At First Hate (Coastal Chronicles)

He looked down at me like I was his next meal. “Hey, Minivan.”

Then, I heard a muttered, “Fuck this,” and Samar slammed into my shoulder as he left the room.

I jerked forward into Derek. He caught me easily. But I shoved against him.

“What the fuck, Derek?”

He laughed as I rushed past him and after my boyfriend. I needed to get my head on straight. I shouldn’t have kissed Derek back, but it had all happened so fast. Jesus Christ! What was I even going to tell Samar?

“Samar, wait!” I called, running out of the house after him.

“Save your breath, Marley.”

I grabbed his arm, dragging him to a stop in the grass. “That was not what it looked like.”

“It looked like you kissing some other guy right in front of me!” he shouted at me. “If you want to break up, then just do it. Don’t cheat!”

“I didn’t. I haven’t. I wouldn’t! That was not that.”

“I watched you kiss him! You wouldn’t have done that if you’d never done it before. If you didn’t want to.”

“I have,” I said with a shake of my head and followed him as he trudged down the street. “In high school, Samar. We kissed once at a party forever ago.”

“I’m not an idiot, Mars.”

“I swear that’s all it was. I have no idea why he kissed me. He doesn’t even go to Duke. I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

Samar shook his head at me. “Whatever. It’s over. You know it’s over.”

I stopped in my tracks and tried to hold back tears. Yeah, it had been over for a long time, but I hadn’t wanted it to end like this. “Yeah,” I whispered.

“Then stop following me. You’ve apparently already moved on.”

“Samar…”

“Save your breath,” he snapped and then stalked away from me.

I ground my teeth and let him go. I wasn’t going to change his mind. We’d been on the rocks long enough. Derek had put the nail in the coffin. My hands turned into fists. Derek fucking Ballentine.

I rushed back to the house and up the stairs. Derek was standing there, talking to Ash Talmadge, as if nothing at all had happened. I walked right up to him and pushed him as hard as I could.

He took one step backward. “Hey, Minivan.”

“You absolute asshole!”

Ash ran a hand back through his hair. “Uh, what’s going on?”

“How could you do that?” I snapped, ignoring Ash. “My boyfriend just dumped me because of you.”

Derek crossed his arms and smirked down at me. “Do you want me to run and tell him we didn’t sleep together? Do you think he’d believe me?”

My jaw dropped. “This is about high school?”

Ash took a step back. “I’m going to let you have this one, bro.”

Derek patted Ash’s shoulder twice. “I got this.”

“Don’t you dare tell Lila!” I snarled at him.

Ash raised his hands and retreated. “Keep me out of this. I don’t even talk to Lila anymore.”

I looked back at Derek. “You made a huge mistake.”

“Look, payback’s a bitch. And anyway… you kissed me back.”

I had. Which was the real problem, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

“That is beyond the point.”

Derek stepped forward, slipping his hand back up into my hair and tilting my face up to his. “And you’re still a good kisser.”

I slapped him. His head jerked sideways, and he just laughed. I pulled away from him, all the anger from the breakup turning into fury. “I’ll get you back for this. Don’t forget what started all of this to begin with.”

“Hey, I told people at your school that we didn’t hook up, just like you’d asked.”

He had. Not that anyone really believed him, like he’d predicted. But the leering and shit had ended. I never knew what he’d said to make it all stop. The Ballentine name had a lot of leverage, so he must have gone to bat for me in some way. I’d appreciated the gesture until tonight.

“And then you had my boyfriend dump me.”

He leaned forward with that same damn smirk. “You still kissed me back, Minivan.”

“God, I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“And don’t call me that!” I said, storming away from him.

“Good seeing you, Minivan.”

I clenched my hands into fists and went to find my girls. I needed to leave this party before the adrenaline left and I started crying. The last thing I wanted to explain was Derek. But maybe they’d forget if I talked about Samar. And in the meantime, I’d find a way to get Derek back for this.

10

UNC

February 5, 2010

Olivia stopped me at the door to the master’s level Chemistry class we had together. “Hey, Marley, wait up.”

I stalled in the doorway to let her catch up, Sarah and Carly right behind her. We fell into step as we left the class and went out onto UNC’s campus.

My advisor had gotten me into advanced courses for spring semester junior year and all of senior year. I was doing dual-enrollment for my BA/MA. The only requirement was that some of the classes were shared with UNC. Since it was only a few miles away, that wasn’t a problem with most people. I, however, hadn’t had a car. Gran had gotten me a small fixer-upper, and I had an assistantship in my Chemistry department to help pay for the parking fees. It didn’t make it any weirder that I was taking classes at Chapel Hill.