Love Letters to Write Before I Die

“Keep the change,” Nathan said, walking out of the deli with a can of coffee in his hand.

He spat out a couple of immensely negative phrases to people before and yes, quite shamefully, sometimes he managed to demolish a person out of their happy spirits with his passionate claims of hatred towards life. And though he never admitted it to anyone, he occasionally enjoyed the whole demolishing-optimists part because frankly, they pissed him off. As far as he concerned, optimistic arguments were irrelevant and downright stupid.

He used to hate optimists. He used to hate changes.

But change was inevitable.

He drank his coffee all the way to school before chucking the empty can into a trash bin nearby. He didn’t know if it got into the can. Even if it didn’t, he was too lazy to pick it up anyway. He was even lazier to go to school that day. The looming school building in front of him was how he pictured the gates of hell to be like.

Nathan was on edge that day, reminiscing about the night before. Frustration once again bubbled in his chest. He wasn’t good in handling frustration. Every time he felt frustrated, he wanted to punch the living hell out of someone.

He hated optimists. He really did. What he couldn’t comprehend was the fact that he was about to kiss the single most overly-optimistic person in his life. Who also happened to be his pen pal. Whose parents were cheating.

She was hurt, that much was obvious.

He didn’t want to take advantage of her.

But for some reason, that night he wanted to go back to the guest room and just…make out.

He kicked the lockers next to him. It was a stupid idea because aside from the confusing thoughts, he also had a searing pain in his damn foot.

He pushed his way to his class and a new thought popped into his head.

What about the letter?

Did she know that he was the Nate in the letter? Should he tell her?

“MR. SCOTT!”

Shit, the teacher got into the class early.

“Please refrain yourself from kicking the door!”

Nathan just looked at his teacher blankly. “It was stuck, so,” he lied.