Lethal Friends

Want, Pain, and Cruel Hate

I quickly walked through the school's hallways looking for an escape. It was Friday morning and I hadn't seen Logan enter the school yet. I hadn't even seen him come home this week or last night either- not that I was watching for him (*nervous laughter*)- but still I expected him to almost just pop up somewhere and bring his wrath down upon me in the process. I didn't really want to take any chances though, so I was actually considering skipping class, not something I did often. I made my way to the gym where I could see the guys running laps around the perimeter. I hummed thinking, Well that's some fine eye-candy, right there, if there ever was some.

I shrieked as a hand grabbed my arm and yanked on it turning me around forcefully. I sighed, relieved when I saw it was only Kayla. She didn't seem quite as relaxed as I was, however.

"What are you doing," She hissed, clearly worried for me. "Class starts in one minute, and we have to get to class- which is all the way across the school grounds, on the opposite side I might add."

"Or," I started, an idea presenting itself before me, "we could take it easy and watch the guy's gym class." Kayla's eyebrows rose high on her forehead, and for a second she actually considered it, tilting her head sideways, staring at me.

"You're a terrible influence on me, you know that?" She asked, and we both started giggling. But knowing neither of us would actually skip class we began to run over to photography. This is all my exercise for the day, then.

We passed a number of closed doors, many whose class had already started. I started to feel a cold sweat form on the back of my neck. What had I been thinking? If I was being honest with myself, it was because I was scared of what had happened that morning at 6 am. How he had basically rejected me without being clear on what it was he was rejecting about me. And I didn't want to have to see him. But at the same time I did.

Uggh why was he the only thing on my mind since I had got here, to California? Please I needed a distraction. Kayla. Kayla, Jordon, and Ryan were great distractions.

"Hey, hey Kayla," I puffed out, already breathing hard, "Can we... Can we have a sleepover tonight? Maybe with Jordon and Ryan too? But, only if you want to, you don't-" I was cut off by her excited squeal. She stopped in her tracks, making me stop too in surprise. I gave her a questioning look.

"OH MY GOSH YES!!!! Why didn't you ask sooner? I could have planned out everything, now I only have a few hours. We need a bunch of marvel movies. Which one is your favourite? Wait, more important should we have popcorn, or chips or should we order a pizza? Oh who am I kidding we need ALL OF THAT AND MORE. I have gummy bears in my cupboards, do you like gummy bears? We could even-" her ramblings kept going, and going until she got oddly quiet.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, looking over my shoulder. What I saw made me go quiet too. For, there he was again- Logan, right outside of the doors. He stood in the courtyard, a joint pressed between his lips, smoke lazily trailing out, and a girl with long black hair and curves pressed against him. Was he crazy? It wasn't even 10 in the morning yet. But something was different about him. He looked almost mournful even with a girl pressed against him. That changed really quickly though when he spotted us staring and pulled a tight cool mask over his feature. Now he was neutral- a look I had noticed often played across his face in school.

He pushed the girl off of him, and she made a noise in reply but walked away obligingly, clearly annoyed. I tried to walk away faster as I saw him about to walk back into the building and talk to us. Kayla protested, and put her foot down- literally so that we couldn't move because of her weight.

"What are you doing," I hissed frantically.

"Doing you a favour. He looks like he might call a truce. Let's play this out," She replied. What happened to the whole we can't be late for class thing not two seconds ago? And why had I been stupid about everything and not tell her about what had happened between Logan and I since the whole 'we're not allowed to see each other' thing started? She was the only one of my friends who thought it was a bad idea to separate us. And if we're being honest, I think she was hoping I could be a bridge between Adam and Logan to close the massive colossal gap between them.  

"Well, well, well what do we have here? You two look like you're going to be late for class. Have you started to skip class?" Logan asked us smirking, but he wasn't looking at Kayla. His eyes betrayed his sarcastic comment. What was going on here? Should I try to confront him about the other morning? NO, BAD IDEA, my inner thoughts cried. Geez, sorry it was just an idea. I was crazy.

It was like he was pretending it didn't even happen. And he had this cruel, I don't give an eff about you attitude floating around him. It wasn't the demeanor he usually portrayed around me, but it was the one I had heard about from others. 

"No, stop. Logan," I said dangerously tipping my head his way challenging him with my eyes to just keep talking; to keep torturing me.

He took me up on the challenge. "London," was his reply and he took a step towards me menacingly. I didn't take a step back despite the urge to get away from the boy who had taken me on a roller coaster ride of my life. He had played me, and I wasn't going to let it continue anymore. 

"You know I have a lot of say in this school because of my father. Don't think I won't tell him about your recent endeavors." His eyes sparkled unkindly and devilishly. 

What on the discovered-by-Aristotle -round-earth was he talking about? I hadn't played any pranks recently. 

"Logan, shut the hell up. I haven't done anything and I swear if you set anything up that looks like me..." I was terrible absolutely terrible at making threats.

"Woah turn it down an anger notch guys. Why are you at each other throats? Just because you aren't talking doesn't mean you have to let out all the negative half of your guys' relationship out when you meet up. Why not some of that positive friend part of that frenemiship?"(A/N also a word I am declaring official. It's like friendship but instead of friend its frenemy). Kayla jumped in trying to pull us apart as our noses were almost touching and a set snarl was on each of our faces.

"Just, steer clear of me alright, unless you want to get pummeled." He started to walk away, towards the exit- someone looked they were about to skip school.

"I wasn't the one who started this, remember. And look who's skipping now!" That boy was infuriating. He looked back, his wavy hair ruffling with the movement, and my eyes were drawn to it. He only had to smirk and both of us knew that no words were needed to say that he had won this argument, even if I had had the last say. I had had enough of this crap.

He turned his back on me and carried on as if the encounter had never happened.

"What a truce that was," I snorted rolling my eyes at Kayla, annoyed she had made me stay in the first place.

"Hey, you know what you just need to get him out of your system. Tonight will be perfect, just a movie night with friends. You obsess too much over him since the war started anyways. Give it a rest for once." She tried to convince me.Then I smiled- No one had ever officially called off the war. Why hadn't I done anything to get back at the asshole just one more time for all the crap he was putting me through. If we weren't going to be friends or anything else, then why hold back? I had nothing to lose from him.  Hiding my real intention I looked over at Kayla and nodded racing her the rest of the way back to class just as the bell rang over our heads.

******

Thank goodness no one had noticed I was gone yet. I resisted the urge to tear off the weird feeling, blue, medical gloves off. Double thank-goodness this would take less than ten minutes. And triple thank-goodness the janitor took pity on me and saying I could leave early since it was Friday. And quadruple thank-goodness the school teachers and principals were leaving early too. 

With my small window of opportunity cropping up during my detention time, I had decided to take up arms once again against the jerk they call Logan. With the secretary just as ready to leave her work like all the other kids in high-school this Friday, I had slide in the office like it was nothing to steal the master key. It was easy from there to find where Logan's locker was, the main computer so handily not logged out of yet. 

The West hall, number 256. I was counting on the janitor being in the east wing where I had left him. And the supply closet in the north west wing would be wide open as well, just as I had left upon bringing back all the cleaning supplies I had used for my ten minute detention. 

My evil smile broke out massively as I stood there in front of the spawn-of-the-devil-boy-neighbour-of-mine's locker. I slide the key in and opened the door on it's squeaky hinges, cringing at the mess inside. It smelled surprisingly alright, his cologne overpowering the smell of boy. His papers were scattered underneath his three binders, which were practically in tatters I might add. You might've thought that because he was the son of the principal he might have better quality things, but it didn't seem to be that way. A small picture of Adam, Elliott, and him was stuck to the very back of the cube; I melted a little inside. He wasn't hard to the core, and he still kept Adam in his locker. But instead of oohhing and awwing at it anymore, I took it from the back and stuck it in my pocket. He had a picture of mine, and now I had a picture of his. 

From my other pocket I pulled out a bottle of glue. Super gorilla glue to be exact. My evil smile never faded, but stayed stuck in place, my heart laughing cruelly too. Deep, deep down I felt guilty. I probably shouldn't be caring on everything after the countless times Logan kept repeating it was over, but I couldn't stop myself. No matter how wrong it felt, I knew it was the right thing to do. 

One binder found itself attached to the back of the locker door, the other to the back of the metal thing. All and every pen found its way to the ceiling, and the earphones wrapped themselves around the edge of the door, so there was no way to close it properly. The lock was unhooked from the latch at the front and hooked around a ring of the last binder and glued to the front edge of the front of the locker. Definitely no closing his metal death trap now. That was all that I could glue in his school locker, but I wasn't done. He still had a gym locker. So, I stuck a massive drawn arrow in sharpie and wrote '#36 boys locker room' underneath.

I first had to get myself there too, and had to grow some lady balls enough to get myself in there. I knew there was soccer practice going on tonight, but all the boys were out on the field until 5:30 pm tonight and it wasn't yet 4:15. So clenching and unclenching my fists the whole way there, I steeled myself and forced myself down the empty halls, down the north wing and into the locker room.

As soon as I got in there, I was hit by the wave of insensibly strong cologne. It was an odd mixture of every type of Axe, Old Spice, Hugo Boss, and Calvin Klein littering the air, and I had to pull the edge of my shirt up over my nose to prevent myself from choking. 

I worked as fast as I could working away with the glue again. But this time, it was attaching the expensive looking possible Michael Jordan shoes to the bottom, and the shirt to the outside of the door and around the lock, and the shorts pooled on the bottom. And last but not least I tipped his cologne bottle upside down and glued it to the top/ceiling of the locker so that it ever so slowly dripped one drip at a time to the bottom. His shorts and locker would smell fan-freaking-tastic by Monday morning. 

I could feel my anger creeping into this prank. The rage at all his lies, and then truths, and more lies  had finally been to much, and it was surging into what I was doing. This was no longer just a prank, because it wasn't that funny. This was sending a message. This was a 'screw you too, Hunt'. One I hoped he would clearly understand. To make things as clear as they could possibly could be, I took out my sharpie for the second time and wrote to my enemy.

"You and everyone else keep telling me no more talking right? Fine, I'll agree but I have one last sentence that has to be said. People always say actions speak louder than words, so I'm going to show you how I feel, for as long as I feel it's necessary and until you understand." 

That should be enough. I was going out with a shebang, a mean rude, possibly even cruel shebang, but one that I felt had to be done. Of course I didn't plan on 'showing' him how I felt any longer after this last prank, but maybe doing it once and threatening that I would do it again would be enough for Logan to understand; he had to stop playing with my emotions. Hopefully this would stop his stupid game of magnet attraction, where the one side repels and the other pulls, just as he was drawn to me and then would back away saying he wasn't supposed to talk to me. It was exhausting and I was done. 

My butt buzzed, and it took me a second to realize it was my phone. Before touching anything else, I threw out the glue and gloves out in the garbage bin in the boys locker room, and then got out of there as fast as I could. Then I pulled out my phone to read the message.

The text was from Jordon saying, 'You don't have to stay for detention? Perfect, because Kayla and Ryan are waiting at the car saying you promised them a sleepover. Hope that's true, and you better hold up your promise because I don't want to entertain them.' He put in a laughing face at the end to let me know he was joking about the last part, and I smiled at it.  

Replying with a quick, 'yes coming now' I raced over to my locker picked up the stuff I needed for the weekend and headed out. 

*************

Ryan shouldered his backpack nervously and kept glancing at me skeptically as he walked towards the car in the school's parking lot.

I sighed, "Look you'll be safe I promise. You're with Kayla and Jordon and me."

"I just don't feel like your house is on trustworthy ground now that Logan has stepped foot in it."

"We stepped foot in his house didn't we? You didn't feel 'violated' then did you?" I rose my eyebrows and Ryan shook his his head slowly.

"As long as you swear to me that he will not bother us." He pleaded. The other two, Jordon and Kayla ambling beside us rolled their eyes at him.

I nodded my head, a slower walker than the others falling slightly behind. But I immediately froze as I felt a presence behind me. My whole body stood on end and I silently screamed ATTACKER!!!! HELP ME!!!

My friends stood in front of me there eyes wide as we idled in the parking lot.

"Who's bothering you sugar plum? I'll take care of them." I shivered and pulled away. In one fast move I whirled around and punched the creeper in the eye.

"OOWW! LONDON!" Logan cried out stumbling away a little holding his eye.

I gasped ready to apologize, but then I thought better of it. No, no he was all over the place. One morning he was saying he was staying away from me, then he was telling me all about his past making me believe we might still be friends, but then he meets up with me again at a horrible hour leads me on and then tricks me again telling me he's staying away. And today here he was talking to me twice in one day; cruelly too, but still talking. Was he ever going to stick to his word? Or at least stop tricking me and my emotions? He couldn't keep carrying on, telling me he was going to stay away and then not, and then re-convincing himself and me that he actually was going to.

"There is a problem. You said you could take care of the guy who was bothering me but I beat you too it before you embarrassed yourself. Because you're the problem; you always are. " I was damn smooth. 

"Oh I can take care of myself thank you very much, I don't need girls like you to do half-a*s jobs for me." His hand fell away from his eye and I could tell I had done more damage then I thought, but it wasn't of the physical sort.

Guess swimming didn't give me enough muscles then.

"Hey! Logan, you're supposed to be staying away. What happened?" Jordan's voice rose up from behind us.

"Yeah don't worry London gave me a fine reminder anyways." He shouted back. Then he turned his body towards me, leaning in slightly. I held my breath.

"That was some fancy getup that you set up in my locker. I can't say I appreciated it all that much. But then again I got to see the girl's locker room so why shouldn't you get to see the guys right?" A crooked smile made it's way to his face. I smiled back at him. His smile dropped. 

"You'll be sorry, London. Just like I am that I ever got involved." 

"You already said that the other morning, after you held me not two inches from your body and face. And you definitely did not look like you were going to make anyone sorry at that moment." Yes I was going to be blunt; I wasn't going to pretend it didn't happen like he was.

"Well I definitely regretted it after, let me tell you that." he tried to look hard, but instead his face softened. I felt like maybe I could reach him. And at the same time I felt like I needed to punch him again. I think I would've too, that was until Ryan and Jordon crashed the scene. They came running over, the sharp slap of shoes on cement ringing in my ears only two seconds before they were standing between Logan and I. 

"Leave her, and us alone already." Jordon said forcefully. Logan threw up his hands in surrender. 

"I agreed to already didn't I? Some things just need to be said, or rather, I'm sorry, shown." Jordan and Ryan didn't understand the last comment, but I did, that one was for me. The first, however, they did understand, and they let him walk away just as I had the other morning at 6 am. I didn't think that was the best decision. 

"Come on let's go." Ryan grabbed my shoulder gently and steered me towards the car. I let him guide me, and said barely two words as Jordon drove us home. The whole while, the last look on Logan's face was burned on to the backside of my eyes. Want. Pain. And cruel hate.