The Boy I Hate

Eighteen.

I was never the type of person who craved conflict. I preferred a peaceful existence; complete with passive aggressive feelings and fake smiles. These days though, the list of people I wasn't fighting with was shorter than the opposite. My mother and I tip-toed around the house to avoid communicating, my mailbox remained full of un-answered pleas from Rich, and Charlie and I -well - we'd been fighting since we knew how. The only person I could really count on was Margie, and I was grounded from hanging out with her unless we were preparing for the debutante ball.

In light of the drama, school had become particularly awful. Richard kept sending his baseball buddies over to give me messages, because he thought I might pummel him if he tried to talk to me. He was probably right, especially considering the content of the message was to ask me to attend a west side party to make up with Charlie. Apparently the boys thought it was about time they utilize me. It was baffling that he could still concern himself with such a trivial plan.

Bobby had also contacted me about the party; apparently it was just a small get together to come up with a prank. As if I could bother with that. I had no plans to attend.

Imagine my surprise when - for the third time in a month - my window pitter-pattered in the late hours of the night. Turns out even if you ignore a problem for a whole week it will come back to haunt you on Friday. "I told you no," I scolded Bobby's puppy-dog eyes with my head sticking out the window.

A breeze blew my nightgown behind me as I watched him shrug with a smirk, "and I said I wouldn't take no for an answer."

A couple minutes of banter later and I was digging through my closet asking what was appropriate to wear. I wasn't going to have a repeat of heals-on-the-beach. I wound up in jean shorts and my cheer hoodie, crawling out of my window - once again.

The second we were settled in the car, and Bobby was driving west, I asked the question that had been burning the back of my brain for days, "you knew?"

"Knew what?" He kept his eyes on the road, unbothered.

"That he had a cru-" I stuttered, the words feeling foreign to my tongue, "that Charlie liked me?"

A silent tension followed my words. He breathed, "the real question is how do you know?"

I stuck up my chin, turning my knees away from him to look out at passing headlights. "Does it matter? I have a right to know."

"Maybe you do." Our breath fogged up the windows, "but it'd be strange if you just stumbled upon one of Sugar Port's best kept secrets."

"Richard told me," I admitted.

"Oh," he exclaimed, the corner of his lip lifting slightly. "That must have gone over well."

Some tension trapped in the car was released when I couldn't help but laugh at his joke. Bobby was irritating in the fact that he ignored the melodrama of my life, and instead found humor in everything, but it was all part of his charm. I'd always liked him, but now I was learning to consider him a friend. Perhaps that was why I only put up half a fight when he came to my house that night. 

"It was a lovely argument."

He kept his eyes on the road but still smiled, "did you break up? For real this time?"

I furrowed my brows, considering that option for the first time. I'd been dating the boy for years; it was almost impossible to imagine a reality where that wasn't true. No matter how often we fought, or how many times I swore I could never look at him again, he found a way to make me melt for him. I laid my feet on the dash. "I think I'm incapable of breaking up with him."