PS: I Hate You

by Lauren Connolly

I swallow my anger and pause my plan to fill Dom’s socks with shaving cream.

Im trying so hard to have empathy for her but damn. She acts like a petulant child

At first, I thought that made him a good man. Someone to trust and give my heart to and pin my pathetic hopes on. But even at nineteen, I should’ve known better. I’d already learned that the only person I could trust to not toss me aside was my brother. All those beautiful things Dom gave me? They didn’t mean anything. Because that night was only a favor. A thank-you for helping his family out. A I know you’ve had a crush on me for your entire life, so here, I’ll touch you once before I lock down the woman I actually want to be with. To him, I was a responsibility. A charity case. A box on a to-do list to check off. Well, he did me, and I hate him for it.

I am going to be so pissed when this all comes down to poor communication

I blame these frequent trips into the past on too much Dom exposure combined with the casual communication I’ve reestablished with the twins.

She completely cut them all off and now they are besties?

I want him to argue with me. Whenever I think about how he held my hand for that brief moment in the canyon and used my birthday as a safe combination and found a cozy cabin to stay in because I hate hotels, my thoughts crash and collide in a jumble I can’t sort through. I need the simplicity of animosity.

Its like she wants to be miserable

For such a taciturn man, Dom is a talented storyteller. Each memory of Josh he shares is vivid with detail and emotion, to the point I can almost imagine myself living through the experiences with him. But I didn’t. Because I moved to the other side of the country. Not for the first time, I wish I hadn’t loved Dominic Perry so much.

This is what I hate. She abandons her friends and family because of one event and refused to find out what and why. She loved him so much she abandoned her entire support network rather than have a five minute conversation.

“That’s the thing about you, Dom. That is your thing. You don’t make choices based on what is going to make you happy. You choose the responsible thing. Then you’re miserable while you’re doing it.

Fuck me if this isn't going to be his entire personality. I just know he got married because whats her name said she was pregnant

My rant started about food but ended with too much of my inner pain revealed. What was I even saying at the end there? Do I think I’m the Cheez-Its? But that would mean I’m the one who would make Dom happy. Doubt that’s the case when I spend half our time together insulting him. I’ve turned the man into my grief punching bag because he hurt me a long time ago. I’m supposed to be past this.

No shit

The desktop background is a picture of the Perry family. The Perry family plus Josh and Rosaline. Adam and Carter wear graduation robes and huge grins, standing in the middle of the gathering. I missed this. Emilia had sent me the announcement, and I’d mailed the two graduates gift cards. But I could’ve been there. As awkward as I would have felt around Dom and Rosaline, everyone would have welcomed me. The day could’ve been another memory with Josh.

Again she chose unhappiness

Remember that time when hooking up with you was so bad, Dom proposed to another woman the next day?

I swear to god i want to smack her. I guarantee it was him being responsible

Slamming back into the present moment, I shove Dom’s hand away, rip my mouth from his, and scramble off the bed. Distance. I need space. But standing, seeing his lips swollen from kisses and his cheeks flushed and his eyes hungry, does nothing to ease the amount I crave him. Or the way I fear what he could do to me if I let him in again. “Maddie?” “I can’t do that,” I blurt, and Dom stiffens. His face begins to shutter, all the wanting he showed me getting forcefully repressed. My gut clenches, regret clawing at my insides.

This is disturbing. She was so traumatized by heavy petting eight years ago that she had this reaction? She is incapable of moving past ANYTHING

Physically, I love it. Mentally, it’s tied up with some shit I thought I got over. Even if he fingers me tonight, it doesn’t mean he’ll leave me for Rosaline tomorrow, I lecture myself. Still, I just can’t. It’s too close to repeating the past.

God damn she is such a sad sack

“I want you to take your pants off, because I want to make you come.” Because he’s had one of my orgasms for years, and now I need a return. To be balanced. To prove this isn’t some pity hookup.

This is the opposite of sexy or romantic

Damn it. This wasn’t the plan. “You were supposed to come first.” I grit the words out, pissed at myself for falling into this pattern again. “How about I come next?” Dom asks, his face buried against my neck. “And then we stop keeping score and just do what feels good?” Easy for him to say. He’s winning.

I really don’t like this. She makes it so gross and horrible

“I didn’t mean to yell.” He begins to stroke me, his hand creeping toward my center. I grab his wrist before he can start fingering me, a spike of panic shuddering through me again. “It can’t just be me,” I rasp. “We both need to be in it. I need you inside me. I can’t be on my own.” Dom holds my gaze for

This level of hangup over a single parasexual encounter is giving me the ick. This is the grossest sex scene I’ve ever read

How do I tell my amazing friends I’ve been lying to them since the day my brother died?

The author of her own problems. She does less than nothing to deserve her friends’ devotion. Nobody would put up with her in reality

This is getting out of hand. Why didn’t I just tell everyone about everyone beforehand? Oh yeah, because I didn’t want my friends to know I was still messed up over a guy I liked as a teenager, and I didn’t want Dom to know about my life because up until North Dakota I fully expected him to walk out of it.

I haaaaaate poor communication plots

This is all too early. You’re moving too fast. I may have more confidence in us, but we haven’t been together long enough to broach that topic. Not yet.

Two years...

I’m the problem.

Hell yeah you are. You really really are.

Dom leans toward me, his earnest gaze holding mine. “I told Josh we got married because Rosaline was pregnant.”

Called it

My urge is to hug him, but I wrap my arms around myself instead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I…” I dig my fingers into my sides and try to shove away the anger that still smolders alongside my sadness. “I was mad at you. But I never wanted something like that to happen. I’m sorry, Dom. I really, truly am.”

Because you didn't ASK

“Me not being your priority with a baby on the way would’ve made sense, you know,” I speak over him. “Things would’ve been messy and awkward, but if you’d talked to me at all before you made that decision, I would’ve at least known you cared. That I meant something to you, even if we couldn’t have been what I wanted.”

Fuck you so much.

You have to make the choice to be with me every single day. And I can’t deal with knowing that one day you might choose to go another way.” I force the words past my internal pain. Then he’ll leave like everyone else does.

She is literally the one who leaves