Ten Things I Hate

I had ten days until I left Tempe, and packing was becoming an issue. I had spent a while putting it off, probably because I wasn't sure if I even wanted to move in with my dad and go back to college. I also wasn't entirely sure how to put all of my wardrobe into the three suitcases I had, the one I owned, and the two I had borrowed from my mom and Rachel. There were summer clothes and winter clothes and party clothes and gig clothes and lounging around clothes and dressy clothes and clothes I wasn't even sure were mine. And surely enough, I was right.
"Hey! This is mine!" Garrett snatched the hoodie from my "winter clothes" pile. I looked up at him, attempting to put on the two sizes too small hoodie. The sleeves came up past his wrist, and it didn't even zip. "So glad I finally have this back. I've been looking for it everywhere."
"Garrett, when did you lose it?" I asked, knowing full well he had absolutely no idea that he'd even lost it. When he didn't answer, I looked up to see him rifling through the rest of the clothes pulling them out of the neatly sorted piles I had placed upon the floor. "Garrett! Don't! I had them all sorted!"
He glared at me. "Whatever Sophia, you wanted me to help an-"

I wasn't even sure why I'd aksed Garrett to help me pack. I knew he'd get distracted by all of the things in my room. And sure enough, he'd cut himself off mid-sentence to look at all of the photos plastered on my wall. He followed all the the snaps with his eyes, from ones of us as eight year olds, to more recent group shots that had been taken at 8123. I had almost managed to get all of my winter clothes into one suitcase before Garrett spoke up. "I'm gonna miss you, you know." I looked at him incrediously. "Like, you're moving to Phoenix. And I know it's not that far away, but you've always been here, Soph. And you know you don't wanna go, even I know you don't wanna go. You know what you wanna do."

I stood staring at all of the photos from 8123 that I had taken, photos of band practices and gigs, photos of everyone hanging out. I didn't wanna go to Phoenix, and I didn't want to leave everyone behind. I didn't want to go back to college and study journalism, and I didn't want to move in with my dad and his new wife. I didn't want to stay in Tempe while the band was gone, I wanted to go with them. I wanted to capture more photographs like the ones plastered on my wall. And out of nowhere, based upon a ten second decision, I realised I was going to drop out of college. I was going to follow the boys on tour and take their photographs. I wasn't going to move in with my dad, not now, not ever. "Fuck it then," I said, pulling all of the clothes out of the suitcase I had just packed them into and tossing them back into my wardrobe. Garrett's face was plastered with a shocked smile. "Well, don't just stand there, help me put all this shit back!"

He sprung into action, ripping the clothes out and tossing them to me. "You're seriously doing this? You're gonna come and take our photos and be with us on tour?" I was grabbing item upon item out of the case now, too excited to care if they wrinkled or if I was putting shirts in with pants. I nodded, and he embraced me in a hug. "Finally, fucking finally!" I held onto his biceps, jumping up and down and screeching.
"This is it, Garrett. Not going back to college," I said. "I'm not going to move in with my dad. I'm coming with you guys."

Upon hearing the news, John almost cried. And then insisted, even though it was a Wednesday night, that we "get on the drinks". He invited people to his house, who then invited more people, who in turn invited more people. All in all, there were 50 people at John's house, most of them drunk and loud. Even though it was a celebration of my realisation, I knew barely any of the people there. Whilst I knew them by face, I didn't know their names. Some of them were frequenters of 8123, but I had never known them personally. 8123 wasn't our little secret, it had started off as that, but eventually other people who knew us began to join us as well. John knew almost everyone who hung out there, and he often told everyone quite frequently that it meant a lot to him. It meant a lot to all of us, but not as much as it did John.

Although I was happy that I had made a choice I was sure I'd love, I wasn't exactly loving the noise and unnessecary amount of people that were here. They all thought it was just a celebration of the recording The Maine would be doing in a month's time. I headed up the stairs, keen to find a quiet spot to sit and think about how to tell my parents. While I knew my mother would be thrilled about me staying here and keeping Tempe as my home, she would not be very happy however, with my choice of lifestyle. I opened the door to John's room, almost afraid I would see people having sex on the bed. Quite on the contrary, instead sat Pat, an almost full beer in his hand. "Oh, hey," he said, taking a swig.
"Hey." I said quietly. "What are you doing up here?" He moved over on John's queen sized bed, laying down and holding the beer on his stomach. I could smell the alcohol on him, and I was quite sure he'd drunk a lot of it.
"Just...thinking. I dunno, it's so loud down there." Pat glanced over at me, holding the drink out to me. "Want some, Soph?" I shook my head, scrunching my face up at the thought of the taste. He laughed and set the beer down on the bedside table. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and a white shirt that I could see clearly in the dark.
"What were you thinking about before I so rudely interrupted?" I asked, laying the way he was: both on our backs, with our knees bent and feet flat on the covers, right next to each other.
"Just about stuff. You know, leaving and leaving people behind. Not tour, just... recording. I dunno if I wanna leave people behind." Pat sighed, looking up at the ceiling. I frowned, he would be with the guys, and he wouldn't be leaving a girlfriend behind.
"Leaving people behind? Pat, everyone you're close to is going with you," I laughed. He sat up, looking me dead in the eyes.
"My mom's not!" At this, he burst out laughing with me, and fell back onto John's bed, both of us giggling uncontrollably. When we stopped he became serious again. "Ever had an opinion on someone change heaps, and you're not really sure how to handle it?" he asked me.

I nodded, thinking of him and the sudden turnaround I felt about him. He was suddenly easier to talk to, handle, and I was even starting to welcome him as one of the group. "Sure," I agreed. Pat looked at me inquisitively.
"Even someone you thought you hated?" I nodded again. I was unsure of what he was attempting to say and I was assuming the more he spoke, the more he'd make sense. It was the complete opposite. "Do you ever look at that person you thought you hated and think that maybe there's something more to them than everyone else?"
I frowned, "I dunno, I've only had a recent change of heart." I hadn't expected Pat to be so cryptic and genuine.

Pat shook his head, "No, I mean even before then. Did you ever see that person and think feel other things for them instead of hate?" I moved further down the bed, sitting directly opposite him as he leant against the pillows.
"I... I really don't have any idea at all, Pat. What's all this about?" I asked, running my hand through the back of my blonde hair. His eyes caught mine when I looked up and he didn't answer my question when he spoke again.
"But this person, you don't still hate them do you? You like them now?"
"Yes, Pat... they're pretty alright. I was convinced by people to give them a chance."
"And these other people, do you know why they convinced you?" I was getting more and more confused by the second, frowning in attempt to decipher what he was saying. I hadn't even noticed that he'd scooted closer to me and when I pulled my head out of my hands, his face was opposite to mine. We were almost nose to nose, I could smell the scent on beer on his breath and for some strange reason I didn't pull away.
"No, I don't..." I let my voice trail away, staring into his brown eyes. Abruptly, he pulled away and got off the bed, snatching his beer from the table. He left without a word, glancing back at me as he walked through the door. I was completely and utterly confused. Why had he been asking me all of those questions? And did he know it was him that I was talking about?

I sat there for a while before I leapt of the bed, eager to catch up with him and ask him what the hell he'd been talking about. By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I saw him walking out the front door with Rachel. She had keys in her hand and I assumed she was taking him home. I took raced down the stairs as fast as I could, but slammed into Kennedy on the way down. "Sophia!" he yelled, catching my arm as I tried to push past people in the way to get to Pat before he left. "Soph, what are you doing?"
"I gotta talk to Pat! He was...he was saying all this stuff about seeing people in new ways and why I started seeing that person in a different way... Is he leaving?" My brain was thinking too fast to even help my mouth churn out coherent sentences.
"Yeah, he threw up in the kitchen sink and Rachel said she'd take him home. When did you talk to him? I haven't seen him all night..." Kennedy looked puzzled, like he didn't even know I was here.
"He was in John's room," I said, my shoulders slumping as I realised that he would be gone by now and probably wouldn't remember saying anything like that because he was drunk. Kennedy looked at me strangely, a sly smile on his lips.
"And what happened in John's room?" he asked. I looked back at him, his eyebrows raised and his smile suggestive. "Getting closer with Pat, are we?" I swatted at him.
"No, I went in there to get away from all these loud poeple, who I don't even know. He just so happened to be in there. I don't even know why he was," I snapped.
"No need to get so defensive..." Kennedy said, his sly smile not even faltering. "I love when people do that, it means they're hiding something."

I groaned and pushed away from him. No matter how much I told him the truth, it would still come out as a lie to anyone I told. I wasn't even sure why Kennedy was convinced that something had happened, I'd barely had a sip of alcohol all night and God knows, I'd have to be fairly drunk to get with any of the guys, even more so for Pat. Just because I'd had a change of heart towards him, didn't mean that I had a crush on him. I decided I'd just walk home, since I hadn't driven over and John lived four streets away from me anyway. I knew these streets like the back of my hand, and I could have walked home with my eyes closed if I had to. But everytime I did close my eyes, all I could see was Pat's arms and his eyes, and his shirtless body from when we had all gone swimming in Jared's pool last summer before I left for college. And all I could think about was his face, so close to mine as we had sat on John's bed. I honestly couldn't tell what I thought about him anymore.