Fuck this.

Yesterday, I was on cloud nine.

And today, I'm so fucking confused and annoyed and mad that Gabriella has already made up her mind.

I didn't hook up with Lindsey, but she won't listen.

I'm not going to sit here and try to convince her of that after she hooked up with Pete. What she said... sure, it hurt. It hurt that she views me like that even though it is true. But after kissing her, after knowing this could be a possibility, every single thought of hooking up with another girl went out the window.

"Dude, what's up?"

"Nothing," I tell Chase who I chucked the basketball at a little too hard.

He shot the ball and the rebounded it and didn't let it go. "Don't give me that bullshit. What's up?"

I grabbed the ball from him and shot it.

And when I missed, I grabbed it again and chucked it at the wall.

"What's up is that I fucking hooked up with Gabriella this weekend and I can't fucking stop thinking about her, but she thinks I hooked up with Lindsey Green so it doesn't even matter because she went and hooked up with Pete O'Connell so fuck this bullshit. This is why I don't get feelings."

"You hooked up with Gabriella!?"

"Yes!" I basically yell at him, "so fucking stupid."

He grabbed the ball and kind of just stood there, looking at me. "Seriously, you guys hooked up?"

I took the ball away from him and shot it. "YES! WE DID."

"Okay, sorry."

"Well, I fucking told you already."

"Look, dude, if you're obviously this upset, you care about it. You care about her. And you and I both know you have for a while. So, just go for it. Cut the bullshit, cut the random hookups and tell her how you feel. Tell her you want her."

"It's not that easy I want her, but I just don't know if I can have her... or if I can do enough to keep her," I tell him.

Chase sighs, grabbing his water to take a sip.

He's my best friend. I tell him everything. And even though I haven't told him about my feelings for her, he knew. I just didn't tell anyone.

Because I didn't think about it.

But now it's all I think about. For the past two days, since we hooked up, it's all I've been thinking about. And I can't stop. I want to, but I can't and I don't know what to fucking do about it. I've never been in this place before. I've never really laid in bed and thought about a girl until a day ago. And I just want it to be easy. I want it to be simple. But because of how I've been, her probably having trust issues now, it can't.

"If it's right and she's the girl for you, you just will," he tells me.

"You think so?"

He nods, "you'll figure it out. You obviously really like her and when it's real and genuine, you just make it happen because you really want it to happen."

I guess maybe he's right.

But I just feel like that's out the window now.

Fuck.

"Do you want some of this?"

I look up and see Emily standing there with a bowl of cake batter. "No, thanks."

She's about to walk away, but then she stops.

"Are you okay?"

"What?" I look up at her again, taken aback a bit. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Because you don't look okay," she tells me, setting the bowl down on the coffee table and taking a seat, "look, I know things are weird between us still and you're probably still mad at me, but I'm your sister... you can talk to me about anything."

I appreciate that, but I'm okay. "I'm fine, Em. There's nothing to talk about."

She's still sitting there, but I ignore her and look back down at my calculus homework, trying to figure out the problem to this stupid question.

"But I don't think you are."

"Well, then, I guess I just don't want to talk about it."

"Is it about Gabriella?" She asks me.

I close my book, not even being able to concentrate anymore and toss it to the side, "nothing's wrong, Emily, I'm fine!"

Before I could even get up, she shoots me down again. "I don't believe you. Something happened between you guys. Did you guys hook up? Because yesterday when she was coming into the hall, you immediately closed your locker and ran out. And two days ago when you entered the library, she snuck out through the side. You guys may be ignoring me, but I'm still paying attention and I can clearly see something's up."

"Look, there's just some things I want to keep for myself," I tell her, "and this is one of them. I'm fine. I really am. I'm just stressed about this work."

"So, you guys did hook up?"

Fuck. She's not letting this thing go. She wants to know.

And I don't even know why I don't want to tell her. Maybe I'm still mad at her.

Or maybe because it's an awkward situation.

"So what?"

"Obviously, it didn't go well."

"It went fine," I tell her, remembering that night again. But to be fair, I think about it every day since it happened. "It's just not realistic."

She gave me a small smile. "Why, because you're this player and she's a serial monogamous?"

I roll my eyes, "and to think I was about to talk to you about it..."

"Troy, come on..."

"We're just... it's not going to work."

"I think it can," she tells me, surprising me, "I'm not an idiot. I've seen the way you look at her. All the times you annoyed me and her, it was your way of hiding your feelings or else you would have been flirting with her and you couldn't have that so you annoyed her instead. But the thing is, I'm not just saying this to push her in the direction of another guy, but I think it can work. I think she's great and despite what I've told you and all the dumb jokes, I think you're great too and you just need to find the right girl to be able to show them that you're great. And I think she could be it."

All of this is nice. I love my sister. To death. That'll never change just because she did something so shitty. I can forgive and move on.

I get what she's saying.

But I just don't know if it can happen. It's complicated.

"Stop thinking it can't work. Stop having that mentality and fight for her if you really like her."

"It's not that easy, Em. She's..."

"She's scared and she's confused and you're giving her every reason to justify her decision to walk away from this because you're not there convincing her you like her, telling her you don't want to hurt her. Liking someone isn't easy, but it's worth it if it's the right person."

She's... right.

I'm not there trying to convince her. I walked away.

Because truth is, I'm scared, too.

I'm scared that I'll fuck it up if she were to give me that chance. I'm scared I'm not going to live up to her standards. I'm scared there's someone better for her.

But I can't fucking stop thinking about her.

I need to try.