Every day the world seems to keep spinning even though my world keeps slipping closer and closer to an end. I go to school, I do homework, I hang out with mom and then I study more for the ACT. My dad looks over my work each night and if one thing is wrong, that’s another day that something electronic gets taken away from me. I haven’t played video games in well over a month and I haven’t gotten to do anything aside from sitting in a quiet room with my mom while she sleeps. Mya would be proud of me—Kameron too. I finished three classics: The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. I can’t say I’m very fond of reading, but living in the fantasy realm of Gatsby really rocked my world. Up until he got murdered.

I feel bad for ignoring Mya lately. Once again, I’m not purposely pushing her away, but I don’t believe there’s going to be a future for us no matter how hard I believe there could be. I’m going to have to leave to play pro football soon, and then what? I’m one wrong move away from telling her how I really feel, but then the question that’s still lingering in the air is, and then what? Do I ask her to be my girlfriend? Do I ask her to move with me? Do I ask her to put her dreams on hold so I can live out mine? I don’t even know what Mya’s dreams are. Mya and I have turned into friends who have forgotten how to be friends except with our bodies. I’m to blame for that, but when she’s with me at least I know she’s not with anyone else.

“Did you sleep with Mya?” a smooth voice asks as calmly as if he was talking to a child. I know it’s Kameron. He has an internal switch that makes him cold as ice when he gets angry, but the way he presents himself would have anyone fooled. He either feels too much, or not enough, and right now he’s battling which emotion he’s going to let win. I look up and watch his green orbs flash with the fire that is being fueled by his soul. My answer is going to end our friendship right here, right now. I know it is. I haven’t been able to figure out the correct way to address what happened between Mya and myself to him, but then again what happened was special. It wasn’t like anything else. It was us. It is us. We are two kids who have always cared for each other, only now we’re using our bodies to signify that love. I love Mya. I love her more than I ever dreamed I would, but at the end of the day, I’m still battling if I’m in love with her. I wanted to wait until I could answer that question without a doubt before having to tell my best friend that I took the virginity of the girl he’s been in love with for a majority of his life.

“Yes,” I answer. I can’t lie to him. I wouldn’t ever lie to him. I stretch the truth sometimes to protect his feelings, but not about something like this.

He stares at me and for a brief moment, I flinch, thinking he may actually punch me.

“Do you love her?” he asks, letting his full emotions break through. His bottom lip quivers and I stand, leveling my sight to his. Everyone’s eyes focus on us and the topic at hand. We can’t do this here. Neither one of us are good at confrontation, especially with an audience.

“Can we go talk in private?” I ask, nodding in the direction of the fields. It’s our safe place, mine and his. It has been since we first met. There’s never been a fight that we haven’t solved by battling our emotions out on that field. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to settle this. We have to get out of here.

“Why don’t you just tell him already, Matty?” Lauren’s voice echoes from a couple bodies down. I feel her stare slither like a snake and curl around my body, squeezing and suffocating all of the air out of me. “Tell Kameron exactly what happened.”

I flick my eyes to hers and the demons inside of my head start laughing. Not at her, but at me. They know they’ve won. The one good part of me fights them, battling out the pride that is left hiding in the corner.

Don’t do this.

Not yet.

Please.

“Lauren,” I begin, knowing exactly what she’s going to say before she says it. She grins the sleaziest smile, letting me know for once I won’t be able to stop her. For once, I’m going to be the person that crushes Mya’s self-esteem when all I wanted to do was boost it. For once, I’m going to be the biggest douche that broke the heart of the only girl who’s ever truly loved me because I haven’t taken the time to tell her the lie that mended our friendship.

“Tell him the truth, Edwards,” she prompts, standing and pointing towards Kameron. “Tell him how the entire football team, excluding him, bet that you couldn’t take little miss fatty’s snatch before we graduated, so to prove everyone wrong, you turned it into a conquest. Tell him that you never intended on actually dating her. Tell him you’re just as self-absorbed in your ego as I am because while you had Mya fooled, the rest of the school knew she was just another notch in your bed post, and we were all waiting for the moment where you left her where she belongs; in the loser section.”

Four walls cave in on me. I feel my body actually begging me to take in a breath of air, but I don’t deserve to breathe. The snake tightens its grasp. I have failed her. I have become her biggest nightmare and despite how much I beg Kameron to keep this from her, at least until I am able to explain myself, he’s going to tell her the truth immediately. Why? Because that’s what you do when you truly care about someone. Me? I actually believed the entirety of the school could keep a secret and would forget about the dumb words that left my mouth the day that stupid bet took place. I’m selfish. I didn’t want anyone else to use her, and in an attempt to keep her safe, I’m the one who is going to destroy her.

As I find the will to look up at Kam, his eyes aren’t on me. They’re red and pleading and staring behind me. In my heart, I know it’s her and I know she’s heard it all. My demons still because this is a twist of fate they couldn’t even see coming.

“When?” I hear her ask. She’s speaking to me and solely to me. Her voice is stern, emotion slipping through, but she keeps her stance. I turn to face her. My chest bursts into flames, snake and all upon seeing her reddening complexion.

“Mya,” I plead.

“When?” she asks again, taking a step forward and crossing her arms. “When did you decide this?”

I don’t know what to say. When did this officially start? People talked about her all the time. I never paid mind unless it would bring her physical harm. Only when the waiver of her virginity was placed on the table did I care to step up. Sure, I shot down any comments people dared to make towards her, and I stood my ground with people like Lauren, but it’s high school and no matter how much pull you have on the student population, people talk.

“The day we played tennis,” I reply, settling the possibilities. That’s the day I put an end to all of their useless chatter. Chandler Wright told Aaron Banks that he was going to get her virginity out of her one way or another to win their bet and it made me sick to my stomach. I told them that it was too late. I told them I was the only one she’d ever sleep with and they made me bet my entire future of going pro if I didn’t win. I’m a self-centered, self-absorbed, selfish dick and just thinking of the pain I have caused her makes me want to vomit. I knew this was going to happen. I knew this day was going to come. I knew it before I even agreed to it and yet I did it anyways. I’ve been pretending it doesn’t exist because I had faith it was all a made-up dream. I would rather be the person Mya hates than to have had one of those cringy wannabe douches take what wasn’t theirs.

She takes another step towards me, raising her hand, but then lowers it as the tears come. I watch them pour in streams down her cheeks within a matter of seconds. Connor rests his hand on her shoulder and pulls her back towards him.

“Let’s go,” he says, taking her arm and wrapping her into his chest.

“Why?” Mya asks. Connor doesn’t let her go, but she cries harder as she continues staring in my direction. “Why me? You could have anyone in this entire school, so why ruin me?”

There’s the word that describes the situation.

Ruin.

I’ve ruined her.

“I didn’t-”

“You did,” she stops me. “You chose your actions, and you chose to ruin me.”

“Mya,” I beg, stepping towards her. I feel the impact before I can react to it. My head almost detaches from my neck as the punch hits me straight in my jaw and I feel something snap. I’m on the ground in seconds and my vision blurs in and out.

“Matty!” I hear someone scream. Cold hands pick up my head and I see a heart shaped face come into view. Savannah.

I blink rapidly, but finally I let the darkness win. It deserves to. I’ve screwed up greatly and there’s no adequate way to fix it. I’ve hurt the only two people who care for me in my life and there’s no redemption from it. There never will be.