"Did you hear about that Maxynn Chase girl?”

At the sound of this whispering voice, I nearly froze. I didn’t turn toward the voice; I continued to stare into my locker, pretending that I was still looking for a paper that I had found a few minutes before.

“Of course I heard about her,” another whispering voice said, and I still didn’t look away from the inside of my locker. “Who hasn’t? Everyone’s been talking about it.”

I nearly dropped my textbook, not expecting anyone to say something like this about me. Even though I had been at the school for a year, barely anyone knew who I was because I wanted to keep a low profile. Nothing ever went around school about me because barely anyone knew who I was.

“So do you think she actually did it?” one of the girls now asked the other, confusing me greatly.

“Totally,” the other girl answered now, and I felt my stomach lurch and I didn’t even know what they were talking about anymore. “It said on the news that they didn’t know what caused the fire. She totally had to set it herself. She probably got in a fight with her mom or something and decided to kill her.”

I did drop my text book now, causing the two girls that were talking about me to snap their heads in my direction. I tried to look tough, but I didn’t know if that was working out so well. I expected the girls to look scared for being caught talking about me, but scared was the last thing they were.

The two girls sneered at me, and I almost took a step back in surprise. One of them shouted, “Killer!” before both of them turned around and ran down the hall.

I stood there, in complete shock over what had just happened. Someone had just called me a killer. Someone had just accused me of killing my own mother. How could anyone be heartless enough to kill their own mother?

“You… alright?” I heard a new voice now ask, and I slowly turned to see Kate looking at me, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Maxynn, are you alright? You look like you’re going to throw up.”

There was a huge possibility that I would. I seriously felt like I was going to cry over what those girls had said. There was no way I could have set that fire to our house. There was no way that I killed my mother.

“Did you hear?” I found myself asking my best friend, finding it hard to force the words to come out.

“Did I hear what?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowing at me even more.

“The rumors,” I swallowed, hoping to keep the bile that threatened to come up down my throat. “The rumors that I… I…”

Kate’s guilty face suddenly made its way on her face, so I knew the answer to my question. I knew that she had heard the rumors like everyone else had. Everyone really thought that I had set the fire and killed my mother.

“Aveline was talking about it in class today,” Kate answered me truthfully, and I couldn’t help but make a face at the mention of the horrible Aveline Rake. She had been out to get me ever since I had entered the school the year before, all because of my name. Before I had come to Corvus, she had been the only one in the school with a strange name that no one seemed to know how to pronounce at first.

She had also been one of the many girls that Zach had hooked up with, so she didn’t like me because he barely ever gave her the time of day while he continued to chase after me. She probably had the biggest crush on him out of everyone in the school, so it was obvious she had really bad taste.

“My name is pronounced like Adeline with a V instead of a D,” she would tell people whenever they got her name wrong, and she tried to act annoyed, but it was obvious that she was enjoying the attention she was getting for having such an unusual name.

I tried to avoid her, but it was hard to since she was in a few classes with me. It was the same with Zach, before I lived in his house and everything…

“Are you ready to go?” Kate asked me now when I shut my locker. “Did you walk to school today or did you drive?”

“I walked,” I sighed, trying to shake off everything that had just happened. “My dad said I should let Zach drive me, but I don’t want to be seen driving in the same car with him. People will probably think that something is up.”

“I’m pretty sure people would think that you two are dating before they think you live together,” Kate informed me truthfully, and I couldn’t help but agree with her. I was pretty sure people thinking that Zach and I were dating might have been worse than people knowing that we lived together…

“Hey,” Todd greeted when he left a classroom, joining the two of us as we continued to walk down the hall. “Are you two going home?”

“Yeah,” Kate nodded, glancing at me slightly as she said this. “I’m going to drive Maxynn back to Zach’s house so she doesn’t have to walk. Do you want to come along?”

“Nah, my brother’s driving us home,” Todd answered, still as quiet and as shy as he always was. We had been friends for a year, and even though I knew that he liked me, he was still as shy and quiet as ever.

“I’m just glad the day is over,” I muttered, not in the mood to deal with anything or anyone else. “I’ll probably just sleep once I get to Zach’s house.”

It was still too weird for me to call Zach’s house my house, and I knew that it would be weird for a while. I didn’t know when I would start getting comfortable calling it my house, but I hoped that I was out of his house as soon as possible so I wouldn’t have to.

“You need sleep, Maxynn,” Kate agreed with me, Todd trailing silently beside us. “You just need to sleep all of this off.”

“Yeah,” I nodded as we now started down the long flight of stairs that led to my freedom. “I really do need--”

Before I could finish my sentence, I felt something hitting my ankle, which caused me to fall forward as I headed down the stairs. Kate screamed my name, but this didn’t stop me from tumbling down the entire flight of stairs.

“Maxynn!” I heard Kate call out once I finally hit the floor. Luckily I hadn’t knocked anyone down with me, but that didn’t mean that everyone wasn’t staring. “Maxynn, are you okay?”

I blinked up at the ceiling, not believing that I had just fallen down the stairs. I couldn’t remember a time that I had been as uncoordinated as I had been right then!

Three faces suddenly came into my vision, and I blinked up at the three boys, as if to make sure they were really there.

“You should watch where you’re walking,” Zach said, looking down at me with a smirk on his face. “You could have hurt someone there.”

Yes, I could have hurt someone, but I could have been seriously injured as well! Did he even think about that? I didn’t think so!

“Are you alright, Maxynn?” Logan asked me now, and I nodded to show him that my neck wasn’t broken and that I was fine. I felt a little sore, but I had luckily not hurt my burns very much at all.

Kate and Todd now came into my vision, and my head hurt from the fall. I still couldn’t believe that I had actually just fallen down the stairs. Was I really so tired and out of it that I would fall down the stairs?

When someone reached out a hand for me to take, I only stared at it for a moment. I thought that it was a figment of my imagination at first, but I then looked over to see that the hand was connected to Johnny, who was smiling down at me.

I took his hand, biting the inside of my lip and hoping that it would have stopped the blush that I knew was creeping up my neck to my face. Hopefully he would have just thought that my face was just red from my fall.

“Maybe I could drive you home,” Johnny offered, and I wanted nothing more than to let him do so, but I then remembered where I now lived. He knew where Zach lived, since they were best friends and everything, so having him drive me was definitely out of the question.

“Um, that’s alright,” I declined, brushing myself off after I was standing up straight. “I was actually going to go over to Kate’s house today. Maybe some other time?”

The blonde boy smiled at me. “Definitely.”

“We should go now, Maxynn,” Kate now said, suddenly grabbing onto my arm and pulling me away from the boys standing before me slightly. “Bye, Todd!”

The boy she had said goodbye to waved, and I did as well. I nodded my goodbye at the other three boys before me, knowing that I was going to have to see Zach back at his house in only fifteen minutes.

“That boy definitely likes you,” Kate giggled, still clutching onto my arm tightly as she led me toward the parking lot of the school. “He wanted to drive you home! If only you didn’t live with Zach.”

I let out a breath. “I know…”

“He might be Zach’s best friend, but you should give him a chance,” Kate nodded now as we finally got to her car. “He’s super cute and sweet! Not to mention that he obviously likes you, Maxynn!”

My cheeks still burned, but I pretended like they weren’t. If what Kate was saying was true, I would have actually been really happy about it. I already knew that I had feelings for Johnny Walker, even though I hadn’t admitted it out loud just yet.

Even though I had told the boys that I was going over to Kate’s house, I decided to go back to Zach’s house so I could sleep instead of hang out with her. I had a long day, and I really just needed something to eat before I rested.

“Bye, Maxynn!” Kate called out once she parked in front of Zach’s house. “We’ll devise a plan to get you and Johnny together later!”

I glared at my best friend. “Shut up!”

My best friend cackled as she sped off, and I rolled my eyes at her before turning back toward Zach’s house. Much to my surprise, the aforementioned boy was standing right before me, leaning against his car as he said, “So… you and Johnny, huh?”

“Ah!” I shouted, covering my mouth after I had done so. I did not expect to see him there, and he had pretty much just heard that I liked Johnny… This was not going to end up well!

“She was just teasing me about how nice he was to me after I fell down the stairs,” I snapped, walking right passed him and making my way inside the house, Zach right behind me. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Oh, you’re home! Did you two drive together?” Brianna asked, suddenly popping out from the kitchen before looking between her son and me with a smile on her face.

“Nah, we just happened to get home at the same time,” Zach shrugged, and I would have rolled my eyes at him if we weren’t standing before his mother.

“Oh, okay. Well, Elizabeth and I are going to go pick Ethan up from school and then we’re going to go shopping for dinner,” Brianna informed me, a wide smile on her face just like always. “You can make yourself something, because we’re going to be gone for a while.”

I nodded while Zach dropped his backpack off by the stairs, and I didn’t even think he was listening to her. I was expecting as much from Zach though, so I only turned toward the kitchen after Brianna left without saying a single word to her son.

For some reason, I was craving a smoothie. I looked around the kitchen for the blender, my eyes widening when they finally landed on it.

I stared at it for a moment, remembering how my mother would make me a smoothie every day when I came home from school when I was in elementary and middle school. It stopped for some reason after I entered high school, and I was pretty sure it was because I always had so much homework to do when I got home.

I picked a few pieces of fruit from a bowl on the kitchen island, making my way over to the blender and plugging it in. I tried not to think of my mother or the things that people had said at school. All I tried to focus on was the smoothie that I was making.

“So,” a voice said from the doorway, but I didn’t even turn away from the fruit that I was putting in the blender, “I heard those rumors that have been flying around school about you.”

“Did you, now?” I questioned, still not turning away from the blender as I now added yogurt.

“Yeah,” he nodded, taking a step closer to me now to examine what I was doing. “So… did you do it? Did you set the fire?”

I turned on him now, my grip on the apple I was holding tightening so much that it smashed right in my hands. This didn’t matter to me though; I just put it right into the blender anyway.

“Of course I didn’t set the fire,” I snapped at him, barely believing that he even asked me that question. “I would never do something like that to my own mother! I would never do something like that to anyone ever!”

Zach rolled his eyes, nudging me in the side. I didn’t know if it was because I was still weak from the fall down the stairs or if he had just nudged me too hard, but I ended up flying forward, pushing the button that turned the blender on, not even realizing that the lid wasn’t on. In a matter of seconds, sloppy goo exploded all over the kitchen, completely covering both Zach and me.

“Way to go, Blanche,” I hissed at him, looking down at my ruined clothing.

“Please don’t set me on fire,” he pleaded jokingly, and I felt the tears well up in my eyes just at the thought of a fire. How could anyone think that I would kill my mother? I had gone from being an almost nobody at school to the main gossip!

“I didn’t set that fire!” I shouted now, happy that no one else was home to see the mess we had made or to witness the fight that was going on now. “I would never do that to anyone, especially my mother!”

“Aw, Maxxy, it’s alright,” Zach smirked, taking a step towards me, which only caused me to take a step back. “Don’t be angry with me.”

“I have every right to be angry with you!” I continued on now, finally fed up with everything he had ever done to me. “All you ever do is make fun of me or tease me! When you’re not doing that, you just try to hit on me even though I obviously don’t like you! News flash, Zach, not every single girl is attracted to you! Your personality is the biggest turn-off a person could have!”

Zach merely smirked like he always did, getting closer and closer to me with every word I said. I felt like taking the blender and hitting him over the head with it, but I knew that that would probably do no good for my I’m-not-a-murderer case.

“Something to make you feel better,” he whispered, suddenly leaning forward and pressing his lips right to mine. My eyes were wide, and I couldn’t believe what he was doing, so I only stood there in shock for what seemed like the longest time.

I quickly pushed him away, not believing that he had actually had the nerve to kiss me like it was absolutely nothing. I knew he had kissed probably a thousand girls before, so it didn’t mean anything to him, but it meant something to me. Kissing wasn’t something that I just did with anybody. I wasn’t like Zachary Deveraux.

"You idiot,” I spat, rubbing at my lips and turning away from him when I felt more tears come to my eyes. I didn’t know why I wanted to cry so much, but I couldn’t let myself cry in front of him. He never would have let me live it down if I cried in front of him.

I quickly turned, running passed him and right out of the kitchen. I made my way up the stairs, not even caring that I had pieces of fruit and yogurt all over me.

I slammed my bedroom door shut behind me, collapsing onto my bed and letting out the sobs that I had been holding in since I had gotten home. Everyone at school thought I was a murderer, and Zach wasn’t helping out with anything at all. He was just trying to make my life even more miserable.

When I heard my door open, I immediately chucked a pillow at him. He caught it easily, causing me to curse inside my head.

“Come on, a kiss isn’t a big deal at all,” Zach drawled, rolling his eyes at me as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Unless that was your first kiss or something… Which it shouldn’t have been, considering the fact you’re at least a seventeen-year-old senior.”

It wasn’t my first kiss. It was just… I was so stressed out and I hated him so much that that kiss was so much worse than it was supposed to be.

"You know what? Listen to me,” I started, my hands balled into fists at my side. “Listen to me and listen to me good.”

Zach looked intrigued and smug at the same time. “Okay, continue.”

“I know you’re a player, so let's play a game,” I started, my eyebrows furrowing at him as he continued to sit on the bed across from me. “Let's sweet talk, let's play fight, and let's talk all day, every day. Let's tell each other good morning and good night every day. Let's take walks together and give each other nicknames. Let's hang out with each other’s friends and let's go on dates. Let's talk to each other all night long and let's hold each other. Let's kiss and hug. And whoever falls in love first... loses.” 

Zach smirked at me, one eyebrow raised. I didn’t know if he was thinking about what he was going to say, or if he was just sitting there to annoy me.

“Okay,” he nodded, and the tough look on my face didn’t change. “I’ll play your game. It sounds like it would be fun.”

I made a face at him now, not agreeing with him at all. This wouldn’t have been fun, but I needed to teach Zach Deveraux a lesson. He treated girls like they were objects, and I wanted him to know what it would have been like to be used. He had left so many girls heartbroken, and now it was his turn to know how it felt.

“But I can still do things with other girls, right?” he just had to ask, and I wanted to bash his head in for it.

“Yes,” I answered, my eyebrows furrowing at the pig that sat before me. “And I can do things with other guys.”

Zach snorted. “If you could even get another guy.”

I stood up from my bed, pushing on his shoulders so he was now lying on my bed on his back. I stared down at him menacingly, thinking about how I was now this guy’s technical girlfriend. He looked like he was expecting me to do something to him, but all I felt like was kicking him where it would hurt the most.

“So what happens when you lose?” he asked when he saw I wasn’t about to get on top of him.

“If I lose,” I started, making sure to correct him as I did so, “I have to tell everyone at our school that I love you.”

“That’ll be a sight to see,” Zach nodded now, lacing his fingers behind his head as he continued to look up at me.

“But if you lose, you have to tell everyone that you’re in love with me,” I smirked now, crossing my arms over my chest and just imagining that actually happening. “And you have to do it in front of everyone. You also have to go to every single girl you’ve ever done anything with and apologize for playing them.”

“Do girls who no longer go to the school count?”

I felt my right eye twitch. “No.”

Zach nodded now, looking like I had just made his job ten thousand times easier, which I’m sure I had. I had no idea how many girls he had really been with, and I honestly didn’t want to know the answer…

So we shook on it, making it official. There was no way either of us could get out of it.

I would make Zach Deveraux fall in love with me, no matter what I had to do. I wasn’t going to lose this game. This player was about to get played.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't own the quote that Maxynn uses to initiate the game with Zach! I changed it up a little bit, but the original quote isn't mine. xP

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! This is for the 2012 Watty Awards! :D