Like You Hate Me (Hawthorne University #1)

by Bethany Winters

Tonight, though…it feels different. I feel different. I’m in too deep this time and I just want it to stop. No more pain. No more guilt. No more misery.

Ride a motorcycle. Jump off a cliff.

But then I hesitate, swallowing as I flex my fingers. Just twist it, Xavi. Just fucking do it already. Just fucking—

It won’t work anyway. I won’t breathe right again until I know Katy’s okay. Please be okay.

She’s not dead. She can’t be dead. But he’s not lying.

He’s staring at me again, his fingers clutching my shirt as if he knows I’ll fall apart if he doesn’t hold me up. I wish he’d let me fall. “It should have been you,” he says after a minute, granting my unspoken wish and letting me go.

“Xavi?” he calls, waiting until I turn my head to look him in the eye. “You’re dead to me, you understand? If I ever have to look at your face again, I’ll break it.”

He frowns at that, looking up at me in confusion. “Since when?” Since you, I think to myself, but I don’t bother saying it out loud. Still, I think he knows the answer because he winces and tears his eyes away.

His daughter was in the ground, but life goes on and all that shit. I hated him. I hated everyone.

It all comes back to him as far as I’m concerned. Everything is his fault. And I hate him for it.

I dig my fingers into my throbbing eye sockets. This was a mistake. I should have just gone back to my hole where I belong.

I’m not here by choice, but I’ll admit it didn’t take much to convince me. Because deep down, I know she’d want this for me. She’d want me to do this for her.

No point in trying to be better for a man who knows I never will be.

My face hurts like a bitch, but I don’t mind it. Everything always hurts on the inside anyway, so it's kind of nice to feel some pain on the outside again. Like maybe it’ll override it if I concentrate on the throb in my nose hard enough.

“What are you even doing with this guy, Katy?” “He’s my friend,” she stresses. “He makes me laugh and he’s one of the only people who actually gives a shit. He gets it,” she adds, muttering, “unlike some people.”

For encouraging her, enabling her because it hurt less not to hurt alone. It’s all his fault. My fault.

He doesn’t let me look away from his eyes, and now that the initial shock of seeing him again has worn off, I… Fuck, I forgot how much it hurts to look at him.

It’s never mattered how hard I try to hide it. He’s always been able to see me for what I am. Broken. Pathetic. Gay.

“What?” I ask, risking a glance at him. “I like him.” “You’re pathetic.” My shoulders drop, and I avert my eyes, folding my arms over my chest as I stare at the floor next to his feet. Ouch.

I wish I’d killed him. I wish I’d have known back then so I could have done more to stop him. I wish he was dead instead of her.

I hate how hot he is. I hate how hot he makes me as I swirl my finger around the metal.

I don’t know what happened to him tonight, but I want to. I want to know everything.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me. This hate inside me feels like a living, breathing thing, and it wants Xavi Hart. Now that he’s within reach, it wants to take him and own him, to pin him down and punish him for what he’s done, to make him cry and beg for me to make it stop.

Tears fill my eyes before I can stop it, and I lock my jaw, turning my face toward the boy sleeping next to me. “I hate you.”

Not this time though. This time, he looks pissed, and I like it. I want more of it. Leaning back a little more, I twist in my seat and widen my legs. Come here.

He locked it. He actually locked it. I don’t know why I’m pissed all of a sudden. This is what I wanted, isn’t it? So why does it feel like I just lost something?

Because whatever they are, she gets to have him in a way that I don't. She knows him in a way I never will. I met him first, but he and I might as well be strangers.

I put my headphones in and pick a random playlist on Spotify, shutting out everyone around me and hoping they leave me alone. Alone. Just like always.

I like that I’m his sole focus, that he’s clearly jealous of me and Frankie, but at the same time, that sad, broken look in his eyes makes me want to throttle him.

“Jesus, the way you look at him…” Frankie mutters. “I wish someone would look at me like that.” “Like what?” “Like they wanna fight me and fuck me at the same time.”

“You hate it, don’t you?” she whispers against my lips, playing along like the good friend she is. “The way you want him. It pisses you off.”

Why does he get to live his dream when Katy doesn’t get to live hers? It’s how I feel too. About everything. Getting sober and coming to college…Listening to her favorite songs…Life in general… It’s not fucking fair.

Even from all the way up here, I can see the sharp lines of his jaw, the small tick there as if he’s grinding his teeth together. He’s been doing that a lot tonight, looking up at the stands… Is he looking for me? Not possible.

It’s probably not a good idea to touch him right now, but I don’t care. I want his attention on me—only me. Fuck Carter and his stupid games. “Just let him go,” I say quietly. “Please.”

“Nothing,” I choke out, sniffing as a stray tear falls over my cheek. “They make me feel nothing, okay? Not doing them makes me feel it all. All the pain and the guilt and the fucking misery. I’m sober because I deserve it. Because it hurts more.” He blinks at that, his gaze following the tear as it falls off my chin. “You wanna hurt?”

My teeth latch onto his bottom lip as I walk him over to the bed, sucking on his lip ring the way I’ve thought about doing since the first time I saw it on him. That was years ago. Years, I’ve wanted this.

He’s not pushing me away though. He’s trying to pull me closer. He’s taking it because he knows he deserves it.

He’s so sexy. I’ve always known it, and it pisses me off. Thinking about how many guys have wanted him like this, how many have taken him like this like he’s theirs to take. He’s not theirs.

“You think you mean more to me than the strangers I fuck right here in this bed?” I ask as I roll the condom on, leaning over him until my chest is pressed against his back. “You don’t.” His face falls, and I smirk at the hurt in his eyes. “You think I trust an easy little slut like you?”

Frankie’s horny little friend who thinks she’s got a chance at taking a piece of him. They’ll know who’s been here next time they see him. They’ll know who he belongs to. “Mine,” I whisper into his neck. “All fucking mine now.”

“Jesus Christ, Nate,” he whimpers my name, curling his fingers around the sheet. “What?” “Nothing, I just…I never thought this would happen,” he admits. “Not in a million years.”

“Better than my best friend?” I ask, my lip curling with a snarl as I rock into him faster. “Yes,” he rushes out, his voice strangled. “So much better.”

I love it when he cries.

“You still hate yourself?” He nods, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Good,” I whisper, feeling him tense beneath me. I tighten my fist in his hair and yank his head back, my mouth pressed against the hard line of his jaw. “Now get the fuck out.”

I guess he wasn’t lying when he said I was no different than anybody else he fucks. He used me like the easy little slut he called me and then tossed me out on my ass like I mean nothing. Less than nothing. It hurt, but that was his plan all along, wasn’t it? To hurt me… And I practically begged him for it.

She knows why she’s here. I wanted to piss him off, to get under his skin even more than I already am. Plus I just wanted to get her away from him. I don’t like it when he’s around her too much. It makes me nervous.

upstairs. I saw Xavi with his back against the wall and his hands on Carter’s chest, so close they were almost kissing. Then I heard them talking about last time, and all I saw was red after that. Glaring at the swollen cut on my knuckle, I flex my hand on the steering wheel, making it split and bleed again.

Now that I’m thinking about him—again—I decide to sit in my car and wait for him to show up like the stalker he’s turned me into. I like watching him. I’ve memorized his schedule so well that I pretty much always know where he is and where he’s going next.

And on Friday after the game, when I got home and he was nowhere to be found. It pisses me off that there are some parts of his life that don’t revolve around me, but I can fix that. I just need to figure out where he’s going, what he’s doing, and who he’s doing it with…

If I find out he’s been sneaking out of my house to fuck someone else, I’m gonna choke him until he pukes.