Dare You to Hate Me Read online

  Elena is the conversationalist in this transaction as I prepare Aiden’s coffee because my tongue is too heavy. “Grandma Bea said the Dragons are going to kick butt all the way to the championships.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see the tight end’s lips twitch upward like he doesn’t want to be cocky but can’t pretend it’s untrue. “That’s the plan. Are you coming to support us?”

  I happen to know the teen bouncing on the counter is a huge football fan just like most of this town. According to some of the locals that come in for coffee, the university has broken the records for most wins at home and away because of the team they’ve had the last two years.

  “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it! Bea was going to shut down early until Ivyprofen here said she’d stay and close.” Lena snorts while I roll my eyes at her nickname for me. “I don’t know why. Nobody will be here except her.”

  A new set of eyes focuses on my face, but I busy myself by spreading the olive oil and sea salt butter he likes over his bagel. “Ivyprofen?” There’s amusement in his tone, but he doesn’t let either of us explain that Elena calls me that because she says I’m a pain and she needs medicine after dealing with me. Instead, he proceeds to ask, “Not a fan of football, huh?”

  All I give him is a stiff shrug, and even the smallest upward movement feels draining. I know better than to believe it’s from exhaustion but refuse to acknowledge the real reason behind the tightness consuming my body.

  I remind myself I’m here to work, not make conversation with every customer that comes in. Especially not him.

  As Elena goes to answer for me, her grandmother walks out from the back. “Lena, I need you to help me take out the bins of dough from the back and set them in the kitchen for me. We have a lot of baking to do today for the week.”

  I usually help with the week’s preparations, but Elena expressed interest in learning her grandmother’s recipes, so I took a step back. I want to believe Bea, or Bets as I call her, sees me as another grandchild—one of the twelve she lays claim to. But I know I’m not, and that I shouldn’t try so hard to be.

  You’re here for a paycheck, I tell myself again silently. Not a family.

  Feeling my throat close up as I wrap up the bagel and stick it into a bag, I begin folding the top to complete the order when I hear, “Ivy.”

  It’s not a roll off the tongue like he’s testing its sound.

  It’s in familiarity.

  You’re here for a paycheck, I tell myself once more as I turn on my heels and pass him the white bag and coffee cup without meeting those bright blue eyes that I know are on me. “That’ll be $4.25 please.”

  “Ivy,” he repeats, and I wonder if he can hear how hard my heart thumps with the sound of my name coming from his lips again.

  “Cash or credit?” I press, staring at the machine’s buttons, ignoring the pumping organ in my chest.

  “Iv—”

  “We also take Dragon Dollars,” I cut him off, gesturing toward the new promotion. Any college student that comes in can pay by scanning their student I.D card.

  He cusses under his breath. “You’re just going to keep pretending then?” Even though his words are barely more than a hushed murmur under his breath, I feel them deeper than that. They sweep under my skin and squeeze my heart until I hear it crack from the pressure.

  All I give him is, “Yes.”

  Because pretending is all I can do to get through today without remembering the past or the girl who confided in a boy before he left her to her demons.

  I don’t blame Aiden.

  And I’ve never forgotten him either.

  That’s the problem.

  Chapter Two

  Ivy

  For almost two weeks, I busy myself with school and work until I’m too tired to care that there’s another party going on when I get home. I ignore the red plastic cups and abandoned half-empty beer bottles, step around the mass of bodies gyrating in the crowded halls, and collapse in a heap on my bed downstairs, tuning out the music thumping and people laughing above me as best I can.

  Unfortunately, lulling myself into a peaceful oblivion is nearly impossible. Not only because the bass from upstairs rattles the windows, but because my thoughts run rampant in my head, bouncing to the beat of the techno music. Trapping myself in my thoughts is dangerous territory because I always wind up in the same spot.

  Two years ago.

  The cold tile.

  And every single moment leading up to it.

  The small green establishment with an Underwood’s Grocer sign hanging crooked from the side became the center of all our problems.

  My father spent every second he could at the store while my mother stayed home fulltime to take care of me and my little brother Porter. Every night when Dad got home from the store, there’d be bags under his eyes, and a new streak of white in his hair, and nothing me, Mom, or Porter could do ever got those tight lips to form even the tiniest smile like we used to be able to.

  Whenever I asked Mom if Dad was okay, she’d pat my back, pass me a plain sheet of construction paper and a box of crayons, and tell me the same thing. “Your father is just stressed.”

  But every resounding explanation came with a heavier delivery, timid pat, and demand for distraction. When drawing wasn’t enough, Mom’s tired honey-brown eyes that Porter and I get from her would look to me after a hushed conversation with Dad after dinner and tell me to check on Porter then go to my room.

  She never failed to come in later, pick out my favorite book from the small shelf of fairytales and fables we collected, and read until I fell asleep.

  The moment the atmosphere changes is when I look up from the TV Porter and I watch our favorite Saturday morning cartoon on to see Mom gaping at a piece of paper she took from the mailbox earlier. The lips she always paints pink are parted, her hand holds her head up with her wedding ring I’ve always been obsessed with glinting in the light, and her copper hair falls messily over her shoulders because she hates doing things with it.

  When I slide off the couch and tug on her shirt, she takes a few moments before setting the paper down to look at me. “I’m just stressed, Ivy. Don’t worry.”

  I’m not sure when I realized that I hated those two little words. Don’t worry. How could I not worry when hushed conversations in the kitchen turn into heated phone calls in the living room? Or when their voices raise in their bedroom and Dad would storm out and slam the front door behind him and be gone all night?

  I don’t know what’s been going on, but Dad stopped coming home for dinner at his normal time, Mom stopped reading to me at night, and soon it was just me and Porter at the kitchen table while our mother took calls in other rooms. Sometimes I’d hear her talk about Grandma Gertie and a trip to visit her, but most times I’d hear the store brought up and listen to the muffled cries my mother tried hiding behind closed doors.

  It came time to worry when Dad came home late last night to find Mom waiting for him with a face void of emotion. I snuck out of my room to listen to their conversation and heard him tell Mom we have to sell the house and find something smaller. Mom had asked, “Why can’t you let the store go, John? I’m tired of it not going anywhere.”

  And even at the tender age of eight, Dad’s response sliced through me like I knew it wasn’t right. “I can say the same about us, Kate.”

  Their voices become louder as they moved down the hall, their argument becoming heated until I heard something loud in the kitchen crash.

  Mom yelled.

  Dad yelled back.

  For the first time, I took refuge in my closet and burrowed into the line of ugly dresses that I hated wearing. The material may have been scratchy against my skin, but it served as a barrier that drowned out some of the noise.

  “Why don’t you go play?” Mom suggests, breaking me from the memory of falling fast asleep in my closet until a mixture of bright blue and red lights flickering underneath the door woke me up.

  I think
of the one thing that always makes me happy on Saturdays and wonder if it’ll work on Mom too. “Want to watch cartoons with me and Porter?”

  Her smile doesn’t take right away, and when her lips curl upward, it’s slow and nothing like the warm one she used to flash me. “I’ve got adult things I need to handle right now but maybe next time.”

  It isn’t until sometime later when Porter and I go to our rooms to play when I realize something isn’t right. When I go to ask Mom about it, the landline is held up to her ear as she shakes her head at whatever paperwork she’s going through.

  “I wish I’d never married John and had the kids sometimes,” I hear her say into the phone receiver. I stare down at a picture of four badly drawn stick figures surrounding a house that looks like ours with a nipping feeling taking over the pit of my tummy.

  When she looks over to the hallway and sees me standing there, her eyes widen before closing for a few seconds, blowing out a deep breath. “I’ve got to go, Janet.” Hanging up, she rubs her eyelids with her fingers and turns from the paper scattered table to me. “It’s grown women talk, Ivy. That’s all. I’m just—”

  Stressed. She’s stressed. Dad’s stressed.

  “…don’t worry,” she finishes, patting my arm before gesturing toward my room. “Why don’t you go make sure Porter is napping and then hang out in your room for a while?”

  Her dismissal comes naturally, a common occurrence etched into everyday routine that I expect with every passing day.

  As I turn back to my room, I notice an empty space on the wall where our family portrait used to hang. Mom made sure we all dressed nicely and smiled for the cranky woman behind the camera. I’m not sure why, but I glance at the garbage can and see the broken frame and shattered glass with the very picture still between the two destroyed pieces.

  Mom doesn’t say anything about it.

  I don’t often let myself linger in memories, pretending instead everything that led to my poor decision was simply a nightmare. The long sleeves I wear hide the reminder well enough where it’s out of sight out of mind, but the thick pink scars are there to taunt me when I need reminding of the reality I gave myself.

  Seeing him again doesn’t help. Aiden was the one good thing in my life before it turned to shit. His house was my happy place when mine was a war zone. His tiny bedroom closet was my escape when mine couldn’t filter the noise—the screaming, the crying, and the blue and red lights.

  Maybe I don’t mind the noise my housemates create because there’s a bite of familiarity in the loudness they produce. Even after packing a single bag and sneaking out of my childhood home in the middle of the night, I still think about that house and everything that went on inside, wondering what would have happened if I stayed.

  From the outside, the home was what one would expect a blue-collar family to live in. My parents were the American stereotype—husband and wife, two kids, and a small store they ran with big dreams of success. Dad had a business degree and used to work at a bank until getting the loan approved for Underwood’s Grocer, and Mom helped out until she had Porter and decided to be a stay-at-home mother.

  On the inside was a different story than the one people seemed to envy.

  I usually refuse to think about the nights I spent huddled behind a row of clothes, using them to soak up the tears and whipped words while Mom and Dad argued about another pointless topic. Dad worked too much. Mom spent too much money. The house needed work. Porter ruined another pair of sneakers and needed new ones. It was always something.

  To this day, I don’t understand why they never got divorced. The one time I asked my mother, she’d looked at me and said, “Where would we go?”

  Maybe my skewed notion of love is why I never felt the need to fall into it. Not if it meant being trapped without anywhere to go like my mother seemed to believe. She had no degree, no job experience, and no money of her own.

  My ventures after leaving home are worse. Instead of proving I could handle it, I had to sleep on men’s couches and floors, and let them between my legs for a roof and food. After a while, I didn’t mind it. They were a pastime. A means to an end. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t keep my anxiety under lock and key every time I’d get close to a guy—intimacy has always been less about feeling good and more about survival. And if I keep that acknowledgment buried deep, deep inside the back of my mind then it doesn’t bother me as much as it should.

  I’m not sure how long I’m stuck in the past when I hear the basement door open. I sit up quickly, realizing I must have forgotten to lock it when I got in.

  “Occupied,” I call out. I learned the hard way that if I don’t close off my space, horny partygoers will try hooking up down here. After depositing my first paycheck from Bea’s, I went to a local hardware store and bought a deadbolt, installing it as soon as I got home.

  The footsteps keep coming in heavy thuds on the creaky wood. I slide out of bed quickly, grabbing my phone and slipping my feet into the closest pair of shoes. I’ve invited my fair share of guys down here on my own free will. I know what people say about me because of the hookups I’ve kicked out after the deed is done since I’ve lived here, but what those people probably don’t know is that I’m empowered by telling the men that I let inside my body to leave because it’s my space and my right to do so.

  I don’t find out who’s lurking before I climb onto the broken washing machine stuffed in the corner and shimmy out the narrow window leading to the front yard, brushing off the dust, dirt, and wet grass when I stand up. I hear drunken murmuring coming from the basement and quickly round the front of the house to see what I’m working with. The party is in full swing still, and I don’t feel like going back inside.

  Maybe I should feel bad about not trying harder with my housemates, but they don’t put any effort in with me either besides Raine. As far as the others are concerned, I’m the person who gives them the last of the rent they need to keep the house and occasionally cooks them dinners when I get bored and feel like utilizing their otherwise neglected kitchen.

  Sighing, I hug my arms to my chest and start walking down the driveway. The night breeze is chilly against my bare arms, and I regret changing out of my work clothes in favor of a pair of worn leggings and form fitting t-shirt. Normally, I don’t step outside my room unless I’m dolled up—face full of makeup, colored hair styled, and clothes painted on. I like clothes that hug my hips and cling to my narrow hourglass curves, and makeup that fills my lips, extends my lashes, and adds a little color to my otherwise porcelain skin.

  I struggle enough liking who I am knowing the things I’ve done, so I refuse to let anyone else make me feel less than the voice in my head already does by judging me for it.

  With the sound of the party fading behind me, I glance down at my phone and frown when I realize it’s going to die soon.

  “Great,” I murmur to myself. It wasn’t a hard day at work, but it still dragged enough to make me grouchy at the smallest things. Elena must have caught onto my foul mood because not even she pushed my buttons when she came in after school. When Bea caught sight of my baggy eyes, she almost sent me home, but I refused. It isn’t like getting sleep mid-day is any better than at night. The girls like to talk, gossip, and do God knows what else at the loudest volume possible.

  I’m a block away when the wind picks up, and goosebumps pebble my skin. I curse and teeter on my feet, covered in only flip flops, and almost trip when I try avoiding a tree limb that flies at me from the sudden strong gust.

  A pair of headlights blind me as a large truck passes. I don’t think much of it until I hear the tires brake suddenly. My muscles lock when I look over my shoulder and see the reverse lights flick on. It isn’t the first time some guy has tried picking me up on the side of the road. And once, when I was really desperate, I even got in. But I learned my lesson then, and don’t plan on making the same decision now.

  I have something to lose.

  When the newer style truck st
ops beside me and the passenger window rolls down, my lips part.

  “What the hell are you doing outside like that in 45-degree weather?” Aiden barks at me.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, more for warmth than anything else, I sneer. “Taking a walk. What does it look like?”

  He cusses and throws the truck into park before climbing out. I back up when he rounds the front and comes toward me. “Get in.” Aiden throws open the passenger door and stares at me with hard, expectant eyes.

  “No.”

  “Ivy, Get. In.”

  My jaw ticks. “I’m not getting in the truck with you, Aiden. I said I’m fine.”

  I get a few feet away before an arm hooks around my waist and yanks me into a hard body. Hard because he works out nonstop, trains on the field, and who knows what else. I try not to focus too much on the obvious muscles he has now compared to the past. I’m by no means a small woman. I’ve packed some meat on my bones over the years, and wholeheartedly enjoy the pastries at Bea’s any chance I can. Employee discounts are good for the wallet but bad for the body—evident in the love handles that like to peak out the top of the squeezing waistband.

  “Put me down!” I demand, thrashing in his hold as he hauls me into the cab of his truck like I weigh nothing. I smack his arm away uselessly since he’s already withdrawing it to reach for the door. “What the hell!”

  He has the nerve to roll his eyes as he makes sure my feet are out of the way, before slamming the door shut and jogging around to the driver side. Before I can even think about jumping out, he’s already inside and putting the vehicle into drive.

  “Do you manhandle everybody?”