Matchplay by Dakota Madison

direction.”
    I snuck a quick glance in Aaron’s direction and noticed he was now glaring at Lucas. He looked pissed. I had told him that Lucas was a friend, like a brother, but I guess that didn’t matter.
    “Now try it again,” Lucas encouraged.
    This time when I tossed the ring, it was at least close to the bottle. It bounced off of one of the bottle tops.
    “See, you’re getting better.” Lucas had a big grin on his face. He carefully grabbed my wrist again and showed me a little flicking motion. “Right before you release the ring, be sure to flip it liked I just showed you.”
    “Okay,” I said and tried it again. When I tossed the ring, it almost landed on the bottle.
    “So close,” Lucas said. “I know you’ve got this.”
    When I snuck another peek at Aaron, I noticed a little blonde was hanging on his arm. When she caught sight of me looking at the two of them, she leaned up and whispered something in Aaron’s ear. Then Aaron’s eyes locked with mine for a moment. His stare was so intense, I shuddered. I wanted to turn away from him but I couldn’t. The blonde then laughed. As she whispered something else in Aaron’s ear, he continued to stare at me. The scene was completely unsettling. I wanted to turn away but I couldn’t take my eyes off Aaron. Then the blonde went in for the kill. She reached up and kissed Aaron. He closed his eyes and kissed her back. The two of them were practically making out in the booth.
    I gulped. I could feel the rings I had been holding drop from my hands. I felt like everything was happening in slow motion. I could hear Lucas say, “Rainy, are you okay?”
    When the blonde girl extricated herself from Aaron’s lips, the first thing she did was turn toward me and give me an evil little grin. I saw Evan pat Aaron on the shoulder in a that-a-boy motion. The only thing I didn’t see was Aaron looking at me.
    I felt like I was suddenly being crushed by the world around me. The only desire I had was to flee. I took off running as fast as I could.
    “Rainy, wait,” I could hear Lucas yell. I just hoped he wouldn’t follow me.
    I had no choice but to run past The Clubhouse’s lemonade stand. I didn’t know if I was being paranoid or if I heard them laughing at me as I ran by. At that point, I didn’t care. I just kept running. I felt as if I could just run far enough or fast enough, maybe I would disappear. I felt like such a fool. Even if Aaron did have feelings for me (and I now felt that was a big if), they weren’t strong enough for him to stand up to his friends and defend me. Saving face with his friends was obviously more important than any feelings he had for me. He made it seem as though I was nothing but a score he was trying to attain. I was done. I had enough of Aaron and his games. Of course, I still had to see him in class and we still had to work together but I vowed to be as neutral as possible and only talk about our project. 
    I didn’t stop running until I was at the front door to my dorm. I was glad to see no one had followed me. If anyone had tried, they probably couldn’t have kept up with me anyway.
    When I got inside my room, I finally felt like I was able to breathe again. I inhaled deeply several times before I completely broke down into uncontrollable sobbing.
    About ten minutes later, I was still crying when Olivia and Lucas stormed into our room.
    “I knew this was going to happen,” Olivia said as she sat down next to me. “Didn’t I tell you if you got emotionally involved with that guy it would be nothing but trouble. And here I am having to deal with your sobbing ass and a mountain of filthy tissues.”
    Olivia’s sheer audacity always made me smile. “Thanks . I needed that.”
    Lucas sat down on the other side of me. “Are you okay?” he asked. He was such a sweet heart. Why couldn’t I fall for him instead of Aaron?
    “Thank you both for being here. I didn’t mean to ruin your fun.”
    “What are friends for ?”