A/N: Hey guys! Thank you massively for all the support with this story! Nearly 1800 reads! So here we go with another chapter! I hope this one is ok, had to rush it a little as i've got lots of work so wont be able to update for a few days! If you have a spare second, please check out the chapter for my upcoming fanfic that i'll be writing when this one has finished - Its called Unexpected Turn and i hope you like it! Love you guys so much!! If you want me to read any of your stories feel free to message me and i'll read them! <3 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Beth’s POV

“I don’t know if I want to hear it.” I said quickly as Sam began to speak. I’d just managed to butt in before he said Conor’s name. I don’t know if I could handle this. For once I thought my life was going perfectly, I’d got over all the hate from school after Zack, Conor, Sam and Peter had spread stuff around school for them to leave me alone and I’d realised that there was definitely some chemistry between Conor and I, did I want to hear what Sam was going to say? Did I want to know the truth or carry on being happy and being clueless? Whatever Sam is ready to say, I can already see Conor shifting awkwardly like he doesn’t want to know my reaction. Sam has an evil grin on his face, though, which scares but also intrigues me.

“You sure?” Sam asked in a way that said ‘you know you want to’ more than anything.

“She says she doesn’t want to hear it so just shut up!” Conor hissed, looking a lot calmer. Truth was, in the back of my head it was niggling at me; They’d talked about Fiona, whoever she was and mentioned brothers and relationships they had – I really needed to know about that. Do I want to hear all this bad news just to find that out? Or play innocent?

Ah screw it. I NEED to know.

“Actually…” You say hopefully. “I want to know everything.” The grin on Sam’s face only grew larger and Conor put his head in his hands. Whatever Sam was going to tell me, it was going to be bad. Really bad.

“Well, where to begin…” Sam teased Conor, tapping his chin. “There was this girl, Fiona, who we both knew from childhood. She was a great friend of ours and we saw her every other weekend, she was beautiful and kind and caring and sweet. I told Conor that I liked her and he told me he liked her too. We promised each other for the sake of our friendship we would both put the feelings we had for her behind us.” Sam looked over to Conor in a way that was caring yet angry.

“What friendship did you and Conor have at this time?” I said harsher than I meant. Obviously he’d just said they knew each other as children! Sam took a deep breath in and out.

“You can’t tell anyone because no one knows. We’re brothers.” My jaw dropped and my eyes widened. Part of me felt like everything suddenly made sense but the other part of me couldn’t believe it had actually been said. Those two were the most opposite people could be; One was a popular kid with black hair and brown eyes, the other a rebel with blue eyes and brown hair. The hate for each other was obvious from the moment Conor was moved into our class but I didn’t realise they had that much of a history...

“Anyway,” Sam carried on. “Two days after that discussion, Fiona let slip that she’d kissed Conor and they were going out. He jeopardised our brotherly friendship for a girl, and I was left heartbroken. Well, to make matters worse, he cheated on her after they’d been together for a while and she came to me for comfort but I couldn’t make a move because she was upset over my brother. The argument we had that evening was the worst one ever.”

“But you still lived together? In the same house?” I interrupted again.

“Yes. Our parents and younger brother wouldn’t have accepted one of us leaving very well at all. So we lived together but never spoke. The only person who knew about us was Zack because he was living with us.” Sam stretched his neck out a little by moving his head from side to side before continuing. “Anyway, we finally got onto talking terms again and I thought we’d begin to build the bridge. Then he came into our classroom and screwed everything up again, embarrassing me in front of my friends and acting like a hero all the time.”

“I did not!” Conor protested, flinging his arms in the air. “If you’re going to tell the story, at least do it properly!”

“Fine, whatever.” Sam said. I was beyond speechless, I think my brain was an hour behind the rest of me. “Anyway, the day you saved us from getting in trouble Zack had asked Conor to skip Business and hang out with the rebel group but Conor declined saying he had to ‘follow up on some guy who was flirting with a girl he liked’” Sam said, wiggling his fingers like inverted speech marks. “He then realised that news travels fast in this school and he’d get found out, so he knew he had to act on his lie.” I really didn’t like where this was going. I could feel my heart speeding up with every sentence. We were definitely building up to something bad, I could feel it.

“He found me in the corridor on the way to business and explained his situation and said he needed some help. No offence to you, Beth, but we just had to pick whoever was most appropriate in business and who fit the bill best. You were the prettiest but also we know you strived for a bit of popularity, so you’d fall for it right away. The plan was I would flirt with you and build it up and he would have a fight with me and it’d all be over. Of course, naturally, having to hang out with you and be in contact with you all the time brought you into the limelight and the more we stuck up for you, the more we recognised those same types of feelings we’d had before were coming back. We were both falling for you. When I tried to kiss you and Conor threw me out of the house I knew there were feelings then. We confronted each other in the hallway and talked it over, saying we needed to do the same as what we’d done with Fiona, but STICK TO IT.” Sam raised his voice for the last three words and looked slyly over to Conor who practically cowered into the corner of my room. I took a sharp breath in and out and prepared myself to hear the worst of it, or was that the worst of it? My mine is still lagging. I can’t get over they are brothers!

“But I broke it and I kissed you today and Sam thinks I’ve betrayed him and want to lose him as a brother but the truth is I want the both of you in my life and Sam’s just making it fucking difficult because he likes you too!” Conor urged. “The end. Here we are, stuck here still in the same fucking predicament!” Finally absorbing the last bit of information, it finally hit me; they were both willing to use me to stop Conor getting in trouble with Zack! How could they? Why me? All this stuff with Business class had been a lie? I could feel a horrible piercing, stinging feeling in the back of my throat as it felt like it was swelling. The corners of my eyes tingled as I could feel the tears building up.

“Just leave.” I choked out. Conor instantly got up and walked towards the door.

“My feelings for you are still real.” He said as he walked out of my bedroom door.

“I meant both of you.” I hissed as I noticed Sam casually standing there with a smirk on his face, which quickly dropped as he shuffled out of my room. I ran to the door and locked it, letting a massive sob out as I did so. I fell to my knees and put my head against the door as I let the tears fall onto my knees. How could they do this to me? Is this what it feels like to reach the top and fall straight back down again? It made me think back to all the times I heard rumours of popular people being dropped by their boyfriends, girlfriends and friends and Mandy, Olivia and I would giggle about it saying they put themselves in that situation. Now I know I was wrong. Very wrong. I grabbed my phone and dialled a number, pulling it up to my ear but it felt like a dead weight in my arm.

“Hello? Beth?” Olivia’s voice was calming to my ears. I felt like I’d dropped her for these guys. “Beth, are you ok?”

“I’m so sorry.” I poured out my feelings to her. Guilt washed over to me. “I feel like I dropped you guys for them and it has all gone wrong!”

“What are you talking about?” I knew she was trying to be nice despite agreeing wholeheartedly with what I was saying.

“You know damn well, Olivia. I saw the chance to get popular and find a guy and I forgot all about you guys. My judgement was clouded and my decisions were all wrong. I’m so sorry.” I shook my head and I could feel my forehead getting sore from the friction against the door. My knees were soggy from the tears.

“It’s fine, Beth, you didn’t ignore us and think you were better than us so it’s not too bad. We can fix this.” Olivia, as always, did her best to try and glue the pieces back together.

“The cracks are still going to be there though. I’ve screwed it all up…” I said as I lay down on my back on the floor. I tried to look up at the ceiling but my tears were just making everything blurry.

“Seriously, Beth, I don’t hate you. I was a little annoyed but thinking about it I would have done the same! It is Conor and Sam we’re talking about!” She let out a little giggle and I felt a warmth in my heart like everything was fitting back into place. Maybe I was never meant to be with either of them, maybe it was a lesson I was meant to learn from.

All I know is it’s going to take a lot to sort this out. I’ve just got to work out what to do…