Love Me Or Hate Me

Love Me Or Hate Me [21-I]

The way he stared at me almost made me regret not talking to him for the last few hours, but I knew better than to fall into his trap again. For the past few years he's done nothing but unknowingly hurt me, and I let him. And for what? To say I had the schools most wanted bad boy in the palm of my hands? It wasn't worth it! He wasn't worth it!

Of course, I couldn't deny that the feelings I had for him weren't still there; I just wouldn't act on them. Right now, he was probably wondering how he had gotten rejected by the “brown eyed book worm” and how I hadn't fallen to my knees the moment I payed him an ounce of attention, and the mere thought of that pissed me off. He didn't think with his brain enough, but with his ego, and it annoyed the crap out of me! He had it in him to be a basic, sane human, but he didn't care. All he cared about was his reputation and that made him such an insensitive jerk that I couldn't even tolerate being in the same room as him!

Luckily, I didn't have any important classes with him, so I was going to be jerk free for the next few hours. Me being the person I was though, forgot about everything that had happened yesterday and had forgotten that I was going to be getting snide comments and weird looks today. Almost every person in the room—if not everyone—was staring at me with either humor or pity in their eyes, and I couldn't understand why. Sure, I had been rejected in front of a lot of the school population because James had a slip of the tongue, and sure, I ran away crying because he hurt me, but that didn't mean I deserved to be looked at like I was the next big attraction at the circus!

Even the teacher was staring at me with eyes full of pity and even though I didn't want to let it show that it was bothering me, I snapped under pressure and did one of the worse things that I could have ever done in a classroom. “Oh my gosh, will you guys stop staring at me?! How many fucking times have you seen someone get hurt or bullied or even harrassed by James and Candy? How many times has it happened this year?!” When no one said anything, I went against my better judgment and continued. “Last time I checked, shit like this happened all of the time, so staring at me like it was some kind of big thing doesn't really make sense to me. Do something else with your free time instead of staring at me like I did something wrong, because I didn't.”

Quite a few people were staring at me with wide eyes, and when I looked up at the teacher, I saw that she had a frown on her face. I wanted to apologize for my outburst in her class, but I simply grabbed my books and walked out of the classroom without so much as looking back at anyone. I knew the teacher would be OK with me leaving considering the circumstances, but I was still going to go back at the end of the day to apologize to her. Sure, I had a right to be angry, but an outburst in her class wasn't necessary on my part, and I knew that.

My anger was only further fueled when I walk by a supply closet and heard some thumping and moaning going on from the inside. The smartest thing for me to have done was probably to walk away, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I stayed in my spot until someone said a name.

When someone did though, I almost wished that I hadn't.

“Oh, James,” the moan belonged to a voice that was all too familiar, “do to me what you never did to her. . .”

Assuming that the her was me, I narrowed my eyes and took a step forward, only to be stopped when someone grabbed my arm and turned me around to face them. I was about to tell the person off for grabbing me, but when I looked up and saw Elliot's familiar face, my expression softened and I felt all of the emotions that I had been holding back start to come out. “Is, don't—”

“—why am I not good enough for him?” And then the tears began to roll down my cheeks. Even worse, that's when the door to the closet opened and a disheveled Candy came out, clinging to James' arm. He didn't seem to pay her any attention though because his eyes were on me, and the look in his eyes automatically made me know that he regretted what he had done. Of course, I was done believing that he regretted anything anymore.

Wiping my eyes, I shook my head and turned on my heal. “Goodbye, James.”

He stayed in his spot rooted to the ground, but little did he know, that this was the last time he'd ever see me.