Page 17 of Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

usually older, parents and grandparents for the most part. I’m always a pinch surprised when someone our age knows Ashley from her TV days.

Not to mention my sister is pretty low key.

She goes to her private music school two towns over, keeps away from parties and the Silver Springs youth. She’s also not a bragger. You’d never be able to tell when meeting her that she’s approaching two million subscribers on YouTube, or that she was loaded by age six.

“My mom’s obsessed with those damn talent shows,” Theo elaborates. “She’s watching reruns of her favorites right now. Not a single episode goes by that she doesn’t talk my ears off about that winner who was born and raised here. Ashley, is it?”

I nod.

“I looked her up. She’s good.”

Believe me, she knows.

“She’s also hot. Like very.” Theo smirks.

She knows that, too.

Yes, Ashley’s got the whole package: the voice of an angel, tanned, slim with all the right curves, amber eyes, long honey hair. People used to refer to her as “the beauty of the family,” which, naturally, made me feel like the ugly duckling. But my dad liked to say we were equally beautiful.

Only different kinds of beautiful.

Took me years to understand what he meant by that.

I know now that my sister is not as much prettier than me as she is flashier. She’s a bit like Dia in that sense. Ash is the very definition of femininity. She wears flattering dresses, the right makeup to accentuate her God-given beauty, spends thousands on a hair mask for her golden locks to be just the perfect amount of shiny.

She wants people to be looking at her.

Me? Not so much.

I felt so overshadowed by my sister as a child that I eventually embraced my “Casper the Ghost” status and committed to being invisible. I wore oversized sweatshirts and boyish jeans for most of my childhood. I still do to this day. I didn’t bother with my hair, let alone pretty dresses.

What’s the point? It’s not like anyone’s going to notice.

“She single?” Theo shoots his shot.

I bite back a smile.

“I’d get you a date with her, but she’s not doing charity this time of year.”

Finn, Dia, and Lacey snicker at my comeback, and I feel like that proud kid who made the whole class laugh. This has to be the first time, since the day Dia told me we’d be eating with the jocks moving forward, that I’ve felt I might sort of belong with these people.

I mostly stood by and kept my mouth shut before, but with wicked Brie gone, and Xavier-the-bully missing in action, I’m starting to realize I don’t entirely hate their company.

“Hot damn, Vee. Didn’t know you had it in you.” Finn holds his hand up for me. “Up top.”

I laugh, high-fiving him seconds before Dia loops her right arm around my neck and pulls me in for a side-hug.

“You’re ballsy, Harper. I respect that,” Theo says as he sweeps his dark, almost black hair away from his emerald-green eyes.

“But…?” I anticipate.

“I’d respect you even more if you gave me your sister’s number.”

I scoff. “Nice try, lover boy.”

Theo and Ashley together wouldn’t last a day. Theo loves the ladies too much, and Ashley’s way too smart to be seduced by a guy like him—although I suspect from her current and past boyfriends that a fit, green-eyed hottie like Theo would be exactly her type.

We play for thirty more minutes before I excuse myself to the bathroom. My phone rings as I’m washing my hands, and I step out into the kitchen to check the caller ID.