Love Me Or Hate Me

Love Me Or Hate Me [05-I]

The only good thing about James finding out that we were engaged, was that he had the same reaction I did. He wasn't the slightest bit happy about it, and to be honest, neither was I. We were complete opposites; he was popular, and I wasn't. He was a jock-slash-manwhore and I'm just a geek who minds her business and sits in the band room all day. Not only did I know this wouldn't work out, I wasn't going to give it a chance to. James was a womanizer; what could I possibly want with him? No, I'm not being shallow, but think about it; who wants to marry someone who's slept with a large majority of the female population of my school?

I didn't even realize I was staring at him until he narrowed his eyes and spoke to me. “I know I'm hot, but staring is a bit rude, don't you think?”

Rolling my eyes, I crossed my arms and stood up again. “That's exactly why I'm not marrying you.”

“Oh, please. You, along with every other girl in the school wants me and you know it.”

I laughed to myself and shook my head. “No one wants a mate with a little friend.” His jaw clenched and I couldn't help but smile to myself. “Whats the matter, James? Did I hit a nerve?” He had just opened his mouth to say something to me, but both of our parents stepped in and tried to calm us down. Once we were both sitting down—with our arms crossed and pouts on our faces—they began their lecture.

“We know that it's sudden, but it's in your best interest.”

Looking at my mom like she was on crack, I resisted the urge to stand up and smack her around a little bit—just to knock some sense into her, not to hurt her. So, instead of doing what would have been 'in my best interest', I uncrossed my arms and gave her an annoyed look. “How is making me marry someone I don't like in my best interest? The only reason you want us to get married to each other is because you want to be able to merge companies and get more money. We, being your children make that easy for you.” When she didn't say anything, I knew I had been correct. We were just her guinea pigs in a plot to get more money.

What a douche.

“Mr. Smith-”

“-please, call me dad.”

At the same time, James and I looked at each other and narrowed our eyes. It wasn't legal for them to marry us off like this, was it? Regardless of the answer to that, my mom had enough connections to do whatever she wanted—and I'm almost certain Mr. Smith did as well. That's the problem with owners of big companies. They could do whatever the hell they wanted and no one was brave enough to do anything about it. What most people did was sit back and hope that they don't get sued or something, and even if they didn't agree with what the company was doing, they wouldn't do anything about it. In the world of business, it was all about one thing:

Money. As long as you had it, you were in power.

I knew that I wasn't going to get my point across on my own, but judging by the way James was staring blankly into space, I knew he wasn't going to be much help. “Mom, I really don't understand why we have to get married-”

“-it's for the better of the company, Is.” I looked at James with a confused look on my face. If anything, wouldn't he want to avoid this marriage, too? Wouldn't he want his freedom? “Since we're not going to change our parents mind, we might as well accept it, right?”

No! We shouldn't accept it! I snorted—quite unattractively if I might add—and shook my head in shock. “You're a player and womanizing whore! Why the hell would you want to marry someone like me? Why would you want to get married at all?!”

Clenching his jaw, he averted his eyes from mine and looked at my far-from-happy mother. Maybe I shouldn't have called him a whore, but what was I going to do? Lie and say that he was everything I want in a husband? That he was going to be the perfect father and husband of my future kids? I wasn't going to put my future in harms way because of some dumb decision my mother made—without my input at that!

“Tell your daughter that this can't be avoided.”

My mom looked like she was going to say something, but when she realized he was right—which was only true in her eyes—she nodded. “Isabelle, James seems to have accepted the idea that you're getting married, so follow his example and-”

“-I will do no such thing! You said give this a chance, and that's exactly what I did. Gave it a chance, but I am not going through with a marriage I don't want!” And with that, I stood up in my chair and walked up to my room. Much to my surprise, Duke followed behind me and kept right by my side the entire time. Apparently, James didn't like that too much because two minutes later, he was in my room staring me down like I just committed a murder. Since I wasn't the slightest bit happy at the moment, I let all my anger out, and he was the target. “I didn't say you could come into my room.”

“And I give a shit, why?”

Feeling my jaw clench, I walked over to him and pushed him against the now closed door. “Do you have a problem or something? You hate me just as much as I hate you, and you're sitting here agreeing to marry me? Are you on some type of drug?”

Laughing to himself, he shook his head and grabbed my chin lightly with two of his fingers. “If you knew anything about me, Isabelle, you'd know that I'm one hell of a strategist.”

“What are you-”

“-do you really think I want to spend the last of my teen years married to some stuck up broad who only cares about herself?” When I didn't answer, he continued speaking. “Say we go through with this whole thing and then we get married in the end. All we have to do is get a divorce right after and all of our problems are solved. Sure, I can play a part pretty well—if you hadn't noticed—but this will only work if you get it through your thick skull that there will never be an 'us'.”

Pulling away from him, I rolled my eyes and walked over to my bathroom; closing the door behind me. From the sounds I heard, I knew that he was laying down on my bed with his dog next to him, and as much as that annoyed me—that he was on my bed, I mean—I wasn't really in the mood to start another argument with him. We aren't even married yet and we're already trying to rip each others throats out; how great is that...

I shook my head in disappointment, and in a fit of anger, I threw everything that was on my counter on the floor; cutting my hand on a razor in the process. Completely by accident, I let out a small scream and at the sight of blood pouring out of my hand, I began to panic. It had been quite a while since I'd seen blood, and now that I have, it's making me extremely light headed.

James must have heard my scream because a few seconds later, the door was thrown open and he was looking at me with a worried expression on his face. “Shit, Is, we get into one fight and you go trying to kill yourself?”

Walking over to me, he brought my hand to the sink and let it run under the warm water. I wasn't losing an unsafe amount of blood, but it was enough to make me feel light headed and a bit uncomfortable. James noticed that, but he didn't do anything but begin looking through my mirrors for something. A wrap for the cut maybe...

When he found what he was looking for, he took my hand out from under the water, poured a more than necessary amount of alcohol on my hand, and quickly wrapped the cut until there wasn't a drip of blood anywhere in sight. After that, we sat in silence for a while, and when I looked up at him, he was already staring at me with a strange look in his eyes. This caused me to raise a brow. “What are you staring at?”

It was then that I remembered that this was one of his first times seeing me without my glasses and I instantly felt self-conscious. I tried to look away, but he grabbed my face and looked at me in a way that I'd never seen before. “James? What are you-”

“-just shut up.” And before I could argue with him, he did something I didn't expect him to.

He turned out the door and walked right out of the house, without so much as a goodbye.