Confessions of a Hater

by Caprice Crane

  “That’s it?” Emily asked.

  “Well, yeah, that’s it in a nutshell, but—”

  “Gawd!” Xandra said. “What a disappointment!”

  “Xan, I know. Look, I am so sorry, I should have told you ear—”

  “Not that, dumbass. I thought for a second you had some devastating secret that had haunted you for years, something good, but all you got is ‘I was a huge dork. Now I’m, you know, slightly less of a huge dork.’”

  “We don’t care,” Anya said. “We’re outcasts too. You know that.”

  “Well, it’s just a little more complicated,” I said. “I kind of transformed myself before I moved. I have a sister who’s like perfect.”

  I rolled my eyes as I said it. Still didn’t take away the sting of its truth.

  “In the spring, I found her diary.”

  “Oooh,” Xandra cooed, eyes gleaming devilishly. “Diary!”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Emily agreed. “So she’s a man?”

  “Come on, guys.” I sighed. “It’s just a diary, but it’s an amazing diary. The info in it is pretty much a how-to-be-cool manual. In her words, it’s How to Be a Hater, but the fact remains … it’s a roadmap to a better place.”

  “Says who?” Anya asked.

  “Says the girl who got instantly accepted into the cool crowd after following a few easy steps.”

  Now Anya was the one rolling her eyes. “Hailey, seriously now, why on earth would we care about that? I’ve been there. You’ve been there. It sucked. It wasn’t a whole lot of fun when Skyler kicked me to the curb, but I adapted. I would rather spend the day with you guys in an Iraqi minefield than spend it with Skyler and her minions at a day spa.”

  “I know, Anya,” I replied. “But I’m not saying we use it to become one with the haters. I’m just thinking maybe we can use it to beat them at their own game.”

  “Or at the very least, step up our game,” Emily said.

  “Maybe it’s just me,” I said, “but having Skyler humiliate me in English because my shirt isn’t from this season? It felt pretty crappy.”

  “From what I heard, that little play blew up in her face,” Anya said.

  “Sort of, but it still sucked,” I said. “I don’t want to constantly be a target, constantly be on guard. I’m thinking we can make her ridicule less valuable somehow, and what better way than by building our own self-esteem? What’s the harm in that?”

  “Amen to that!” said Emily.

  “It’s not just you,” Xandra said. “They’ve been taunting us all since grade school. Well, except Anya, given that she was a card-carrying member of the Dark Side.”

  Anya seemed taken aback. “I was never mean to you, was I?”

  “No, not really,” Xandra said. “But I was still scared of you.”

  “I’m sorry, Xan.” Anya looked down at her hands. “I think I’ve blocked a lot of that stuff out. It seems like a whole different lifetime. So much has happened since then.”

  Emily put a hand on Anya’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. You were still figuring yourself out. People get older. They get smarter. Except for Xandra.”

  “Hey!” Xandra cried, giving Emily a soft love tap in the side.

  “Cut it out,” Anya said. “I mean it; I’m sorry that I was ever a bitch to you guys. Standing by silently while Skyler ripped you apart wasn’t right. I should have spoken up.”

  “And now we can’t get you to shut up,” Xandra said with a smile. “Really, Anya, it’s cool. Anyway, it sounds like our new best bestie has a plan to give ’em a taste of their own meds.”

  “Yeah, so what’s the plan, Hailey?” Emily asked.

  “Everyone goes around scared of these girls, and it makes no sense,” I said. “Nobody should be scared of them. We all just grant them that kind of power, because they’re used to acting like it’s their birthright. It’s not real, and they don’t deserve it. Why can’t we just be a better version of them? Just as cool, you know, but not tyrannical bitches.”

  “I’m down for that,” Emily said.

  “Second,” Xandra said.

  “We can help other girls too,” I said, turning my attention mostly to Anya, who was obviously the hard sell. “Personally I think it’s way cooler to be smart or funny or creative than vapid, popular and ‘perfect.’”

  Anya sighed. “Look, I see your point. I just—I don’t know. I’m already pretty happy now. Weird as it sounds, I’m fine with just you goobers. I don’t need more friends. I sure as hell don’t need to be ‘popular.’”

  “I know,” I said. “We’re going to do this our way. It will be a good thing. Trust me.”

  “Okay, Hailey,” Anya said. “I trust you. I’m in.”

  You got your head in the clouds …

  —ADELE

  “Rumour Has It”

  CHAPTER

  7

  I’m certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the eight minutes allotted by my alarm clock’s snooze button and eight minutes of “real” time are two completely different things. There’s just no way eight minutes goes by that fast. If I’m in class and the bell is supposed to ring in eight minutes, it takes, like, a century. Snoozing in my bed, trying to get a tiny bit more rest? Boom. Over.

  Waking up at six a.m. makes you wish three things:

  1) You weren’t awake at six a.m.

  2) There was a tiny Starbucks in your bedroom and a barista waiting to make your latte just how you want it (extra hot, no foam, one pump of vanilla).

  3) See #1.

  We had planned an after-school meeting to go over our new plans for world domination—or at least partial-world domination, the part that began and ended at West Hollywood High (which for all intents and purposes is the whole world when you’re in high school).

  I tucked Noel’s diary into my bag and took one last look in the mirror before heading off to school. That was one of Noel’s decrees:

  Before you leave the house, turn your back to the mirror and then quickly turn around. Whatever catches your eye first is probably “too much.” If it’s not legitimately covering you up, take it off. You’re trying too hard.

  Buh-bye, sparkly barrette. The Queen has spoken. (She did have a point.)

  And in the grand tradition of the space-time discrepancy between snooze time and real time, the day just dragged on and on while I waited for our first official meeting of the Invisibles. Like anything, when you’re excited for it, it seems to take forever to come. Case in point: summer vacation. Waiting for it to come—waiting an eternity. Then as soon as you’re having fun during vacation … tick-tock, school is suddenly right around the corner.

  Our calculus teacher was a transplant from England: Mr. Davies. His face looked like it never fully formed. He’s got this tiny weird pug-like nose that forces you to look in his nostrils when he’s in front of you. And when he’s to your side. And when he’s seated at his desk. Seriously, there’s like no angle where you can’t see the man’s nostrils, which wouldn’t be as awful if he paid sufficient attention to grooming his nose hair—but he most certainly does not.

  Mr. Davies is like the stoner guy from The Breakfast Club, Judd Nostril—I mean, Nelson. Actually, Judd Nelson had a pretty big schnoz, but Mr. Davies? His actual nose looks skeletal, like Michael Jackson after something like his seventy-third plastic surgery. Mr. Davies has barely a nose, but nostrils to spare. Totally gross.

  Even sadder, he thinks he’s hot stuff. He’s super-satisfied with himself ever since he got his teeth fixed, and he likes to show them off constantly with the goofiest smile you can imagine. Creepy. He reminds me of the senior girls who have boob jobs already. (There are five that I know of.) They’re always bragging about how “real” they feel. News flash: They don’t feel or look real. Because big boobs on skinny girls don’t exist in the real world. Even if a girl used to be bigger and had proportionate boobage, the minute she loses weight and gets skinny, the first things to go are the boobs. It’s a sad, cruel fact of li
fe.

  In today’s class we’re studying sequences. The current sequence we’re looking at is

  {xn}n ≥ 1

  Mr. Davies had written on the board that it’s

  increasing, if and only if, xn < xn + 1 for any n ≥ 1,

  or decreasing, if and only if, xn > xn + 1 for any n ≥ 1.

  “If one of these properties holds,” Mr. Davies said, “we say that the sequence is monotonic.”

  You ain’t kidding, Mr. Davies. Your entire lecture is monotonic. If watching paint dry is supposed to be the most boring thing in the world, then listening to Mr. Davies teach—while simultaneously creeping everyone out with his huge fake-looking teeth—is like watching paint dry on a giant set of disturbing veneers. Brutal.

  Class finally ended and I made my way toward the Invisibles’ meeting spot du jour, the IHOP. I ate a bag of Peanut M&M’s on the way because a) I had them in my bag and b) delicious.

  People who love dark chocolate are always so snobby about it. Relax. It’s just chocolate, you elitist ninnies. Yes, I know dark chocolate supposedly has antioxidants, so it’s better for you, but I’m not gonna be mad if a regular old candy bar winds up in my chocolate-loving hands. (Honestly, I prefer milk chocolate to dark, but it seems so uncool to actually admit that—why, I have no idea. It’s probably those lactose-intolerant freaks. We all know there’s nothing cool about intolerance.)

  The first official meeting of the Invisibles was scheduled for us to set goals and go over some basic ground rules, but most important, it was for me to show everyone the diary—our Holy Grail.

  I only expected the five of us: me, Anya, Emily, Kura and Xandra. But when I walked in, there were in addition a couple of girls I thought I recognized from school but hadn’t met. They were all talking about some fight, and I was trying to figure out who they were talking about and what I’d missed without bluntly interrupting them and asking outright.

  “It was epic,” Emily said. “Like, I swear, I thought I saw her head spin.”

  “I could hear her yelling all the way from the theater,” Xandra said. “We actually stopped rehearsal so we could eavesdrop but then Mr. Coogan clapped his hands and made us get back to rehearsal.”

  “Well, they did used to date, so I can see why she was mad,” Anya added. “I’d be pissed if I were her too. Him defending our girl over here, pretty much humiliating Skyler in front of the whole class was a bold move.”

  “Wait, whose girl over here?” I interrupted, because it seemed almost like Anya was motioning to me when she said it.

  “You!” she said. “Duh!”

  “Wait, back up,” I said. “And hi,” I said to the two girls I didn’t know. “But back to the issue at hand, who defended me?”

  “Chris Roberts!” they all said at the same time.

  “Wait—what? Chris? He dated Skyler?”

  Holy news flash!

  “Yes,” Anya said. “They were the ‘it couple’ freshman year, but they broke up this past summer and nobody knows why.”

  Figures no one felt the need to mention this to me before. It’s like how Yoda was chilling out and training Luke to take on Darth Vader without mentioning a little thing like, “Hey, just as an FYI, that guy I’m teaching you to slice up with a light saber? Funny little coinkydink: He’s your dad!”

  (Yes, I got around to watching Star Wars.)

  Of course Skyler dated the one guy who made me feel like there was a parade of butterflies practicing for Cirque du Soleil in my stomach. It had to be him.

  Total nightmare.

  Anya said, “The story got around school like wildfire, and the more Skyler heard about it circulating, the more pissed she got. She yelled at Chris right in the middle of the quad. It was one thing for everyone in your English class to know, but once it started to become headline news, Skyler lost it.”

  “I can’t believe they dated,” I said, somewhat under my breath, still stuck on that one detail. She’s horrible! He’s smart! I would have thought he had better taste.

  Then reality set in even harder. “So now she must really hate me.”

  “Ohhhhhh yeah,” Emily said.

  “All signs point to yes,” Kura said, quoting a Magic 8 Ball.

  “Perfect,” I said. “As if I weren’t already on her shit list.”

  I didn’t want to mention the fact that, in addition to Chris being my knight in shining banter that day, he was also the cutest guy I’d seen at school. Knowing that he dated Skyler (and dumped her) made the idea of him that much more intriguing, but also flat-out terrifying. If she were his type, I definitely wouldn’t be. But then, he did dump her, so that had to mean something. If he actually dumped her, that is. Then again, if she dumped him, then she shouldn’t care if we end up going out and then getting married and having ten babies—of course we’d be super-famous by then and the tabloids would refer to us as “Chrailey” or “Hailis.” And they’d lie about us being on the verge of breaking up, but we’d know it was just to sell magazines.

  More to the point, why the hell was Anya snapping her fingers in my face?

  “Hello!” Anya said. “Earth to Hailey!”

  “Huh? Did you say something?”

  “Told you we should have slapped her,” Kura said. “That took too long.”

  “You don’t go slapping your friends,” Emily said.

  “They do it on TV all the time,” Kura said. “People zone out, slap ’em. People get hysterical, slap ’em.”

  “That’s why I don’t watch TV,” Emily said.

  “Really? I thought it’s just because you couldn’t fit one in your purse.”

  “Hey!”

  “Ladies,” I said, having sufficiently cleared my head. “Let’s get down to business.”

  I looked at the two new girls and then at Anya.

  “They’re cool,” she said with an easygoing shrug, and that’s all she needed to say. If you check out with Anya, you check out with me.

  I extended my hand to the girls. “Hi, I’m Hailey.”

  The blond girl shook my hand, saying, “I’m Dahlia.” She had a pierced nose, an adornment that suited her well. Dahlia wore ripped jeans with red tights underneath, Vans sneakers with black-and-white checkers and a Tegan and Sara T-shirt underneath a hoodie, which she wore with the hood up.

  “I’m Grace,” said the other girl. She had brown hair and brown eyes, and she was what a polite person would call “big-boned.” She wore an oversize T-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

  “Hey, Dahlia. Hey, Grace,” I said warmly. “Welcome to the Invisibles.”

  “Thanks,” Dahlia replied. Grace nodded and smiled.

  “Woo hoo!” cried Emily and Kura, clinking their glasses. Kura immediately sucked down her entire glass of Diet Coke through a straw, then tried to catch a server’s eye for a refill.

  “Uh … thirsty much?” Xandra asked. Kura looked a little embarrassed.

  “I’m not allowed to drink soda at home,” she said. “I get a little crazy when I’m finally in a place where my parents can’t monitor my soda intake.”

  “Drink up,” Anya encouraged.

  “Same goes for sugared cereals,” Kura went on. “I see their point, I guess, sugar isn’t good for you—but if you deprive me, I’m so going to want it!”

  “Next stop, hard drugs,” Anya said.

  “A life lesson to parents everywhere,” Emily said. “Too bad none of them are here to take it in … on second thought, I take that back.”

  “Plus,” Kura went on, “I mean, I’ll bet Cristina Yang drinks a ton of Diet Coke. And someday when I’m in an OR standing on my feet for nineteen hours straight, trying to save a life? I think I might need a little caffeine. I’m saving lives, people!”

  Anyone who knew Kura knew this: She was obsessed with the character of Cristina Yang from the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. It was because of her that Kura planned to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. (Well done, Shonda Rhimes! I’d say that’s about as positive an influence as any.) Studies show th
at less than one half of one percent of American medical students currently show interest in pursuing training in cardiothoracic surgery. (See, I know stuff. And you thought kids today don’t read.) In fact, each year there are fewer graduates applying for residency positions in cardiothoracic surgery than the number of open positions. This is supposedly because the training is longer than regular surgical residency (which is already long), and it’s pretty brutal. It also leaves students with higher educational debt from covering the med school costs.

  Regardless, Kura remains undeterred. She lives, sleeps, eats, breathes Cristina Yang. Thank goodness Yang isn’t an actual person, because I’m pretty sure if she were real, Kura would literally stalk her to see if she could glean any little bits of wisdom.

  “Well, let’s go, Hailey,” Xandra said with her typical theatricality. “Let’s solve the Da Vinci Code or whatever you have in that book of yours.”

  I removed Noel’s diary from my bag. The way all the girls’ eyes widened, you’d think I was pulling out something magical, and in a sense I was. I also had the forethought to bring a yearbook of Noel’s and some pictures of her so they could see who they were taking advice from.

  “This is Noel,” I said, distributing the photographs, which the girls all passed around. It felt weird to be making such a legend of my annoying sister, but as long as she didn’t know about it, her ego wouldn’t get any bigger.

  “Wow,” Anya said. “She’s gorgeous.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “Imagine growing up in the shadow of that.”

  I’d tabbed the pages of the yearbook that highlighted all of her excellence. The photo of her up in the air, spiking a volleyball, wearing a bikini top and tiny shorts—a pose that any normal person would look awful in—looked almost choreographed. Her muscles showed, her hair was perfect, the expression on her face was determined but happy. It was annoyingly awesome. A photo of her onstage in the lead of our high school’s musical Legally Blonde. She of course played Elle Woods and nailed it.