The summer we turned thirteen (Published)

Chapter thirty: The way things were

Harlee

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"I knew he didn't like me," Rachel sighed sadly as Evan hugged Farrah in response to the birthday gift Farrah had just given him.

After The Amazing Race ended, everyone had returned to the Smith's for birthday festivities. It hadn't been easy convincing Rachel to stay for the rest of the party, but right then, I wished I wouldn't have.

Now, she was even more upset than she'd been earlier.

The kissing incident had nearly brought her to tears in the costume shop. Although Evan's positive reaction to the kiss had upset her a lot, she was mainly upset because she felt betrayed and unjustly hated by someone she once called her best friend.

"If Farrah would go that far just to upset me, she must seriously hate me," she had said.

I told her she was assuming motives, but she wouldn't listen to me.

And I couldn't blame her. It was hard to tell whether or not Farrah had just kissed Evan to spite Rachel.

On the one hand, Farrah had liked Evan for a while.

For all we knew, she may have been planning that kiss for months.

But on the other hand, Farrah did sound like she was plotting revenge at Sandy's, so it could have been a revenge plan.

The way Evan treated Farrah after she kissed him was troubling me as well. Since the start of seventh grade, he'd always told James and me how much "that Harrington girl" annoyed him.

And now, he was hugging her?

When did he become attracted to Farrah?

Had the kiss emotionally bonded him to her that quickly?

Or was he just on a high from the excitement of receiving his first kiss?

I didn't know the answer. And it was frustrating me. But I had a feeling James might know the truth. After all, James was a guy, and he was Evan's closest guy friend. If anyone knew which girl he truly had feelings for, James did.

Part of me felt disloyal to Farrah for being so upset that it may have been her that Evan liked, but I couldn't help it. Evan and Rachel would mesh way better together; I could tell that just by their few interactions with one another.

Besides, Farrah was high maintenance, and Evan couldn't handle high maintenance. Rachel was the kind of girl who would appreciate Evan for who he was and not try to mold him into what she wanted him to be.

Not to say there was no one out there that could handle Farrah.

But I knew that someone surely wasn't Evan.

I patted Rachel on her arm, trying to comfort her as Evan started opening his next gift. Hopefully, this party could end soon enough.

"I'm sorry, Rachel," I said for like the tenth time since the costume shop.

Rachel smiled at me like she was okay, but I knew she wasn't.

I wished there were more I could do to resolve the conflict between her and Farrah. But the more I tried, the more I realized it wasn't my battle to fight. In the past, James had always told me, "You can't fix everyone's problems." He'd also said that "Some things you just need to let play out the way they're supposed to."

I found the advice to be conflicting with my personality.

I'd never been the kind to wait for fate to decide things.