The Hate Game

8 | Jessie

"And how has your day been?"

Jessie ignored the slight frustration in her friends tone. She replied, "It's been pretty nice. I really like my sculpture class, and Wesley is in my Spanish class, so that should be fun." She waited for her friend to catch on - Jessie had had a crush on Wesley ever since the third grade, and this was the first class she had ever had with him, so hopefully this would be a momentous year.

Unfortunately, her friend Sadie Leftwich did not catch in. She just nodded politely, saying, "Cool," before taking a bite out of her sandwich.

Jessie knew that Sadie was waiting for her to ask her the same question. Sadie looked beat - not physically, but mentally. She figured she hadn't had the best first day of school either, but she didn't want to ask her. Not when her friend didn't even care enough to talk to her first.

Sadie eventually caught on that Jessie wasn't going to ask her about her day, so she just started talking. "Yeah, there's this girl, Giselle... earlier today she was such a bitch to me."

Everyone here knew about Giselle. She was practically a walking celebrity - her parents owned the law firm here and were super rich. This also meant that Giselle was pretty, popular, and prissy. The three P's, as she had heard people talking about.

It didn't surprise Jessie that Giselle was rude to Sadie. Deep down, Jessie figured that her friend has deserved it. She didn't feel guilty about thinking it, it seemed normal now.

She hated Sadie.

Hate wasn't even the lightest term when it came to how she felt about her friend. Sure, Jessie still considered Sadie a friend. To her, a friend was just someone you talked to during school to pass the time. A true friend is someone you talk to, anytime of the day, and they make the time fly. They're there for you. They understand you. They want to help you. They care about you.

None of these things described the girl she was sitting with now.

Jessie met Sadie when Sadie was a freshman and Jessie was a junior. They had been paired together in a creative writing class to write a short story with two alternating points of view. They both mutually decided to write a fantasy story, with elements from the classic Harry Potter world. To their surprise, they shared the same interests and spent long hours after school talking and goofing off. Even though Sadie was two years younger than her, she acted the same age as Jessie. They just fit together.

Then of course, Sadie had to go and get involved in all those rumors that were being spread about her. After their first year of friendship, they didn't have any classes together so they drifted apart, yet still smiled at each other in the halls and would sit with each other at social events if they ever got the chance. When Jessie heard the news about Sadie being kidnapped the first time, she was shocked. She went to comfort her friend the day before the last day of school last year - which was a completely awkward encounter. Sadie barely spoke, and she treated Jessie as if she were a stranger. She didn't seem to remember their short lived friendship, and for the rest of it was just... awkward.

Over the summer, however, Jessie enrolled in a kung fu class and discovered that Sadie was taking the same one. Since they "knew" each other, they voluntarily paired up for sparring activities and such. They mostly shared small talk - about new movies, the weather, other plans for the summer - but they never talked about the past. Their friendship. The rumors about Sadie. Then the class ended, and they went their separate ways.

The hate really boiled over for Jessie when she bumped into Sadie at the library. Sadie was checking out a Harry Potter book - the same subject that brought them together in the first place. Jessie decided to casually ask her if she remembered their friendship. At this, Sadie was furious.

"Of course I remember!" she had replied angrily. "Why didn't you think I'd remember?"

"Well, maybe you haven't said anything about it, so I figured maybe you forgot it, after everything's that happened..." Jessie said uneasily.

"I'm trying to make an effort here, okay?" Sadie asked. "Don't bug me about it!"

With that, Sadie left, leaving the Harry Potter book behind.

Then, senior year began for Jessie. Sadie was a sophomore. Today was the first day of school. Sadie had found Jessie at her locker. She said hi, they exchanged schedules, and found that they shared the same lunch and AP chemistry together during 7th period. Sadie said they should eat together.

Jessie was excited. Sure, she did have other friends she could sit with, but maybe Sadie was giving this friendship a chance. So she told her friends to go out to lunch without her - that she was going to eat with someone else today.

Then, they met up for lunch. Sadie seemed to be ignoring the looks everyone gave her, which made Jessie a bit uncomfortable. As they walked to the lunch line, she attempted to make feeble conversation.

"Are you sitting with anyone else today?"

"No." Sadie's response was quick and monotone.

"Really?" Jessie couldn't help but hide the surprise. When they first became friends, she seemed to remember Sadie having a lot of friends from the tennis team. "I thought you were friends with -"

"Just drop it, okay?"

It then occurred to Jessie that maybe Sadie didn't want to eat with her to catch up... Maybe because she had no other friends to eat with. Now that she thought about it, it sure made sense, considering all that was going on about her in the school's recent gossip.

Jessie didn't like Sadie. She had tried to be there for her, but Sadie just pushed her away. And Jessie had already had enough pain in her past, so this wasn't something she needed. It was fine for her to feel like this toward Sadie. Sadie should just suck up her feelings and deal with her problems, rather than ignoring them and finding a wall to hide behind.

Back in the present, Jessie asked, "Really? What did Giselle do?"

"She flipped me off and called me names... I don't get why, I didn't do anything..." Sadie's voice was small and sad. Jessie felt a pang of sympathy for her, but it was overcome by other emotions when Sadie spoke again. "I never did anything wrong. I don't see why everyone is picking on me."

"Maybe you should ask them about it?" Jessie suggested. "Like, 'Hey, why are you spreading rumors about me? Please stop?' Something like that."

"I can't just do that!" Sadie retorted. "I can't look weak!"

"It's not looking weak, it's just -"

"Forget I asked you. I'm fine." With that, Sadie stood up, grabbing her half eaten food. She didn't look back as she quickly exited the cafeteria.

"Hey, Long!" Jessie's friend Daniel called to her from another table. "Why are you hanging out with Leftwich all of the sudden?"

Jessie sighed as she watched where Sadie had left. "I honestly don't know," she said, before grabbing her tray and moving tables.

[Author's note :D]

Hooray, a longer update! Hope you enjoyed :)

So there's supposed to be 20 people in the Hate Game, and this chapter is the 6th person so far. I'm thinking writing in 20 different points of views will be too much, so maybe I'll just have the other 14 people be in the background. It'll work out somehow.

- DC