Page 3 of Playing Hard to Hate

FOUR YEARS AGO

My sneakers squeaked against the dirty, worn linoleum tiles as I made my way down the narrow school hallway to our lockers. My best friend was talking my ear off about her weekend, her mouth running a mile a minute. People milled around, laughter bouncing off the walls before first period.

Fear skated down my spine at the group of boys leaning against our green lockers. Ice filled my veins when gray eyes swept over my body. Millie, oblivious to my reaction, kept talking about the guy she had been crushing on for the last four years.

“He knew my name, Tate. He said, ‘Millie, will you pass me a beer?’ And girl, I froze like a complete idiot. Are you even listening to me?” She was talking about Friday night’s bonfire, the one I had avoided despite Millie’s insistent begging that I go with her.

It just wasn’t my scene, to her absolute horror.

I was barely listening to her, my gaze focused on the seniors of our baseball team lounging on our locker doors like they owned them.

There he was, the boy who just couldn’t leave my mind.

It was as if he owned a room in my head, not any room but the freaking master.

He stayed there rent free, carefree, and yet I didn’t even have the strength to ask for rent.

After all, we grew up together. Griffin Silver, Hunter Jackson, and Graham Jackson were heavily debating some game, shoving each other when they didn’t agree, but huge smiles curled their lips.

Hunter and Graham were identical twins, their thick, brown hair brushing the collars of their T-shirts. Brown eyes, similar to those of my golden retriever, Buster, at home, flicked to me and Millie before focusing back on Griffin.

“Oh my god! You totally aren’t listening to me, Tate,” she whined, yanking my arm back, making me jerk backward, my neck whipping painfully to look at her. “Tatum! What the hell is more important right now?” Anger sparked in her green eyes as they flickered to mine and then back to our lockers.

Tugging my arm from her grasp, I fixed my backpack, smoothed a hand down my now rumpled T-shirt, and glared at her. “They’re on our lockers again,” I whispered, and she rolled her eyes.

“Just like every morning, Tate. Don’t let him get to you. He’s just a stupid boy.” If only it were that easy.

Griffin Silver was, in fact, not just a stupid boy.

In my head he was, but my heart felt differently.

He was River High’s star athlete and notorious bad boy.

The girls loved him. The boys wanted to be him.

And I wanted to avoid him like my life depended on it, and sadly enough, my social life did depend on it.

But before he was Griffin Silver, the school’s star ace, he was Griffin Silver, the boy next door.

The boy I used to walk home from school with.

The one who used to save me from spiders, the one who used to race me on our bicycles and hold me when I cried about my daddy leaving me.

He was the boy who knew all my secrets and the one I gave my heart to before I even knew what love truly was .

But then, his popularity grew, and mine became near nonexistent as I avoided any social interaction like the plague. Mom and I had to move to a smaller house, one we could afford now that Dad wasn’t here to pay the bills, and we no longer walked home from school together, or did anything together.

One day, Griffin stopped asking about my dad. He stopped sitting next to me at lunchtime, the text messages stopped, and the remaining pieces of my already fragile heart shattered, leaving me broken until Millie found me.

We had been best friends for five years, all because of an ice cream pact.

It had been the middle of a brutally hot summer, and the annual town festival was in full swing. It had been one of my favorite things to do with Griffin, and that year, he had gone with Hunter and Graham. So I went with my mom.

I had just gotten my ice cream—two scoops of vanilla on a sugar cone—when disaster struck.

One second, it was in my hand, cold and perfect.

The next, it was splattered on the pavement, melting into a sad white puddle.

My mom was talking to one of her coworkers just a few feet away, but I knew she didn’t have the money to buy me another one.

Laughter bubbled up behind me, some of the kids from school mocking me. My face burned, and I fought the urge to run. But before I could, a girl stepped forward, holding out her own cone. “Mine’s chocolate chip, not vanilla. But it’s still pretty good.”

I blinked at her. She had wild brown curls, bright green eyes hidden behind huge black glasses that took up most of her face, and a smudge of chocolate already on her cheek. “But…that’s yours.”

She shrugged. “We can share.” Without waiting for an answer, she broke the cone in half, ice cream and all, and handed me a piece.

We sat on the curb, eating our slightly smushed halves as people bustled around us. “I’m Millie,” she said between bites.

“Tate. ”

She grinned. “I’m new here, and I need a friend. Wanna be best friends?”

I laughed, something warm settling in my chest. “Yeah.”

And just like that, we were.

“Don’t let him get to you, Tate. You are stronger than this. He doesn’t always have to win.” Millie linked our arms together at the elbows and tugged me along, straight into the lion’s den.

Sucking in a strangled breath, I held my head up high despite the shake in my hands and reached for my lock, praying I’d get it open on the first try all while his gray eyes were locked on me.

Twisting the mechanism, I tugged it after a minute, and lo and behold, nothing happened.

“Still can’t get it right, huh? It’s only been four years, Grace.

” He tsk ed, my last name falling so easily from his lips.

“Let me guess, same combo?” I cringed when he brushed my trembling hands away and fiddled with the lock for a moment before he easily popped it open.

I reached for it, my thanks just on the tip of my tongue as he snapped it right back shut.

I gritted my teeth, willing myself to keep it together.

“Better luck next time, right?” He laughed, Hunter and Graham joining him as I blinked back the tears already pooling in my eyes, praying they wouldn’t spill over.

Did he know what today was? Did he remember? Did he care?

“Seriously, Griffin? It’s not funny!” Millie slapped his shoulder and shoved him out of the way when he erupted into another fit of laughter. She always tried to protect me. My little warrior.

Glaring at the lock through blurry eyes, I tried again, willing the shake in my fingers to leave, and eventually, the lock fell open.

“Wasn’t so hard, huh?” he taunted, and the first tear rolled down my cheek.

I hated myself so much right then. For falling apart.

For even shedding one tear with him nearby.

But I was barely holding myself together.

So many memories were running rampant through my mind.

Mom insisted I go to school even though she took the day off of work and hadn’t moved from the couch since last night.

“Leave me alone, Griffin.” I clenched my teeth, nearly biting my damn tongue on his name.

“Why? Can’t handle a little morning teasing? Lighten up, Grace.”

After grabbing my chemistry book from my locker, I clutched the heavy text to my chest like it was a bulletproof vest against his taunting and careless words. Slamming the metal door shut, I closed the lock and turned to Millie, waiting for her to grab her things so we could get out of there.

He nudged my shoulder, causing me to stumble forward, tripping over my own feet. Millie glared at him over her shoulder and hurried to get her things out so we could get a move on.

“Quit it. It’s not funny.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

I didn’t have to be looking at Griffin to know there was a smirk tugging at his beautiful lips. “Not my fault she can’t take a joke, four-eyes,” he teased, and I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. His teasing never strayed from me. Millie didn’t deserve it.

Whirling around, I jabbed my finger straight into his toned, hard chest. I hated that pain radiated up the digit while he appeared completely unaffected. “Leave me alone, Griffin!”

He grabbed my wrist, his long, thick fingers sending sparks of electricity through my whole body. I wished every day I didn’t still respond to him like this. I hated what he could make me feel.

“Now, now, no need to get your grandma panties in a bunch.”

Hunter and Graham chuckled behind him. Heat crept up my chest and into my cheeks at his crass comment. He loved to make me the butt of every joke, anything to keep him cool in the eyes of our peers. And that is what ruined our friendship all those years ago. His popularity and my lack of it.

Blinking back tears, my vision blurred, his haunting, gray eyes no longer hypnotizing.

When he was like this, I didn’t remember the boy who used to come play at my house because his dad was in a mood or the boy who had held me as I sobbed into his chest the day I lost my dad.

No, all I could see was the monster he’d become.

“Did you…forget?” I whispered loud enough so only he could hear me. “Did you forget what today is?” His fingers tightened their hold around my wrist. Pain flashed in his eyes, and I had the slightest bit of hope.

“That it’s Monday?” For the briefest moment, I thought maybe—just maybe—the boy I had loved wasn’t gone. But I was just a foolish, na?ve girl wishing for something that would never be again.

Another stab to my battered heart shouldn’t hurt this bad, but it did.

“It’s been ten years, Fin.” My voice broke on his nickname.

The one only I used. Regret flashed in his eyes as I yanked my hand back and turned away from him before I completely fell apart in the hallway.

He would not get to witness that today. He did not need any more ammunition to make me the laughingstock of River High.

He wasn’t supposed to forget. He wasn’t supposed to make my life miserable. Not today. Not on the ten-year anniversary of my dad leaving and never looking back.

But then again…Griffin was supposed to be my rock. And he certainly wasn’t that anymore. I shouldn’t have bothered with hoping today would be any different from yesterday .

Now…

Griffin was just my enemy. My tormentor. He stopped caring about me long ago when he stopped needing a safe place, but when the roles were reversed, he wasn’t mine.

And I would never be fool enough to forgive him.

The bus squeaked loudly as it rolled to a stop. A few students grunted at the harsh stop, and others didn’t even wake up from their naps. Millie followed me off the bus. She was staying the night to distract me from the reality of my situation.

It was times like these that I was so grateful for her. She was a special friend, the kind you never let go of.

“Your mom really couldn’t have picked us up? Isn’t it like three miles to your house?” She shouldered the straps of her pink backpack and looked at me, her brows furrowing in irritation over her tortoise-shell glasses.

It was two miles, but there was no sense in arguing because my mom should have picked us up, but she hadn’t answered any of my last five calls. I assumed, based on the three bottles of wine that were beside her this morning, she would be out of commission tonight.

“Think about all the calories you’ll burn.” I tried to lighten the mood, and she snickered.

“You calling me fat? I’ll have you know I started doing Pilates two weeks ago.”

“Really? And how is that going?” I knew the answer but teased her anyway.

“Okay, so I’ve only been to one class. Sue me. I was so sore after I couldn’t face the next one. I was recovering .” She groans as the clouds above us rumble, the threat of rain inching closer and closer with every passing second.

“Is this the same Pilates class that Drew was rumored to go to on Saturdays?” I look at her over my shoulder, and she blushes. Busted.

“Maybe, but he wasn’t there the time I went, and I was so disappointed. I even asked around about him, and he apparently hasn’t missed a session in weeks.”

Drew Mella had been Millie’s crush for the last four years. She stalked his socials, found out his favorite places to go, and in four years, the closest she got to him noticing her, despite many attempts to get his attention, was him asking her to pass him a beer at a party.

“I think you should move on. He’s so not worth the energy,” I commented and caught her eye roll.

“Says the girl pining over her bully.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s nothing going on between Griffin and me, and there never will be.”

“Right. I’ll remind you of that on your wedding day.”

“You’re being stupid.”

“You’re in denial.”

“No, unlike you, I’m being realistic. Plus, I don’t plan on marrying any man.”

Millie’s fingers wrapped around my wrist, jerking me back. “Not all men are bad, Tate. Not all of them are like your dad, I promise.”

I wanted to point out her dad wasn’t in the picture either, and my brother had also left, and that neither of us had a male role model to look up to, but when the clouds boomed above us again, and the first drop of water landed on my nose, we ran.