50 Things I Hate About You

I Hate Your Car

As if the smell of stale smoke and Onyx's Spotify playlist being as bipolar as he was, wasn't torture enough, pulling the old sedan to a stop along the curb between our houses, I spotted our mothers in the midst of an intense conversation through the open blinds looking into my dining room.

         Mom was standing, speaking with hand gestures for added effect, while Ms. Hayes sat and responded in the best friend way that Angie had for me on countless occasions, gasps and wide eyes at all the right moments.

         "I wonder what they're talking about." Onyx stated my very thoughts aloud, but when I looked back at him, he wasn't even staring at our mothers conversing, but straight ahead. His right hand had dropped from the wheel and almost instinctively kept grazing the pack of cigarettes in the cup holder, as if he were jonesing but forcing himself to ignore the feeling because his pride and ego was too important to be attacked with my harsh judgements about his smoking habits.

         "Probably sending you to military school." I said with a laugh. "Would definitely do everyone good."

         I didn't have to turn around to know he was rolling his eyes. "Funny. My mom looks upset though, don't you think?"

         Considering his words, I fixated my eyes on the petite woman standing under my mother's raged expression. Mom was red faced and her hands had found her hips sometime during my few seconds of distraction. I'd been under that scolding look and had harsh words spat at me enough times to know she was irritated. But Onyx was right, his mother did look upset, but more so in a mental breakdown kind of way. She had her face buried in her hands, and even from this distance and without my glasses, I could see her cheeks were almost as red as Mom's.

         "Maybe she's on her period." I offered, glancing back at Onyx. "You know how hormonal us women get."

         A tension filled the car silencing me before I could try and crack another bad joke. I shifted my entire body in Onyx's direction, shocked by the vulnerability he was so openly wearing. His jaw was slack, lips turned down, and though his blue eyes were trained ahead, I could tell her was trying to compose himself by his rapid blinking.

         "I heard her on the phone this morning." Onyx's whisper was barely audible, almost as if he were talking to himself, "With Dad."

         Felix had taken off two years ago, refusing to try and reconcile with his wife after he'd cheated and impregnated another woman, and had left Onyx without explanation. Ms. Hayes had been in the midst of recovering from the tragic and traumatic passing of Onyx's little brother, and was completely blindsided by her husband's infidelity. Mom had said this all with tears in her own eyes reliving the bits and pieces of hell my dad had put her through. She had wanted to protect Onyx and his mother any way possible. Thus, both women had sat Onyx down at my kitchen table a few months after his father's departure, and told him everything, but that he shouldn't hate his father and she didn't want this to ruin his relationship with him. I had been standing with my back pressed against the dryer, eavesdropping. Unfortunately for Ms. Hayes, Onyx would find that he hated his father all on his own. Because Mr. Hayes refused to acknowledge that Onyx and his mother ever existed, he had started a new life and pretended his past never happened.

                  "I don't know what he said to her, but it's been years since they've spoke and she was clearly upset." Onyx added quietly, drumming his fingers along the top of the steering wheel.

                  If this had been anyone but Onyx Hayes beside me, I may have reached across the console and touched his shoulder or forearm comfortingly and offered some type of reassurance, even if it were for the sake of calming him. But my distaste for the boy beside me was enough to keep my mouth shut, and I looked back at our moms before he could snap at me for staring too long.