I hear someone shout my name, but I pay them no attention. I keep going, my plan to get as far away from this house as possible.
Coming here was a bad idea, and it ended the exact way I predicted. I’m no closer to finding out what happened three years ago than I was before, but I’ve lost another piece of myself I couldn’t afford to.
I hate Hunter Prince.
I hate him almost as much as I hate myself.
“What do you mean I can’t switch?” I ask hysterically. I’m ready to pull my own hair out at this point. Going head-to-head with my advisor is like riding a merry-go-round—you get nowhere really fast.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Rose, we just cannot switch you.”
“Surely there’s a spot open in one of the other business ethics courses. Actually, I’m sure of it.”
With my English class getting canceled, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to get the ball rolling on some transfers. After the other night at the party, I’d much rather eat dirt than continue sharing a class with Hunter.
Desperation is my only motivator. Having been caught with my pants down, almost literally, there’s no way I can take no for an answer.
“Seriously, I don’t even care if I have to drop it and take another course until next semester,” I frantically reply, hoping she’ll see past that screen of hers and realize she’s speaking to a real person and not some number on a piece of paper.
She gives me a scolding look and purses her lips, fishing for the granny-style glasses hanging around her neck. Just from her actions alone, I feel like an insignificant little twat who’s here trying to waste her time, even though I know differently.
After several minutes of searching, she once more pulls her glasses off, giving me an ‘I told you so’ look, declaring, “There is absolutely no other class you can be transferred to, Ms. Rose. Your situation is very delicate, and there need not be anything that, let’s say, rock the boat.”
My mouth fishes open and closed.
Then, the only woman I’d describe as the devil’s mistress goes one step further in my abject humiliation. Placing her hands down on her desk, she weaves her fingers together and gives me a hard glare. “Might I suggest one thing? Since there seems to be a reason for such a bothersome request, you may, I don’t know, ignore whatever it is distracting you and focus on your education.”
Easier said than done, I’m afraid. This lady absolutely has no idea who Hunter Prince is. Even with his silence, his mere presence is taunting enough.
“I begging you.”
A knock sounds at her door, and by the way she straightens her appearance, it’s safe to say she’s through with this meeting. Huffing, I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder. Nothing about this place is fair and just. They only care about themselves, and now I’m paying the price for it.
I’ll have to sit through a semester with Hunter right next to me, living through the utter humiliation I brought onto myself when I kissed him back. Anger should be the main focal point when I see him, not desire. I shouldn’t want him period.
Except, I do. Goddammit, seeing him again after all this time—regardless of what has transpired between us—makes me remember all the good times we shared with each other.
The ups and downs—the time I fell in his backyard when we were kids, and he kissed the boo-boo on my knee because it hurt. The time I found Hunter down by the creek behind his house, steaming mad because of something Owen did to him. That day, I found out his brother had made fun of him because he’d never been kissed. That day, we had our first kiss.
Call me weak. Call me spineless. Call me anything you want, but it’s the truth. When someone is already an asshole, you tend to overlook things a little easier than you would from someone who isn’t. Not to say that’s an excuse for the way he acts, because it’s not.
No one should treat someone the way Hunter treated me the other night. Or, hell, since the time he put me to stepping sophomore year. However, your head and heart can want different things. Like a wife or husband cheating on their spouse—it’s not easy to end things.
Not by a long shot.
The wronged in the scenario will always think about the past and how it got them to their present. They will remember the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hate and love? They’re two vastly different emotions, but can, and most of the time, do come from the same place.
People say love and hate are separated by some imaginary fine line. That you, in some instances, can feel one while experiencing the other. In a sense, that’s correct.
Love and hate? Both are your balance, your inner peace, and utter chaos. They are two deep-seated sentiments that are the very foundation of your being. While vastly different in unexplained aspects are still remarkably similar.
And I’m lost to both while maneuvering my way through the sludge that makes up my life. I can’t explain it, and I’d rather not even try to. The most I can come up with is that I both hate and love Hunter.
The sight of him causes my heart to flutter in my chest, both from anger and longing at the memories that assault me. It’s hard to dismiss someone so completely from your life, especially when they made up the vast majority of it.
From the time we were in diapers until that fateful Christmas Eve, I don’t have a memory that doesn’t have him in it. When I said we did everything together, we did everything.
As funny as it is, Hunter was the first person to buy me feminine products. He was the only person I trusted at the time, and he did so like a knight in shining armor, even though it made him look absolutely ridiculous. But still, he pushed through and dared anyone to say a word.
He taught me how to ride my bike, even though he’d just learned a few days prior. We shared ice cream cones in the middle of summer, laughing and snorting when it melted all over us.
We spent nights tucked away on his second-floor balcony, growing closer and—at that time, we didn’t know—more in love as each season sped past us.
The same willow tree we shared our first kiss under sits in his back yard, old, weathered, but still beautiful, strong, and majestic. Still, to this day, our initials are carved into the trunk of that weeping willow, as if it were a promise to all of God’s creation that Hunter and I would never part.
Hey, yeah, you see how good that went down?
Giving her a weary smile, I leave her office and head out. Stopping into the bathroom to relieve myself, I do quick work, and then find I just don’t want to leave. Sliding down to the floor, it’s hard to keep the tears from falling as my mind gets trapped in the past. The pain completely encases my chest, making it hard to breathe, as memory after memory of our laughing faces flashes behind my closed lids.
Maverick will never know the love that his dad and I used to have. That, in itself, is a tragedy.
Deciding I need to hear my little man’s voice, even if it’s just for him to scold me about calling so much, I step into a stall and close the door while fishing out my cell phone. I quickly dial my dad’s number, and on the second ring, I barely stop myself from releasing the tears I’m holding back when I hear his voice.
“Mommy!”
I sniffle. “Hey, baby boy, what are you doing?”
“Poppy’s showin’ me to whistle. Wanna hear?” Slobbering whistles sound through the line, causing a smile to break out across my face. Talking to him, even about something as mundane as learning how to whistle, always makes me feel better.