Page 86 of Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

“Very funny.” I let the joke roll right off my back.

“Not trying to be.” He looks me dead in the eyes.

Holy crap… he’s serious.

“Excuse me?” I screech.

“I said what I said.”

“But you were so mean!” I rack my brain, fishing for one memory, just one moment where Xavier seemed even remotely interested in me. Well, he did kiss me that day at the park, but I always assumed he was just that desperate to keep me from ratting him out.

“And you’re surprised why? I was a little shit to everybody.”

“Yeah, but you were extra shitty to me!”

He holds his hands up in surrender. “In my defense, I had no clue how to act around girls, and the only time my parents ever communicated back then was when they were saying hurtful shit to each other. I guess, I thought… that’s how it worked, or something?”

There it is.

The root of all that is wrong with this toxic, “you’re mean to people you like” mentality.

Kids have to learn it somewhere.

“I thought you knew.” He seems genuinely shocked.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I should’ve known to take you tossing my dolls into the barbecue as a sign of affection.”

“I accept your apology.” He can barely get through that short sentence without smiling. It’s more than obvious he’s just trying to get a rise out of me.

And it’s working.

“Screw you, I loved those dolls!” I swat him in the shoulder, and he laughs. We both do. A bit louder than acceptable when trapped in the school’s chemistry lab at three in the morning. We spend the next ten minutes discussing the crazy, borderline cruel pranks Finn and Xavier put me through that summer.

“That was a good summer, admit it,” he reminisces.

“Speak for yourself, evil one.”

His grin doesn’t waver one bit.

Silence ensues. But it’s the good kind. The kind where your stomach hurts from laughing too hard and you need a beat to catch your breath.

“They were all your ideas, weren’t they? The pranks?”

“Yep,” he says shamelessly.

“So, Finn didn’t even come up with one?”

“No, but he was more than happy to join.”

“God, I hate you,” I say in between chuckles.

He pauses, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I nod.

“Why do girls say shit they don’t mean?”