Life Lines

42: Young Melee

Chapter Forty-Two

I was a little gobstopped at that one. They hated each other over a girl? I felt my face contort into a frown and my arms crossed over my chest.

"So this is what? Some sort of revenge deal?" My eyes narrowed. "This was never about me, was it?"

His eyes closed and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your awareness of self importance is astonishing." His eyes popped open and he looked at me. "Of course it's been about you. It's always been about you. The fact that I hate him has nothing to do with you. I'm not twisted enough to do what he did. I'm here to make sure you make the right choice. And he is definitely not the right choice."

I softened a little towards him. "What did he do?" It had to be something major in order for him to hate Cecil.

He looked up at the sky and looked as if he was gathering what he needed in order to tell me his side. Finally. The creepy had faded a little since I knew what he was and I wasn't going crazy by seeing a double for him.

"Like you, I had a childhood best friend. And like you I fell in love with her. I got The Sickness on my fourteenth birthday and I was Elite by the end of the week. I was older than her by a few months and she didn't turn until she was fourteen and a half."

I figured it out maybe halfway through. He hated Cecil for the same reason I hated Jesse. "She's hermai."

He nodded. "I didn't care." He shrugged. "She was still the same person. It's not like this changes who you are. There's this party, I don't know if you know about it. It takes place twice a year so the new members of each side can meet the others. They say it's to lessen the animosity but I think it's a bunch of bull. But it was giving me the chance to see her because we lived in separate cities since her parents decided to move a year before we turned fourteen. The second I got there, I went looking for her."

I was really praying it wasn't the same party. Otherwise I would know how it ended. "He was making out with her, wasn't he?" He looked at me sharply and I nodded, seeing the confirmation in his eyes.

"How did you know?"

"Because I was there." My voice was soft. "I wasn't supposed to be but...I went looking for someone too."

He nodded in understanding. "We've run into each other, Cyrus and I, a couple of times since then and it never goes well. So like I said, it has nothing to do with you."

"It has to have something to do with me, especially after you found out he used to be my best friend."

He looked grim but I knew he wouldn't deny it. "I'll admit finding out that fact made this a bit more personal. But, Natalie, that went away after I got to know you."

"So the fact you want us to be more than friends has nothing to do with him. It wouldn't make you a bit happy, complete a little bit of your revenge, if you got me and he didn't. Come on, Union. I'm not that stupid. No one is that stupid. He took something from you, someone, and now you want to reciprocate. It's simple logic."

"There are other ways of fulfilling my revenge, Nat. I don't need you in order to do that. This," he motioned between us "is something else entirely. I like you. I really do. That's not a lie and it has nothing to do with the fact you used to be friends with Cyrus."

"Sure about that?"

I rolled my eyes and looked over where my best friend was standing, looking from one of us to the other.

"Schy, I'm fine."

"Sure, sure." He looked at Union. "I meant what I said before. You hurt her and we'll have a problem. From the looks of it, you're inching."