Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

Tomorrow, next week, next month.

The difference is… I don’t care.

Because I found someone worth walking through fire for.

“I love you, L,” Xavier whispers, brushing his thumb across my lower lip, and I laugh at the nickname.

“I love you, Z,” I croak.

He smiles.

I smile.

Then I move Xavier from my “Things I Loved and Lost” mind drawer to a completely new drawer.

One I never had before.

My favorite drawer of all time.

Things I Loved and Kept.

Aveena

Duke University

Freshman Year

“You can still change your mind, you know? It’s not too late.” Dia trails after me, carrying a box labeled “FRAGILE” toward Xavier’s truck parked out front.

“Shit, you’re right. Let’s move everything back to the dorm,” I snark, hoisting the heavy box in my arms into the car’s brimming trunk. I’ve barely shut the tailgate before Xavier, who’s been on the phone with our landlord for ten minutes, ends the call and rounds the truck to meet us.

“We all set?” Xavier knots his arms around my waist from behind and jerks me flush to his chest. I crack a girlish giggle as he rains kisses all over my face.

“Got one box left,” I whisk my head over my shoulder to kiss him, our mouths moving slow and hard in unparalleled sync.

“Oh, hell no,” a chuckling Dia intervenes. “I still have her for a few more minutes. Hands off, Emery.”

Dia’s about to peel us apart when her ringtone cuts through the empty campus, the perk of moving two weeks after summer break kicked off. Most students have cleared out already.

Xav and I come up for air just in time to see Dia pull out her phone and check the caller ID. A smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes stretches her lips.

It’s that Chance guy.

Has to be.

“Never mind, keep sucking face. I’ll be back,” Dia teases, distancing herself from us before pinning the phone to her ear. I throw my head back against my boyfriend’s shoulder, watching my best friend dig herself deeper into a hole of denial.

“Is that her new boyfriend?” Xav asks, his mouth flush with my ear. He seizes the opportunity to kiss my neck and suck the sensitive skin behind my ear between his teeth.

I shudder all over.

“More like a temporary fix to a permanent problem,” I correct.

Dia might be semi-mad at me for moving out of our dorm and getting a place with Xav off campus, but we both know she could use having the room to herself—it was getting harder and harder to sneak Xavier in every time we got horny.

Also… bunk beds.

Not sex-proof.