Love to Hate You

Hate to be Nice

Eddie was lollygagging, taking as much time as he could to finish organizing the boxes. I rolled my eyes and groaned.

"Munson – why are you moving so slow?" I snapped. I wanted to leave and spend the day together, not stay at the school finishing a project we could have finished hours ago. He looked up and frowned, his eyes sad and like a puppy dog's.

"I don't want this to be over yet," he replied quietly. I felt my heart soften and smiled at him.

"You want to spend all of our time in this tiny room, reading old documents about the school?" I teased, crossing to him as he sat down. He shrugged, still sad.

"This is where it all started," he explained. "What happens if we don't have to do this anymore?"

I smiled and sat in his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"We sleep in on Saturdays. We go get donuts and waste time at the mall or by the lake making out. We go see movies," I answered, kissing his forehead. He looked up at me, still sad.

"Together?" he asked. I laughed and nodded my head, pressing my forehead to his.

"Of course. Except when you're annoying me," I replied. He pressed his head to my shoulder.

"That means we won't ever do anything together," he joked, making me laugh. I pulled his face to mine and kissed him.

"I was teasing when I said we would break up after this," I assured him. "I was just giving you a hard time."

"You promise?" he asked quietly. I nodded and kissed him again.

"I promise," I answered. He finally smiled and I pulled him in for a hug. He wrapped his large arms around me and held me close, burying his face in the crook of my neck. I kissed his cheek and pulled back. "Alright, stinky. Finish those boxes and let's hit the road."

Eddie grinned and nodded, helping me up and crossing to the stack of boxes to finish organizing them. I watched him as he stacked the last box on the cabinet and he turned to me, holding his hands out.

"We did it!" he announced as we walked over to me, pulling me into his arms. I glanced around the now organized room, feeling less overwhelmed than when we first started the project. Eddie kissed my temple and I looked up at him, smiling.

"Do you remember what you said to me that first day? When you were being useless and not helping me?"

He turned his head to the side and shook his head. My grin grew and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"I told you that if you actually got up to organize, we would get the project done faster and that we would have to spend less time together. But you told me that you had a grand plan of getting me to like you. That you wanted to spend more time together," I reminded him. His eyes widened and he smiled. "You were teasing me, but—"

"I guess I knew even subconsciously what I wanted," he replied, leaning close to my face. I smiled and met hm in the middle, pressing my lips to his. He wrapped me tighter in his arms and kissed me until I was out of breath. I dropped him and took his hand, pulling him out of the room.

I was excited to leave this chapter of our relationship behind. It felt like I was able to finally leave the messages behind, that we would be able to do normal couple things without having to be reminded of why we came together in the first place. I now knew that Eddie was actually in this – he would sometimes try to bring up what he had done and apologize, doing everything he could to make up for it. I would insist that I had forgiven him – because I had – and he would always tell me he was going to make up for it one day.