Foes & Cons Read online

  My relationship with my father is a bond stronger than anything, and other kids would kill to have this kind of love between them and their parent. We are each other’s partner in crime, best friend, and the person who makes even the worst of days better. We’re a mighty little unit, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

  “Got our dinner.” I hold up the takeout bag after we get done hugging.

  “Good, I’m starving. How was your first day?” he asks, pulling silverware and plates out of his bottom drawer.

  I smile, because those items being there should be strange, but to me it’s second nature. “It wasn’t too bad. The last first day of high school, thank God.”

  Dad chuckles. “You’re going to look back someday and regret saying that. Probably when you’re old and gray, like me.”

  “You’re far from gray.” I roll my eyes, looking at his head of thick chocolate brown hair the exact same shade as my own.

  As we dig into our Chinese, he asks about my classes and I ask about the project he was working on today. I tell him about how I think the student government meeting will go tomorrow, and then we discuss how the lo mein is doubly delicious tonight as it usually is.

  “How about that internship during the spring marking periods?” Dad suggests, his voice taking on a naive quality as if he hasn’t asked me this question a billion times.

  The turn in conversation is drastic, but I’m not surprised he’s asking this, as we’re sitting in his office.

  I shake my head, a small smile painting my lips. “You know it’s never going to happen.”

  He hangs his head in faux sadness. “A father can dream.”

  Dad would like nothing more than for me to become an architect and work at the family firm. Unfortunately, I not only have zero interest in doing that, but my brain just doesn’t compute that way. I can’t draw to save my life; there are no creative juices mixing with speculating numbers or angles or whatever it is they do in here all day.

  No, I’m much better at the job I actually want to pursue. I’d love to go to college and graduate with a political science degree and then go to work for a lobbying firm or on a campaign. I’m good at organizing both materials and people. Setting both of those things up to prosper, whipping people into shape, and subtly nudging them to do what I know will make them successful. The thrill of a campaign, or working with power players in Washington, pushing through my campaign or company’s agenda … that’s what I really want to do. If my position in student government has taught me anything, it’s that.

  And if my summer in Haiti taught me anything, it’s that I can also will something to happen by putting in the work. Whether it’s through written proposals on Capitol Hill, or manual labor in impoverished villages, I can make a difference. I can help someone, or a bunch of someones, who were really in need of it. That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.

  “At least we have one child coming in to fulfill the legacy,” Thomas jokes from across the room at his sketch table, referring to Sawyer.

  And that feels like a thorn in my side, because the only reason I would have for coming to work for my father and his business partner is to stick it to my enemy. It pisses me off that Sawyer genuinely wants to be an architect, that both of our fathers are so proud of him for wanting to join the family business. It gives him some kind of imaginary leg up on me, one he gleefully shoves in my face whenever he has the chance.

  I try to push him out of my mind, to focus on the first day tradition with my dad, since it’s the last time we’ll be doing this before I go off to college next year.

  But I still can’t get his words out of my head. They haunt me, his promises to keep me in my place.

  No, they weren’t promises. They were threats. Except he still doesn’t realize I’m not losing his game anymore.

  I am going to play, and I am going to win.

  4

  Sawyer

  A whistle screeches through the air, followed by Glavin’s name echoed like a curse.

  “Jesus Christ, Glavin, get your head on straight!” Coach Masters bellows, throwing his hands up.

  My best friend jogs backward down the practice, a goofy smile on his face. “Sorry, Coach, I’ll do better next time.”

  The thing is, he will. My fellow forward is light-years more talented than anyone on the team, but barely practices and constantly fucks up if not in high-pressure situations. Give him five penalty kicks to make in the state championships, and he’ll sink every one of them. But ask him to do a simple passing drill in practice and he’ll fuck it up royally.

  Me? I have to try harder to be on top of my game. I love soccer, but I don’t necessarily have natural talent. The game has always been fun to me, and I work hard in the gym and on drills, but the sport isn’t in my blood.

  “You’re going to make us run suicides, you know that, right?” I grumble at Glavin as we jog back to the goal line.

  “Nah, not on the first day.” He shrugs.

  “You asshole, Coach wants to win a championship this year. Just don’t fuck around.” Alton, our goalie, flips Glavin the bird.

  Alton is serious about winning a championship, too. He already has a scholarship to a division one school, and it’ll look even better if he can add a title to his high school career.

  I’m all for trying to win these guys a title, but I don’t have any offers after this. I have no interest in playing in college, or professionally. Maybe I’ll join a club team or play intramural sports, but I don’t want that pressure after this, especially over something I’m not that passionate about.

  We finish up the rest of practice, and narrowly avoid suicide sprints, thank God.

  “You want to come over and play COD?” Glavin asks as we walk to the parking lot.

  I shake my head, refusing his invitation to play video games. “I already have homework. Plus, I told my dad I’d stop by the office.”

  “You’re such a Goody Two-shits.” My best friend smirks. “The good little boy, off to do his homework after the first day of school. No wonder you’re so stressed, I’m barely doing homework this year.”

  “Yeah, no wonder I’m going to get into college before you.” I raise an eyebrow at him.

  He shrugs, not the least bit concerned with that. “Yeah, but you’ll still be studying when you get there and I’ll be knee deep in tits and ass.”

  “Nice.” I snort, because it’s honestly all he thinks about.

  And, unfairly, he’s still going to graduate and get into a decent university because of his soccer talent, and be able to think about nothing but tits and ass.

  We fist bump each other and take off on our separate ways. I get in my car and steer it toward downtown Chester. Driving through your hometown as a senior in high school, it radiates this almost invincible feeling through your body. I’m the top dog now, and freedom comes in many forms now that eighteen and college loom on the horizon. With the ability to drive and the knowledge of almost flying the nest … it’s like this is the last year where the safety net is still in place, so you have no fear of falling off the tightrope.

  I grab a slice of pizza from Marianna’s, the Italian place two doors down from my father’s architecture studio on Main Street and am halfway through devouring it as I walk through the door.

  “Hey,” I mumble around a bite of cheese and sauce.

  “You just missed Blair.” My dad stands up to give me a manly hug, but I freeze.

  “Oh?” I try to keep my voice even.

  “She was in here not ten minutes ago,” he replies. “How was the first day? How was practice?”

  I hate that she’s in such close proximity to my life, that she’s the first word out of his mouth when I come in here. Once upon a time, that seemed like the best thing in the world. But after she blew up our friendship and shamed me in front of a lot of our friends, she became like an annoying gnat I just couldn’t shoo away. The fact that our dad’s work together is the cherry on top of the shit pie. I am co
nstantly trying to dodge her or taunt her during family gatherings, because my parents still invite her and her father to everything.

  “Both were good, should be challenging, but nothing I can’t handle,” I reassure him.

  “And the college applications, have you done any more on it?” Dad turns back to his sketching table, and I look over his shoulder.

  He’s working on a mock-up for what looks like a cool-as-hell log cabin, and I assume someone has commissioned him to design their vacation home somewhere in the mountains about an hour from Chester. I study the lines, the renderings, and the details on the corners and over the doorframes.

  If soccer is one thing I’ve always had to work for, drawing and numbers in terms of architecture is something that comes second nature. Maybe I inherited it from my dad before I was even born, but I can look at his sketches or my own and things just click right into place.

  Some people probably think it’s settling to go into architecture, that I have a guaranteed job with my father’s firm. But the truth is, I love it. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I’ve known that from a young age. Now, I just have to go out and get into the best program in the country to make my dreams actually mean something.

  “I’m working on my essay, trying to make it shine as much as possible for Brockden,” I tell him.

  Brockden University has the top architecture program in the country. Located about two hours from Chester, in the woods of Pennsylvania, it’s a college town with as much school spirit as there has ever been. The program I want to get into is highly competitive; a five-year intensive architecture degree that has students coming out and working at some of the top firms in the country, let alone the world. Graduate from the Brockden architecture program and you can basically work at a firm of your choosing, though I want to come right back here to Chester. I’ve wanted to take over the family business since I could remember.

  “You’ll get in, they’d be idiots not to accept you. And then we’ll all work together, right here.” Todd Oden comes over to give me a firm handshake. “You get taller every time I see you, Squirt.”

  He’s called me Squirt since I was born, basically, and has acted as my fun uncle when my own somewhat reserved dad couldn’t play the part. Todd is an avid skier and took Blair and I to the mountains throughout our childhood. He’s the one who taught me how to catch a baseball, since my own father is completely uncoordinated. Come to think of it, I have no idea what my dad and Todd have in common that makes them thick as thieves. Except, of course, architecture.

  But where my father is reserved, level-headed, and a homebody, Blair’s dad is a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Zip-lining, hang-gliding, or jumping out of an airplane; you name it and he’s done it. He’s taken Blair on some pretty epic adventures, and it’s not a surprise that he allowed his teenage daughter to spend three months out of the year in a third-world country with all of its natural disasters and human dangers.

  Out of all the things I lost when Blair abandoned our friendship, my relationship with her father is one of the worst. Of course, I miss her, and what we could have been. But Todd is like a third parent to me, and one I can go to with no judgment or repercussions. Since Blair and I had our falling out, her father and I have become distant as well, and that’s a damn shame.

  My parents, and probably Todd too, just think we grew apart, that it was some kind of natural distancing due to being a guy and a girl in the midst of high school drama. Mom still talks about Blair like she’s some kind of angel, and I know that she thought we’d date one day.

  I don’t have the heart to tell them what she did to me. Also, it’s embarrassing, and how was I going to explain to my parents that we were playing seven minutes in heaven? No, better to have them think that Blair and I just have different friends and different interests.

  Deep down, I also know I could never own up to the ways I’ve tormented her. Blacklisting her from parties, not speaking up when my friends taunt her, or the girls I hook up with are bitchy and mean to her face. There was the time I let my friends fill her locker with condoms, or when I drove right past her on her street as she was waiting for the school bus, rain drenching her as she was sans umbrella. I hadn’t even stopped to offer her a ride. There was the annual Christmas Eve party my parents threw for all of our friends in town, when I laughed as Blair’s dress ripped in front of thirty of our schoolmates who were sneaking beers in my basement. I beaned her with a volleyball in gym class junior year, had my group of friends nominate her as a joke for homecoming queen, and schooled her ass in our AP history class last year in Jeopardy.

  It’s been small things, nothing too terrible, but a thousand cuts to her that I know have wounded me just as badly. I’ve tried to break her down mentally as revenge for what she’d done to me, and I almost thought it was working.

  Then she gave me that backtalk in the hallway today. Something in her has completely flipped, and it’s making me the insecure one.

  Blair’s knockout body, the tan summer freckles on the bridge of her nose, and the way her hair smelled like marshmallow as she flipped it over her shoulder … it all engulfs me. As if her becoming extremely hot over summer break isn’t annoying enough, now I have to sit behind her in our AP government class. Where, might I add, she raises her hand and nails every question, even on the first fucking day.

  My blood smolders in my veins. There is so much history and animosity between us, and yet I can’t help the attraction that has always burned inside me when it comes to her. Even before today, when I saw her in all of her new, hot glory. We’ve always had that spark. And for some inexplicable reason, she put it out before we could ever explore it.

  I have my first warning shot planned for tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see her face.

  A sick part of me enjoys torturing her. The other part, the part she cut out with a knife, burns with satisfaction.

  I reminded her that she made us this way, and it’s my responsibility to keep reminding her that she’s the one who forced this outcome.

  If I didn’t, I might break and let her see how much damage she’s really done. And that is unacceptable.

  5

  Blair

  The agenda for the first class cabinet meeting of the year is laid out on the first row of seats, and more packets are piled on the front table.

  To be honest, I know that half of these papers won’t be seen by human eyes, but Nate asked me to print off twenty of them, so I did. We’re lucky if we have ten people in these before-dawn meetings for the entire school year, but since it’s the first one we may get eleven, so we come prepared.

  I’m still waiting for Nate to arrive, with my extra-large coffee in tow, and I see a few familiar faces in the front row of the music room. This room has been our “congressional chambers” for all intents and purposes over the last three years, and it feels like home to be back for one last go round. One last year of staying on our budget, planning out the school dances, organizing charity bake sales, and campaigning to bring back Taco Tuesday in the cafeteria.

  This year, though, we’ll be picking the theme of the prom, and organizing everything having to do with the graduation ceremony. I know it’s not passing some law on immigration or allocating funding on a bill to unemployment, but in the grand scheme of high school, these were important decisions. It feels like something bigger than me to be involved in them, and that is something I am passionate about.

  Nate walks in, and I don’t even greet him. My hands just reach for the steaming foam cup and I gulp, the liquid scalding my throat but that’s not something I even care about.

  “Good morning to you, too. You know, you’re the only seventeen-year-old I know who ingests coffee like it’s beer they stole from their parents’ garage fridge. Like at any moment, someone will steal it out of your hands.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” I grumble, taking another large swig of coffee.

  Nate sets his backpack down behind the podium at the front of the roo
m, the one he’ll stand behind to conduct the meeting. Then he removes a powdered sugar donut from a paper bag and takes a big bite, powdered sugar puffing up in front of his face.

  “You have a muffin in there for me?” I eye him.

  He reaches into the paper bag again and hands me a lemon poppyseed, rolling his eyes. “You’re like a grumpy, hungry zombie in the mornings.”

  “Are you going to bring up the theme and present our ideas?” I ask, feeling semi-human as I chew on my first bite of the muffin.

  Nate nods. “Been rehearsing it since last week in my mind. It’s going to be epic.”

  Today’s big vote is the same one it’s always been on the first day of class cabinet meetings; we’re deciding on the Spirit Night theme. Each year, every grade comes up with an overarching theme that culminates in one epic pep rally of sorts at the end of the year. Spirit Night sees all the grades piled into the gym, competing for who is the best class in the school. There are relay races, a mural design competition, more activities in between, and then the dance. Each grade painstakingly choreographs a dance with whoever from that graduating class wants to participate. For instance, our junior year theme was Junior Jocks; the music in our dance consisted of a lot of the Space Jam soundtrack, “We Are the Champions” by Queen, and ended with “High Hopes” by Panic at the Disco.

  There is a panel of judges, made up of teachers throughout the school, who vote in each category. At the end of Spirit Night, a winner is crowned, and that class gets ultimate bragging rights until the next all-school extravaganza.

  It’s everyone’s favorite night of the year, and as seniors, there is a lot of pressure to come in first place. We’ve done so well, even as freshman when we placed second with our dance, and Nate and I have a plan of attack for sweeping the entire competition come June.