Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

“Xav?” Hank urges.

I snap out of it. “Mm?”

“You waiting for the grass to grow? Answer the goddamn question.”

Shit.

Note to self: you might want to try listening when people talk.

“I—”

Finn cuts in, “No, of course we didn’t think they were going to evacuate the school, Dad. It was just one little stink bomb.”

I make eye contact with my best friend.

Finn smirks.

Thanks for the save, dickhead.

“Oh, cry me a fucking river. That ‘one little stink bomb’—” Hank makes air quotes with his fingers, “—smelled so bad your poor teacher thought it was some sort of gas leak. You knew what you were doing, Finley. Don’t you get it? You’re in deep shit. And I don’t know if I can get you out of it this time.”

Hank inhales a deep breath to keep himself in check.

“How does a three week suspension sound, huh? What about senior year without basketball? And prom? I sure hope you weren’t planning on going because there’s no way in fucking hell that’s happening now.”

Helpless, Finn smacks his mouth shut, sagging back into his seat. To be fair, while it did smell like something died in that classroom, I have no idea how our substitute teacher could confuse “hot garbage and fart” with “gas.”

I was sitting at the back of the class and set off the stink bomb when she stepped out for a bit. The lady panicked as soon as the smell hit and notified the school’s front office of a “disgusting, toxic smell” through the intercom.

They set off the fire alarm and got us out of the building in record time. Makes sense, they couldn’t risk that many kids’ safety. What if it really had been a leak?

I still can’t believe how quickly we got caught.

All thanks to their so-called “video.”

That’s the first thing they said when they came to extract Finn and me from the crowd after the school gathered outside. They hit us with “Don’t bother, we’ve got it on video. You’re busted” before dragging us back inside to wait for the cops.

I have no idea how they managed to catch it on video in a classroom with no surveillance camera, but I can’t think about that right now.

“You’ve got to learn to think before you act, son.” Hank knocks on Finn’s forehead like he’s making sure there’s a brain in there. “Fucking think.”

I remember finding Hank so cool for cursing when I was a kid. I paid attention when he talked because of it. And, trust me, that means a lot coming from the two second attention span, little shit that I was. Then the accident happened, and he started dropping the f-bomb every two words.

Eventually, it lost its impact.

But then again… I’d curse, too, if I’d lost the love of my life.

“As for you.” Hank glares straight through my skull. “Consider yourself lucky this is your first time pulling this kind of crap. Unlike someone—” He eyes Finn, “—you should be able to finish the season. Maybe get a few weeks of detention. And that’s only because we’ve got the sheriff on our side. If you two clowns were any other kids, you could be facing criminal fucking charges right now, do you get that?”

Finn and I nod. My best friend’s eyes are packed with regret. That’s downright torture for him. Ball is our whole lives. And I know how much he wanted to land team captain.

He didn’t smile for days when I got it.

Ah, shit, I can’t let them do this.

“He had nothing to do with it,” I blurt out.

Arms folded over his chest, Hank doesn’t say a word for the longest of seconds. I can tell he doesn’t buy it one bit, but if there’s the tiniest chance that I could save his kid’s senior year, he has to hear me out.