Hate
Uhh... Old writing. I started going through all my docs and figured this was good enough to post.
Hate
Love is supposed to start with sunsets and fireworks and all that other sappy stuff. With ice cream licked off of noses and tickle fights. With five hour phone calls where you don’t say anything and falling asleep on the phone. With running up your parents phone bill and chatting online until four am. With gushing to your friends about how sweet he is and with getting teased by your pals about how in love with her you are. This love didn’t start with any of that. It started with hate.
Everyone says you have to love something to hate it, but I think it’s the other way around. He pulled my hair; I broke the head off of his G.I Joe. Which sounds like the making of a perfect romance, actually, since that’s what you see in all those movies and sappy TV shows, but I am here to tell you- that is not how it works. Really, I promise. I’ve been there.
It might have worked out fine if it stopped there, but it didn’t. It continued for the next eleven years. Do you know how long eleven years is when you’re at someone’s throat everyday? Four thousand and nineteen days of torture. I’m not joking; I just did the math. He drove me insane for four thousand plus days. And then he kissed me.
Of course, I slapped him shortly afterwards, which sounds bad but really is nothing compared to all the times I’ve taken out my hatred towards him on his genitalia. It’s no coincidence that a knee fits so well into the groin. Really, I promise. There’s no way it could be with how many times I’ve taken advantage of it. Anyway, the damage was done because all I could think about after that was his lips and how soft they felt on mine. Yick… But oh so amazing at the same time…
I had dreams about it. Usually when I have dreams about him they’re the kind of dreams where I finally one up him for good. Like, in one of them he finally saw that I’d been right all along and couldn’t stop apologizing for how horribly he’d treated me over the years and telling me how awesome I was and how he’d do anything to make it up to me. That was a good one….
Of course the next day when I actually saw him and he was still a complete jerk, I kneed him harder in the ba- I mean, ‘groin’. He couldn’t get up for five minutes. But the dream I had about him the night was before… different. And so was the next day. He went back to being a dick and I couldn’t think straight enough to come up with a good comeback.
I thought for the longest time that that’s why he did it. Kissed me, that is. To throw me off so he could feel better about the things he said to me. Well, that lasted about a week and then I came back even fiercer. He didn’t know what hit him for a month and reeled like I’d physically hit him every time I made a particularly hash remark. Of course, I hit him a few times too. Not softly, either. After a while I think he figured out that I knew why he’d kissed me because he went back to being just as mean as he was before. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. I angsted over it for three months before we had another knock-down blow out fight. That time around I kissed him. And he kissed me back.
Now, if this were a movie or a book or some sappy piece of fan fiction like the ones I read on LiveJournal we would get together and live happily ever after, right? This isn’t one of those movies. We went back to torturing each other more than ever, which you would think by that point was impossible. Somehow we managed. Everyone started looking at us funny even though by then they were used to us being terrible to each other. By best friend Kendal asked me about it but I refused to tell her the truth. I told her that he insulted my mother and she looked at me like “but he’s done that a million times…” but I gave her my look that says “drop it or I will hurt you”. So of course she figured it out. And kept arching her eyebrow at me when ever he and I fought. Oh, how I loath that knowing eyebrow arch. It’d be enough to make me hate her if I didn’t love her so much already. And she has this smirk that’s equally infuriating. It really is a good thing we’ve been best friends since we were four, because she’s one of those girls I’d hate otherwise, but I’m rambling…
The following Tuesday I turned eighteen and he crashed my party, of course. And drank my beer. And smoked my pot. I decided to let it slide because the police had a tendency to get called when we got in really big brawls and I really didn’t want them busting all my friends who were lighting up in my living room. He took this as a sign of concession and proceeded to give me these looks that screamed “you wanna kiss me!”
I wanted to kill him. And I started to walk over to him when I saw Kendal just looking at me like she didn’t think it was worth it. Usually she’s on my side and will even throw in a witty remark or two when we fight or glare at his best friend when he tries to get in on the action, but at that moment she just looked at me like I was crazy for even thinking about approaching him. So I didn’t. I turned around and got really really drunk.
You know how incredibly stupid ideas sound brilliant when you’re drunk? Like jumping off the roof of your house into your pool? And playing strip poker? And kissing your worst enemy? Yeah, well, that’s what I did. Kiss him, not jump off my roof into my pool. I don’t even have a pool. I’m pleading the fifth to the strip poker. There aren’t pictures; there is no proof. So there.
Anyway, I kissed him. And we wandered up to my room, which, hello! Me- with the being drunk and all. Stupid, stupid, stupid… But it happened. And so not my fault, because, well, with the drunkenness. And we wound up falling asleep on my bed at some point. I’m not sure what else happened that night, but I remember screaming and hitting him when I woke up the next morning. I’m really glad my mother was out of town. In all honesty, I think she would have freaked out because of how much crazy stuff we’ve done to each other over the last twelve years. Well, maybe she wouldn’t… It is my mom. She might not be surprised at all because she has a way of knowing things like that. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if she came home and asked me if Chris and I were dating yet. Which we SO aren’t… probably.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t make him leave. I calmed down and he climbed back in bed with me. It was… surprisingly nice. Just being snuggled up to him… Not fighting. And also kind of weird. I’m so used to yelling at him every moment I’m around him that it was kind of unnerving not to be… And to feel so comfortable in his arms. One of which I broke when I pushed him off the merry-go-round when we were nine. You know- the ones on the playgrounds. Not the ones with the creepy music and the scary animals that you sit on at the carnival. The ones that you spin around and eventually get so dizzy that you feel like you’re gonna puke… Carnivals are scary- clowns and all those little fish in plastic bags and the people that try to guess you’re weight. Can you say creepy much? Anyway, it was nice at the same time. The snuggling. We didn’t talk much… I think if we had talked more than we did I would have wound up kicking him out for real. We eventually fell back asleep, though. Which was also surprisingly pleasant.
Kendal called me a couple hours later and was screaming about how she saw me go upstairs with him and what the hell happened and did we have sex and is he still there and what the hell was I thinking and oh my god, was it good sex and should she come over to gossip about it because she wanted all the juicy details and oh! That sounded so wrong, but should she technically take it back if we had had sex? I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I laughed and told her I’d call her later because yes, he was still there and no, we didn’t have sex.
He rolled his eyes and insulted my taste in friends.
“I hate you,” I said, kissing him.
“I love you.”
Hate
Love is supposed to start with sunsets and fireworks and all that other sappy stuff. With ice cream licked off of noses and tickle fights. With five hour phone calls where you don’t say anything and falling asleep on the phone. With running up your parents phone bill and chatting online until four am. With gushing to your friends about how sweet he is and with getting teased by your pals about how in love with her you are. This love didn’t start with any of that. It started with hate.
Everyone says you have to love something to hate it, but I think it’s the other way around. He pulled my hair; I broke the head off of his G.I Joe. Which sounds like the making of a perfect romance, actually, since that’s what you see in all those movies and sappy TV shows, but I am here to tell you- that is not how it works. Really, I promise. I’ve been there.
It might have worked out fine if it stopped there, but it didn’t. It continued for the next eleven years. Do you know how long eleven years is when you’re at someone’s throat everyday? Four thousand and nineteen days of torture. I’m not joking; I just did the math. He drove me insane for four thousand plus days. And then he kissed me.
Of course, I slapped him shortly afterwards, which sounds bad but really is nothing compared to all the times I’ve taken out my hatred towards him on his genitalia. It’s no coincidence that a knee fits so well into the groin. Really, I promise. There’s no way it could be with how many times I’ve taken advantage of it. Anyway, the damage was done because all I could think about after that was his lips and how soft they felt on mine. Yick… But oh so amazing at the same time…
I had dreams about it. Usually when I have dreams about him they’re the kind of dreams where I finally one up him for good. Like, in one of them he finally saw that I’d been right all along and couldn’t stop apologizing for how horribly he’d treated me over the years and telling me how awesome I was and how he’d do anything to make it up to me. That was a good one….
Of course the next day when I actually saw him and he was still a complete jerk, I kneed him harder in the ba- I mean, ‘groin’. He couldn’t get up for five minutes. But the dream I had about him the night was before… different. And so was the next day. He went back to being a dick and I couldn’t think straight enough to come up with a good comeback.
I thought for the longest time that that’s why he did it. Kissed me, that is. To throw me off so he could feel better about the things he said to me. Well, that lasted about a week and then I came back even fiercer. He didn’t know what hit him for a month and reeled like I’d physically hit him every time I made a particularly hash remark. Of course, I hit him a few times too. Not softly, either. After a while I think he figured out that I knew why he’d kissed me because he went back to being just as mean as he was before. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. I angsted over it for three months before we had another knock-down blow out fight. That time around I kissed him. And he kissed me back.
Now, if this were a movie or a book or some sappy piece of fan fiction like the ones I read on LiveJournal we would get together and live happily ever after, right? This isn’t one of those movies. We went back to torturing each other more than ever, which you would think by that point was impossible. Somehow we managed. Everyone started looking at us funny even though by then they were used to us being terrible to each other. By best friend Kendal asked me about it but I refused to tell her the truth. I told her that he insulted my mother and she looked at me like “but he’s done that a million times…” but I gave her my look that says “drop it or I will hurt you”. So of course she figured it out. And kept arching her eyebrow at me when ever he and I fought. Oh, how I loath that knowing eyebrow arch. It’d be enough to make me hate her if I didn’t love her so much already. And she has this smirk that’s equally infuriating. It really is a good thing we’ve been best friends since we were four, because she’s one of those girls I’d hate otherwise, but I’m rambling…
The following Tuesday I turned eighteen and he crashed my party, of course. And drank my beer. And smoked my pot. I decided to let it slide because the police had a tendency to get called when we got in really big brawls and I really didn’t want them busting all my friends who were lighting up in my living room. He took this as a sign of concession and proceeded to give me these looks that screamed “you wanna kiss me!”
I wanted to kill him. And I started to walk over to him when I saw Kendal just looking at me like she didn’t think it was worth it. Usually she’s on my side and will even throw in a witty remark or two when we fight or glare at his best friend when he tries to get in on the action, but at that moment she just looked at me like I was crazy for even thinking about approaching him. So I didn’t. I turned around and got really really drunk.
You know how incredibly stupid ideas sound brilliant when you’re drunk? Like jumping off the roof of your house into your pool? And playing strip poker? And kissing your worst enemy? Yeah, well, that’s what I did. Kiss him, not jump off my roof into my pool. I don’t even have a pool. I’m pleading the fifth to the strip poker. There aren’t pictures; there is no proof. So there.
Anyway, I kissed him. And we wandered up to my room, which, hello! Me- with the being drunk and all. Stupid, stupid, stupid… But it happened. And so not my fault, because, well, with the drunkenness. And we wound up falling asleep on my bed at some point. I’m not sure what else happened that night, but I remember screaming and hitting him when I woke up the next morning. I’m really glad my mother was out of town. In all honesty, I think she would have freaked out because of how much crazy stuff we’ve done to each other over the last twelve years. Well, maybe she wouldn’t… It is my mom. She might not be surprised at all because she has a way of knowing things like that. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if she came home and asked me if Chris and I were dating yet. Which we SO aren’t… probably.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t make him leave. I calmed down and he climbed back in bed with me. It was… surprisingly nice. Just being snuggled up to him… Not fighting. And also kind of weird. I’m so used to yelling at him every moment I’m around him that it was kind of unnerving not to be… And to feel so comfortable in his arms. One of which I broke when I pushed him off the merry-go-round when we were nine. You know- the ones on the playgrounds. Not the ones with the creepy music and the scary animals that you sit on at the carnival. The ones that you spin around and eventually get so dizzy that you feel like you’re gonna puke… Carnivals are scary- clowns and all those little fish in plastic bags and the people that try to guess you’re weight. Can you say creepy much? Anyway, it was nice at the same time. The snuggling. We didn’t talk much… I think if we had talked more than we did I would have wound up kicking him out for real. We eventually fell back asleep, though. Which was also surprisingly pleasant.
Kendal called me a couple hours later and was screaming about how she saw me go upstairs with him and what the hell happened and did we have sex and is he still there and what the hell was I thinking and oh my god, was it good sex and should she come over to gossip about it because she wanted all the juicy details and oh! That sounded so wrong, but should she technically take it back if we had had sex? I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I laughed and told her I’d call her later because yes, he was still there and no, we didn’t have sex.
He rolled his eyes and insulted my taste in friends.
“I hate you,” I said, kissing him.
“I love you.”