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~Kris~

I was talking with my guys from the football team during lunch when I saw my boyfriend approaching the table with his usual posse, except there was a new face. Brooklyn, Tiana, and a girl with huge puppy-dog eyes trailed behind him, and I was sure I'd seen her once before.

Corbyn sat down on my lap, putting an arm around me and giving my cheek a kiss. I could smell his typical Chanel fragrance wafting up to my nose every five seconds. His friends sat on the other side, Brooklyn instantly striking up a conversation with her cheer teammates.

"You should meet the newest addition to my clique," my boyfriend said to me, giving the girl a side glance. She had her arms crossed, sitting silently next to Tiana. Her blonde hair was slicked back into a high bun and her outfit was clearly expensive. "Her name's Mae. Brook kicked her off the cheer team just yesterday."

Brooklyn looked at us upon hearing her name, furrowing her eyebrows. She darted a mean look toward Mae, who shrank into her seat. "Well that's what happens when you're a backstabbing bitch."

"I told you; I don't want your position," Mae defended herself, scowling at Corbyn.

"What's going on?" I asked with deep curiosity.

"She totally wants Brook's spot as cheer captain."

"No, I don't! The only spot I want is mine back."

"This is so trivial. Brook, give her spot back," I said. "Cheerleading is expensive enough and she most likely worked hard to be on the team. Don't make it even more miserable."

"Can y'all stop arguing around me?" Tiana murmured, focusing on her food.

"Whether this is all true or not, why is she in your 'clique' or whatever?" I questioned.

"Nobody knows what goes on in Corb's brain, Kris," Brooklyn answered. "I certainly have no idea why he'd let her around me." She rolled her eyes and turned back to her female friends.

"She's got potential," Corbyn told me. He lowered his voice, speaking only to me. "And maybe she doesn't want Brook's spot, but she can definitely replace her."

"Replace her how? Brook's your best friend, Corb, what're you talking about?"

"She's incredibly boring. All she does is follow me around and nag me all day. Plus she totally still has crush on you. Rumor has it that Mae prefers girls so that's one less thing I've gotta worry about."

I sighed, shaking my head. "I don't believe you right now." I gently pushed him off my lap and stood up, making my way out of the cafeteria. Once again, I had to ignore him calling out my name, and by the time I'd made it out the doors, he was catching up to me.

"Kris, I know you hear me calling you! Kristopher!"

"I'm obviously ignoring you, Corbyn." I whirled around to glare at him. "Can you at least let me do that successfully?"

"Why are you walking away from me?"

"You really have to ask that?" I scoffed, continuing my walk away from him. I managed to get further down the hall before he caught up to me, standing in my path.

"Please just stop walking away," he held me in place, almost desperate to keep my attention.

"What is wrong with you?" I asked. "So Brooklyn has a crush on me and you instantly want to replace her with a girl that clearly hates your guts? Are you that insecure in our relationship? Are you that selfish?"

"It's not about her liking you, but my friendship with her honestly sucks now. Don't pretend you've never had a friendship go sour and that you didn't cut that person off because things just weren't the same anymore."

"Oh, gee, Corbyn. So your friendship with her is in ruins. I wonder whose fault that is."

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You're saying it's my fault?"

"Well with everything that I've been hearing about you⏤"

"Right, just believe whatever some nobody has to say about me."

"Not just that. You're behaving differently, you talk to people like you're more important than they are and I have a problem with that. I'm sorry, but I didn't fall for this side of you. And I... I'm a little worried that this is who you really are and that the boy I fell for in Biology class while foolishly making fun of our teacher's accent isn't you."

"So did you lie? When you told me you love me for the first time last week. How you love me despite my flaws--was it bullshit?"

"It wasn't a lie. Yes, I still stand by what I said. I love you and I know you aren't this mean person who only cares about himself."

Corbyn placed a hand on his hip, seemingly tired of our conversation. It was written all over his face that he was checked out and done listening to anything else that I had to say. "I'm a little curious as to who's been telling you things about me, and what these things are."

"It doesn't matter. I know what I'm seeing and I don't like it very much. I don't wanna be the boyfriend of a guy who makes people miserable on a daily basis."

"Oh... my god." Corbyn dropped his hand, taking a flabbergasted step backward. "Fine then! Don't be my boyfriend!"

I swiftly tried to clarify my point for his understanding, but it was apparent that he was going to take this way too far. "Corb, that's not what I'm saying at all!"

"I'm sorry, I just heard that you don't wanna be my boyfriend. And you're standing there calling me selfish and mean and insecure. So, fine! It's over; I'm done. Call me names, but I'm done." He backed away, very close to breaking down and crying.

"Corbyn, don't," I said, reaching for his hand which he pulled away. "Don't do that; I wasn't saying that-"

"It's over, Kris!" He yelled, interrupting me. His shout caught many students' attention and we realized they'd probably been staring at us longer than we knew. He glared at most of them, then yelled again, "What're you all looking at?"

They all scrammed, dispersing within the blink of an eye. I called out to Corbyn in confusion and hurt, but he disappeared as soon as the other students did.

I turned around, stiff with disbelief as I headed back to the cafeteria. How could he do that to me? Why would he break up with spontaneously, like it didn't even matter? Like I didn't matter? He was making all the fuss about girls and boys throwing themselves at me and suddenly it was over... he was done? And it wasn't like him to blow situations out of proportion.

It was disconcerting, but I'd give him some time to think. I really didn't think he meant to end things like this, and I cared way too much to let him slip away. All my thoughts flew out of my mind as soon as I walked back into the cafeteria, having almost every head turning toward me.

I swallowed down my nerves. Despite the contrary belief in this school, I wasn't very comfortable under all the attention. And I received quite a lot of it; it was insane.

Admittedly, something was different. All of their looks were odd, as if they knew something so I hurried to get back to my seat. Cheeks flushed and my mind still on Corbyn, I looked to my friends who seemed very concerned.

"Did he really ,just dump you?" Levi asked me in hysterical surprise.

"Yeah, is it true?!" Brooklyn shrieked. I stared at them with wide eyes. They knew? News couldn't have possibly traveled this quickly, could it?

"H-how...? Yes, he just... how does everyone know? It just happened."

Mae brought out her phone and started texting, and I assumed she was texting anybody she knew. "Hey, why does everyone know this?" I demanded angrily.

"Some idiots ran in telling people," one of my teammates answered. "But why did he dump you? Nobody dumps you, especially not that drama twig. You gotta dump them. You gotta make them cry, man. Grovel. Whimper."

"Yes, Clay, we get the point," a cheerleader sitting in his lap said, rolling her eyes.

"Why did he dump you though?" Brook asked, her eyes wide with the excitement of gossip. I glared at her.

"No. I'm not talking about it. The last thing I need are more rumors spreading a-and I didn't even get a chance to go after him. I know he didn't mean to explode like that."

"Personally, I think there are um... really amazing guys in this school who like you and are dying to meet you," Mae spoke up out of the blue, directing everyone's attention to her. Brooklyn gave her a look of disgust, almost as if to ask why she was even talking. I blinked at her and shook my head, completely ignoring her statement. "God, I can't do this. I need to go find him."

"You need a breather," my best friend told me, keeping me in my seat. "Let the hothead cool off then you can talk to him after school, away from prying eyes and ears."

"It's already a huge scandal," another cheerleader added. "Ooh, I'm gonna make a poll about who you should date next."

"Seriously, Olivia?" Brooklyn responded.

"I vote myself." The girl winked at me, her cheeks heating up in a rosy blush. "But I'm too dumb to make a poll, so I'll just ask a member of the student government club to do it. I have at least two minions per club."

"Liv, stop talking," Tiana grumbled, rubbing her temples.

"No, seriously. I make the nerds do my homework in exchange for my hot body yet I've failed algebra 1 for the past two years. I honestly don't understand what I'm doing wrong." She shrugged.

"Well, look at that. I just lost two million brain cells. Not like I needed them or anything; it's only 2 million," Mae muttered, and despite my sour mood, I found myself chuckling at her sarcasm. Tiana even joined in, giving Mae a fist bump.

"We're totally gonna get along," she whispered with a wicked smile on her face.

🥀🥀

~Jaden~

I picked up my phone at the same time as Kari picked up hers and we read our texts from Mae.

"Oh my god, did you get the same thing?" I asked my friend. As usual, her face emitted disinterest as she shrugged.

"It's about time."

"Corbyn dumped Kris," I whispered as if that sentence was forbidden to say out loud. "No way. No, there's no way... oh my god, Kari." My hand flew to my chest in blatant shock. I couldn't even describe how this felt.

"Go ahead, say it."

"Corbyn Starr broke up with Kris Hamilton. Freaking Kris Hamilton..." I gasped, holding my breath for an eternity as I tried to process the information. Kari snapped in my face.

"Breathe, homeskillet."

I turned my head to gaze toward the center of the cafeteria, stretching my neck upward to spot Mae. "Dude, she's sitting near Kris..." I looked back at my friend, a slight jealousy igniting within me. "Like she can literally talk to him, that's so crazy." I held the sides of my head. "I need to be a cheerleader. Is it too late to try out for that?"

"Um, yes, and sweetheart, you have no cheer skills."

"I need to calm down." I exhaled slowly and put my phone away. "This is insane. Corbyn's low key scary and yeah, that's why everyone's afraid to get on his bad side but... He's the only one who can do that. Like nobody just breaks up with Kris H; it's unheard of. I really need to know why they broke up though. According to Mae, it just happened. We were literally eating and laughing about my neighbor's hairy back while Kris was out there getting dumped by His Majesty."

"I'll text her to find out what went down. I mean, she's got access to Kris and she's in Corbyn's clique. Tiana's also on our side, so I don't see why we can't do a little digging of our own. Now that we've got spies... we've got the power." Kari smiled at the realization of that. "Holy shit, Jaden. We have power, do you get that?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "I guess?"

"Don't 'I guess' me, J. This is the most interesting thing that has happened to me in all my 16 years of being alive besides fucking on the roof of a Bentley. Finally, something worth smiling about." And she did smile, but it was the most mischievous I'd seen her. "Boo-yah baby. This bitch is about to have some fun."

🎗🎗🎗🎗🎗

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