52 Eavesdropping

Sparrow Truman: April 19th, 20XX

Two loud voices jarred me out of my nap and almost made me fall off the cot I’d installed into the closet.

Haa.

This wasn’t the first time I’d accidentally borne witness to a couple’s fight, but this one was more aggressive than the usual run-of-the-mill high school couple spat.

Melissa had warned me about taking naps at school like this, but I was so tired I could barely see straight. I’d been at school since almost five this morning, and I couldn’t even go home to sleep since I’d already made plans to meet with Jake. Even after that, I still had plans to work with my schoolmates on our entry for the showcase.

I rolled to the side of the cot I’d installed in this closet during my first year and prepared to reveal myself and leave the room. It would be excruciatingly awkward, but it was better than being discovered later on and trying to explain that I wasn’t spying on them.

My fingers had wrapped around the hilt of the doorknob inside the closet when I finally registered who the voices belonged to.

Alice and Jake were having a couple fight?

It shouldn’t have thrown me off as much as it did, but I loosened my grip on the handle and sitting back down. I was curious.

What could have driven the most stable couple at school to have such a public argument?

Alice was popular, but she was pretty nice and rarely bothered others outside of her own department, which was nice. She was an aspiring actress, and her uncle was a pretty high-ranking executive at Volui, so many people looked up to her and tried to make personal connections with her. While I didn’t blame them, I disliked how she used them for her own goals.

It wasn’t like she was vile about it, and it was fair since they usually approached her to use her. It was all a part of ‘the game,’ but it still left a nasty taste in my mouth.

Jake was a golden athlete that had brought back life into the dying sports department. He was also pretty good-looking and had scored some advertisements in the past, which put him above many graduates before he’d even graduated.

He was also a friendly person, and even though he was mainly known as Alice’s boyfriend to those outside of the sports department, everyone that had actually met him only had kind things to say.

I laid back into the cot and turned my stronger ear toward the door, trying to figure out what had happened in paradise.

Those two had been dating for so long that I almost couldn’t remember when they had started. Even though they didn’t spend much time together at school, they were well known for having a healthy and supportive relationship.

Well, save for some questionable actions from Alice lately.

I took a mental step back and wondered why I was so knowledgeable about someone else’s relationship. I put the blame on the quads, who loved to gossip as they worked.

But what, or who could have riled both of them up to a point they would have a screaming match in the middle of such a public space? Of course, the design building didn’t get that much foot traffic, but it wasn’t exactly abandoned either.

“N-No! I just want to know why it looks more like you’re going out with Sparrow than me!”

“It looks like that because you’ve been chasing after another guy for the last two weeks!”

It stunned me to hear my name come up here. It wasn’t like I’d never been the targets of rumours before, but I hadn’t even done anything this time.

“Alice, I’m not an idiot. So what, you thought I didn’t notice how much attention you’ve devoted to him? Or that every conversation we’ve recently had has centered on him? Even down to when you were crying about potentially getting black-listed after high school, you were still so concerned about ‘him’. does that make any sort of sense?”

Ooh, there was a ‘him.’

At least I wasn’t the only cause of trouble in paradise.

I wondered who the other guy was and hoped it would come up later. At this point, I was fully invested and wished I could fish out the pack of candies from my bag.

The two went back and forth for a few more sentences that sounded straight out of a tv drama before Alice hit Jake with a strong accusation.

“You actually ran into the arms of some whore like a coward instead of coming to talk to me?! For real?”

Ha!

What a powerful attack!

Now, if Jake defends me, then he’ll be proving Alice right! But he can’t just bypass it and speak on something else since that would be evasion!

I was invested, so invested that I completely missed that she had just called me a whore despite me not having done anything to deserve such a title.

Jake suddenly let out a dry laugh and raked a rough hand through his hair in an unfairly attractive move.

“Now you’re resorting to cheap insults... you really never change, do you?”

I anticipated Alice’s response to the aggressive question, but Jake just kept talking and didn’t give her the chance to butt in. I hadn’t pegged him to be such a good talker, but he was really outdoing himself.

“If this was about you being jealous, I would understand. I would even be a little happy, idiot as I am. I wouldn’t have let things come this far if it was about you trying to keep our relationship together, but no. As much as I wish it was about that, I know it’s not and so do you.”

“Jake!”

“Alice!”

He roared her name back, looking and sounding just as frustrated as he probably felt.

“I mean, you couldn’t even afford me the basic respect of coming to me privately to talk about it! Even if you honestly, genuinely thought that there was something between Sparrow and I. The same Sparrow who I met for the first time yesterday, then the least you could have done is to talk to me instead about it, instead of bringing everyone and their brother to come at me like a witch hunt!”

I nodded in agreement as I watched the scene like it was behind a Tv screen.

Man. I didn’t know Jake had it in him. But he was a regular wordsmith, wasn’t he?

Silence erupted throughout the room after Jake finished his speech and settled around the two like a heavy and toxic fog until Alice’s voice slid out in a small and whiny tone.

“I didn’t bring the others to condemn you! I meant to come alone, but then the others came along. Besides, I dint even think this was that big of a deal!”

Her voice cracked as she threatened to break into tears, but she valiantly held them back.

“I heard from others that you were flirting around, so I brought enough of an audience so we could hash things out and set the record straight! You’re usually good at figuring out my plans without me having to say it so I dont know what’s going on with you now!”

Ooh, that was a good comeback. Playing on their past relationship was always a powerful card to play. This was also a nice exit from this fight for both of them. If Jake chose the extended hand and apologized for misunderstanding her, then they could brush this all under the carpet and move on.

It was too bad that Jake didn’t seem to want to take that ending.

“Alice, we both know that not what happened here. What… What do you want me to do here? I can’t brush this under the rug but I don’t… Why do you keep making things so difficult?”

“I don’t know what to do either, Jake. We’ve been together for so long and friends for longer. It doesn’t have to go this way, you know? You can just… look away again. Its not like this is the worst thing I’ve ever done. Why is it this one that broke it?”

The audacity with which she admitted to treating him terribly was astounding, but even worse, she asked for feedback like it was a character and not her own actions.

But then again, maybe being called a whore over again had made me biased. After all, the very guy she had done all that to didn’t seem too upset.

“I don’t know Alice. Its.. Its been a long time, huh?”

“We first met when we were eight, but you didn’t ask me out until we turned fourteen.”

He let out a dry laugh as they reminisced together, but their timeline stunned me. I knew they’d been together for a while, but weren’t they practically siblings at that point? I couldn’t even date someone I’d known since I was fifteen since I considered them more of a sibling than anything.

“Well, your dad threatened to break my legs off if I ever tried anything with you.”

“Not that it stopped you.”

They both laughed together but settled into an awkward silence.

“You win Alice, as you always do.”

Ahh.

Well, I’d figured he would end up giving in; Alice was just too strong of an opponent. It was none of my business, but I felt a bit frustrated. This was reality, but if it was a tv show, I would have rage quit at the unsatisfying ending.

“Jake.”

Alice sounded devastated, and her voice crawled out of her throat in a pathetic whimper.

“Alice. I still love you all the same, but I can’t keep doing this.”

She stayed silent for longer than was appropriate, and I saw tears bead in her eyes from the tiny shutters of the closet.

“Can we at least still be friends?”

She didn’t fight the break-up as hard as I thought she would have, but I could hear the tears in her voice. Despite being the one to initiate the break-up, Jake looked far worse off than Alice did, but he held himself together a bit better.

“Maybe at some point, but I don’t think it’ll be any time soon.”

Alice picked at the skin on her wrist and bit her lip as she collected herself.

“But wait, what about the showcase?”

Jake barked out a harsh chuckle. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but he didn’t look happy.

“Not this year Alice. You’ll be fine though you still have about four months.”

“Jake!”

He shook his head and turned away from her.

“I’ve got stuff to do, and you do as well. You… You should go. I’m sure you have a lot to sort out.”

Alice stumbled out of the room with a stunned expression on her face. I could tell that she was upset, but perhaps to her credit, she didn’t blow up at Jake again and just left. She soon left my limited field of vision, and Jake became the only occupant in the room.

I planned to wait until he’d left the room before crawling out of the closet, but I suddenly got a bad feeling. While I didn’t get them often, I was familiar enough to know not to ignore them.

I jumped out of the closet and rushed at Jake, aiming to catch him before he completed his fall.