HATE THAT I LOVE YOU

HATE 2

IT was twenty minutes past ten p.m when Nadine arrived at home and of course she was not coming home alone. Nadine got out from car with smiling face, and she thanked Bret for opening the door for her just now. Bret Dylan Jackson or she just called him Bret was the closest boy friend of her since four years ago.

Bret had quite difficult time to adapt with new school environment for the first month after he moved from Australia to Philippine, and Nadine had helped him a lot since they were in the same class. So she was the closest friend that he had in Philippine. They also had known each other families quite well.

"My pleasure," Bret replied as he closed the door behind him.

"Thanks again. Okay, you can leave now," Nadine said as she playfully pushed him to get inside the car. Bret turned around and caused Nadine to stop pushing him when he abruptly leaned closer to her.

"Is that all for tonight? No good night kiss?" Bret pointed at his lips while looking mischievously at her. Nadine rolled her eyes but Bret knew that luck was on his side tonight. They usually had cheek to cheek kiss, but tonight Bret was confident that she would give him a proper kiss on his cheek.

Bret closed his eyes and clenched his lips in excitement when Nadine finally granted his wish. Nadine quickly moved away from him after that and bit her inner cheeks to suppress the shy smile from forming on her lips. Both of them stared at each other before they finally chuckled in amusement.

"Bret, I think you should go now. They all must be waiting for you," Nadine reminded him that he had an important event to attend later. Bret sighed as he looked at her with gloomy face. He wanted to spend more time with her, so he asked her to come with him. Unfortunately she refused his invitation because she wanted him to enjoy that event.

"They can wait,"

"No, you should go now," she said and pushed him to get inside the car.

"Wait, wait! I have something for you," Nadine watched Bret went to car boot and took out something that made Nadine curled a big smile. She was happy yet confused when Bret handed a bouquet of roses and teddy bear to her.

"What are these for?"

"You know right that I will travel to Europe during upcoming semester break? So this teddy bear will help me to look after you when I'm on my vacation," Bret patted the teddy bear's head as if they just sealed the agreement that this stuffed toy had agreed to look after Nadine on Bret's behalf.

"Oh come on. Please give me a break. I'm not a kid anymore," she whined before looked at that stuffed toy adoringly. Bret smiled because he knew that Nadine would definitely like it.

"And what are these flowers for?" Nadine asked but she did not wait for his reply when her eyes caught a hidden card among the roses, but her smile gradually faded away when she also found something else inside it. Nadine read the card, and she suddenly felt burdened after she finished reading it.

Did she really have to go through this again? Why Bret made the things hard between them again when they were happy with what they had right now? Or Bret was never happy and always wanted more than a friendship between them? Nadine wanted to return the cubic box that he just gave to her, but he stopped her at the half way.

"I know it has been almost two years since you said 'no' to me. I admitted that I was hurried to get into relationship with you. We were both 19 at that time and I told myself that you might need some more time to think about our relationship. I did not know what you had gone through at that time, but now we both know that no one is against our relationship," Bret said as he gently held Nadine's hand.