"Can I change the song?"

"No," I tell Lindsey, putting the volume a little louder to make a point that I want to listen to this song.

She makes a face and then leans back in her seat, bringing one leg up.

She's making herself way too comfortable.

"Thanks again for the ride," she takes out some hand sanitizer from her purse, "I can't believe Callie left me, who does that?"

She's laughing, but I'm not. It's not that funny.

Lindsey Green lives literally down the street from me, a block over. When she asked if I was on my way home, I said yes, not thinking she wanted a ride. So when she asked for one in her follow up question, I couldn't say no. I mean, how much of an asshole would I have been if I said no when her house is so close to mine? Or if I say, never mind, I'm not going home anymore, sorry, find another ride?

Except now, I'm regretting it because she's being too friendly.

But it's my own fault because this is my move. I give girls ride and then we hook up at either my house or their house.

I'm not sure how it started. I just didn't want anything serious and if it's during the week, I can get out of hanging out with them later at night because of homework and shit, you know? So, it's my own fault, but I can still be mad and annoyed about it. Which I am. I hate that I'm giving her a ride.

"Are you busy tonight?" She asks me.

"Yeah, homework."

"Oh, that's too bad, we're going to Canyon's bonfire. Just a few of us, thought you'd want to tag along."

Why would I go to another school's bonfire?

I mean, I have friends that go there, but still, it's not my school.

"Yeah, I don't think so..."

"I know it's a little weird we're crashing, but Sophia's dating a guy that goes there and Mara used to go there so we'd thought we'd go. And Gabriella, I think. That's what Sophia said anyway. Maybe Morgan. We don't have a senior bonfire, so we thought we'd go and see what all the hype's about."

"Gabriella's going?" I ask her, ignoring everything else.

She nods, "I literally just ran into Sophia, before talking to you and she said probably."

Um, okay, this changes this.

All of a sudden, I want to go. I want to hang out with her. I want to see her.

I haven't really seen her today. I had a doctor appointment this morning so I came after lunch and usually on Monday's, she gives Morgan a ride home so didn't want it to be a thing if I walked up to her after school. But if she's going to this bonfire, it's the perfect excuse to run into her and hang out.

I need to be discreet about this, though.

So, when I drop Lindsey off and she's telling me it's a bummer I can't go tonight, I change my mind.

"You know what? I'll stop by for a little bit," I tell her.

"Cool! Text me."

I'm not going to, I think.

But I smile and nod and then drive off.

Today just got better.

"We need to talk," Emily barges into my room as I'm trying to finish my homework.

"I'm busy, Em."

"Well, you didn't want to talk last night!"

I roll my eyes, "have you talked to Gabriella yet? I'm not the one you need to be talking to. You owe more to her than me, don't you think?"

She closes my door and sits on the end of my bed. "I'm making my rounds."

"You should start with her."

"What the fuck, Troy," she says, "you're my brother! You're supposed to support me unconditionally and here you are taking her away for the weekend, probably telling her all these negative things about me. Like what the fuck. Don't you get that you're my brother!"

"Emily, go away and come talk to me when you get some common sense," I tell her.

But she doesn't.

She's still sitting at the end of my bed.

"What loyalty do you have to Gabriella?!" She asks me, "my God, I know you've been in love with her, but I'm YOUR sister!"

"What?"

She rolls her eyes, "don't fucking play dumb with me."

I'm... not. I'm not denying it, I just didn't know she knew. I mean, I wasn't in love. But obviously, I had this massive crush on her, I had feelings.

"Look, whatever, I don't care if you like her. But the fact that you're so concerned about Gabriella's feelings when I sat in my house and cried for hours after she left... I mean, come on, you're my brother. Don't you care about how I'm feeling? How I was feeling?"

"Someone had to go after her, you didn't. Brady didn't. Someone had to care about her feelings!" I tell her.

"That's not fair. You don't know the story."

I roll my eyes. I don't want to fucking know the story. I'll hate it.

And I don't care.

But whatever, she is my sister and she wants to talk about it, so we'll talk.

"Enlighten me, then."

"Okay," she takes a deep breath and then gets a little more comfortable. "A week before school started, we were all supposed to meet for lunch and then we were going to grab school supplies. But Gabriella canceled last minute and I think she thought we would just leave, but we were hungry so we stayed and it was the first time that we actually talked. I mean, I thought I knew him, but I obviously didn't because we talked a lot and I found out more about him and it was innocent, it really was, but that day, we actually became real friends. Not just friends because of Gabriella. For some reason, it never came up. When Gabriella acted like we had left after she told us she couldn't come, we didn't correct her and we weren't sure why. And then that Friday before school started, Molly Bower had her big back to school party and we were both there and I don't know, it was like something was different. Like, we both had our own reason of why we didn't tell Gabriella and it happened to be the same one- we were attracted to each other. I was freaking out about it. I couldn't. It was my best friend's boyfriend. There is absolutely no way this could be happening. And nothing happened. I avoided him at all costs. But two weeks into school, our teacher sat us right next to each other and it was inevitable that we had to talk. So, we did. And it was just something. I mean, we all know Brady is good looking and smart and rich and all this other shit that makes him Brady. But he's deeper than that and I feel like I saw that side to him and it made me think well, if he's showing me this side, he likes me, right? I don't know. It was bad. I was trying so hard to downplay these feelings, but at the same time, I wanted to actually figure out if they were real so I could try to get rid of them or what so yeah, I inserted myself more. I would hang out with Gabriella and Brady when they'd invite me or whatever instead of saying no. I had to know. And I did. I did like him. I hated it. I hated that fact that I liked a boy my best friend had. And the thing is, I knew Brady wouldn't break up with Gabriella right there and then because he had no idea how I felt and because I know he really did like her. So, for a few weeks, nothing. I just liked him from afar. But then we got stuck with the same topic and our teacher told us to help each other out as much as possible so yeah, we spent days in the library before Gabriella even knew we had the same topic. And one night when he was walking me to my car, he told me he thinks he likes me but he can't do anything about it since he's with Gabriella. I obviously didn't want to. But then he kissed me and it just... it was like nothing I've ever experienced and I got caught up in it. I shouldn't have, but I did. I pretended like I didn't, like it was totally okay and I tried to shake it off and act like it was all good and I was perky and happy around him and Gabriella. And I even canceled our library dates. Until Ben's party. When Gabriella left and Brady took me home, it happened again. And I wanted to say no, in my mind, but my heart told me to just go for it and I did and he makes me feel soooo good. I can't even describe it, Troy. I really do like him and I think he really does like me and I know it's fucked up and not fair, but I can't help who I like."

"But you can help how you handle things," I tell her, "and you handled it really shitty."

She takes a deep breath, "I didn't know how."

I want to roll my eyes, but I refrain. "I get liking someone and you can't help it. You can't help who you like sometimes, but you can control yourself. You didn't have to be around him after he kissed you. Obviously that led to the sneaking around and getting caught."

"But it's not something that I wanted, it just happened like that!"

"You cant justify it like them, Em. You weren't on drugs, you weren't drunk, no one held a gun to your held telling you to sneak around with him."

"I wasn't trying to!"

Okay, now I roll my eyes. "You were swimming around in the pool without a care in the world. You knew what you were doing, you wanted it. You wanted to be with Brady and you weren't going to tell Gabriella about it until God knows when."

Emily sighs, like a sad puppy or something. "I get I fucked up, but I'm not apologizing for my feelings. We want to be together."

"Why didn't you go after Gabriella?"

"She didn't want to see me! It's not like she yelled, but I know that look, she was pretty pissed."

"Okay, then why didn't you call or text her?"

She looks annoyed at my questions, but obviously, I need to know all of this. "I was giving her, her space Troy. She didn't want to talk to me. I'm not going to talk to her when she's not even going to respond, you know?"

It's such bullshit. Either she doesn't really care or she's just scared. And I'd get if she was scared or nervous about it.

"Do you feel good about Brady picking up?" I ask, not caring if she even gets mad.

"What?"

"You heard me..."

She looked confused. "What the fuck does that even mean?"

I shrug, "look, I'm jealous of Gabriella, too. She's, like, the best person and she doesn't even have to try hard at it. Was any of this for selfish reasons? Like, you got the guy your best friend had for once and it made you feel so much better about yourself?"

"I can't believe you're saying this to me right now," she looks so offended, "fuck you. No, of course not, you idiot. That's really fucked up."

"So you really like him?"

"Yes," she says, "I really, really do, Troy."

I think about what Gabriella said, like what if they're meant to be and it seemed like she would be okay with that.

So, I tell her that she needs to talk to Gabriella about this.

"Okay," she tells me.

And then she walks out of my room.

Oh man.