Yeah, I Hate You Too, Sweetheart.

Chapter 13 - Laila

   Laila

I sat the counter in the kitchen, watching Justin's retreating back, wondering what on Earth just happened. Unless I was much mistaken, we'd just gotten into a fight. And as much as I hated to admit defeat to Justin Richards, he'd been right…to an extent.

 Of course I knew that life wasn’t easy and that it wasn’t all fun and games. Of course I did. But clearly he didn’t see that’s why I read so many books all of the time in the first place.

 It was because I liked to escape reality more often than not and just forget all of my own problems for a while. And I was beginning to think that perhaps that was something that Justin and I had in common.

 Not the reading books thing, but the forgetting our problems thing.

 “Are you all right, Laila?”

I glanced up at Laurence and felt more than embarrassed.

He was still standing there in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, a slightly concerned look on his face.

 “I’m fine, Laurence,” I said, averting my eyes. “I’m sorry that you had to break that up, though.”

 Laurence chuckled. “Well, I can say it definitely made my day hearing my son shouting insults in the morning, but I’m used to it. I know he can be a bit hard to handle.”

 A bit hard to handle? A bit hard to handle?

 “Yeah, well…nothing’s really changed between us, has it?” I said, more to myself.

Laurence fell silent and a thoughtful look came across his face.

 “No, I don’t think that’s true,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think that’s true at all. You’re both completely different from when you knew each other before. Things were bound to change. I just think you both need to open your eyes and realize that.”

 And with those rather confusing words, Laurence left, heading back up the stairs, leaving me behind in what no doubt was a cloud of befuddlement.

   

   I sighed, dropping my head in my hands, rubbing my eyes. Maybe Nick and Avery and the other guys had been right in saying that Justin really wasn't that bad of a person. Maybe he was even really a nice guy.

 Maybe Laurence was right, and that I needed to get my head out of the past.

I’d had problems with that before and it had never gotten me anywhere, so what good was doing that going to bring me now?

  But if that was true, then what was I supposed to do now?

 It'd been a herculean task, getting myself to admit that I actually harbored feelings for my old rival/playmate. But at the same time, I still thought he was a big, insipid jerk and I wanted to hit him with one of my books.

 Was “liking” a guy supposed to be like that?

I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on anything guy related. That title was better reserved for my one and only friend, Lissa Meyers.

 "Guys are way more complicated than they're worth," I muttered under my breath, sighing again.  

I slid off the bar stool, flicking off the TV and casting aside the remote, before I grabbed my copy of The Hunger Games and left the kitchen, marching up the stairs in a particularly foul mood.