Addicted 2 U

Repercussions of Good Deeds

GWEN

Monday arrives far too quickly, dragging the weight of the entire weekend behind it. I wake up feeling like someone shoved a blender into my chest and pressed purée. Jay and I… we’ve talked, kind of. Enough that the air between us isn’t razor-sharp anymore. But that conversation—his confession—still hangs between us like a chandelier about to crash. I haven’t given him an answer. I don’t even know what answer exists in the language of the living. My brain short-circuits every time I remember the way he looked at me, like he’d been holding that truth in his chest for years.

On top of all that chaos, school is still school, which feels like a crime in itself.

The moment we step onto campus, the atmosphere shifts. A weird, tense silence buzzes under the surface, like the moment before a battlefield explodes. Students keep looking at me—too long, too closely—and my stomach drops. It feels like everyone somehow knows everything that happened. The party. Baron. Sara. The way I almost died. The way I confessed to a girl I’ve loved since I knew what love even was.

Jay must sense it. His fingers slide into mine—warm, grounding, familiar. I glance up at him, and he offers me this small, soft smile. It feels like an apology and a promise packaged into one expression. I try to smile back, and it probably comes out crooked, but it’s the best I can do. The gesture helps, though. It’s like a little anchor in the middle of stormwater.

Classes blur together. People talk, teachers teach, bells ring, and I move through it all like a ghost someone forgot to bury. My mind keeps drifting back to Sara. What she went through. What she almost went through. What almost happened to me. What I said to her afterward—my drunken, raw, completely unfiltered truth. My heart twists and knots itself up every time the memories flash through me.

When lunch rolls around, my body automatically turns toward the cafeteria out of habit. Every day, without fail, I sit at a table in the back and pretend I’m eating while actually watching Sara eat her lunch. Quietly. Invisibly. Pathetically.

But today? I can’t. I can’t look at her. I can’t risk seeing something in her face that confirms every fear clawing at my insides.

Instead, I pivot toward the library.

“Essay,” I mutter under my breath, as though I have the mental capacity to write anything beyond my own name. Really, I’m running. Or hiding. Same difference.

I don’t make it even halfway before an arm shoots out of a classroom and yanks me inside. For a split second, all air leaves my lungs. Panic detonates inside my chest.

The party. Baron’s grip. The sour smell of cheap beer. My own helplessness.

I throw up my arms to shield my face.

“Baron, I—I’m SO sorry I was a jerk to you!” I blurt out, voice cracking like shattered glass. “I didn’t mean to call you a stupid drooling bastard, I swear, I was drunk, everything felt huge and dramatic, please don’t murder me—”

A laugh. A soft one. Beautiful, even.

I blink through my fingers.

And it’s Sara.

Sara Starr. The girl I’ve been in love with since we were children. The girl who haunts every corner of my brain. The girl I saved—or tried to. The girl who does not exist in my world as someone who pulls me into empty classrooms to laugh at me.

Her cheer uniform is crisp; her ponytail perfect. But her eyes—normally sad, dimmed by something heavy—are strangely bright today. Warm. Almost playful.

“You’re really funny, you know that?” she says.

Funny. She thinks I’m funny. I think my soul leaves my body and floats toward the ceiling tiles.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” she adds with a smile. “Do you think I’m even half as strong as Baron?”

Her laugh fills the small room, and it hits me harder than it should. It’s soft but confident. Musical. And she’s looking at me. Just me.

She steps closer, and my heartbeat trips over itself. Instinctively, I step back. Not because I want distance—God, I don’t—but because I’m overwhelmed. Because I can still feel the party clinging to my skin.

But she keeps moving with me. Slow. Deliberate. Until my back hits the wall.

She’s close enough that I can smell her citrus perfume—bright, clean, devastating.

“Didn’t you say,” she murmurs, eyes glimmering with mischief, “that you could treat me better than Baron? And that you've loved me for a long time?”

Heat surges into my face. She remembers. Everything. Every word I spilled while sobbing and drunk and terrified. My heart tries to leap out of my chest and sprint away.

I try to respond, but my throat locks up.

Sara reaches out and gently lifts my hand. Then—oh god—she brings it to her cheek. My fingertips brush her skin, warm and impossibly soft. Electricity shoots up my arm.

“You’re the first person who ever said things like that to me,” she whispers. “I want to give you a try.”

My brain stops working altogether.

Her hand slides down and grabs mine again—this time guiding it under her shirt. Then under her bra.

Onto her breast.

She presses down on my fingers.

She moans.

My heart folds in on itself.

This isn’t intimacy. This is a performance. A reenactment of all the rumors about her. A reward she thinks I want. Something she learned from boys who don’t give a damn about her heart.

I yank my hand back like I’ve touched fire and clutch it tightly to my chest.

“Do you think this is funny?” I whisper. “Do you think my emotions are funny? Love isn’t a joke. It’s real.”

Her expression cracks, confusion flickering across it.

“I didn’t say those things for… this,” I continue, gesturing vaguely. “I said them because I care about you. Because I thought maybe you’d see that. You, Sara. Of all people.”

Tears warm my cheeks before I feel them fall.

Her eyes widen. Something like realization—or guilt—flickers across her features, but I can’t look at her anymore.

I’m humiliated. Exposed. Broken open like a stupid, naïve glass jar.

-------------------

SARA

The tears catch me off guard. God. Gwen is beautiful when she cries. Not in a twisted way—just unarmored. Glowing in a way she’d hate to hear. Her guard down, all that sharp, deliberate strength edged with something fragile. She looks at me like I’m someone who matters, like I’m not just background noise or another mistake in a long line of them.

And it hits me—no, crashes into me—that she saved me that night. Not just pulled me out of a bad moment, but saw me in it. Saw through me. Saw the parts I pretend don’t exist. And she didn’t flinch.

Something in my chest loosens, hot and dizzying. I want that look on her face aimed at me forever. I want the way she softens when she’s tired, the fire she spits when she’s annoyed, the little spark she tries so hard to bury. I want her—simple, terrifying, impossible.

So I lean in. I don’t think. I just want her close, want to touch the feeling she put in me.

SLAP.

The sound cracks through the tiny room. My head whips sideways. She’s already gone, the door rattling in her wake.

My cheek burns.

But I can’t help it—I smile.

She plays hard to get.

Good.

-------------------

GWEN

I don’t even realize I slapped her until I see my handprint stamped across her cheek. Panic floods my body, and I run. I don’t look back. I can’t.

My legs carry me through the hallway, down a corridor, around a corner—towards Jay’s locker. The safest place on campus. The place where we always meet before class.

I collapse in front of it, knees hitting the floor. The dam breaks. Sobs shake through me, loud and messy and unrestrained. Students glance over, but I don’t care. I can’t care.

Jay appears with two of his lacrosse teammates. The second he sees me, he bolts toward me.

He drops to the floor beside me and pulls me into his chest without hesitation, without asking, without thinking.

And for a moment, I let myself fall apart in his arms.

This—this is love. This warmth. This safety.

So why does my heart ache for something I never should’ve wanted in the first place? Why does Sara’s face burn in my mind?

Why wasn’t I enough for her to take me seriously?

Why am I never enough for anyone?

-----------------------

JAY

Gwen is shaking. Broken in a way that makes something dark and violent stir in my chest.

I look up—and there she is. Sara. Peeking around the corner. Her clothes rumpled. A red mark glowing on her cheek.

Good. She deserved worse.

Gwen sobs harder, burying her face into my shoulder. She’s not fighting the embrace, but she’s not seeking it either. She’s just… lost.

I need Sara to understand something.

I shrug off my varsity jacket and drape it around Gwen’s shoulders. Then, gently, I lift her chin and kiss her.

A long, deliberate kiss.

She freezes. Doesn’t lean in. Doesn’t pull away. Just… stunned.

Out of the corner of my eye, Sara goes rigid. Her expression twists—anger, jealousy, panic.

Good.

I look down at Gwen again. Her eyes are red-rimmed, shimmering with heartbreak I can’t fix but desperately want to.

And in that moment, I make a vow:

I will protect her.

I will love her.

I will never hurt her the way that girl just did.

Never.