Read Hate List for Free Online Page B

wrapping my leg around his. “Totally,” I said. “Screw our parents. Screw their stupid fights. Screw everybody.
     Who gives a shit about them?”
    “Not me,” he said. He scratched his shoulder. “For a long time I thought nobody would ever get me, but you really do.”
    “Of course I do.” I turned my head and kissed his shoulder. “And you get me, too. It’s kind of creepy the way we’re so alike.”
    “Creepy in a good way.”
    “Yeah, in a good way.”
    He turned to face me, propping himself up on an elbow. “It’s good that we have each other,” he said. “It’s like, you know,
     even if the whole world hates you, you still have someone to rely on. Just the two of you against the whole world. Just us.”
    At the time, my thoughts had been so consumed with Mom and Dad and their incessant arguing, I’d just assumed we were talking
     about them. Nick knew exactly what I was going through—he called his stepdad Charles his “Step du Jour” and talked about
     his mom’s ever-changing love life as if it were some big joke. I’d had no idea he might have meant us against… everyone. “Yeah.
     Just us,” I’d answered. “Just us.”
    I looked at the carpet of Mrs. Tate’s office, once again struck with the feeling that I never knew Nick at all. That all of
     that soul-mate stuff we’d talked about was just bullshit. That when it comes to reading people, I’m an F student.
    I felt a lump in my throat. How indulgent was that? The school outcast cries over the memory of her boyfriend, the murderer.
     Even I would hate me. I swallowed and forced the lump to go down.
    Mrs. Tate had sat back in her chair, but was still talking. “Valerie, you had a future. You were choosing colleges. You were
     getting good grades. Nick never had a future. Nick’s future was… this.”
    A tear spilled over. I swallowed and swallowed but it did no good. How did she know about Nick’s future? You can’t predict
     the future. God, if I could have predicted what happened, I would’ve stopped it. I would’ve made it go away. But I didn’t.
     I couldn’t. And I should have. That’s what gets me. I should have. And now my future doesn’t have college in it. My future
     is about being known around the world as The Girl Who Hates Everyone. That’s what the newspapers called me—The Girl Who
     Hates Everyone.
    I wanted to tell Tate all of these things. But it was all so complicated, and thinking about it made my leg throb and my heart
     ache. I stood up and shrugged into my backpack. I wiped my cheeks with the backs of my hands. “I better get to class,” I said.
     “I don’t want to be late on the first day. I’ll think about it. College, I mean. But like I said, I can’t make any promises,
     okay?”
    Mrs. Tate sighed and stood up. She pushed the file drawer in, but didn’t move around the file cabinet.
    “Valerie,” she said, then stopped and seemed to reconsider. “Try to have a good day, okay? I am glad you’re back. And I’ll
     hang onto those program requirements for you.”
    I started toward the door. But just before I reached for the doorknob, I turned.
    “Mrs. Tate? Have things changed much?” I asked. “I mean, are people different now?” I didn’t know what I hoped her answer
     would be. Yes, everyone learned their lesson and now we’re all one big, happy family, just like they say we are in the newspapers.
     Or no, there were no bullies—it was all in your head just like they say. Nick was crazy and you bought it and that’s all
     there was to it. You were angry for no reason. So angry, but it was all in your imagination.
    Mrs. Tate chewed on her bottom lip and seemed to really consider the question. “People are people,” she finally said, turning
     up her palms in a helpless, sad shrug.
    I think that was the last answer I wanted to hear.
     

MAY 2, 2008
7:10 A.M .
“She might cast a spell on you, Christy…”

     

    Most days I found it totally ironic
that Mom drove Frankie to