start of closing the huge rift that exists between the social classes at this school?”

“No,” I answered immediately. “I’m not leading a revolution here, Liam. If kids aren’t fighting over what side of town they come from, they’ll find another reason to jump each other. Me bridging the gap wouldn’t do anything in the long run, so I’m going to leave it alone.”

He opened his mouth, an unfamiliar sparkle in his eye, but he quickly closed it again. “Whatever makes you happy, Clara. But will you at least think about it?”

“Sure.” Maybe I was patronizing him, but it was better than arguing with him. I needed as many people on my side as I could get, and he was a player I couldn’t afford to replace. “We should probably go to practice now before rumors start spreading around school like wildfire about what we’re doing back here.”

“Everyone already thinks we’re going steady anyway.” Although he chuckled, there was something uneasy in his tone, and my eyebrows drew together.

“Is that a bad thing?” I questioned in a nosy way, taking a step closer. “Is there someone else you like that won’t go out with you because you’re dating me?”

“Well, not exactly-” Liam’s explanation was quickly cut off by the sound of Hailey calling for me.

I immediately started inching toward the opening where the two of us had slipped in, waving to him. “Call me later, okay? We’ll talk about it. Just tell me who it is, and I’ll talk to her to clear everything up!”

I didn’t glance at him again before emerging from the bleachers and ignoring Hailey’s ten thousand questions about how far I’d gone with Liam just then. And I neglected to tell her how uncomfortable her interrogation made me when I couldn’t stop thinking about what Louis would think about the impending rumors.

But, of course, nothing could come of Louis and me.



“Okay, so what’s going on?” I lied down on my bed, staring at my ceiling, crossing my legs at the knee, the phone tucked against my ear. I was the only one of my friends who actually had an extension of the house phone in my room instead of just one in the kitchen. When I first got it, so many people came over my house to place calls, and I thought I was getting popular, but it was a very short time before I was forced into the reality that they were just using me and told them my parents had taken the extension away.

“Nothing,” Liam passed off, a false tone ringing through his voice like a bell. “How was practice?”

I paused for a second before responding, “Liam, why are you lying to me? Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Do you like Louis Tomlinson?”

My face flooded with a blush hotter and more violent than any I’d ever felt, even if Liam and I weren’t face-to-face. I tried to tell myself that he might have been asking conversationally and answered as coolly as I could, “What makes you think that?”

“I’m just asking. People are saying that he likes you, and I just want to know if you feel the same way.”

I nibbled on my lip. “Is that what your problem is? That I might like Louis Tomlinson?”

“Maybe.”

“Why would that be an issue? I thought you were all for bringing the different sides of town together.”

“It would be an issue because it would mean that I didn’t have a chance.”

And just like that, everything I ever thought about our relationship, about how we were more like siblings than anyone that could have been related to me by blood, shattered around me. I opened and closed my mouth, not knowing what to say, resembling a fish searching fruitlessly for food.

“Liam,” was the only thing that came out, and my voice sounded whiny and pleading, like I was begging for my life instead of trying to figure out how to respond to his confession gently.

“Clara, my mom’s calling me.”

“I don’t hear-.” I was cut off by the click of him hanging up the phone. As I put my own extension back on the hook, I bit my lip so hard that I was afraid the skin would break and blood would explode into my mouth.

What I had thought was a complicated situation had just gotten infinitely more complex, and there was only one person who I could hope to talk to about the situation without any sort of judgment: Harlow.