Nate lets out another breath before looking back at me. “We were playing some stupid game in the pool and you’d stopped to get a drink. I came over and you smiled at me and it blew me away. I’d had a crush on you all summer and I thought maybe you were liking me the same way, but instead, you wanted to tell me how my best friend Simon had asked you on a date to the movies. That was my first heartbreak,” he tells me.
I gasp as I search his eyes and hold onto him a little tighter. “I didn’t know,” I tell him as my eyes pool with tears.
“I know,” he says as he wipes the tears away. “I was angry at you and I wanted to hurt you like you’d hurt me. So, I was mean, I told you nasty things and you went home crying. You didn’t talk to me for days.”
“Then you went on your date with Simon and I hated it. It made me furious and I didn’t know how to handle it. I was a dick to Simon and I refused to be his friend, which is why I lost my shit when you tried to use Parker against me,” he explains. “I was a dick to you. Every single day, I would do something to hurt you and eventually, you started to hate me.”
“I did,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says. “I hated that you hated me but it made me feel better. I never got over you and eventually, you refused to talk to me at all. Once I got over the hurt, I’d realized that I’d fucked up and lost you as a friend, but you were done with me. There wasn’t anything I could do that would have made what I did alright.”
I watch him, unsure of how to feel or what to say. “I-”
“No,” he says, cutting me off. “There’s so much more. You need to hear it all.”
I nod my head and wait as he takes another slow breath. “By the time we were thirteen, I missed you so bad. I hated that you weren’t in my life anymore and I was still so caught up on you that Jesse had worked it out,” he says. “I needed to be around you but I’d already done such atrocious things that I didn’t stand a chance at making it up to you. So, I became a twisted version of a bully.”
My eyebrows furrow in confusion. “How do you mean ‘twisted’?” I ask.
A smirk plays on his lips as he lowers his face and presses a gentle kiss to my lips. “Everything I ever did to you, was for a reason.”
“Explain,” I say slowly.
“The things I did to you were always to benefit you or give you something that you wanted. I just went about it in a twisted way because it was the only time I could get a reaction out of you.”
I look up at him in disbelief. “You cut my hair,” I remind him with a scoff. “I don’t see how that benefitted me.”
“Really?” he questions. “For two months before that, I sat behind you in health class and listened to you telling Brooke how you wanted to change your hairstyle but didn’t have the guts to do it. So, I cut your hair and you had no choice but to go and get it done. You still wear your hair the same way now.”
My mouth drops open. “Are you shitting me?” I gasp as I recall the way I would whine to Brooke about it. I cried when he cut my hair but he’s right, mom sent me to the hairdresser and I got it cut in the style I wanted. I haven’t changed it since. “What about when I was on a date with Todd Hyde and you told him I was a stage five clinger?”
“You weren’t on a date with Todd. All his friends were there watching. They had bets if he would finger you by the end of the night. It was all a game. I told him you were a clinger and he piss bolted out of there. I didn’t want you to get used like that,” he says. “I promise you, babe, everything I did always had a reason behind it.”
“Phoenix’s birthday two years ago?” I question.
“You didn’t like Phoenix and you wanted to go to a concert instead. I gave you a reason to leave.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
His eyes stare into mine as he nods his head. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve years old, Tora. Every fucking day. I couldn’t talk to you, not like this, but I needed you in my life. You’ll never understand just how much I hated myself for putting you through all that. I wish I was stronger when I was a kid and I wish I had the balls to tell you the truth, but I didn’t. I was a pussy and instead of being honest with you, I tore you down.”