Carl Gallagher's frenemy

№6

Fighting over the crown

Nothing ever came easily with Carl Gallagher. Whenever it came to make him laugh, to make him mad, to make him blush. His emotions were almost always unreadable. Except for this one time. I could sense something close to jealousy and anger.

Why ?

Because someone was flirting with me. No it's not what it looks like, what annoys him the most is the fact that I'm getting all the attention and I'm not saying that to brag. Everyone is curious about the new girl. Everyone knows about what happened yesterday, and all of them are waiting for me to bite back. They are waiting for my next move. As if Carl and I were fighting over an invisible crown, trying to make the other go down.

The arrival of my new group didn't make things easier. Freckle boy, baby blue eyes, Afro head and I were an official group, standing very high in the pyramid of social groups. Of course, this wasn't planned. All four of us walked in, and as we were progressing through the corridors, every pair of eyes were on us, only. As if we were walking in slow-motion, with sexy music in the background. We only needed a few more boys that'd throw basketball balls at each other, and Ari and I fake laughing to something Cameron'd say and we would look like a very cliche group in high school musical.

But of course, none of us really cared about that. I loved attention but didn't really give a shit that people looked at us as if we were about to rule the school. Popularity was probably the thing I despised the most, since these girls thought that they were the queens and bragged all the time about all the money they got. I'd talk to anyone. Popular or not. Pretty or not. Well dressed or not.

I simply want people to respect me. And it looked like they did respect us.

We were always together. We ate together, hung out together, we were pretty inseparable.

But this time, as we sat down in the cafeteria, everyone joined. Like the whole group. This felt strange, as if they were following us around like little puppies. And me being part of the leaders of this group meant nothing but bad news since one, I hated groups in general I was much more of an independent person and two Carl Gallagher would probably do anything to push me out of the way, to destroy me or humiliate me.

The fact that Carl was the source of my non-ending problems, was honestly tiring me. Not a lot happened but I know more is to come.

As I was saying, as we sat down, the boys sat with us and so did the girls. A familiar brown-haired guy,  sat in front of me,“Chloe Carpenter” he mused.

“I don't think we ever had the chance to talk” he continues,“My name is Steve Harold.”

“Steve Harold. I've heard a few things about you” I smirk, taking a sip of my water. I've heard nothing but bad things about him. He's part of  'The Group' but I don't really care. What I care about is the fact that he's handsome and could be a great concurrence to Carl.

I have to stop thinking about Carl.

“I've heard quite some things about you too. It's hard to miss someone like you.”

“Is that so ?” I lift up an eyebrow.

“Yeah and there are still a few things I'd like to know about you.”

“Like what ?”

He hands me his phone, “Your number ?”

Carl starts making gagging noises, acting as if he was puking. Jealousy. Anger. He doesn't like it when people give me attention. I mean, his friends came up to talk to Arizona or to many other girls and it never affected him. I'm not the only person people talk about. His noises make the others sneaker but my squad isn't having it.

“Is there a problem Gallagher ?” Starts   Cam.

“Let him choke” says Arizona. As you can see I told them everything about Carl. It's strange to me to have persons to open up to.

“No, Cameron, there isn't a problem. I was just gagging because...damn. I mean, Steve, out of all girls, you're choosing to mess with her ?”

I flash him my middle finger before typing my number in his phone,“Ignore him, he's just jealous” I tell Steve and he nods, chuckling.

“Well, I'll see you around, Chloe” he stands up and joins his friends.

Truth is, boys at my previous schools were never interested in me because of my behavior. People would try to get with me for a bet. I'd only go out with people that weren't at my school and it never lasted. This time, I didn't want to mess up. He will make me forget about Carl Gallagher.

At that moment I thought that my day couldn't get any better. I was completely right. It only got worse.

At the end of the day, Cam ran towards me, “uh, Chloe, someone wrote something about you in the boy's bathroom-”

I frowned, “What ?”

“It's just some stupid shit..” Jake and Ari joined us and they looked worried.

“Chloe, everyone's talking about what's written in the boys bathroom,” she points behind her and I see which bathroom she's talking about. I push towards them and run inside of the boy's restroom. As the scent of pee and sweat fills my nose, I force myselft to not puke and to walk forwards.

A guy that's pissing snaps his head towards me, pushing his private parts in his boxers as he sees me, '“What the fuck ?” he yells but I ignore him. I push inside every toilet but don't see anything. I look to the side of the walls and my heart sinks as I see written on the wall, in red, “Chloe's a hoe” and we can see two different handwrittings agreeing saying things like 'attention-whore'.