Let's Play a Game

Let's Play a Game (10)

“Oh, look. The ogre’s back,” Ethan announced flatly as I entered through the front door.

“Ogre?” I exclaimed, not expecting an insult right when I walked in the door. “What are you…? What’s your problem?”

“You,” he said simply before making his way up the stairs without another word.

Why that little...

I didn’t know what I was going to do with him! Ogre? Out of every insult he could have called me, he decided to go with ogre?

I made my way up the stairs angrily, banging on Ethan’s door as I walked by it to get to my room. That little punk was going to get it one of these days. He already made up a stupid (and yet clever…) rhyme when Johnny and I had kissed. I was kind of afraid of what he’d come up with when he found out that Johnny and I were dating now…

When I heard Zach come home from practice a few hours later, I nearly fell off of my bed. I waited until I heard him make his way upstairs before I left my room to confront him.

He plopped down on his bed when I entered his room, and he smirked at me. “Do you want a reprise of yesterday? I’d be happy to give you one.”

“I want out,” I told him, and this caused his eyebrows to furrow at me in confusion. “I want out of the game, Zach.”

“Oh,” he laughed, finally understanding what I was saying to him. “So you want out of the game so you wouldn’t be cheating on your loving new boyfriend?”

“Kinda,” I snapped, even though he was exactly right. “I just came in here to tell you that it’s over. I’m not playing this game with you anymore.”

“So, when should I expect you confessing your love for me to everybody?” Zach asked me as I turned back toward the door to leave. He didn’t even look up from his magazine, which annoyed me greatly.

“What?”

“You said whoever lost would have to tell the entire school that they loved whoever won.” Zach explained to me, still not looking up from that stupid magazine. “You’re forfeiting, which means you lost.”

“No, no, no,” I nearly panicked, grabbing the magazine from his hands and throwing it onto the floor. “I said whoever fell in love with the other one first lost, and I am not in love with you. Therefore, I do not lose.”

Zach smirked as he said, “Nuh-uh. You said that falling in love with the other person would make you lose. Forfeiting also means you lose.”

No way. I could barely remember what I had even said when I had started the game, since I had been so pissed at him, so whatever he said could have been true. If forfeiting meant I had to confess to the entire school… I couldn’t do it.

“I just got you after a year, Maxynn,” he winked, and it made me feel really dirty. “I’m not about to give you up.”

I swallowed. “And what if I just stop playing the game and don’t announce to everyone that I was in love with you?”

“I will make your life, and your relationship with Johnny, a living hell.”

“Even more than you already do?” I quipped harshly.

He laughed. “Funny.”

“I’m being serious, Zach,” I snapped, and I felt my palms grow clammy. Was Zach really the kind of person that would do this to his best friend? “I really like Johnny, and I don’t want you messing it up for me.”

“Then stay in the game,” Zach started, picking up and going back to his magazine, “and I’ll keep my mouth shut about it. All we have to do is make sure no one sees us together, but that’s what you’ve wanted the whole entire time, right?”