Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

Fear.

He’s scared.

They still don’t have any suspects for Zac, and the “Find Zac and Love” army is getting restless. I could wreck his life, future, and reputation with one word if I just felt like it.

Who’s powerful now?

“Back off, Axel,” Dia shrieks.

“Not talking to you, dickbag,” Axel spits.

Dia’s eyes flare with shock.

“Nice nickname, isn’t it? Finn came up with it,” he adds.

Dia smacks her mouth shut, a small glimmer of pain streaking through her almond eyes. She can’t seriously believe him.

“Aveena, baby, you’re just delaying the inevitable.” Axel tilts my chin up with one finger, and I slap his hand away. “Why won’t you tell me, huh? Are you really that ashamed to admit that you’re Love? Is it because you fucked your sister’s boyfriend?”

I don’t so much as flinch.

I’m used to it by now.

“For what it’s worth, Logan said you were hella tight.”

Pretty sure my jaw falls into my food tray.

Axel cracks a laugh at my reaction. “Shit, did I forget to mention he’s a friend of mine?”

The memories crash into me at a million miles per hour. Axel said he wanted to set me up with his buddy the night I agreed to meet Zac in Finn’s bedroom.

He stressed that I was exactly his friend’s type.

It was him, wasn’t it?

Logan?

“He was super disappointed about you not wanting to see him at Finn’s party, by the way.” Axel confirms my doubts.

I deny him the satisfaction of an answer, boiling on the inside.

“Oh, well… Guess you were too busy sucking Zac’s cock.”

That’s it, my brain thunders.

I can’t control my body as I leap off my seat and knee Axel in the balls so hard a few guys at the next table audibly groan for him. He falls to the floor like dead weight, wailing like a little girl as he grips his crotch.

“You speak to me again, I?

??ll rip them off,” I bark, purposefully raising my voice for more students to hear me and bolt out of the cafeteria. Dia follows my lead, trailing behind me. I’m done letting them push me around.

And I want the world to know.

From now on… I’m fighting back.

* * *

My “fighting back” earned me two days of detention. On the bright side, no one looked my way for the rest of the afternoon.