YOUNG, DUMB, AND RICH (Complete ✅)

YOU HATED ME BEFORE YOU KNEW ME

The car ride home was dismal. It paralleled their ride home from their wedding. But with higher tensions. Nobody dared to breathe loudly. Tay felt a foreboding sense of doom. The silence was like a thousand bur fruits stuck to his skin. It prickled.

New had stopped crying about 5 minutes ago. His forehead was pressed to the tinted windows. His hands hid between his knees.

Tay was still furious but a part of him wanted to reach out and touch his husband. To bridge the gap between them and comfort him. It was all confusing. New was an expert at jumbling his feelings. The thought angered him even more.

He pressed his shoulders harder into the opposite door. Shut his eyes. He kept it that way until they arrived at their home.

New opened the door and flew out before the engine was killed. He was so quick that Tay barely caught the flash of his purple sweater disappearing through the door to the foyer.

He sighed. Fell back against the backrest. He sat alone for more than 10 minutes, dreading their next move. Where did they go from here? He minced up the stairs, void of energy. He debated on whether to go to the guest or master bedroom. After a minute's deliberation, he twisted the doorknob to the master.

New hadn't changed out of his clothes. He was standing by the window, back facing the door. He took a few seconds to turn around. His eyes were red and swollen. His face was flushed. He looked frazzled.

"Tawan," His voice was raspy but firm. "I have done all I can in my power to make you like me. And for a good month, I thought I succeeded." He looked down at his hands. Whispered, "You're always going to think of me as a liar. You're always going to make up reasons to be angry."

"Make up?" Tay took a few steps into the room. Up close, he could see the tear stains on his husband's face. "Did I trump up your ex crashing our party and putting his hands all over you? Can you not see the problem?" He yelled. New flinched but his feet stayed planted in the same spot.

Tay could not be arsed. "How are you blind to what you have done? You brought an ex-lover, whom I've consistently aired my misgivings about, to the bar where I was."

"I did not bring him." He would not change his tune.

"Even if you didn't, you were still all over him. Did you not care about how it would make me feel? When will you take responsibility for the way you make people feel? Will you always do things your way and not care about how it affects the people you claim to care about? You lied about who you were—,"

"And we are back here!" An incensed breath left his lips. "You are never going to let this go."

"You haven't apologized! How can I let it go when you don't feel sorry for what you've done?"

New shook his head. "You've had it out for me from the beginning."

"Don't try to turn this around. Don't change the subject."

"You had already made up your mind to hate me." He carried on doggedly. "You thought the worst of me the night we met. You said terrible things about me to Kao the whole night. You picked him over me consistently and you still are," he cried. "You pointed out every bad thing that could happen to us, to our union."

"I was being realistic."

"You hated me before you knew me!" A tear ran down his cheeks. The purple sweater came up to quickly wipe it away. "You grasped on to my only mistake and used it against me at the least chance. You hate me, Tawan. This is why nothing I do will ever be enough to please you. You have given me hell from the start."

If anything, Tay was impressed with how New made him the villain in his head. "I only gave you what you deserved. Day in and day out, you mock me. You use my candor from that night to mess with me. I opened up to you! I held nothing back. You took all that information to what? Make boorish and inglorious remarks about me? You are hell itself, Thitipoom!"