Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

I expect him to feel ashamed, but he knocks the breath out of me with his unapologetic answer.

“Was fucking.”

“What?” is all I can say.

“You heard me.” He steps dangerously close. “I ended it weeks ago. Something you’d know if you gave me one fucking minute to explain myself. But you obviously know everything already. So, why bother, right?”

Xavier starts closing in on me, and I step back without thinking, my pulse climbing to worrying rates.

“Don’t pretend like Love was anything more to you than a booty call,” I spit. “I heard Finn—”

He scoffs. “What you heard, that was just Finn spewing his usual bullshit. He read your text asking to meet up over my shoulder earlier. He didn’t even see the sender. Just assumed we were meeting to hook up. My only mistake was not correcting him.”

Oh.

“Strike that. My mistake was continuing to sleep with Brie to convince myself I didn’t give a shit about you.”

I swallow hard.

Don’t fall for it.

He’ll say anything right now.

“Wow.” I shake my head. “You’re good, Emery. Ten out of ten. Almost fell for it.”

“I’m not fucking lying!”

“So, what? I’m supposed to believe you gave up your side piece because of me?” I force a careless cackle, but it sounds fake. Painful. “Your perfect cheerleader girlfriend with the perfect body? By all means, Xav, go back to her. Don’t let me stop you.”

“You did stop me!” he snaps, his outburst catching me off guard. “For fuck’s sake, Vee, don’t you get it? You stopped me before I even knew who you were.”

His admission shakes me to my core.

It feels like the air has been sucked out of my lungs as he stalks toward me like he’s the king of the jungle. And he’s coming to claim his prey. A gasp sneaks past my lips when the back of my thighs hits something.

Finn’s dad’s white Tesla.

Xavier cages me against the parked car, propping his hand flat against the hood behind me, and I stiffen up, my heaving chest robbing me of any pretense of indifference.

There’s no escaping him, heart.

I’m sorry, I tried.

“I don’t fucking want her,” he hisses. “What’s it going to take for you to get that?”

“Why?” I blurt. “Why wouldn’t you want her? Or Lacey? Or any of the million girls who’d sell an organ for five minutes alone with you?”

Why should I believe he ever cared about Love?

About me?

Why should I believe anything he says?

“I don’t want them because they don’t have a caterpillar tattoo on their shoulder.” Xav clutches my face with both hands. “I don’t want them because they’re not the only ones who get me in a world of fucking idiots.” He gives a breathy laugh, the garage’s fluorescent lights shimmering in his eyes. “They don’t drive me completely insane, keep me on my toes with everything they do. So, yes, I ended it with Brie. And yes, I figured out Lacey wasn’t you.”

Then he sets my expectations for any future guy way too high.

“Because none of them are, Vee. Fucking none of them.”