Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

“Ashley?” I shriek with such volume that everybody stops and stares. My sister’s head whips in my direction, and I blink at her like I’m waiting—praying—to wake up from a bad dream.

But I don’t.

The scene I’m witnessing is real.

She’s really here.

Doing body shots on Finn Richards’s kitchen island.

“Goodie, it’s the fun police,” Ash says with an eye roll, and hops off the counter. Then she walks away.

She. Just. Walks. Away.

Like she didn’t get caught with a boy’s tongue down her cleavage. Like she didn’t just show up to an Easton High party when she promised Mom she’d never mix with public school kids.

“Ash? What the hell?” I chase after her, my elbows ramming into people’s side as I try to get a hold of the stranger wearing my sister’s face. She picks up the pace every time I get too close, but I still manage to grab her arm. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

At last, she spins to look at me, stares bullets into my skulls is more like it, then spits, “Same thing as you, sis. I’m here to party.”

Who is this person?

And why does she look like Ashley?

“Does Mom know about this?”

She cackles at my question. “Are you crazy? Of course not. She thinks I’m at some late-night rehearsal for the school play.”

That’s what I mean when I said she’d gone off the deep end since her breakup with Logan. I don’t even recognize her anymore.

“You can’t be here right now. Mom will kill us.”

“What us?” she spits. “There’s no us. You told Mom you were sleeping at Dia’s, didn’t you?”

I nod.

“There. You’ve got your excuse. Now leave me alone.”

“I’m just trying to help you!” I reach for her arm, ready to throw her ass in the trunk of my car and drive her home against her will if I have to.

“Fuck off, Vee. I’m not your responsibility.” She flings her arm out of my grasp, turning to leave, and I almost laugh.

Not my responsibility?

Is that why I’m driving her to school every day? Picking her up from her singing lessons because Mom can’t be bothered? Running to the fucking grocery store on a Saturday morning to buy Fiji Water? Because she’s not my fucking responsibility?

She’s been my responsibility since she was born.

She just never realized it.

“What’s gotten into you?” I leap into her way before she runs away from me again.

“I just want one night!” she shouts at the top of her lungs, turning every head in the vicinity. Tears of rage well in her amber eyes. It’s clear as fucking crystal that she’s had enough.

“Just one night at a normal party,” she hisses. “Drinking normal cheap beer. Talking to normal, boring boys. Like a normal fucking girl. Is that too much to ask?” She wobbles forward, nearly losing her balance. I hold her back so that she doesn’t fall, but she rejects my help, shoving me away.

“Jesus, Ash. How much have you had to drink?”

“Stop. Just fucking stop.” The tears pooling in her eyes begin streaming down her cheeks.