I Hated You First

by Rachel John

Chemistry was a funny thing. I truly believed you could create chemistry with a person if you both wanted it. You could choose love. You could build it. None of this falling out of love business.

“Really? I’m liking the sound of that, sister.” She slapped my butt with a kitchen towel and ran before I could retaliate.

All these years I’d spent locked in a losing staring contest with a doll, when I could have just said something to Grandma and ended it. What else wasn’t I speaking up about?

“Hello, Lauren,” Clay sing-songed in a high-pitched voice. He tapped my shoulder with whatever it was, and suddenly the leering face of a Nutcracker doll was in my face, making me scream a little, and Clay laugh a lot.

When Parker and Dad pulled up to the curb in their apology caravan two minutes later, Clay was still chasing me around the yard with the Nutcracker doll. What a day.

“Where are Clay and Lauren?” John suddenly asked, loud and paranoid. It was the voice of a parent noticing a missing Sharpie and a toddler not in the room.

Once they left, the conversation immediately went back to shop talk, and when Clay and I planned to get back into work today. I’d been unemployed for an hour, and my dad made it sound like I was wasting my life away.