Hate Me

“God, you’re so annoying,” Amy groaned at Kale who was slurping his milk through three straws. I gave a small smile at the way they acted around each other. We all knew that was just how she talked to Kale and he loved every moment of it. Just trust me when I say that he likes Amy. But Amy was harder to read; all I knew was that she cared about him, as a friend or more, I couldn’t tell.

Kale really looked like a thug though. Both of his eyebrows were pierced and he had twenty-something piercings decorating his ears. Not to mention his hair which danced around his head in laid back spikes. I don’t know if he styled it that way, but there’s no way that it was natural.

“Nero…?” Amy spoke to me softly.

I looked up at her slowly and then titled my head to the side, as if asking her what she needed? “Something wrong?”

I tried to give her a smile before shaking my head. “I’m fine,” I lied.

“I hate that word, you know. It’s just a lie,” she told me before sighing. “Just say you don’t want to talk about it. It sounds so much better.” Amy may have been short, but she was sure scary as hell with her attitude.

“Not like we’re gonna pry,” Kale butted it. “Amy gimme your tatoes!”

“Don’t give me your damned ADD and you can have them!” She retorted, handing over the mashed potatoes to Kale.

“Aww, silly, you know ADD isn’t contagious,” he said, grinning widely before tousling her brown hair playfully. “Besides, the day you get ADD is the day the world ends!”

“The world ends when you successfully divide by zero,” I clarified. For a minute they stared at me like I was insane before bursting out laughing.

Then the bell rang, making my heart drop. Lunch was the only time I was really able to hang out with them… and it was my only sanctuary. I slung my bag over my shoulder before standing up and walking out of the cafeteria with Amy and Kale.

I headed out to my locker, secretly wishing I was a junior instead of a sophomore so I could be in the junior hall with Amy and Kale. But I wasn’t. Seeing the sign on the locker that read out in big words, “FAGGOT” wasn’t really anything new, but it still hurt to see it in all honesty. Silently, I tore it off and threw it in a trash bin nearby before opening my locker.

“You didn’t like the sign I made you?” I flinched upon hearing the burly voice of who I knew had to be Chris. I just held my breath and waited for whatever he was going to say. “Well? Fucking pussy, say something!”

If I didn’t know that he was going to just hit me ten times harder if I did say something, I would have said something. So instead, I tried to cower in fear, waiting for whatever blow might be delivered to me.

Then I heard the inevitable skin-to-metal sound of someone being shoved into the lockers. And I thought it had been me… until I realized I wasn’t hurting anywhere.

So I spun around to spot where the noise had come from. Amy was a foot away from me with Chris pinned against a locker by the throat. Her eyes screamed, ‘murderous intent’.

“Didn’t I say not to mess with him?” Her voice was rough and edged with fury. Like I said, she’s short, but terrifying. Well, terrifying to all but Kale and I. If Kale wasn’t such a puppy he’d be scary too. Yes, I called him a puppy.

“Whatever, Princess,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. She squeezed his neck a little harder before deciding to let him go. Trust me, he definitely hit his head pretty hard, it was evident in the way he groaned and walked.

“You okay?” She asked, pulling me into a hug. I nodded into her shoulder. “Just remember, Amy loves her Nero.”

We both knew that she meant as a brother. I was fine with that. After all, I didn’t like Amy like that. I didn’t have a right to like anyone like that.

I knew her biggest weakness; thunderstorms. I know that was weird for a girl like her to fear something like that, but that was actually how we became friends.

Well, no, actually how we became friends was extremely… bizarre. And it started with a pregnancy test.

I worked at the diner that Kale owned. And one day, Ryan came in. I don’t know why, but sometimes he just came to this restaurant specifically.

Amy didn’t talk then. It had been right after her mother killed herself and she was still coping.

I could feel Ryan’s eyes on me, searching me for something. I didn’t know what that something was, but it had to have been something he could make fun of me for. So I ignored it until he left. What did he want from me? I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand him, and I still don’t.

I was so transfixed on why he was looking at me like he was that I didn’t even notice the girl next to him. Until Kale asked me to go clean out the bathroom.

Then I took the mop and bucket into the bathroom only to find a crying girl sitting in the corner of the room. “Most people lock the door you know…” I told her.

Then I caught sight of the pregnancy test sitting on the sink. My first thought was what anyone would think: she was pregnant.

“You… you’re…” Then I needed to prepare a speech, I realized. “First off… girls your age… shouldn’t be d-doing that… kind of thing…”

Suddenly, I had her attention and she looked up at me, her tears stopping before she began laughing and wiping her eyes. It was a breathy, airy laugh because, well, she didn’t talk and her voice was rusty with misuse. And by that, I knew it wasn’t hers.

I sighed with relief at not having to give her that speech and then helped her up. After that, I can’t remember how it happened but we went to the ‘observatory’. I think it was because she looked like she didn’t want to go home and it goes without saying that I didn’t want to go home either. So I took her to Kale’s ‘observatory’.

But it just so happened to be thundering that night so I tried to comfort her by holding her hand, not that I was very good at anything though.

And then her brother came to pick her up and guess what he said to me? Hethanked me. And then that was when I realized that Amy might be a spy for him and his friends that maybe she was trying to get to know me, to know one of my secrets so she could expose anything and everything about me.

That was, until she skipped school with me, told Chris off (after she started talking again) and comforted me when she could.

Amy is one of my absolute best friends. And therefore, she can’t know any of my secrets. I don’t need pity.