Conflicted Emotions

Chapter 18: Desperate needs call for desperate measures

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One week later

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{~Jess POV~}

"Oh, bloody hell," I muttered, scribbling out another wrong answer on my maths homework. Normally I wouldn't be so uptight about this if it weren't for my current...problems. Excuse the understatement of the year. Normally, I'd be sitting with my friends and we'd all be working them out together, meaning someone would work out the answer and give it to everyone else. But today, as of the last week, I was completely alone.

I don't quite know how I felt about the current situation. Angry? Upset? Definitely. But also mixed feelings of betrayal and guilt...I couldn't get out of my head what Spencer had said to me. The fact that it was all my fault made the situation a hundred times worse. Spencer admitted it, and I knew my friends had somehow found out about it.

I gave up on my maths homework for the day, just as Steph walked in, holding her completed sheet. We didn't even make eye contact as she crossed the room and placed it on her desk. She walked into her bathroom, and I left the room.

I didn't even take note of my surroundings as I gloomily plodded outside. I realized I was under the tree where this had all started, where I had asked Spencer why he was going out with Jamie. I kicked it, and instead of making me feel better it just sent more pain, physical rather than mental, into my system. I sighed, sat down against the tree and surveyed the cold, grey February morning. I closed my eyes and rested my head on the tree.

Before long, I heard footsteps brushing through the grass, coming to a stop a few feet in front of me. I opened my eyes, grimaced and closed them again, raising my middle finger at the trespasser. He only walked forwards and sat next to me.

"What do you want?" I asked, glaring at him. "You've caused enough trouble already." I knew how wrong that was, it was my fault, but I hated Spencer beyond belief.

"I...Jamie asked me to repeat her message."

"Why, was she too afraid to deliver it herself? Worried I would mash her brains in again?"

"...I don't know. But she says although she's sorry for the whole knife situation, it doesn't stop her being pissed at you for the whole thing." He stood up to leave, but I grabbed his wrist and used it to help me stand up myself. He faced me with an eyebrow raised.

"It wasn't entirely my fault! She set me and Jared up. She's the reason Steph hates me. I would have all my other friends back by now if she were still with me, but she had to spoil everything. And you know why? Because she was jealous of me hugging you, when you told me about you and her. But that was her fault too...in fact, this entire thing is her fault! If she hadn't ditched you, you wouldn't have become what you are now, you'd still be with Jamie, Jamie wouldn't have cheated on my cousin, I wouldn't have hugged you and she wouldn't have felt the need to take all my friends away from me!" I breathed deeply, fists clenched, standing opposite Spencer who was looking surprised. "Tell her that," I said, and walked away.

**

My new realization made me feel ten times better. It wasn't all my fault! It was Jamie's, in a roundabout way. I went back to my dorm with a smile on my face, but it drooped with the greeting my supposed best friend gave me.

"Why are you smiling? Spencer ask you out or something? I saw you talking. Or are you plotting to ruin someone else's life?"

"Steph, listen to me. It's not my fault, OK?" she raised an eyebrow, but she continued to listen. Maybe there was a tad of friendship in there after all. "Have you heard the story? About her and Spencer, before he started coming here?" She shook her head, a dark look still on her face. I explained my realization to her, hoping she would understand...