Jackie sat on the King size bed while I paced back and forth and Rebecca rummaged through her duffel bag. 

"So you're telling me you're upset about two guys fighting over you?" Rebecca looked at me like I was crazy.

"I just told you," I ran my hands through my hair and tried to calm down, "Kent is the one that I kissed but never heard back from. If he couldn't be bothered to even write a letter then why should I give him the time of day?"

"Kent did write to you though, he told me he did," Jackie said and both Rebecca and I looked at her. 

"He did? But I never got any letters from Kent, only from Charlie," I explained, reaching into my duffel bag and pulling out the letters that Charlie had sent to me and showing them to Jackie. Jackie immediately looked sick. 

"I can tell you right now, without any doubt, Kent wrote to you. Multiple times," Jackie stared at me and I knew she wasn't lying. Then why had I never gotten any of his letters?

"Well, Kent's hotter than Charlie, so there's your first reason to go for him, and it sounds like he had dibs anyway," Rebecca was peaking through the master bedroom door, down into the open living room where the guys were hanging out. 

"I'm being serious, I don't know what to do or how to feel right now," I sat down next to Jackie on the bed.

"Why not hear him out? You'll never know why you didn't hear from him unless you talk to him," Jackie pointed out.

"Charlie told me that Missy and Kent reconnected though," Although I didn't have a lot of reasons to trust Charlie, it had made sense at the time why I hadn't heard from Kent. Now nothing made sense. 

"That's not true either," Jackie chirped, "Kent won't talk to Missy. If anything, Missy and Charlie have gotten closer,"

The knot in my stomach doubled. Charlie had been getting closer to Missy this whole time? 

"Missy is the crazy ex? Who cares about her? She's not here in the middle of all this testosterone, high school drama bullshit," Rebecca's choice of words sometimes hurt my head, but she had a point. 

Rebecca tore her attention away from the door and started to look through my duffel bag now. 

"I brought something with us, just in case," 

"Uh, that's my bag?" Rebecca continued to rummage around my bag. 

"I didn't have room in my bag so I put this in yours," She explained, like it was no big deal she hadn't asked or mentioned anything about it. Suddenly she pulled out a small can of mace that was bedazzled in rhinestones, "It's bear mace, stronger than regular mace,"

"You bedazzled it," I commented but Rebecca ignored me and walked back over to the door. 

"Just keep it on you, if you feel like you need to use it then use it. Then scream so I can come finish kicking their ass," Rebecca cracked the door open again, "Your friends are kinda cute though,"

"The red head is spoken for," Jackie said, peeking through the door as well to peer down at the guys. I liked Jackie and Squid together, they were cute. 

I grabbed my red sweatshirt, the one my mom had gotten me freshman year, the red one that Kent liked. Slipping it on, I started to follow the girls out of the room but Charlie was suddenly pushing his way in. 

"Are you guys okay?" Charlie asked, getting weird looks from Jackie and Rebecca who continued to leave the room.

"I think we're fine," I started to follow the girls again but this time Charlie stood right in front of me. 

"I can ask them to leave if you want me to Sadie, I want this weekend to be a good time for you,"

"It's okay, really, I'm not upset," I tried to smile up at him but something felt wrong. My stomach turned and my head was starting to hurt a little bit. I watched as Charlie composed himself and appeared to be as calm as ever, right in front of me. Something definitely was off. 

"I'm going to get them to leave, I promise," As I opened my mouth to say something, Charlie's phone began ringing again, "I have to take this, it's my mom," 

Charlie smiled and slipped into the master bathroom, the only room he could get to fast, locking the door behind him. With curiosity bubbling in my chest, I carefully inched closer to the bathroom door, pressing my ear up against the cool wood. I could hear Charlie, barely, he must have turned on the fan. My head was starting to pound now. 

"I told you not to call me anymore!" He sounded so upset, nothing like how he had sounded just moments earlier. Why would he talk to his mom like that? "I don't know why they're up here, but they need to leave!"

There was a long pause and I could hear Charlie fiddling around with things, I could hear my heart pounding. I held my breath to hear better. 

"For the last time, yes! I made sure of it. All the letters were burned, not just thrown away. Completely incinerated," My head felt fuzzy. Charlie had burned letters. My letters?

"How is it my fault you and Kent didn't get back together once she left? I can't control him!" Now I knew exactly who he was talking to. 

"Get them out of here, I swear to God if you don't-" 

I stumbled away from the door quickly in fear Charlie was going to come out any second. Charlie and Missy, of course they were behind all of this. They had sabotaged Kent and I, keeping our letters away from one another. Making up lie after lie to help Charlie get closer to me and make Kent look like the bad guy.

I rushed out of the room and hurried down the stairs, hoping Charlie would be preoccupied for a while. I needed to talk to Kent, we had to figure this out. I'm sure he was angry with me, he was probably just as lost as I was. 

The boys were lounging around the living room, a few were still drinking punch and a couple of boys had grabbed some beer. Rebecca was being quizzed about our high school by Chunk and Dylan while Jackie was pouring herself and Squid another glass. 

Kent was still in the same spot, staring right at me. 

"Kent," 

He simply smirked down at me. I hadn't realized how much I had missed that smirk, and I never thought I'd say that. 

"I need to talk to you," Kent nodded and took my hand, turning and leading me out the back door and down the patio steps to the backyard where there was a small firepit.

At first neither one of us said anything, I watched in silence as Kent piled up a few logs nearby and started trying to light them with a lighter he had in his pocket. Since when did he start carrying lighters around?

A small spark finally caught and the wood was burning in no time, Kent smiled down at his work before turning towards me with a worried expression. We didn't have time for this though. 

"Sadie, I wrote to you, I promise I did-"

"It's not your fault, Kent. It was Charlie and Missy," Our breath was visible through the chilled air, the sun was just starting to set. 

"Wait, what do you mean?" Kent cautiously reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me into his chest and wrapping his arms around me. I was instantly warm and comfortable, my head still feeling fuzzy.

"Charlie and Missy made sure that our letters never reached each other, I heard Charlie talking to her on the phone," I whispered for some reason, although we were the only ones outside right now. My headache was getting worse and it seemed like my vision was getting darker. 

"There's no fuckin' way," Kent took a deep breath and paused for a moment, then chuckled. Why would he be laughing about this? 

"I wrote to you too Kent, I promise," 

"It all makes sense now, Sadie," Kent reached up and ran a hand through his hair, letting out a loud sigh, "I gave every single letter I wrote to you to Charlie because he always offered to take them to the office. I never thought he'd do something like this though, Missy sure, but not Charlie," 

"I can't believe they went through all this trouble just for their plan to fail," I muttered. Missy and Charlie had both stolen time away from Kent and I. This whole time I thought Kent had moved on or didn't actually have feelings for me, but it was all their fault. All this time I had spent thinking Charlie was so sweet and caring, it was all a lie. 

"So you and Charlie are together?" Kent asked, wiggling his eyebrows teasingly at me. 

"It's not like that, I swear!" I quickly jumped back from Kent, "When I hadn't heard from you I started to think maybe you didn't have feelings for me after all. Then when Charlie started writing to me and telling me about how everything was normal, how you had been just fine. I thought it was only fair if I tried to move on too. . ."

"So you two aren't together?"

"No!" I snapped my head to look up at Kent, the motion made my head hurt even worse. Even though I had tried to make myself feel something for Charlie, I didn't feel anything other than friendship for him. 

"Good, then I won't feel bad about doing this," Kent grabbed my face between his hands and kissed me, sending fireworks throughout my body all the way to my toes. His tongue slipped past my lips and I immediately tasted beer. I didn't mind it though, I was finally kissing Kent again. I had dreamt about this moment happening nearly every night since the last time we kissed. 

Kent's right hand slid to the base of my neck while his left grabbed my hip to pull me against his body. His lips were warm, a lovely contrast from the air surrounding us, and surprisingly soft. My whole body began to heat up, soon enough I wouldn't realize my toes were freezing. The warmth of Kent's lips disappeared for a moment, at first I was confused but once I felt his smile against my own lips I couldn't help but smile as well. A soft sigh escaped his lips before he pressed them back against mine, harder this time. 

I reached up with both of my hands, bunching the sleeves of his shirt and stretching up on my tippy toes to try and deepen the kiss even more, although I don't think that was possible. My head was spinning and pounding at the same time, I almost felt drunk. 

"What the hell is going on?" In a split second, Kent and I were jumping away from each other and both of us stared up at Charlie who was standing on the deck above, peering down at the two of us, "I bring you all the way up here Sadie and this is how you're thanking me?" 

Charlie rushed down the steps and stomped over to where Kent and I stood, frozen in place. 

"We can talk about this Charlie, it's not Sadie's fault, I'm the one who kissed her anyway," Kent reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me behind him slightly as Charlie stopped mere inches from Kent's face, "Better yet, do you want to explain what you've been doing these past couple months?" 

Charlie completely ignored Kent and glared a hole into me with burning hatred. "You really do get around, don't you?" 

"Don't talk to her like that, ever," Kent shoved Charlie back away from both of us and Charlie stumbled for a moment before starting to laugh. He was acting completely different than I had ever seen him act before. Was he drunk? Or on something else right now?

"You don't want to do this Kent," Charlie threatened and now Kent chuckled and gently pushed me back even further, completely blocking the path between Charlie and I. 

"We can talk about this Charlie, we can be mature and figure this out. We used to be best friends, or did you forget that?" Kent sounded pissed and I didn't blame him. I wanted answers too. 

"Fuck maturity and fuck you," Charlie suddenly swung hard at Kent, landing a perfect right hook to his jaw. Kent took one step back, rubbing his jaw and laughing quietly, catching Charlie and I off guard. 

"I'll give you one more chance Charlie," Kent stood up straight, his fists balled up and jaw clenching, "Let's talk about this, before shit gets out of hand," 

I couldn't help but hold my breath, watching Charlie and Kent getting ready to fight each other, over me? How had this gotten so out of hand? Was it that big of a deal to Charlie that I didn't have the same feelings towards him? My head was aching so badly I squinted with every beat. Where was everyone else? They had to have heard the yelling. 

Without saying another word Charlie took another swing at Kent, but he was too slow. Kent deflected his fist and quickly threw a punch back, sending Charlie to his backside, holding his left eye. 

What the hell was going on!