I can tell that we are going to be friends.

— The White Stripes

"You fucked me," A girl, completely new to my knowledge, had her hands on her hips in a truly feminist, girl-power, lesbian sort of way. All eyes were on her and him, completely going from apathetically conversing what was for lunch to becoming a dedicated listening audience. "You fucked me, David."

The David in question was lounging back in his cafeteria seat, legs propped up onto the table, fingers laced behind his head. He was smug. "Who are you again?"

"Lindsay Walters," She crossed her arms, tucking a piece of hair behind her hair. I couldn't help but notice her voice dropped from confrontationally high to pathetically low in a matter of seconds. "From Lenny Oliver's party last week?"

Nodding, David, slowly recollected whatever happened that night at that party, then realized what public situation he was in the middle of. Not wavering, he sighed. "So I fucked you. Big deal?"

Lindsay scoffed, raising confidence in this exchange. She put her hands on her hips, a truly overcompensating dyke attack stance. "You used me!" She feigned tears, using her palm to hide her tears, but mostly to hide the fact she probably wasn't affected by this in the least. "You said you loved me!"

"I used you?" He repeated, chewing on this with a slightly humored grin. "You spread your legs for me. Unless, of course, you're accusing me of rape." Lindsay's jaw dropped, obviously appalled and without an argument. "And as for the whole love thing, I love two things. ESPN and pussy." Mr. David-Nice-Guy looked up at her burning red face with a dazzling smile. "Don't get insulted if all you do is fit under one of those categories."

She clearly lost her attempt to score fifteen minutes of fame by being the latest victim of quarterback golden boy David Crawford's sexual prowess. Without any legs to stand on, she took one step forward, reaching out, and landing a clean, audible slap across his face. The crack of skin on skin rang through the quiet lunch room, and anyone who was not paying attention to this confrontation in the first place was paying attention now.

And I gripped my peanut butter sandwich, watching the events of a situation I would never be in the middle of unfold right in front of my eyes. I was living vicariously through a pathetic lesbian and an asshole. Sighing, I took a bite, suddenly at a loss of interest at the latest scandal. My friend Gibby sat across the table, noticing I wasn't captivated by the show anymore. "What's wrong, dude?"

"Nothing," I shrugged, peeling the crusts off my bread, balling them up and stuffing them into my Ziploc baggie. Knowing Gibby was my closest guy friend, he wasn't going to drop it, so I came up with a half-assed lie. "Made a pretty bad grade on Parker's history test, it's not that important.."

"Hm," Gibby spooned mashed potatoes into his mouth, nodding. "Right, right. The history test that Mr. Parker said we wouldn't be getting back until after this weekend."

Well darn, he caught me. Not bothering to cover it up, I took a casual swig from my water bottle. "Well, whatever. Nothing's wrong."

"You sure?"

"Sure as sugar."

"Well, in that case," Gibby let in a breath, wiping his face on his napkin before standing up with his tray. "Carly Shay, three o'clock."

With that, Gibby went to the trashcans to dispose of his lunch, leaving me alone to face Carly. Bravely, I turned my head just a little to be able to see her come through the double doors that lead in and out of the cafeteria. She looked good, which managed to make feel a little upset. After last night, she looked like her usual supermodel self, complete with a perfectly constructed outfit with her little heeled boots, not a single pin-straight, long black hair out of place, her dark eyes didn't look tired or sore from extensive crying, and she held her lunch bag without some sort of guarded python grip. She walked arm in arm across the room with her best friend, Sam, scanning the room for two free seats.

As if God had a score to settle with me, Carly made eye contact with me, hesitant at first, but hopeful. Stupid me said last night that we were still cool, no hard feelings, so she took that as an open invitation to march right up to my table the next day. While Carly cautiously approached the table and slowly put her lunch down before sitting, as if she were dealing with a mountain lion or a bear, Sam casually flopped into her chair, getting comfortable.

Since Carly was still trying to figure out if I was plague-infected, I decided to try and be civil with Sam. "Hey Sam."

She narrowed her eyes at me, hostile but not unusual, then pointed a finger at my unopened bag of Sun Chips. "You gonna eat those, Benson?"

Sighing, I wasn't in the mood for her crap. And on top of that, I was actually pretty hungry. "Well, I was—"

"Thanks, little man," She said with her triumphant Sam laugh, rubbing her hands together and taking the chips anyway. "Ya know, one of these days, you're gonna have to have the balls to stick up for yourself," Her mouth was full, spewing forth crumbs of my chips. "No wonder Carly rejected you last night. You're a little bitch."

"Sam!" Carly hissed, swatting at her friend's arm, mortified beyond belief. I wasn't sure what hurt me more—the fact that Sam just openly and publicly trashed me on a very personal and private matter that didn't even directly involve her, or the fact that probably after I left Carly's place, she dialed her phone and spilled what just happened to her best friend, the same best friend who also seemed to be my mortal enemy.

"Nah, it's okay," I stood up, pushing the remains of my lunch to Sam, who was already disinterested with her surroundings, twirling with a lock of blonde hair that fell right below her rib cage. "I gotta go talk to Mr. Parker about my test grade."

Without waiting for a goodbye, I shouldered my backpack and walked past the entire David-Lindsay scene which was still ongoing, deciding to just spend the last twenty minutes of my lunch period in the library. No matter how I shook it, though, no matter how much I tried to distract myself with Oscar Wilde or Holden Caulfield, Sam's vicious nature came to mind, ice-cold blue eyes and all.

After nearly ten years of having to deal with the girl, I slowly but surely learned to just blow Sam off, simply act like anything she said meant nothing to me. In middle school, her quips about my weakness, about my puppy love for Carly, about my overachieving nerdiness, all her little comments stung. But eventually, they lost meaning. If someone told you how wonderful and terrific you were all day, every day, it eventually would start to mean less and less. The same thing applied to Sam's nasty comments.

It wasn't like I was equally vicious to her. In fact, all I had ever done since that day in second grade when we met was be nice and patient with her. I had come to just accept that some people were just born savage the way she was. Maybe she was raised by wolves. Maybe I was still thinking about her when I should've been over it by now.

"Good afternoon, Freddie," My mother greeted when I opened the door to our loft, hard at work in the kitchen, even though she was supposed to be leaving for work in twenty minutes. "How was your day?"

Oh, you know. Childhood friend told you that you were destined to be just-friends, had to force yourself to face her the next day, all while her bitch of a best friend chewed up your heart and spit it out, along with your Sun Chips. "It was fine, I got good marks on my history test."

"Good for you." My mother gave me the closest thing she could to a smile, looking down at the mixing bowl in her shaky hands. That attempt at motherly pride was all she could muster since my father's death.

My father died when I was eight.

"There's a surprise on your bed," She finally said. "Go and get washed up, supper will be ready in ten minutes."

Nodding, I followed down the hallway to my bedroom, opening the door and seeing a little envelope on my bed. Great. Taking one look at it, I recognized the sender's address. Running my thumb underneath the seal, I pulled out the letter, quick to get this over with.

Fredward Benson has been accepted into Stanford University for the fall school year, blah blah blah, congratulations for getting accepted into one of the nation's top schools, yadda yadda yadda, call this pre-recorded hotline if you have any questions or comments, whatever.

"Freddie!" I heard my mother call for me and I tossed the letter away, putting a smile on my face. "You have a visitor?"

Wondering who, I went out to find Gibby in my dining room, my mother already serving him some dinner. Raising an eyebrow, I smirked at him. "What're you doing here?"

"What," He said in between bites. "Not excited to see me?"

I frowned. "Thrilled."

Gibby started explaining to me how he needed help with a math assignment, which was odd since I was in calculus and he was in statistics. Once my mother grabbed her things for work and kissed me goodbye, Gibby straightened his back. "There's a party tonight."

He was a true master of persuasion. "That's cool. I'm not going."

"Come on," He snorted. "I can bring a date."

"Well, when you put it that way."

I made myself a plate of my mother's spaghetti and retreated to my room to bullshit away my Friday evening. Gibby followed me. "It's one of Lenny Oliver's parties."

"Because I so want some girl to come up to me at lunch next week and accuse me of sleeping with her."

"You're such a little bitch," He rolled his eyes and I remembered that was exactly what Sam said to me about the whole Carly situation.

Clearing my throat, I shrugged. "Fine. Lemme finish eating."

Gibby smiled, slapping me on the shoulder. "You, my sir, are a saint." He looked down at my Stanford letter lying on the floor, picking it up and skimming through the lines. "You got into Stanford?"

"Yep."

"Congratulations, man!"

I grimaced. "Whoop-dee-do."

"Wait," He looked surprised. "You're not excited about getting into one of the top schools in the country?"

"Couldn't you tell? I'm thrilled."

"The hell's your deal, Benson?" If I didn't know any better, he looked genuinely concerned. "Even if Stanford wasn't your first choice, you'd be some sort of grateful."

"Sorry," I muttered, poking at my dinner, suddenly at a loss of an appetite. "Just, I didn't have California in mind."

"Well, what did you have in mind?"

"NYU. The big city, journalism, something like that."

Gibby, who always bragged about growing up in Buffalo, would understand. "Fuck New York. It's expensive, crowded, and all the chicks are hot, but they have sticks up their butts." I pretended that Gibby's arguments were valid. "But California?" He let out a low whistle. "They're tan and easy, willing to sleep with anyone to get a movie gig."

I took a bite of spaghetti. "Stanford isn't in Hollywood, Romeo. It's nearly six hours away."

Gibby thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, whatever. But I dunno, man. I'll never understand your genius brain."

Finishing my dinner, I handed Gibby my plate and forced him out of my room so I could put a clean shirt on for this stupid party. Why I even agreed to go in the first place was beyond me. But Carly would probably be there, and hopefully I could convince her that I was more than, I dunno, her friendzoned neighbor?

Now I knew why high school parties were so overrated. All Lenny Oliver's party consisted of was a congregation of drunken minors dry-humping to too-loud music, or if you went out back,smoking weed in the backyard pool. I decided a seat on one of the patio sofas alone would be my home for the next three hours, or at least until I could find Carly.

"What's your name?" I looked up to see a tan-skinned girl with thick dark hair smile at me. She was wearing a leather dress, smelled awfully strong of hard liquor, and I recognized her as one of the varsity football player's girlfriends.

"Uh," I debated for a second, looking at her horny and desperate eyes. Probably just got in a fight with the boyfriend, using me to lash out at him while still trying to maintain her worthiness of men. "My name is Freddie."

"Have I ever told you—" She hiccupped, sitting beside me and slumping into my lap. "—How cute I think you are! Seriously, I think we should fuck!"

As if on cue, a testosterone-charged, overly tipsy guy stormed up to me and her. "Little shit, what do you think you're doing with my girlfriend!"

"Oh, now you want to think of me as your—" The girl held her hand to her mouth, gagging a little. Swallowing it down, she stood up to face the guy, not realizing her skirt was up, and yep, she wasn't wearing underwear. "Todd, go to hell!"

They continued going back and forth on who was the latest person to cheat on the other, and I couldn't help but beam at such a display of tender young love. Nobody else seemed to pay attention to their screaming match, and since I didn't want to see how it would end, I slipped past them, going to the bar and grilling deck beside pool for some water. I checked my phone for the time. Only two hours and forty-five minutes before Gibby promised we could leave.

Poking my head around all the cabinets for a glass, I couldn't find anything besides used condoms and shot glasses with lipstick stains.

"Freddie?" Turning my head around at that familiar voice, I saw Sam. "The hell are you doing here?"

I saw Sam, then I saw Sam.

What does one do when they see their arch nemesis half naked? She was wet, blonde hair looking dark brown and skin beading water drops, her pink bikini top looking a size too small in the most perverted way, and her denim shorts were unbuttoned and unzipped, riding low on her hips. Her belly button was pierced, she had a tattoo barely peeking out on her hipbone, and mother of god, I honestly had no idea what to do with myself.

The most vicious and heartless person I knew also had a body to bring any man, no matter how righteous, to his knees. By some miracle, I was still standing. "Gibby came, dragged me along."

Not to my surprise, finding out she was hot didn't mean she was secretly delicate too. "Hm, if this is your attempt at proving to Carly you're some hot shit party animal, then that's pathetic."

In a really messed-up way, she could read my mind better than anyone else. "Shut up, will you? And honestly, put some clothes on before somebody mistakes you for being a whore." I narrowed my eyes at her. "Oh. Too late."

Although I found a foolproof method of simply not giving into Sam's games, there was the occasional time I slipped up. But if anyone had to deal with her for as long as I have, it sort of would become an automatic response that you couldn't help.

Not looking hurt, big surprise there, Sam shrugged, sort of smiling. "At least I'm not a virginal bitch."

Ouch. Unmoved, I scoffed. "At least I have a future."

"Lemme guess," She rolled her eyes, coming into the bar, taking a shot glass and filling it up with the vodka on the countertop. "Your future is a dead-end job that you're not happy with, but it makes a lot of money and keeps your third wife from leaving you, which she ends up doing anyway, running off with half your fortune with either the pool boy or her personal trainer." She looked up at me, taking the shot she poured without hesitance. "And her personal trainer is a woman."

That was a good insult, I would give her that. "Somebody has an awful lot of time to think about my future."

"Look, as much fun as this is," She refilled her shot glass, then taking a few drinks straight from the bottle. "I'm not gonna spend my prime years in a pissing contest with you. I got better shit to do." She started to turn away with both the shot glass and the full bottle under her arm, then stopped, jaw sort of dropping.

Following her line of vision, I saw what she saw. I almost puked. There was Carly, straddling the lap of a guy I had never seen in my life, openly swapping spit with him for the whole world to see. My fists clenched, my face flushed. I could feel a lump in my throat that was so big, I felt like I would choke if I tried to swallow. In all my life, I never felt so angry. Not even twenty-four hours prior, she told me she had no interest in guys at the moment, it wasn't me, it was her, she wasn't ready, she loved me too much and wanted me to stay her best friend.

Ironic, how her love for me was exactly what was getting in the way of her loving me.

"Freddie," Sam looked at me, eyes narrowed like they always were, but voice scarily gentle. Not only was I crushed and angry, but humiliated. Sam of all fucking people had to be the one with me when I witnessed Carly engaging in public foreplay with a guy I could guarantee didn't care about her as much as I did. "Hey—" She tried to step closer to me, but I put my hand up, stopping her.

"Get the hell away from me." I didn't need her shit, I didn't need her insults to top off how awful I already felt. "Go be a bitch and torture some other pathetic soul somewhere else because I feel fantastic enough already."

She was silent for a longer beat than usual, took a shot from the vodka bottle, then let out a short breath. "Guess what. Carly told me she's giving it up to him tonight."

Her need to constantly bring me down was, quite frankly, disgusting. Going back to my not showing her any reaction strategy, I scoffed, pretended I was the happiest motherfucker she knew, and pushed away from her to go home.

When I attempted to go home after all that crap that happened between me and Sam, Gibby, of course, was wasted and not in any rush to leave. He was sitting between two girls, tonguing one for a while before swapping sides to the other. Stopping for less than five seconds, he smugly frowned at me. "Sorry bro. Too busy to leave."

"Right, okay," I licked my lips, stuffing my fists in my pockets and turning away, debating to leave Gibby and his drunk womanizer ass without a ride home. Then I figured that since the two chicks he was with were ugly, I'd snap a few pictures of the three of them, and then just hold it against him for the rest of his young life.

Frustrated with being stranded at this party, I thought about how I never got that glass of water outside, so I pushed my way through the crowd and into the kitchen. There were mass amounts of people fornicating throughout the house, so I figured I wasn't overstepping any boundaries by helping myself into a cabinet for a clean glass.

"Freddie!" My name was called, and I knew that voice. Sighing, wishing I was dead, I spun around and faced Carly with a smile.

"Hi."

"I, uh, I didn't expect you to be here!" She held her arms across her chest, as if she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

I didn't see her prince charming around anywhere, and her clothes were still fully intact. "Gibby."

"Oh, right, I'm just here with, um, Sam."

Annoyed with her attempt to cover her ass, I nodded, smirking bitterly. "Right. I ran into her a while ago. She told me you were, uh, planning on fucking that guy you were with."

If it was anyone else in this situation beside me and Carly, I would've laughed at how fast her face turned pale. "What? What guy?"

"That guy you were frenching out by the pool," I was surprised with the way I managed to keep myself collected in an oddly complacent way.

She sighed shakily, and I was a little baffled at her tearing up."Oh. Luke."

"But, ya know, it's cool," I started backing away, ready to just ditch Gibby and get bitched at later for it. "You love me and you can't love me for loving me. But you can love him for not loving you. And so much for not wanting a guy at the moment. But it's okay. Really."

"Freddie—" She was visibly crying, lip quivering, but her attempts to win back my friendship and explain herself was interrupted by a loud collective yell.

The two of us looked through the archway that lead into the entertainment room where the majority of the party was at, seeing a small blonde standing above the crowd on the pool table, the center of all attention and the cause of all the yelling. She was dancing to the music like a stripper, clearly wasted. Her hands reached up and fumbled with the back of her bikini string, making all the guys in the crowd go wild. I didn't care too much about some dumb bimbo at a party about to humiliate herself, so I turned back to Carly to finish our lovely conversation.

Carly, however, narrowed her eyes at the blonde on the pool table, examining whoever she was. "Hey, she's wearing my shorts—Ohmygod!" She gripped my arm, a completely horrified look on her face. "That's Sam!"

I looked at the girl at the table again, just as shocked. "What!"

"She's about to ruin her life!" Without a second word, mostly-sober Carly went to go retrieve the shitfaced Sam. I followed closely, shoving through the crowd. Eventually, Carly and I reached the pool table, where Sam was still bobbing to the music, fighting with the bikini that was thankfully double-knotted.

"Take your top off! Show us them titties!" A guy right beside me screeched, the entire audience backing him up, then taking a long swig of his red Solo cup.

I looked at the guy, a bald, tattooed man who looked to be too old to be partying with high schoolers, and gave him a hard glare. "Are you fucking kidding me! Go try to feel up some other bitch somewhere else!"

"Bro, lighten up!" He laughed angrily, taking another drink. "It's a party!"

"C'mon Sam!" Carly was attempting to pull her best friend off the table, but, of course, Sam was refusing, pushing Carly off her while cussing her out every other second. "Sam, you're drunk and you're going to regret this later! Get down and let's get something to eat!"

"F-Fuuuuck off, Carls!" She swatted at Carly's hand, stumbling over herself. "Go fuck your boooyyy friend! Leave me alooone!"

"Freddie!" Carly looked at me with desperate eyes, practically tearing up all over again. "I know you don't like her, but she's my best friend! Please help!"

Not only was Sam my least favorite person, but the girl I possessed all the anger for was the one pleading for me to save her. Rolling my eyes, swearing at myself for being a half-decent person, I climbed up onto the table, putting my arms on Sam's shoulders. "Sam," I spoke lowly so that the crowd wouldn't hear me. "We have to go. Come on."

"Benson?" She smelled so harsh of vodka and I barely saw her ten minutes earlier where she looked sober and coherent. "You're still here? Jeeee-zus. When will you get that C-Carrly no want Fred-weird!"

Trying to tell myself she was drunk and to not take her shit so personally, I pulled at her wrist. "Sam. Let's go."

She looked at me straight in the eye, and for a second, she looked completely sober. "No."

Angry and frustrated, I lifted her up bridal style and hopped off the table, causing the entire crowd to boo at me and cuss me out for being a party ruiner. Ignoring them and resisting Sam's attempts to be released, I carried her back into the kitchen. "You'll thank me later."