Handwritten ✓

09 | list

AVALON FUCKING TAYLOR. OF COURSE.

The one girl I didn't want it to be.

The blind rage that lanced through my heart burned like lightning. Maybe it was. Maybe somehow the heavens had sent Avalon Taylor to rectify all my wrongdoings, equipping her with lightning eyes and an electric personality. I couldn't resist her, once I got to know who she was underneath her exterior.

That's why it hurt so badly. Not because I knew her, but because she knew me. It wasn't some petty, random co-ed who watched me from afar and got totally the wrong idea into their head. I had planned to find my hater and show them who I really was, to convince them to draw the right conclusion about me: I was a good person, if a little cocky and distracted sometimes.

But Avalon knew who I really was already. She saw it all, the jokes, the arrogance, the insecurity, and she still went and wrote that burn sheet. And kept it from me. Even when I looked her in the eyes and asked for her help to find the author, she'd—

She'd lied to me.

Did she really not feel that weird pull between us? Was she just faking all the interactions we'd had, on hammocks, in classrooms, in bedrooms? What was she doing here now, with me, when there were a dozen other people downstairs that she could spend her time with instead?

"Explain," I gritted out, forcing down the raw hurt and betrayal and confusion and rejection I felt. "Please." Avalon took a deep breath, meeting my eyes squarely. No remorse. Fuck, it hurt that she didn't even seem guilty.

We were close enough that her breath skimmed across my face when she exhaled. "Jake... I didn't ever want anyone to see it. Nor did I think you'd even take it so seriously when you found it. I thought if I just kept quiet, you'd eventually let it go." Her weak chuckle hit the air, making my anger spike, "But, boy, can you hold a grudge—"

"Why write it in the first place? Why?"

If I was coming off enraged, she didn't seem afraid or even aware of it, searching my eyes methodically. It felt like she was looking for something deeper, and I hated how vulnerable and transparent her gaze made me feel. Could she see the way I felt about her? Was she going to laugh at me for falling for my hater?

"It's a con list," she said slowly.

I echoed dumbly, "A con list?"

"Yeah, like a pro-con list. Pros and cons. I..." she exhaled sharply, spitting the next words out with great trouble. "I just thought if I listed all your flaws I could—"

"You could?" I prompted impatiently. Maybe there was still hope, given the soft way she spoke to me, the fact she was still here right now. I could turn things around.

"—finally get over you."

When the implications of her words sank in, the anger in my chest died like a light switch had been flipped. Torrents of hope and anticipating flooded in instead, stirring my voice into a desperate frenzy.

"When... when were you ever under me?"

I cringed internally at the way I'd worded it, but I was so not in the frame of mind to be tactful. Avalon rolled her eyes and smacked me for the innuendo, but she nevertheless gave me a genuine, serious answer. "Since that time we talked outside Mrs. Ackerman's office. It made me see you in a different light," she admitted cautiously.

Joy ballooned in my chest. Maybe it was a good thing I didn't know what I was doing, after all.

"But then you kept working your way through the cheerleaders and being the class clown and, I thought, you really hadn't changed at all. Plus, we have nothing in common, so," she huffed in a rush. "I wanted to convince myself out of liking you. I wanted to stop feeling what I felt..." Then her eyes flickered nervously to mine, vulnerable in a way I had never seen on her before. "What I feel still. Present tense."