Page 76 of Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

“What is it, baby?” Dad asked right away.

“Ew!” I’d shrieked, pointing at the wormy thing crawling up the cherry tree. “Kill it, Daddy!”

The last thing I expected was for Dad’s deep laugh to cut through the air. What’s so funny? I thought. And why is Dad bending down on one knee? I near gasped in horror when he nudged the green worm off the trunk of the tree into his cupped hands.

“Do you know what this is?” Dad inched his hands in my direction, and I recoiled, backing away. “It’s okay, honey, I promise. Come, take a look.”

Inhaling a shaky breath, I obliged, eyeing the hairy insect inside my father’s palm with the utmost attention.

I’d seen these before.

“That’s a caterpillar,” I recalled.

“It sure is, but I’m not going to hurt it.”

“Why not? It’s so… weird. And look how slow it’s going.” I racked my brain for an explanation as to how this green thing was any different from the giant spiders and mosquitos Dad crushed without a second thought when we went camping.

“What about the butterfly we saw last week?” Dad questioned. “Was it weird?”

I pictured the gorgeous white-and-yellow butterfly I’d seen when playing with Dad at the park. He had this warm, golden aura to him. Was probably just the sun reflecting on his wings, but I’d still spent the ride home daydreaming about seeing it again.

“No.” I smiled in recollection. “He was beautiful. Like a shining star.”

“You’re wrong,” Dad shocked me by saying. “This little guy right here—” He gestured to the striped insect with his chin. “—he’s the real star. He’s the one with all the merit. He’s the one who puts in the work. And yes, he’s slow. Yes, it can take him a while to get to where he’s supposed to be, but he keeps going anyway. So, that one day… he can become a butterfly, too.”

Fascinated, I’d kneeled down in the damped grass by his side, consuming every last drop of my father’s knowledge

“You see, without the weird phase. Without the work, the struggle, there’d be no victory. Without the ugliness, there’d be no beauty.”

“So… the only way to get there—” I pointed at the blue sky where butterflies all over the world spread their wings, then at the fuzzy caterpillar squirming in my papa’s hands. “—is to start here?”

“That’s right.” Dad nodded in satisfaction before presenting me with an unexpected gift—the caterpillar itself. First, he’d eased my contracted fist open, and then he’d transferred the fragile little guy over from his palm to mine.

Looking at him then, he wasn’t weird anymore.

Or gross.

He was a fighter.

Here to remind us that it’s okay to struggle and fall.

Because if you didn’t… then how would you ever fly?

“So, tell me, Love,” Dad asked as I stared at my new friend with beady eyes. “What kind of person do you want to be in life? A butterfly?” He paused. “Or a caterpillar?”

N O W

Three things I’ve learned in my two years of employment at Easton High: One: if you’re a librarian, people will automatically assume you’re a book nerd. There’s nothing you can do about it. In their eyes, you breathe, live, and eat books.

Two: the job doesn’t require nearly as much “shushing” as society thinks it does. And three: when your grumpy sixty-year-old coworker looks like someone took a dump in her coffee, you’re in for a long night.

I knew Lucille was in a bad mood from the moment I stepped foot inside the library twenty minutes ago. She has those crazy eyes. The one she makes when someone pissed her off.

My money is on the jocks.

Nothing gets good old Luce riled up like the “punks” of Easton. I’m not sure what they did to deserve such wrath, but I do know every time she encounters one of them, I turn into her emotional punching bag for the rest of the week.

Usually, I can take it, but I’m not in the mood to listen to her “kids these days” monologue right now.