Yeah, I Hate You Too, Sweetheart.

Chapter 1 - Laila

 Laila

    The last thing any fifteen year old wants to do is spend eight hours stuck in a swelteringly hot car with her mom. But as luck would have it, fate decided that was the particular punishment I had coming for me. And not only did I have to deal with my overzealous and doting mother, I was going to be spending God knows how long with people I hadn't seen in seven years. Life's great, right? Hardly.

 "Laila, put your feet down."

I glared up at my mom over the top of Jane Eyre and made a big show of taking my feet off of the dashboard. I was pleased to see that my ratty Converse sneakers had left considerable smudges of dirt behind.

 "You're being really ridiculous about this," my mom sniffed, the last of a thousand times.

"No, I don't think I am," I replied tartly. "Mothers that actually loved their children wouldn't force them to spend the entire summer with total strangers."

"But you know the Richards," she huffed. "They send you birthday cards every year."

"I haven't seen the Richards since I was eight."

 And birthday cards don't count as a consistent relationship, anyways. Believe me, I know - if that were the case, my dad and I would practically be best friends. 

"So?"

I sighed dramatically, trying to lay it on thick. Sometimes if I laid the whole angst-y teenager thing on a bit too well, she'd cave and try to make it up to me. Maybe by getting me a new soccer ball, or my favorite strawberry cheesecake from Magnolia Bakery.

  "It's not my fault you never dragged me along with you when you came down to Portland."

   It was true. When my mom often decided that life was too stressful or she had to get away, she would take weekend jaunts down to Portland, where her best friend Kim Richards lived, leaving me behind… to stay with my completely batty and senile old aunt Deborah. Most of the time she had forced me to sit in front of a piano for hours on end, practicing concertos or scales and my knuckles were still bruised from when she whacked me with a ruler when I happened to mess up on a few notes. She claimed it reinforced the “technique” but I’m 99% she was just a bit insane.

 "Justin will be there, remember him? I remember how much you used to like him. Kim tells me he's turned into quite the handsome young man..." my mom trailed off hopefully, ignoring my complaints.

I clamped my hands down over my ears and scrunched my face up in a sour expression. "Justin Richards is not handsome," I snapped, practically cringing at the name, "Don't talk to me about Justin Richards."

 "Why not?" she wanted to know.

"Because I hate him."

"Since when?"

I tapped my chin thoughtfully, stupidly. "Oh, I dunno... maybe when he strung me up from a tree by my ankle?"

 "In all honesty, you were being a brat. Didn't you hit him with a baseball bat?" my mom said innocently.

"It was a tennis racket, and he doused me in orange soda first! It was my sixth birthday!"

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and pursed her lips, staring intently at the road in front of us.

 "That was seven years ago," she finally said. "I'm sure everything will be just fine."

I promptly ignored her, crisply turning the page in Jane Eyre.

 "And I know I can count on you to be a lady about this, right?"

 I didn't answer.

 "Right?"

 "What do you want from me, mom?" I demanded, snapping my book shut.

"For you to behave!"

 "I always behave."

"Not when Justin Richards is involved."

 "Now you conveniently remember."

 "That's enough, Laila Nicole."

I rolled my eyes and returned my attention back to Jane Eyre. Maybe if I was lucky, my mom would give up trying to persuade me that this summer vacation was going to turn out all right. Of course it wasn't going to turn out all right.

 Just five minutes in the same room with Justin Richards was enough to make anyone blow a gasket. I didn't have any doubts about this trip; I was liable to explode.

 "Look, Laila," my mom said, sighing. "Go ahead and be as surly and grumpy as you want. All I'm asking is that you give Justin a chance. You never know. You may find that you actually like Justin."

 I gagged. "You're beating your head against a brick wall, mom. I'll never like Justin."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be whistling a different tune once you see him," she said, glancing over at me and wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

 I put my feet back up on the dashboard.