Chapter 35: Enemies or friends?

Flashback

Their teacher was already calling them to the presentation.

Sienna could feel everyone’s eyes on them. The project failed terribly and let alone the first place, they weren’t placed anywhere. Their project was disqualified.

And when the judges asked what had gone wrong, Sienna said the first thing that came to her, "Callahan changed the wiring."

To that, Callahan did not say anything to defend himself.

Sienna only discovered the next day that the faulty component had nothing to do with him.

Someone else had knocked the model over while moving another project.

Sienna knew she should apologize but when she approached him, he walked away. She never apologized and he never asked her to.

After that, something changed between them. They still competed and argued but the easy certainty between them was gone. They didn’t know where the other party stood.

At thirteen, someone started a rumor that Callahan liked her.

Sienna nearly choked on her lunch when she heard it. The thought of it was ridiculous and horrifying.

Unfortunately, everyone else found it hilarious so they wouldn’t stop talking.

Callahan was teased about it for an entire week.

Sienna kept her distance, pretending either she didn’t know of the rumor or she didn’t care, though every time someone mentioned his name with hers, her face burned, probably from shame.

Then one afternoon, someone asked him directly whether the rumor was true.

Callahan looked irritated, "I’d rather fail every exam for the rest of my life than like her."

Unbeknownst to him, Sienna had overheard those words, standing by the entrance of the classroom, "As if I want to have anything with him..."

Years passed, but nothing about them changed. Or at least, that was what Sienna liked to believe.

Callahan remained the one person capable of ruining her mood merely by walking into a room. Their rivalry only sharpened as they grew older, becoming less childish and far more vicious.

The competitions became bigger, the stakes higher, and neither of them was willing to surrender even the smallest victory.

By fourteen, they were competing for everything; examinations, debate competitions, business case contests, school elections and even ridiculous things that should never have become competitions in the first place.

If Sienna finished a race first, Callahan would beat her record the following week.

If Callahan won an academic competition, Sienna would spend the next month preparing for the next one.

When she topped the midterm examinations, he took first place in the finals.

When he received the school’s highest academic honor, she beat him at the national debate competition two weeks later.

Neither of them ever admitted that they were keeping track. Everyone else did it for them.

Their classmates had long since stopped saying their names separately.

"Callahan and Sienna are fighting again."

"Where is Sienna? Callahan is already here."

"Callahan won."

"Sienna got first."

"Did you hear what Callahan said?"

"Ask Sienna. She’ll know."

Callahan and Sienna were spoken of as though they were a single existence with two names.

They were always there. Always somehow finding their way back into each other’s orbit.

Their names had somehow become permanently attached, as though one could not exist without dragging the other into the conversation.

Even teachers did it.

"If Callahan has submitted his project, Sienna should be finished too."

"If Sienna is participating, Callahan will probably participate."

Once, their history teacher announced a competition and sighed before anyone had even volunteered, "I suppose I should simply put aside two certificates now."

The entire class laughed.

Sienna glared at Callahan across the room.

He was already looking at her with that cocky smirk on his face.

She mouthed, I hate you.

His lips moved in response. Likewise.

She hated him even more. Yet, somehow, they were always together even though it was not by choice. That was how Sienna explained it to herself.

After all, they simply happened to attend the same school. Their families moved in the same circles. Their academic interests overlapped. Their names appeared on the same lists.

There were perfectly reasonable explanations for everything.

So when she found herself sitting beside him in the library one rainy afternoon, she blamed the lack of empty seats.

When they ended up sharing a borrowed umbrella after school because neither of them had brought one, she blamed the weather.

When she realized he knew exactly how she took her coffee, she blamed the number of years they had spent arguing over drinks at school events.

When she borrowed his notes without asking and discovered that he had already marked the pages she needed, she told herself it was because he was annoyingly observant.

And when he started appearing beside her whenever she stayed late at school, she refused to wonder why.

They were still at each other’s throats and that part never changed.

The afternoon they got locked inside a classroom during a school event and spent nearly an hour arguing about whose fault it was before eventually sitting on the floor and eating the snacks they had found in someone’s bag.

The time Sienna fell asleep over her textbooks in the library and woke to find her books stacked neatly beside her and the lights still on.

She never asked who had done it because she never needed to. There were only two people who would have been there that late.

And Callahan was the last person she wanted to thank. So she simply didn’t.

Instead, the next morning, she dropped a packet of his favorite candy onto his desk.

When he looked at her questioningly, she shrugged, "I had too many."

He looked at the candy and then, he looked at her, "You’re terrible at lying."

"Then don’t eat it."

He did.

She pretended not to notice.

That was how it continued between them. They would fight and compete relentlessly and irritate each other.

And somewhere along the way, without either of them deciding it, they became familiar in a way that no one else could understand.

Callahan knew when Sienna was pretending not to be nervous.

Sienna knew when Callahan was angry even when his face remained perfectly expressionless.

He knew which subjects she hated.

She knew which teachers he couldn’t stand.

He knew she always tapped her pen three times before an examination.

She knew he never touched the food on his plate if he was worried about something.

They knew each other too well for enemies. They knew each other too stubbornly to become friends. So they remained somewhere in between.