Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

“I’m fine, I promise.” I shake my head, rejecting her embrace.

“Vee.” She arches an eyebrow.

“I-I’m fine.” I’m sobbing now.

What. The. Fuck.

It’s like my brain and heart are in disagreement, battling each other to death. My brain screams that I shouldn’t care about Xav, but my heart is a pain in the ass I wish I could unfriend on all socials.

Dia ignores my miserable attempts at keeping a straight face and wraps me into a hug so tight I feel myself crumble to pieces.

Neither of us say a word for the next two minutes. Dia just lets me cry in her arms the way she once did in mine, and I toss my pride to the side, admitting what I’ve known from the start.

He broke me.

I opened up to him, and he broke me.

For fuck’s sake, I slept with him. I fell for his lies like one of his brainless groupies. And the worst part is, when he said he loved me… I believed him.

“Please tell me you talked to him,” Dia whispers.

“What’s the point?” I sniffle, pulling away and sweeping the tears off my cheeks. “Brie’s picture told me everything I need to know.”

“Fuck Brie! He slept with you and told you he loved you when he never said it to Brie once in a whole fucking year of dating!”

I blink at her. “How do you know that?”

“Lacey has a big mouth.” Dia holds her hands up, and I smile. “This is fucked up, Vee. You can’t let him disrespect you like that.”

I don’t reply, her words laying the foundations of an uprising in me, and grab my phone. I log on to Instagram, type Brie’s name into the search bar, and click on her story.

The two first stories are videos of Theo’s party. A game of beer pong and a Boomerang of Lacey and Brie downing shots.

But the third slide…

It shows a video of Xavier and Brie making out in the pool with “Bitter” by Fletcher and Kito booming in the background.

I’m bitter, all right.

I replay the video. Brie is smiling wide as she smashes her lips to Xav’s, clasping his wet hair with her manicured hand. The clip cuts too soon to tell if he responds to the kiss, but I have no doubt he most likely kissed the breath out of her the next second.

Bastard chose her for a reason.

“Vomit,” Dia comments, and I jump, twisting my neck to see her staring at Brielle’s story over my shoulder. “What’s the plan?” she questions. “Mission Movie or Mission Fuckboy?”

I pause.

She had it right the first time. I inhale a deep breath and rise off my bed.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

“I can’t do this.” I sag into my driver’s seat, assessing Theo’s house across the street. Dia and I have been sitting in my car for twenty minutes now. Throwing on a dress, doing my makeup, and driving to the party was the easy part.

It’s getting out of the car that’s hard.

“Yes, you can. Worst-case scenario, he’s the piece of shit you thought he was and you never have to speak to his clown ass again.” Dia unbuckles my seat belt for me. “On three.”