Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

I miss when Zac was just Zac.

Love: Don’t get me wrong, I like the texting, but I can’t help feeling like everything was so much easier when we were just two kids writing stupid confessions in a book.

It takes him ten minutes to reply.

Zac: Then let’s keep doing it.

Love: Are you serious?

Zac: As a heart attack.

Love: So, what? We each leave one confession in the book a week?

Zac: Why the fuck not?

Love: What if someone finds them?

Zac: They won’t. We’ll take our dirty little secrets out of the book as we go.

Zac: But no more PG-13 shit. I want the good stuff. Go big or go home, L. What do you say?

I weigh the pros and cons for over five minutes. Providing him with more information about myself is the definition of insanity. We’re already walking a fine line here. Playing with fire every time we press Send.

One wrong move and all our good intentions could crumble, along with our anonymity pact. I might as well give him my social security number while I’m at it.

You promised, Vee.

You promised you’d stop being scared.

It starts now.

Love: You’re on.

Aveena

T H E N

My daddy once told me some things in life happen in slow motion. Like that short moment where you make eye contact with your soul mate for the first time. Or that split second before you cross the street too soon and someone holds you back.

He’d go and on about how rare it was.

He said he hoped I’d get to experience the legendary “slow-mo” for myself one day. Same way he had when he’d won his first car race—better yet, when he’d seen Mommy walk down the aisle on their wedding day.

My dad’s “slow motions” were amazing.

Mine, on the other hand…

Throw in a tall glass of grape juice, my sister’s favorite white dress, a television show set to air all over the country, and there you have it.

An invisible, seven-year-old girl’s nightmare.

I can still hear my mother’s screams when I tripped over my own feet and the glass slipped out of my hands. Visualize the stain as purple liquid bled right through Ashley’s dress. Feel the sting of pain when I cut my finger trying to pick up the glass—it’s almost as though my child brain thought cleaning up my mess would unruin the thousand-dollar dress.

It all happened in slow motion, yes, but it’s the resentment in my mom’s eyes, the disappointment, the shame of having a world-class klutz for a daughter that lasted forever. The hatred in her voice when she’d insinuated I’d done it on purpose.

“I didn’t mean to, I swear,” I croaked after thirty minutes of Mommy dearest raining hell down on me, and rushed out of the house in tears.

I was barefoot, but I couldn’t feel a thing as my little feet thumped toward the red maple tree behind the shed in the backyard. Not the wet grass under my toes. Not the open cut. Not the blood trickling down my hand.