Loriot: I initially had something else planned, but it grew too long to be considered a true 'short.' If things go well, I might post that as well tonight. Keep an eye out. I hope you enjoy this one; it's a bit more 'angsty' (I think) than what I'd normally write, but I like how it turned out. :D I like italics for emphasis in stories.

Fair

"All is fair in love and war."

At least this is what my mother had told me. Even, on occasion, she used it as an excuse.

All is fair.

Is that why people can act so petty? Is that why sex can be used as both a tool and as an act of intimacy? Is that why the husband and wife down the street have been married fifty years despite arguments and hard times? Is that why my mother could justify cheating on my father?

Is that why I lost him to another girl?

Slamming my locker shut, I hefted my book bag over my shoulder. It was the end of the school day. It had come too soon for my liking. It meant I had more time alone with my thoughts. It meant I had to walk home alone, behind them, willingly unnoticed lest I be pulled into their conversation.

They walked by me, hand-in-hand. Jimmy was oblivious to me, whether consciously or not, he was oblivious. A surge of jealously consumed me. I closed my eyes, leaning against my locker, weak.

It would be so easy to hurt them. To break them. So easy. The high school grape vine could work wonders. A rumor, any rumor, would spread like wild fire. Maybe she was cheating, had an STD, was pregnant.

Or, D, all of the above.

It would be so easy. She would go down flaming.

They would be over.

It would be so easy.

But I can't.

Why not? If all is fair in love and war, why the hell not?

Well –

A feminine laugh shocked me from my thoughts. Opening my eyes, they were loitering across from me, blatantly breaking the school's no PDA rule. Standing close together, his hands a little too low on her back. He was smiling. Genuinely smiling. He looked so happy. I sighed.

That's why.

And it was tearing me up inside.