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Hate You, Love You EXTRA

Erik arrived home from school and saw his father fuming at the dining room table, muttering under his breath with his head in his hands, which meant his mother was most likely crying in their bedroom. What they had argued about today, Erik didn't know, and honestly, he didn't care. It could've been about the way his father chewed his food or the way his mother laughed at something on the TV. Regardless, their marriage was over. It was only a matter of time before they finally filed for divorce.

Unfortunately for Erik, he was still a minor, and he had no choice but to bear the brunt of his parents' broken marriage. His older sister, Quinn, had moved out and now lived with friends in a shared apartment. She offered to let him stay over whenever he needed to get away from their parents, but he knew better than to intrude on her roommates everyday.

Without a single greeting, Erik headed straight to his room, passing by his parents' bedroom where he saw through the crack of the door his mother talking on the phone to someone with tears rolling down her cheeks. He felt nothing at the sight of it and simply closed his door behind him.

For as long as he remembered, his parents had been like that with each other. At first, he wished for the day they would get along and become a functional family. Quinn, as the older sibling, came to accept that their parents' marriage was doomed long ago, and she did the best she could to raise him in their place, but the damage was done.

Relationships were fleeting for Erik, and he accepted that he may never find himself loving someone in fear that it may end up just like his parents.

That was, until he overheard a certain conversation.

It was lunch hour at school, and he and his friends stood in the long lunch line. There were loud conversations everywhere, but the voices of a certain group a few people ahead of the line caught his attention. They were looking at his cousin, Alicia, who was standing at the edge of the lunch room with her new boyfriend of the week, flirting and showing sickening affection.

Alicia was the prettiest girl in their school, but she was infamous for the amount of the boys she went through. Many of the guys thought she was easy and many of the girls called her a slut.

Case in point...

"Aren't they embarrassed to be doing that in front of everyone?" a girl ahead of the line scowled.

"Of course not. It's Alicia we're talking about here," another chimed in. "Any guy wouldn't care about shame if it meant getting into her pants. Which from what I hear, isn't exactly a hard thing to accomplish."

"I bet she's slept with at least half the guys in this school already."

"Half? You're giving her too much credit. Seventy-five more like."

While they laughed and continued to gossip, Erik and his friends only got more and more riled up. Though he agreed that Alicia gave in far too easily when it came to guys who confessed to her, he hated hearing others who didn't personally know her talk so much shit about her.

Just as his friends were about to confront the gossipers, another girl ahead of the group turned around and stared at them. Erik recognized her immediately since he shared a few classes with her currently and in the past.

Chloe.