Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

For the most part.

Fine, Ash can have a bit of an inflated ego at times, thinks the world revolves around her, and doesn’t realize how blessed she is to have all this at seventeen, but she’s a good soul at her core… Which is more than I can say for the piece of trash in her bed.

“Oh, and this—” I point to her ex-boyfriend, “—has to stop. Mom will kill you.”

Ashley’s bad decision gives me a slow body scan.

“Long time, Vee.” His smirk sends shivers of disgust oozing through my entire body.

“Logan.” I don’t so much as glance his way, focusing on Ashley. “Since when are you two back together?”

“Just happened, actually,” my sister says, a big, dopey smile on her face, and my chest aches.

“I thought you left town,” I tell Logan, directing every ounce of my energy into hiding my disdain for him.

Bastard, you promised.

You promised you’d never come back after what we did.

“I know, but I changed my mind. What can I say? I missed my girl.” He looks me dead in the eyes as he says it, the innuendo so painfully clear I want to dig myself into a hole and hide from my demons.

Hide from my shame.

Ashley’s phone rings seconds before it gets awkward.

“Shit, it’s Rob.” She flips the screen and shows me her manager’s name. Mom likes to think she’s in control, but we all know Ash gets her opportunities elsewhere. “I have to take it.”

She exits the room, leaving me alone with the person I like least on this earth. Her footsteps rumbling down the stairs are Logan’s cue to make his move.

“Missed me?” he has the audacity to ask.

“Not for a fucking second.”

Unfazed, he stalks toward me.

“Well, that’s too bad. Because I missed you, Vee-card.”

Disgust coils in my throat.

Is that what he’s been calling me?

My nickname when he talks to his friends?

“Get it? Vee-card? Because your name’s Aveena, and, well… I don’t need to explain the rest, do I?”

“L-Let me make myself perfectly clear: you two were over. You’d been broken up for months.” I try my best to sound confident, but my voice is barely above a whisper. “And you said you’d never come back. You and I… it meant nothing. Nothing, got it?”

“Okay.”

At first, I’m surprised. Surprised by how easy it was. Surprised that he genuinely seemed to get the message. Until he nudges the door closed and traps me into the tight corner by Ashley’s desk.

I could puke.

Because he’s hard.

Because I’m a horrible person.

But most of all, I’m a horrible sister. I hate that the one wild thing I ever did turned out to be my biggest mistake. Well, actually, it wasn’t that big… if you know what I mean.