Page 3 of The Rebel (Covington Prep: The Girls We Love #7)

I stopped her right there. “New car? What new car?”

Gabby hooked her arm in mine. “I was keeping it a surprise. I got it for my birthday.”

“What? You didn’t tell me!”

“I know, I know.” She rambled on about her brand new metallic red Mazda, a hybrid which was better for the environment.

“You said your parents got you a new phone.”

She unzipped her pocket and held up the newest edition phone, smiling with all teeth bared. “I did.”

I gasped. Gabby had gotten a phone and a car. I was instantly jealous. But also insanely pleased for my best friend. Now I wouldn’t have to borrow Mom’s car.

“Hey,” Gabby said, pulling me to a halt.

She clicked her phone screen and swiped on it, clicking on her camera and holding it up for a selfie.

I let my mouth widen and my cheeks puff out into a smile, but my heart had lost its usual rhythm.

It was skipping and pounding and trembling all at once, if that was in fact possible.

Probably Gabby’s Dad would know—he was a cardiac surgeon. “Ahh, so cute.”

Gabby kept snapping photos of our ever-changing, over-the-top facial expressions—totally normal for us whenever a phone was thrust in our face, and momentarily I thought my eyes had deceived me, that I might have imagined the fleeting glance of her screensaver, her new screensaver.

Scott suddenly jumped up on Gabby from behind.

“Me too,” he said, coming into view on the screen, hooking his arm around Gabby’s shoulder and squeezing his face next to hers, so close that their red cheeks were touching.

That’s when I turned my head to watch it in real time and not on the screen in front of me. Right as Scott’s lips puckered and planted a kiss on the side of Gabby’s face, confirming that her new screensaver was no longer one of us together, but one of her and Scott.

Okay, now I really did need Dr. Pelzer because my breathing had stopped and the heart palpitations were absolutely not normal.

“Look this way,” Gabby instructed, her thumb clicking away. “Vali, look!”

I turned my face back to the screen, three of us jammed together, but only two people were smiling. My eyes had gone wide and blank and all I could think was that besides her car, there was something else Gabby hadn’t told me about.

Gabby stopped taking photos and put her phone in her pocket.

With a giggle, she shoved Scott away and pulled me along.

“I’ve got something else to tell you,” she said in a low voice, “I’ve been dying for you to get back so I could tell you in person.

” She looked over her shoulder. Scott hadn’t followed us; he was looking down the path to the others who were lagging behind.

Gabby’s voice cracked with excitement. “Scott asked me out. At my birthday party.”

Her eyes were sparkling, she was fizzing like a bottle of champagne, and there was the stark realization that I had to be happy for her. She expected me to be happy for her.

“Really?” It was all I could utter, though it was a wonder I could speak at all, not with betrayal clouding my heart.

Scott had held my hand on Halloween night and Thanksgiving.

Was that because he’d thought I’d been genuinely afraid or about to get lost in the crowd?

When he’d squeezed it firmly, had I totally misread his smile, confused his friendship for something more?

“Yesssss,” Gabby said in a low squeal, “and we went to the movies the next day, and we’ve been hanging out. We drove to Falls Creek together.”

“In...in your new car?” It was all I could think of to say, but what I really wanted to know was Has he kissed you? I’d been dreaming about kissing Scott for two months now.

“Yeah, I drove,” she said. “Ahhh, can you believe it, Valencia?” She was almost drooling.

“Look, he gave me this.” She reached beneath her jacket sleeve and showed me a thin blue braided leather bracelet.

I admired it like it was fine jewelery, but I was devastated—it was the one that Scott used to wear.

Scott had given Gabby his bracelet, declaring that he was her boyfriend, like giving someone your hoodie.

Or maybe he’d done that too. Maybe under her ski parka she was wearing one of Scott’s hoodies.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Gabby said, her smile lighting up her whole face, radiant and bright like the snow around us. “I’m so happy.”

“Uuuh, uhhhhh.” Now I was verging on a meltdown.

Not only was my best friend dating my crush, it sounded like she was crazy about him.

I couldn’t rain on her parade now. I had to un-crush on Scott straight away.

I had to keep my silly little secret locked away in the deepest, darkest vault.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it, oh no, I had to pretend to be happy for Gabby, too.

“Are you okay?” My friend’s blue eyes narrowed a little.

I cleared my throat with a gulp. “I must’ve swallowed some ice,” I said, hoping she didn’t know the redness in my cheeks was a flush of shame and not the invigorating air.

“We’re going snow tubing next weekend. You have to come with us,” Gabby said as she turned around to see where Scott was.

On her gesture, he came racing toward us.

My heart sunk as he took hold of Gabby’s sled and hauled it up for her.

That was a little daydream I’d had, Scott pulling my sled and the two of us sledding together, my arms wrapped tightly around him.

My love for sledding suddenly vanished and I had a thought that I should fake an injury and leave.

Now I wished I had Mom’s car. It would be rude to ask Jazmyn to take me home already.

And besides, I just spent two whole weeks with my parents and didn’t want to go home sooner than was necessary.

At the top of the hill, we lined up our sleds again.

Someone shouted ‘Go’ and I pushed off as hard as I could, the hill a complete blur as I tried to comprehend this new situation.

Instead of flirting with Scott, I had to watch him and Gabby being all lovey-dovey.

And man, Scott was not holding back in his show of affection.

I witnessed him stroking Gabby’s arm, squeezing her hand, caressing her honey blonde hair and staring into her eyes.

I watched in both awe and with a pang of jealousy.

I mean, I’d hoped that it would have been me with Scott.

I had to turn off my feelings for him right away, el pronto, instantaneous.

But, it wasn’t as easy as that. Scott’s blonde hair peeked out from the front of his beanie and his hazel eyes sparkled and his cute smile sent an involuntary shiver through me.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair at all. If I hadn’t gone off to stupid Florida to watch my brother’s stupid tennis, I might have gotten the chance to get to know Scott better.

But now he was sliding down the hill with Gabby.

If my parents didn’t always prioritize Paris, that might have been me. It was all their fault!

I’d debated telling Gabby about my little crush on Scott, after all as besties we shared everything.

She knew all my celebrity and sports crushes, but I’d held back on spilling about Scott.

There were a hundred reasons not to tell, the biggest being the fear of rejection.

Scott was our friend, a talented trumpet player who loved music, and if he didn’t reciprocate my feelings, I risked ruining the whole dynamics of our friend group.

Not to mention making a fool of myself. I’d been hoping winter break might be the chance to see if there was something more between us, away from the school hallways.

But then my parents had sprung the surprise Florida vacation on me.

Now I was relieved I’d kept my mouth shut, because it seemed I’d misinterpreted the whole hand holding thing and it was Gabby he had eyes for, not me.

“Aren’t Gabby and Scott cute together?” Jazmyn said as I gravitated away from my best friend.

“Totally.” I flashed a big smile, thankful for freshman drama classes that I’d absolutely hated.

“Gabby looks so in love,” Jazmyn said. “She’s glowing.”

Glowing? I wanted to say, That’s probably from the sub zero temperatures.

But I nodded, forcing the smile to remain on my face. I drew in a shaky lungful of cool air, my resolve weakening by the moment. I wanted to be pleased for Gabby, but it was dawning on me that I was falling into an abyss, a dark cold void. My crush not crushing on me was literally crushing me.

Yeah, even though Scott probably didn’t know it, and Gabby certainly didn’t, they were wrecking me, destroying me.

I needed space.

“Hey, I’m going up to the top run,” I said.

“What? No, Vali. You can’t,” Jazmyn spluttered. “It’s not safe.”

“Of course it is. I saw some kids over there.” I kept striding up the path. The top run was steeper but it was the terrain that likely panicked Jazmyn. It wasn’t a place for the meek or mild, known for its bumped-out runs where you could lift off and catch some air.

“You weren’t here last week,” Jazmyn injected some urgency into her voice. “A boy crashed down and split his head on a rock.”

“I won’t be sledding into any rocks,” I said with an air of arrogance. Though a concussion might actually be a blessing. Then I wouldn’t have to think about the miserable turn my life had taken.

“Gabby!” Jazmyn turned around and shouted to my best friend. “Tell Valencia she’s crazy!”

I stormed ahead, not listening to the voices calling my name. Strange how the evening had gone from a high to a low, but the worst thing was that the chaos was all inside my head and I couldn’t tell anyone about it.

My best friend had done nothing wrong—yet she’d done everything wrong. She liked the boy that I liked.

It was a mess; I was a mess.

Gabby, Scott and Aaron caught me up, though it wasn’t hard—my thighs burned with the climb and I’d slowed to a snail’s pace.

“A boy got seriously hurt last week,” Gabby said, taking hold of my shoulder. “You shouldn’t do it, not in this light.”

“I’ll be fine,” I scoffed, and, completely out of my control, I could feel an ugliness seep through me, overwhelming me, and I said something I neither planned nor thought possible—I mocked Gabby. “Geez, just because you’re a wimp, doesn’t mean I am.”

Gabby’s eyes widened and her chin quivered as if I was transforming into Frankenstein’s monster right in front of her.

Quite possibly I was, my coping mechanism seeming to be the need for a burst of wild adrenaline, and if I belittled my friend in the process, so be it.

Yes, in order to protect myself from thinking about Gabby and Scott’s new relationship, I needed a mind-blowing rush, something to block out this new and shocking reality.

An unintended smirk graced my lips, my mouth operating on automatic, and I hated myself as the words tumbled out. “It’s all right, you can ride the little hill with Scott. I’m sure he’ll hold on to you and keep you safe.”

I needed to get to the top and blaze down the hill with speed. I needed the wind on my face and the crisp air to numb me. Or preferably, the sled to levitate and fly me home because I didn’t know how to grasp the fact that my best friend was dating my crush.

I picked up speed after the first jump, my sled wobbling but I controlled it as I slid further down the hill.

Veering toward another small jump, I clung tightly as I spun around, but it was in vain as I lost my grip and parted ways with my sled.

Putting my foot forward to avoid sliding into a small rock, I rolled before coming to an ungracious stop, my breath knocked out of me.

I guess I should have listened to Gabby and Jazmyn.

I lay on the cold hard hill for a moment, looking up at the sky, the light fading fast. As I recovered my sled, a flash of color headed toward me, a black and orange flash, and in a whirl I was moving again, shunted forward by another sled, changing my trajectory so that I was in line to meet a tree!

Not quick enough to redirect my sled, I could only abandon it, rolling off and sliding down the hill for a few yards until I had the lucidity to stop myself. For the second time within a minute, I was a breathless mess.

“Hey, sorry. I couldn’t stop.”

It took me a moment to register that beneath the orange beanie was Oliver Sinclair, Dani’s youngest son.

“Hey, Ollie.” I rolled over to sit up, scanning around to make sure I wasn’t about to be hit by any more sleds. I brushed the ice off of my sleeves, knowing I’d probably have a bruise somewhere tomorrow.

But Ollie gasped and his face twisted in a grimace.

It scared me and I put my hand up to my face, half expecting to see my teeth had fallen out or something. I was confused to see blood stuck to my fingertips because nothing felt broken or even painful.

“Heck, Valencia,” he gulped, his color draining from his face, “I think I might’ve broken your nose.”