Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott Read Free Book Online

shut my locker, and Kevin was standing there. Rich, his stupid-ass best friend and the last guy I slept with—number five and the biggest waste of my time because he actually tried to act like my boyfriend afterward till I had to tell him to get lost—was standing a few feet away, acting like I wasn’t there. That didn’t surprise me.I was actually surprised either of them would come near me at all.
    “Hi,” Kevin said.
    He really said that. “Hi.” Like it was just another Friday and not ninety-nine days since Julia had strode down the hall and said, “God, I’m so glad to be free of this place till September!” Like it wasn’t ninety-nine days since she’d died.
    I stared at him.
    “I want to show you something,” Kevin said, and pushed up his sleeve. He had a tattoo spiraling around his wrist. Julia’s name, written out dark and forever.
    “She’d love it,” he said, and put a hand on my arm. He sounded so sure.
    I wanted to take his face in my hands and pull. I wanted to rip off his skin, tear it to shreds, and leave him broken. Julia’s name on his wrist, like it would fix what happened, like it could ever fix what happened: Julia’s swollen red eyes, her sobbing as we stood in someone’s house, and him staring stone-faced, not even calling her name as we left.
    I know what I did to her, and I know—I know I have no right to talk. But I hate him. God, I hate him.
    “I really loved her, you know,” Kevin said, as if I’d commented on his tattoo, as if I’d spoken. “I loved her somuch. And now—” His voice broke, his eyes filled with tears, and I saw girls walking by look at him, sympathy and lust on their faces, and maybe he does miss Julia, maybe now he loves her like she always wanted. But that—that writing Julia won’t ever see, those tears and regret she didn’t get until it was too late—the wrongness of it made me want to scream.
    I pushed his hand off my arm. He gave me a dark look and smeared over it with a smile. “I forgive you for what you did, you know.”
    My vision went dark, spotted red and hazy. I shoved past him, his predictable muttering (“Be that way, bitch”) washing over me and making the red haze I saw beat like a second heart. Rich said something to me too, as if I would care what he thought, as if sex with him once (for thirty-seven whole seconds) meant something. All I could think about was Julia. Her shattered face after she saw Kevin with that other girl. My hand on her arm, guiding her away. Leading her to the car.
    I wanted to get away and couldn’t. I was trapped in the school, in walking past the thing her locker had been turned into. I was paying for telling her we should leave the party, I would always be paying. I bumped into someone just as I heard Mel say, “Hey, watch where—Hey, Amy, you okay?”
    I blinked, confused, and saw Mel watching me from a few feet away. I didn’t understand. How could he be over there when I’d just bumped into him?
    I hadn’t. I’d walked into Patrick. He just hadn’t said anything. I looked at him and he—he was looking at me. He looked at me like no one, not even Laurie, has. He looked at me like he could see everything, all the way down into the rotten places inside me.
    I didn’t like that. I hated it. I hated him. I hated everyone, everything. I wanted to rip the whole world apart so it wouldn’t be like this anymore. Patrick blinked and something passed through his eyes, a curious understanding. He didn’t say a word.
    I pushed past him and went outside to wait for Mom, but I could still see that tattoo, see Julia’s name. I could still hear Kevin saying how much he loved Julia when she wasn’t around to hear it. I could still see Patrick looking at me, and I knew none of it would go away.
    I knew I’d remember it all.

104 days
    Hey J,
    It’s Wednesday, but that doesn’t matter. All my days are the same.
    I:
    Get up, eat breakfast with Mom. Read encouraging note left by Dad, who has to leave