Dear Love I Hate You

  Copyright © 2021 by Eliah Greenwood

  www.eliahgreenwood.com

  If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, the book has been pirated and you are committing a crime. Please delete it from your device and support the author by purchasing a legal copy. Love to read? YOU make a difference in your favorite authors’ capacity to keep writing and provide you with books you enjoy.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cover photographer: Michelle Lancaster

  ISBN: 978-1-7776223-1-2

  Editing by One Love Editing

  First printing edition 2021

  Reality Survivor Publishing (Eliah Greenwood)

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  I Need Your Help

  Also by Eliah Greenwood

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  - Secrets And Lies - Ruelle

  - River – Bishop Briggs

  - I Need You To Hate Me – JC Stewart

  - Out Of My League – Fitz And The Tantrum

  - A little Bit Yours – JP Saxe

  For anyone with dirty little secrets…

  May you find someone who deserves your confession.

  * * *

  Warning: This book contains topics which may be triggering to some readers (talks of suicide, undescriptive sexual assault, foul language, and graphic mature scenes) Please proceed with caution.

  Please note that mistakes in the prologue were made intentionally.

  * * *

  Dear Ms. Callahan…

  You’re an asshole.

  Knew it from the first time I walked into your class at the beginning of senior year. There. I said it. You. Are. An. Asshole. And not the “she’s nice once you get to know her” asshole. You’re the human equivalent of stepping into a puddle with socks on.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if you spent your evenings bathing in hell fire, trying to come up with new ways to make your students suffer. Seriously, what’s your thought process like?

  “Twenty pages on poetry? Great idea! Giving high schoolers less than forty-eight hours to read the book and turn the paper in? Even better!”

  Now, before I proceed with my rant, I’d like to apologize (not really) for any mistake I might make in this letter that your never going to get. Can’t really be bothered with grammar right now.

  You see, I’m in a bit of a time crunch between trying to graduate high school, score a once in a life time scholarship so I can get the F out of this town, playing chauffeur to my prodigy sibling and being a full-time disappointment to my mom.

  Oh, and don’t forget the twenty pages.

  Who needs sleep, right?

  Sure, “technically”, I’m to blame for getting stuck with this poetry book, but how the heck was I supposed to know the one time I’d get sick and miss English lit would be the time you’d let us pick the book for the essay that’s worth fifty percent?

  Granted, I would’ve been stuck with a boring book either way, (You didn’t exactly have thrilling options lined up) but you didn’t have to do us dirty like that.

  You must think I’m crazy. I promise you I’m not. I’m actually a pretty decent person when I’m not calling middle-aged women Satan. In my defense, my therapist says writing down my feelings will help me cope.

  So, what if I called u an asshole? So, what if I’m sitting here, in the library, wasting my time writing a hate letter to a teacher who can never remember my name when I’m already running late?

  It’s not like anyone is ever going to read this anyway.

  I’m realizing this letter is a bit all over the place, so let me summarize it for you.

  Dear Ms. Callahan,

  Sincerely,

  From the bottom of my heart,

  Go fuck yourself.

  - L

  Aveena

  “Aveena Harper D’Amour?” Mr. Lowen, my sixty-year-old math teacher, shouts over complete chaos, and I feel a twinge of pity for him—no one ever said taking attendance in the middle of a raging thunderstorm was easy.

  “Here!” I yell once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  No luck.

  Mr. Lowen spots me in the crowd a minute later, bows his head in acknowledgement, and inches his list closer to mark me down as present. How did I get here, you ask? Out in the pouring rain? Freezing my ass off on my school’s front lawn with Easton High’s entire student body?

  Not. A. Fucking. Clue.

  “Vee, thank God!” Someone yanks on my sleeve, spinning me around so fast that I lose my footing. It takes me a solid second to steady myself and recognize my best friend, Diamond, through the torrent. She’s completely soaked, her signature black curls now straight as an arrow.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you!” Dia blurts as she traps me into a hug so tight the oxygen is squeezed out of me. The only class Dia and I don’t have together is math, so, of course, that’s when the whole school had to be evacuated.

  “What on earth is going on? Teachers won’t tell us anything.” I break away from her. “Is there really a fire?”

  “Has to be.” She shrugs. “Why else would the fire alarm go off?”

  I give her a slight nod, scanning the small building that’s Easton High School for a sign of a fire. I’ve got zilch to go on here—no smoke, no fire smell, absolutely nothing to pin to blame on.

  Thunder booms in the distance, and I yelp, gripping my best friend’s arm like a wuss. The sky is a dark, cloudy nightmare, Mother Nature’s way of letting us know she’s just getting started.

  “You think it’s a drill?” I ask Dia.

  A mocking scoff keeps her from answering. We flip our heads to see a messy-haired, drenched Theodore Cox. He goes by Theo, and, piece of advice, don’t ever call him by his full name.

  He bites.

  Theo, like many of his basketball teammates, is your typical quick-witted, popular asshole. You know, the “more handsome than he deserves” type. He’s tall, arrogant, unfamiliar with the concept of being wrong, and to my great misery…

  Someone I have to hang out with on a daily basis.

  “Something you want to share with the class, Cox?” Dia sighs.

  “’No fucking way that’s a drill,” Theo scoffs. “We already had one this year. Plus, they wouldn’t do it during this end-o
f-the-world shit.” Theo gestures to take a look around.

  So, I do.

  The school’s front lawn is damn near bursting with students.

  We’re all freezing.

  Soaked from head to toe.

  The idiot has a point.

  They wouldn’t just throw a fire drill smack-dab in the middle of the apocalypse. And, as crazy as it might sound, Theodore Cox isn’t completely deprived of brain functions.

  You see, I went years assuming jocks had the intelligence of a doormat, and was perfectly content adhering to the stereotype. Then my best friend had to go and fall for one of the cool kids…

  Finley Richards. Star basketball player, notorious flirt, and, as of late, Dia’s favorite bad decision. Bottom line: we hang out with Finn’s crowd this year. What? Dia’s my only friend, so it’s either that or I eat alone until graduation.

  It all started last summer when Dia got herself a job as the Richardses’ house sitter. Finn’s filthy-rich father spends every summer up in Santa Monica and didn’t trust his son to take care of the house one bit—did I say house? I meant mansion.

  Golden boy didn’t take his father’s lack of faith in him very well and unleashed his wrath on Dia. Made her life a living hell, crossing every line imaginable to get her to quit, but she was determined to see things through.

  Long story short, they hated each other.

  Until… their genitals didn’t.

  Thus began the most confusing love/hate relationship to ever exist. Why? Because Dia and Finn aren’t dating. Not really. They like to say they’re “friends with benefits,” but anyone with half a brain knows that’s a load of crap. Everything a couple does, they do. Sex, PDA, exclusivity, nauseating nicknames.

  The list goes on and on.

  It’s so painfully obvious that they have it bad, but you will never hear them refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. If you ask me, their so-called “casual” relationship is a big, fat disaster just waiting to happen.

  Two fire trucks branded Silver Springs Fire Dept and a police car come charging into the school’s lot before Dia and Theo can argue further.

  “How’s that for a drill, Finn’s girl?” Theo snarks.

  “Shut up, Cox,” Dia grumbles, grabbing a handful of her black, curly hair and squeezing the water out. The deluge has decreased into a drizzle. It’s about time. I don’t know how much longer they could’ve left us out in the pouring rain.

  “Speaking of, where is Finn?” Dia pushes to her tiptoes, searching for her not-boyfriend. She’s right. He should be here by now—these two are like magnets. Plus, it must’ve taken five minutes tops for kids to disobey their teachers and go find their friends.

  “How should I know where your boyfriend is?” Theo drawls, his phone pinging with a text. He plucks it out of his pocket, his jaw going slack when he skims through the message on his screen. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “What?” Dia asks.

  “These crazy sons of bitches. They actually did it,” he says, more to himself than us.

  “The hell you talking about?” Dia pushes.

  “It’s—” Theo stops talking abruptly, eyes dead set on something in the distance. And it’s not just him. The entire student body has gone quiet.

  Dia and I track Theo’s gaze to the school’s main entrance, more specifically to the two six-foot-something morons being escorted out of the building by the sheriff.

  The first person I see is Finn.

  Then I see him.

  Xavier Emery.

  Finn’s brother—I’d say best friends, but these two are practically family. They literally wear matching chains for Pete’s sake. Xavier is a lot of things: popular, captain of the basketball team, so beautiful it’s almost painful, but to me? He’s the asshole little boy who cut off one of my pigtails when we were kids.

  Dia loses it. “Cox, so help me God, if you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, I’ll—”

  “Chill.” Theo caves. “I heard them talking about some prank after practice yesterday. Thought it was just locker room talk. I didn’t think they were serious.”

  Is that why we were evacuated?

  The basketball team’s star players pulling a prank?

  What could they have done that was so bad they had to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the whole school?’

  “What sort of prank?” Dia’s voice wavers with worry.

  Theo shrugs. “Something about stink bombs, I think?”

  Dia squeezes her eyes shut and exhales a long, exasperated sigh. Worst part is, she doesn’t even look surprised. Finn Richards has always been the troublemaker.

  That impulsive, reckless kid who, if it weren’t for his rich daddy, would have been expelled many moons ago. But, hey, what can you do? Easton High needs the funding, and just like Xavier, Finn is one of the team’s most valuable players, so they sweep his behavior under the rug.

  Objectively, Finn is a no-brainer. It’s the Xavier part of it all that makes no sense to me. Dude hasn’t so much as breathed wrong since freshman year, so to take part in a prank like this? I don’t get it.

  “Wait, isn’t setting off a stink bomb illegal?” I realize.

  “Sure is. Jesus, what are they, dense? This could cost them the rest of the season.” Theo tsks.

  I haul my attention back to the boys. Finn seems to realize just how horribly he messed up when he catches sight of the six hundred kids standing in the rain. Meanwhile, Xavier doesn’t give a semblance of a fuck.

  Not one.

  It’s the droop of his shoulders, the way his eyes glaze over the crowd with boredom. Even his walk feels like a statement. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Xavier and Finn switched bodies in the world’s worst remake of Freaky Friday.

  A police officer pulls Principal Emery aside—yep, Xavier’s mom is the principal. Might come in handy right about now, but the cherry on top? Xavier’s dad is also employed at Easton High. He’s our PE teacher. The one we love to hate.

  I get Silver Springs is a small town and all, but they could’ve at least tried to branch out.

  The cop tells Principal Emery something we can’t hear, to which she replies with a “Do what you have to do” nod. That’s the universe’s cue to drop the entire Pacific Ocean on our heads.

  The rain picks up again, harder than it was moments prior, and I can’t help watching Dumb and Dumber get dragged toward the cop car out front.

  Remember when I said Xavier Emery was so beautiful it’s almost painful? The way he looks right now… that’s what I’m talking about.

  Even soaked, about to get his ass thrown in the back of a cop car, with his shirt sticking to his hard, sculpted body and his light brown hair dripping down his forehead, he’s every girl’s wet dream—pun intended.

  Granted, the guy was an asswipe when he disappeared from my life at age eight, but I can appreciate the blue-eyed Adonis just as much as the next girl.

  “Never a dull moment in Silver Springs, huh?” Theo remarks as Xavier and Finn are shoved into the back seat and the police car takes off at full speed. “Man, I hope this means we have the day off tomorrow. I haven’t even started Ms. Callahan’s paper yet.”

  Memories slam into me.

  I landed a job at the school library this year—which, fun fact, also operates as Silver Springs’ public library—and I had a shift yesterday before I went to pick up my sister from her singing lesson.

  Ended up writing some stupid letter to my English teacher to vent. I couldn’t find the poetry book in my bag this morning.

  I left it there, didn’t I?

  I left the book at the library.

  With the letter inside.

  For crying out loud, Vee, how dumb can you possibly be?

  It’s one thing to be having a really bad day and take it out on your ball-busting teacher in a hate letter. It’s another to be so stupid you forget the letter at the library for anyone to find.

  I can already see it. The school ringing
up my mom to let her know her least favorite daughter got suspended for, quote, “accusing her teacher of bathing in hellfire.”

  My dad’s voice pops into my head before panic wins me over.

  Slow down, take a breath, and find the bright side.

  Well, it doesn’t hurt that I left the letter inside an old, dusty book that hasn’t been checked out in over ten years. Odds are I’ll be off to college with a bun in the oven by the time someone finds it. And even if someone did happen upon it, what’s to say they’d trace it back to me?

  Shit, I think I mentioned my musical genius of a sister.

  And my potential scholarship.

  Fine, maybe they could trace it back to me if they put in the research. But that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to let it. Mr. Lowen tells us we have the rest of the day off, and all thoughts of Xavier Emery vanish from my mind.

  There’s only one thought left in there.