Two Roads by L.M. Augustine Read Free Book Online

obviously, because there is nothing crushworthy about Logan Waters. Nothing .) I miss back then. I miss those happy times when Ben was a high school senior, Logan was a junior, and I was the “itty bitty freshman” they used to tease, when I always put up the annoying little sister act and gave Logan and Ben the stink eye whenever they laughed at me, even though deep down, I loved them for it. I miss everything before nineteen-year-old Ben started working at our parents’ engineering company the summer of his sophomore year, really.
    But after that night, I stayed as far away from Logan as possible, just like he stayed far away from me. I distanced myself from him, from my family, from everyone. I’ve barely said Ben’s name out loud since. My parents started calling me a failure, a waste, and I turned into Mean Girl Cali to hide how truly, painfully vulnerable I felt. But six months ago, when Logan transferred to Williams University after not talking to me in three and a half years, my anger intensified. I remembered all Logan neglected to notice about Ben, remembered how the turmoil of the recent years was all because of him, so I went right up there and started insulting him. And it felt good. Really good. I did it again and again, and Logan started returning the favor, and our rivalry grew and grew. It started with small pranks here and there, going out of our way to call each other assholes and bitches and profess our mutual hate, never once mentioning Ben’s name, until over time it blossomed into what it is now: a full-on, insult-driven prank-fest. Hating Logan in all of his textbook-reading glory has somehow made me feel better about this whole ordeal, and the fact that he fights back is a nice way to keep things interesting--which is why we make perfect rivals. I take out all of my anger from that night on him, and he does the same to me. It makes us forget, it makes us feel good, and for now, that’s all that matters.
    So we hate each other. It’s really that simple. We make a game of our rivalry, of our pranks, and it’s weirdly fun to see what each person does to the other next. We’re almost on this whole new level with each other, like we have our own little corner of the world reserved just for us and our mutual red-hot hatred, so I embrace it. I love it. I live it.
    After a while, I say to Ruby, “I don’t know.”
    “So you devote so much time to making him miserable and you don’t even know why?” She looks at me dubiously. “Why do I find that so hard to believe?”
    I shrug. “I guess I just… like doing it. It’s a harmless kind of rivalry, and it’s a nice distraction from everything. You know, with my parents and… that night… and everything. It’s also seriously addicting to prank someone else and try to imagine their amusement when they find it,” I add. I hate not telling her the truth, but I can’t bring myself to talk about what really happened, either.
    “You’re a terrible liar,” Ruby says.
    “I’m not--”
    “It wasn’t accusation.” She narrows her eyes. “It was a statement. I know you don’t want to tell me whatever the real reason is, so we’ll leave it at that: that you’re a terrible liar.” Ruby’s gaze is trained on me, but she doesn’t sound angry. Her voice is hard but strangely gentle, and I feel myself blush because she saw right through my lie.
    “You’re good,” I say after a minute. Ruby is almost too clever for comfort.
    “I know. Just… whatever it is… be careful. Logan seems to be perfectly happy in his little circle of geekery”--I make a mental note to include that word in my vocabulary for future use--”but I don’t want you getting hurt again.”
    “Okay.”
    She turns back to her pile of belongings in front of her. “Anyway,” Ruby is saying, reaching into her bag. “I have something for you.”
    I raise an eyebrow. Whenever Ruby says ‘I have something for you,’ it usually means ‘you’re going to regret looking