Confessions of a Hater

by Caprice Crane

  “Aw, um—thanks!” Emily stammered.

  “You both look hot!” Andy blurted, trying to desperately catch up, and we all laughed.

  We wound up at the ArcLight Cinemas, the coolest theater in Los Angeles. I hadn’t been yet, but I’d heard all about it. They have pre-reserved seating (which we sure never had in Westchester), and you don’t have to wait in lines, and it’s really clean, and it’s not like any other movie theater. They have two different kinds of popcorn, regular and caramel—both fresh-popped, from what I’d heard. Also, movie stars go there, so there’s a chance of a random spotting at any given time. (And I mean real movie stars, not just reality TV freaks on shows like Dancing with the Extreme Couponing Bad Girls Club of Toddlers & Tiaras.) I’d yet to have my brush with fame since moving to Cali. Maybe tonight was the night?

  Then again, who could care about seeing some star when they were with Chris Roberts, who, by the way, was still holding my hand. It would pale in comparison. (Unless it was Robert Pattinson or Channing Tatum or something, then I might want to sneak a peek, but only if Chris wouldn’t see, because I wouldn’t want to get into a fight and have him break up with me before I even knew if we were a couple, and certainly not before I had my first on-purpose kiss!)

  Emily and Andy were in line for the popcorn. I was peeking over at them, and they seemed to be getting along great. I was happy for them, though it would take nuclear Armageddon to bring me down right now. Chris and I were standing by the theater entrance, discussing the pros and cons of movie theater candy.

  “You’ve never dumped M&M’s into your popcorn?” he asked.

  “No, because I dip my popcorn in mustard!”

  “That’s disgusting,” he said. “And messy. How do you manage that?”

  He did have a point. It was a careful balancing act I’d honed over time. I’d take two lids for soft drink cups (granted, one risked the mustard seeping through the perforated + on top), and layer them. I’d squeeze all the mustard into the lid. Then I’d either hold the lid with one hand and reach, dip and eat with the other, or I’d rest the mustard lids on the armrest, but this risked spillage, and to try to count how many times I’d ruined my clothes this way would be fruitless (though mustardful).

  “We can try it your way this time,” I said. “But I’ll make a believer out of you one of these days.”

  “Definitely not today.”

  “Well, obviously. We’re getting the caramel corn. Something tells me that mustard and caramel corn would be major yucko.”

  “You’re major yucko,” he said, though his smile belied the statement completely.

  “Oh, really?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “Not really…” and then he pushed me toward the wall.

  Oh God oh God oh God oh God

  My breath caught. He held my shoulders and guided me to where I found myself pinned to the wall, looking directly into those insanely gorgeous eyes, and then at his lips, his perfect lips.

  I couldn’t focus on anything else around us—it was like time stopped and everything was silent and we weren’t in the middle of a movie theater, but we were in our own flirt-bubble where he had me pinned to the wall and I was waiting for him to lean in just a little bit closer with those lips. His eyes darted from my eyes to my lips, and I bit my bottom lip for a second and then quickly let it go, because I didn’t want half of my top teeth getting in the way of the kiss I was certain was coming.

  Then he leaned forward and his lips brushed against mine softly, his right hand leaving my shoulder and tracing my arm to where it found my hand. He looked at me once more before he closed his eyes completely and our lips met in what felt like the most epic kiss of all time. I squeezed his hand and he squeezed back and we kissed for I don’t know how long because suddenly I heard—

  “Any time you guys are done would be cool to go get our seats.”

  Andy’s voice. Chris and I turned to see him standing there, smile plastered on his face. Emily was right beside him with her mouth slightly agape. The sounds of the theater came rushing back to life, and I remembered where we were.

  My first real kiss. I’d remember this moment forever—nestled in there, surrounded by the lyrics of about a zillion songs. How is it that I can remember all the words to practically every song ever written, but I’ll forget the rule on a simple algebra equation? I’d never understand that logic.

  As the four of us headed to our seats, Emily and I kept sneaking looks at each other, bulging our eyes and putting on our best “OMG!” faces when we could. And when the lights came down and the previews started to show, Chris winked at me as he dumped the entire pack of Peanut M&M’s into our caramel popcorn and shook it around. Then he took a handful and fed it to me—incredible! But even if it tasted like garbage, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. I was too giddy from the recent turn of events. I’d never felt happier.

  It was a great night throughout. We had fun at the movie, and while Chris and I were (of course!) most focused on each other—and Emily and Andy did the same—the four of us also had fun in general. I was happy for Emily and, well, completely freaking thrilled for myself.

  After the movie, Andy drove Emily home, and she seemed like she was on cloud nine. He was holding her hand as they left, and I’d hoped those two had worked in a kiss of their own at some point—I’d honestly been too lost in Chris to really notice. At the very least, I felt confident their drive would be eventful. I was happy for Andy too—whatever Emily’s occasional issues, she was a sweetheart, and I thought she’d bring out the best in Andy.

  Outside my house, Chris and I were saying good night. He had walked me to my front door, and I was ready for another kiss. I was getting used to them. We’d kissed three times during the previews and then once during the movie, that one for a pretty long time, which was incredible and magical and made me contemplate never doing anything else for the rest of my life except for kissing Chris Roberts. But I’d probably eventually need to do things like eat and sleep and I couldn’t go to classes with my face attached to his and then I’d never graduate and everyone would think we were conjoined twins who couldn’t have been separated because we shared a single mouth or something so I rethought that plan in the same minute I hatched it … but it was still nice to think about for that brief moment.

  There’s a section of my hair that always fell in my face, and my hand was constantly finding its way to push that section behind my ear, but when it fell that night, that wonderful amazing unbelievable night in front of my house … it was Chris who reached over, tenderly but confidently, and pushed it back in place.

  God, I loved that.

  “I’m really glad we started hanging out,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said back. Understatement of the century.

  “I gotta admit something, Hailey.”

  Oh no, I thought. He has a girlfriend. Two girlfriends. Five girlfriends. He’s too cute and wonderful and perfect not to have a girlfriend or five.

  He continued, “I was a little worried when I got to really know you that you were gonna be kind of weird.”

  “Okay … weird, how?”

  “Well, when I told Andy I wanted to ask you out, he told me about your thing.”

  I was totally confused. “My thing.”

  “Your thing.”

  What? What’s my thing? Does he think I have a penis or something? A tail? “Um, what’s my thing?”

  “Well … you know. He told me … that you’re autistic.”

  “What?!”

  “I mean,” he stammered. “I don’t think anything of it—honestly, I’m not even sure I understand what it means, because I thought autistic people were supposed to be hypersensitive to certain things and—”

  “Chris, wait—”

  “Like maybe I’m not supposed to touch your ears or—”

  “No, Chris—”

  “—but that it’s also kind of awesome because you can count all the jellybeans in a jar and it’s almost like a super
power so maybe we could win a prize at the fair or, hell, we could go to Vegas and clean up—”

  “Hold up!” I yelled.

  He held up.

  “Chris, I’m. Not. Autistic.”

  “You’re not? But…”

  I sighed. “What did Andy say? Exactly.”

  Chris thought for a moment. “Well, it’s when I said I thought you were pretty and you seemed really cool, he said you were. He said you were ‘really cool and autistic.’”

  “Oh God,” I said, and couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What?” Chris asked.

  “I think you misheard him. Or he misspoke. Or somebody mis-somethinged. Is there any chance he told you I was cool and artistic?”

  “Oh man,” he said, turning three shades of red. (That was turning into a theme for the day.) “Yeah, that must have been it. Because then he started talking about your comics and that your work is really creative, and I thought he was just trying to change the subject because he’d said too much and maybe it wasn’t my business.”

  I was relieved, and also more than a little pleased that Andy had talked me up so well. I owed that boy a kiss. A super-platonic kiss on the cheek, of course, because there was only one mouth in this town for me, which was too bad for Andy because I was feeling pretty good about my newfound smooching success.

  “You might want to get your hearing checked,” I teased.

  “Hey,” he said, grabbing my jacket collar playfully. “Be nice to me. I was willing to date you even when you were autistic.”

  “How considerate,” I said with a major smirk. On that, he leaned in and kissed the smirk right off my face. There it was. The good-night kiss I was waiting for.

  Perfection.

  * * *

  Even after the Pot Planting Proceedings, here’s how well Principal Dash’s zero-tolerance prank policy was working out:

  Chris and some guys on the track team had come across a discarded couch on one of their morning practice runs, so like all good environmentally conscious youth, they deposited it at the bottom of the steps in front of the school, right smack on the lawn.

  Yes, a couch. Like a big living room couch. And adding fuel to the (very true) rumors that Chris and I were now a couple, he asked me to meet him on the front steps a half hour before first bell. That’s where I found him, relaxing on the oddly placed couch, just like he was kicking back to watch some TV or play Xbox or whatever else you do on a couch on a lawn. He had two coffees from Starbucks—smart boy, currying my favor with caffeine—and breakfast sandwiches for us both.

  “What is this?” I asked, regarding the couch.

  “Breakfast?” Chris said.

  Arriving students were all pointing and staring, laughing at the couch and the way Chris was relaxing on it like it wasn’t weird at all.

  “Um, whose couch is this?” I asked.

  “Ours?” he said, shrugging with feigned innocence.

  “I’m so confused!” I said, hesitantly taking a seat on the couch next to him. “Seriously, whose couch is this? And what’s it doing here?”

  Chris looked around and then leaned in close—damn, that never gets old—and in a hushed tone, he said: “Me, Matty and Jacob found it, and we brought it to school.”

  I know another thief, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud, for fear I’d be compelled to name names. Oh, Emily. Why?! I thought back to the assembly: Don’t roll over!

  Chris leaned in again. “Don’t tell anyone it was us, though.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “But us sitting on it, much less eating breakfast, doesn’t exactly make you look innocent.”

  “It was here!” he said, smiling. “We thought it was first-come, first-served.”

  “You’re nuts,” I said. Ten thousand thoughts started racing through my head. Really—whose couch was it? Why did they discard it on the street? Did someone die on this couch? Am I sitting on a couch with death germs all over it?

  “Yup,” he said, handing me a coffee. “Made it how you like. Soy milk—blegh—and two sugars.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Very kind of you.”

  Did you bring a coffee for Deadsy McDead? Former couch-owner? Current potential haunter? Did you check under the cushions for spare change? Rats? Used syringes?

  “Very kind, indeed,” a voice boomed from behind us.

  Shit. I knew that voice.

  We turned to see Principal Dash, hands on hips. Does anyone stand like that when they’re not pissed?

  He spoke slowly, his tone filled with unspoken menace: “Whose couch is this and what is it doing on our lawn?”

  “We don’t know,” I said, immediately needing to protect Chris. “It was just here.”

  “You don’t know,” Principal Dash repeated, not looking at me, his glare aimed point-blank at Chris.

  “I swear,” Chris said with angelic innocence. If I didn’t know better, I would have believed it myself, and I found myself filing it away in my head:

  Remember this moment. The boy can lie. Keep that in your back pocket and don’t forget it.

  Mr. Dash spoke into his radio, calling for a maintenance man to meet him out front urgently. He turned back to us: “Please enjoy your breakfast elsewhere.”

  We quickly gathered our things and left without looking back.

  “That was terrifying,” I said.

  “Nah,” Chris said. “Me and the guys already took a bunch of pictures with the couch. It’ll go down in school history.”

  “Yeah, those photos won’t prove your guilt at all,” I said.

  “In time,” he said. “The photos are for us. They won’t be going up on anyone’s Facebook wall.”

  “You’re still nuts,” I said.

  “About you,” he said, and he snuck a quick kiss.

  By the time lunch rolled around, the news had spread like wildfire: Hailey Harper and Chris Roberts were a couple. Andy Kellar and Emily Marsh were also a newly minted twosome—Go, Emily, I thought—and that meant two popular boys had been converted to the other side, at least the way I looked at it.

  But I soon learned that it also meant something else.

  I was walking back to my locker and saw Anya. As soon as we made eye contact, she immediately turned back to whatever she was doing in her locker. That was so unlike her, I knew in all of a half second that something was seriously wrong.

  Anya kept yanking her books in and out, slamming things around. I walked up right next to her, and she didn’t even look up at me once.

  “How was your weekend?” she asked, still not looking up.

  “Um … it was good,” I said. “Great, even. I want to tell you all about it.”

  “Really? You didn’t reply to my text.”

  Shit, I thought. I had seen a text that I meant to reply to and I’d just forgotten about it. “I’m sorry, I was just really busy and I totally spaced.”

  “I’m sure you were,” she said. “How’s Chris?”

  So that’s it. “Chris is … amazing. I think … I think we’re actually a couple now.”

  “Oh, you’re a couple, alright,” she said, finally turning to look at me. “Did you have fun on your double date?”

  “Yeah … it was fun,” I said, now measuring my words. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong yet, and I didn’t want to trigger an even-more hostile reaction. “Hey … what’s going on?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Andy and Emily were going out with you?”

  Huh? “Um … I didn’t know you’d care.” I was confused and feeling bad. “I’d have invited you if I knew you wanted to go. I’m sorry.”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to be a fifth wheel,” she practically hissed. “Please.”

  “Well. What’s wrong, then?”

  “Forget it,” she said, slamming her locker shut and turning away from me.

  “Anya, wait!” I said. I practically chased her down the hall. “Slow down.”

  “I said, forget it.”

  “Yeah, like that’s gonna
happen.” I dragged her into the bathroom with me.

  She checked every stall twice before she turned to me. She opened her mouth like she was about to tell me something, but then closed it, pressing her lips together tightly.

  “It’s Andy and Emily,” she finally said.

  “You like Andy?” I said, wondering about all the weird looks and bad blood from before—if it was all because of a secret crush, which made it hurt even more when Andy shunned her for the Bitch Squad.

  “No, I don’t like Andy,” she said, like the thought of that was totally ridiculous.

  Now I was totally lost.

  “Um,” I said, “you like Emily?”

  I was trying (and failing) to add a little levity to the situation. (I knew Anya well enough to know she only swung one way. At least I thought I did…)

  Anya cocked her head to the side and arched an eyebrow, her patented “Bitch, please” look.

  “Then what?” I probed. “I don’t know what I did. Or what they did. Just tell me.”

  Then Anya did another check around the bathroom—she’d already checked every stall, but I guess she had to be sure.

  “Come on, what’s going on?” I asked.

  “C’mon, you know. You have to know.”

  “You do like Andy?” I repeated. “You did like Andy? You—”

  They talk about things hitting you like a ton of bricks, but I’ve never been hit with a ton of bricks. Hell, I’ve never been hit with one brick, which I think would be more than enough.

  But if I ever had been hit with a ton of bricks—it probably would feel a lot like this. All the issues with Anya and Andy … the weird looks, the uncomfortable silences, the anger … but then that other thing you sometimes noticed when they looked at each other.

  Anya saw it on my face.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Congratulations, Sherlock,” Anya said, bitterness oozing out of every syllable.

  Andy is the father of Anya’s baby.

  “Fuck, Anya.”

  She laughed, though it sounded more like a grunt. “Yeah, well, that is how it all started.” Always the comedian.