Addicted 2 U

GWEN ~ FEBRUARY, FRESHMAN YEAR ~ RING! RING! RING! Jay’s alarm detonates through the apartment like a grenade designed specifically to ruin my life. One second I’m cocooned in warmth on the couch, drifting somewhere between dreamland and oblivion, and the next I’m jolting upright, heart slamming against my ribs. For three long seconds, I genuinely consider homicide. The alarm keeps blaring—relentless, vengeful, and unbelievably loud. I swing my legs off the couch and squint across the dim room. Jay is still in bed. Unmoving. Not even twitching. How he sleeps through this, I will never understand. The guy can hear a lacrosse ball skim the turf from fifty yards away, but his alarm? Nothing. I grab my pillow, stand on the couch for dramatic elevation, and hurl it with righteous fury. “OOMPH!” Direct hit. Right in the face. “Jay,” I growl, “it is five thirty-five. In the morning. School doesn’t start for another three hours. Turn it off!” He groans, half-reaching, half-flailing until the alarm finally goes blessedly silent. I flop back onto the couch, glaring like I can will him into feeling guilty. He doesn’t. “G,” he mumbles, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, “you know I’ve got morning practice. And afternoon practice. And you promised you’d come with me.” I bury my face in my blanket. “I made that promise when I still believed sleep was a thing humans deserved.” Jay smirks—one of his cocky little half-smiles that always means trouble. Immediately, my suspicion spikes. “If you don’t come,” he says casually, “you don’t get to watch Sara practice.” My brain short-circuits. Sara. Her ponytail. Her perfectly choreographed everything. I’m off the couch in seconds, sprinting to the bathroom like the floor is molten lava. Behind me, Jay cackles like some supervillain. I roll my eyes because he knows—he knows—that Sara Starr in her cheer uniform is the only force in existence that can get me up before sunrise. As the shower water warms, a familiar mix of dread and excitement coils in my stomach. This is my life now. Early-morning practices, late-night homework, and surviving high school with only one functional adult in a five-mile radius—and that adult is technically an eighteen-year-old who forgets to buy toilet paper unless I remind him. Twice. But at least I’m not alone. ------------------ Allow me to back up. My name is Gwendolyn Elwell—Gwen, or G if you’ve known me long enough to mock my sleeping habits. It’s February, freshman year at Savanna High School. Jay, on the other hand, is a senior. The captain of the lacrosse team. My brother’s fiancé. Or… widowed fiancé, I guess, even though they never made it to the wedding. Derek passed away this winter—car crash, sudden, the kind of thing no one prepares for. I still wake up some mornings expecting to hear him humming in the kitchen, making pancakes we both knew I hated. Jay and I were close before, but losing Derek shifted something. Not in a dramatic, movie-scene way—more like two pieces of broken glass leaning on each other so they don’t fall. My parents handled the grief differently. If you can call disappearing “handling.” A month after the funeral, they announced they were traveling abroad to “heal” and “regroup.” They said they loved me. They said they’d send money. They said I’d be fine. And I guess, technically, I am fine. They transfer money every month for food and rent, but it made no sense to live alone when Jay already had his own place. He’s been emancipated from his parents for years—long story, not my story to tell—and when he suggested I move in, everything in me unclenched. We didn’t want to be alone. We still don’t. Then there’s the third gravitational body in my emotional solar system. Sara Starr. Even her name glows. She’s always been bright, magnetic, the kind of girl everyone sees and gravitates toward without thinking. Meanwhile, I’ve been more like… the quiet kid drawing constellations on graph paper in the back of the classroom. I’ve had a crush on her since elementary school, when she lent me a purple marker and told me she liked my handwriting. I still remember that exact sentence. My brain archived it like a sacred artifact. By middle school, she’d somehow gained a reputation as “the slut,” which made no sense to me then and still doesn’t now. People love labeling girls like her—girls who shine too brightly, who smile too easily, who walk into a room and accidentally make the air electric. They tear her down because they don’t know what else to do with someone like her. She’s not who they say she is. She never has been. I know that. Even if we never really talk anymore. ANYWAY—none of that matters in the moment because I get to watch her practice today. Sure, it’s with a whole team, and yes, Jay’s practice happens at the same time, so technically I’m doing this “for him.” But we both know the truth. ~ JUNE, FRESHMAN YEAR ~ The rest of the school year passes in a blur of routine—wake up too early, drag myself across the field to watch Jay run drills, sneak glances at Sara flipping and flying on the other side of the gym, choke down cafeteria pizza, sleep, repeat. Somehow, I survive freshman year. Surprisingly, without catastrophe. Jay and I fall into an easy rhythm as roommates. He cooks one dish (burnt pasta), and I make literally everything else. He hogs the blankets, I steal the pillows. He always tries to get me to open up about how I’m doing, and I always pretend I’m fine. It’s messy, but it’s ours. My parents still don’t know I live with him… and even if they found out, I doubt they’d fly back across the world to intervene. Then, a week before summer break, Jay storms into the apartment with a strange, triumphant glow on his face. “Hey G! Guess what?!” I arch a brow. “You finally decided to ditch college and go pro in lacrosse?” He scoffs, offended, and lightly smacks the back of my head. “No, idiot.” He sits beside me, eyes alight. “You know Sara’s boyfriend, Baron?” I groan loudly. Of course. Baron Kane. Captain of the football team. Built like a linebacker who could punch through drywall for fun. He’s been dating Sara since the start of the year—if you can call standing next to her and bragging about protein shakes “dating.” “Sadly, yes,” I mutter. “What about him?” Jay grabs my hand. “I finally got invited to one of the cool kid parties! Baron's throwing some huge end-of-year thing. I made the list!” He cackles in delight, completely unashamed. “I’m not going, obviously, but still—bucket list item!” “Wait.” I sit up. “We should go.” Jay stops mid-cackle. “Gwendolyn. A jock party. You. Are you serious?” “Yes! I’m never getting invited to one again. And I’ll get to see Sara. Like, actually in social daylight instead of twenty yards away on a field.” He stares at me for a long moment—evaluating, judging, probably counting all the ways this could go wrong. Eventually, he sighs dramatically. “Fine. But only because I want to see you drunk for the first time. And I’m too underage to buy alcohol.” I squeal—literally squeal—and throw my arms around him. He stiffens for half a second, then relaxes, smiling into my shoulder. When I pull away, there’s a strange look in his eyes—something unreadable—but I ignore it. Tonight is too exciting to overanalyze the emotional weather inside Jay’s head. “When’s the party?!” “Tonight. Nine. And it’s BYOB, so we’ll have to fake it.” The rest of the evening is a blur of preparation. I curl my hair—my red curls springing into place like they’re excited too. I do my makeup carefully: sharp eyeliner, red lips, the version of me that looks like she might actually belong at a party where people flirt and drink and don’t analyze everything to death. I choose a button-up crop top and jeans that hug my waist. For a moment, I stare at myself in the mirror. Not glamorous. Not glowing like Sara. But… something. Someone. Jay emerges from the bathroom looking effortlessly cool in his letterman jacket and black T-shirt. We both give each other a quick once-over—the silent roommate approval ritual—and nod. Then we step out into the warm June night. Ready to partay. Ready to be someone braver. Ready for whatever happens next.