50 Things I Hate About You

I Hate Your Perfect Smile

When in doubt, Kat Stratford always had a quote to bail me out.

      I first watched 10 Things I Hate About You when I was seven and didn't quite understand what love was. Sure, Mom had read me snippets from her romance novels every night before bed since I was born, but my childish mind couldn't wrap itself around the concept of what theme of the movie really was.

        What it could do was relate my immense hatred for my infuriating next door neighbor to Kat's own toward Patrick.

         While living in a quiet little suburban town on the outskirts of the city had it perks, such as not having to spend every afternoon in gridlock traffic, with them, came disadvantages. The closest grocery store was a half hour drive, the nearest gas station ten minutes. There were only two elementary, two middle, and three high schools in town, and one mall that was almost always full to the brim with teens with nowhere else to spend their spare time.

        But the biggest disadvantage?

        Having to share the same yard with Onyx Hayes.

        The way our quaint, cute little two-story houses were built, the master bedroom and a spacious room sat at the end of the long hallway downstairs, and there was one spacious room that overlooked the flower garden my mother had been nurturing since I was eight-and just happened to sit perfectly parallel to Onyx Hayes bedroom. Most girls, including my quiet, introvert friend Angie, would have given anything to be able to catch even a glimpse of the narcissistic Golden boy. I, however, wished desperately for the boy to understand that the black curtains and sun-damaged blinds weren't just décor.

         Every morning I was forced to watch the seventeen-year-old arrogant blond parade around his big, sparsely furnished bedroom in nothing but a pair of low riding boxers. Sometimes he'd glance my way, smirk, then purposely continue to pace his room aimlessly until I drew my own broken blinds. Under normal circumstances, having a close up view of a hot guy would have made me as weak kneed and nervous as most of the girls at school. But Onyx wasn't just any good-looking guy; he was the boy who'd been a little devil child since the day he was born.

       It would have been great if my daily dose of Onyx stopped there; sadly it wasn't the case. Our mothers were the best of friends, and every Friday night we were forced to sit at the same dinner table. Me, eyes narrowed at the idiot scrolling through his phone through all of dinner hoping if I glared long enough he'd grow uncomfortable and leave as he wasn't present at the table anyway. Of course I'd never get that wonderful opportunity. Instead, he'd occasionally pry his eyes from the bright screen and shoot my parents a perfect, toothy grin that always seemed to get him out of everything, both at home and school.

       "What I'd do to have this view every day." My best friend, Mikey, made it a habit to remind me how "blessed" I was every time he came over. He almost always opened my window wide, pulled the curtains apart, and leaned into the windowsill with heart eyes as he gazed lovingly into the usually vacant room, hoping to catch Onyx coming in from wherever the hell it was that he spent most of the day after school.

            I hadn't always despised the very ground Onyx Hayes walked on, there'd been a time when we'd play together and I had felt as though I was special, because even back then, I had known that all the girls wished to have him within such a proximity and at there every beck and call. But life happened, and when I needed him most, he proved that he wasn't the person I had thought he was.

    "Nyx." Leslie Tubman's voice shook me back into reality, or more specifically, my desk in Algebra II. "Nyx, hey."

         I shot her a warning look over my shoulder, pretending I was interested in the lecture being taught by the plump, old German math teacher. In reality, I just didn't want to listen to the hell that'd be raised if Ms. Greenwich heard her. She was one of the girls on the cheer squad- a friend of Mikey's, her big brown eyes on the devil himself across the room. He had fallen asleep, his arms crossed over the laminate, head resting on them. His mane of unruly blonde hair was fanning his forehead and curtaining his eyes, perfect, full lips slightly parted as his wheezing sounding through the silent room. It was a miracle Ms. Greenwich hadn't heard him yet; a pin drop could be heard in here.