A/N Hello you beautiful people! I hope you are all well! I'm finally back from my holiday and i'm ready to post up another chapter. This one is a good one too!! ;) I hope you guys enjoy it and as always; comment, vote, follow and promote if you want to but most of all ENJOY IT!! Love you guys so so much!! <3 xxxx

Sam’s POV

The rumours were spreading like wildfire and there was no way it would stop soon. I couldn’t contain it and I could already see the cracks forming in my friendship group. Daisy came up and questioned me about the fact I was round Beth’s house instead of meeting up with them, I kindly reminded her that I did leave with Peter and met up with them all but she shouted in my face and stormed off. Some of my friends hadn’t said anything but I could see the way they looked at me had changed; No longer did they look at me with admiration and respect, it was now confusion.

“Is it true you tried to kiss her?” A random kid came up to me as I stood at my locker. I opened it to get my books out and overheard some people gossiping so I’d stopped to listen to it, then went into my own world thinking about everything… I should have been thankful this kid brought me back to reality before people started to notice my blank expression and began to make rumours about why I was upset but instead a fire was growing in the pit of my stomach. Why couldn’t these people leave us all alone? Why was this rumour so exciting for everyone? Many people had done worse and more interesting things but they didn’t get the same response!

“Excuse me?” I spat, not even turning my head to look at him. I just stared into the back of my locker.

“Is it true that you tried to kiss Beth?” I gritted my teeth and punched the locker beside mine letting out a frustrated yelp.

“What does it matter to you? Who even are you?  How is finding that out going to affect you? Just leave us all alone! God Damn It!” I shouted into my locker and suddenly a deathly silence fell over the hallway, no footsteps could be heard. I could barely hear anyone breathing.

“Only because I heard Conor kissed her later that day… I just wanted to know if you were alright.” The kid’s voice was now much more timid and scared. I heard his footsteps get further and further away and I buried my head in my hands, my elbows leaning on the bottom of my locker. What was happening? I was the most popular guy in the year and nothing was said about me, suddenly now I’m the centre of attention with all these rumours.

“Wait!” I shouted through my hands. I could feel a lump forming in my throat and my eyes began to sting. The idea that Conor kissed her made me mad but for some reason it hurt me too. This was meant to be a plan to help Conor get out of his issue with Zack… I finally built up the courage to look the kid in the face, even though he was ten feet away from me. “What did you say?”

“I heard that Conor kissed her that night.” He shrugged, his sympathy had gone and he was only saying it to be polite now. “But hey, you seem alright.” He turned around and walked away, the rest of the hallway staring intently at me, waiting for me to slip up.

“What are you all staring at?” I shouted to a thousand unfamiliar faces. They all slowly looked away and began to move to their lessons. I had Business; usually I’d be running there to make sure I could add my bit to the work and pass this stupid course but instead I had a sudden feeling of hatred for it. That stupid course and that stupid teacher had got me here! But wait… It wasn’t only them. It was Conor. If he hadn’t have come into our class in the first place I wouldn’t have got up to fight him and Beth wouldn’t have dropped her pencil case to save us AND THEN I wouldn’t have been late! The bell rang and I threw what I needed into my bag, slamming my locker shut and storming down the hallway towards the class I suddenly despised. It was only made worse by seeing Conor smugly walking towards the classroom from the opposite direction as me. I sped up and walked past the door to the class to stand in front of him.

“Well I hope you’re happy now!” I spat. Conor just let out a small laugh and shrugged.

“I am, thank you. Zack believed every word and it seems the whole school has too!” I folded my arms but I could feel my muscles tensed. I wanted to punch him so badly.

“Well, I’m still waiting for a thank you? You know, for helping you out? I did put my reputation on the line to flirt with a nobody to get you out of trouble. I’m so glad everyone bought into it. I’m now the guy everyone is coming to see about the rumours. Some kid came up to me and asked me if it was true that you kissed Beth after I went!” I vented to him. I could still see it didn’t bother him.

“They already know about that?” Conor said quietly and I felt my stomach drop. So he did kiss her? I don’t know why but I felt like my world had been crushed. How could he do that to her? To me?

“Are you kidding me?” I snapped.

“What?” He said in a laugh. His smug personality always got to me. Why couldn’t he just act like himself?

“After everything, you go and kiss her? I thought this was all just to get Zack to believe you?” I knew this was showing him my weak side, he’d know I had feelings for Beth that I’d tried to hide for so long.

“Sam, Sam, Sam. You really are an idiot…” Conor said in a patronising tone. “Originally the plan was for you to flirt with her so I could have a fight with you. I told Zack I needed to stay in that lesson to keep an eye on you! When you tried to kiss her I knew you had these feelings but it only meant the story was more believable so I played up on it. We’re going to have a fight after this lesson because you found out I kissed her.” All his words cut through me, stabbing at my heart and making me feel so small and helpless. I couldn’t believe how vindictive he was.

“So what you’re telling me is that you’re just using her to get to me?” I tried to turn the statement around on him and make him look bad. For once I wish people would see that he had a bad side instead of thinking he was an angel in comparison to me, the one who tried to be popular.

“Well that was originally the plan, but actually she’s a pretty decent girl…” He admitted, instantly regretting saying that out loud to me.

“You have feelings for her too? Oh great!” I flung my arms up in the air. We both knew this was bad news and we both knew how this would end.

“You weren’t meant to develop feelings for her, you fool!” Conor was finally showing his feelings. “This was meant to be a simple plan.”

“Why not just tell Zack the truth? You don’t want to skip class anymore because you want to get a good job?” I’m glad no one was in the hallway at the time, because I was showing how much I knew about him. People thought we were sworn enemies but the truth was we knew more about each other than anyone else…

“That’s not going to go down well is it? I’m in the group that doesn’t care about grades and school and jobs. I’m meant to be a rebel!” He said, urgency in his voice. “I need to keep up appearances!”

“So do I!” I hissed. “I’m meant to be the popular guy who could have any girl and will just flirt and charm his way through life, but I want to pass and get good grades.”

“Well we’re both frigging screwed then aren’t we?” Conor said bluntly. “We can’t get out of this any easier.”

“For once I agree with what you say.” I looked down at the floor. It had been a very long time since Conor and I agreed on anything… “But we need to get out of this mess before it gets any worse.”

“How?” Conor pinched the bridge of his nose, something he always used to do when he was stressed. “We’re both falling for the same girl and we both have groups that are beginning to realise we’re not the people we used to be!”

“We-” I began but Conor interrupted.

“This is just like last time.” He said to me, looking at me scared. We both knew it was true but I didn’t want to admit it. “We can’t let it end like that again…”

“What do you care about how it ends?” I said harsher than I’d meant to. He never made it seem like it’d bothered him before, so why say it now?

“I cared. I just didn’t want to look weak. I miss how we were, how we used to be. We were the best of friends, we would argue but forgive each other the same day, we’d have joint parties and hang out with the same friends…” Conor’s eyes looked glazed over. He looked upset. How did we let it get to this? How did what we used to have end up being pushed away and the stupid issues we have cloud everything. “To this. We don’t even speak. All over a girl we don’t even talk to anymore…”

“I know, Conor.” I sighed heavily and ran my fingers through my hair. “We let our feelings over a stupid girl get between us. But at the end of the day, you still meant something to me. You always will because you’re my brother…”