The Shortest Distance Between Love & Hate

by Sandy Hall

“So, are you scheduled for lots of opening shifts?” I ask when I can’t take the silence for one more second.

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Are you doing work study?”

  Nothing.

  “Are you ready for classes to start?”

  Still zero. I thought maybe trying a different tack would surprise her out of her silence.

  “You can’t ignore me forever,” I say, just as Jordan reappears to show us how to enter basketball court reservations into the system.

  When our shift is finally over, Paisley disappears so at least we don’t end up walking in the same direction together in awkward silence.

  And now I’m imagining something worse than an awkward silence, an awkward distance. Where to avoid walking with me, she remains ten paces behind me, or even crosses the street so that we don’t have to be near each other.

  I don’t know how to deal with being hated.

  I walk to the dining hall to waste some time before my class at ten, but I barely taste my breakfast.

  -PAISLEY-

  This is the worst morning ever. It’s like my emotions are playing tug-of-war. I really liked him. I don’t like people often, but I really liked Carter. At least, I did when I thought he was Bart.

  And now to have him show up where I work? Knowing I’ll have to see him all the time? It makes my stomach twist in knots.

  I’m very careful to stagger my exit with Carter’s. I know I saw Pop-Tarts in the vending machine in the staff room, and they’ll make a perfectly serviceable breakfast on my way to class. Later on, I’ll get lunch and eat something healthy, I promise myself.

  While I’m in the staff room, I look over the shift schedule that Jordan gave us earlier, and of course I’m on here three days a week and every other Saturday morning with Carter for the foreseeable future.

  I suck in a deep breath. I’m going to have to steel myself toward him. Because unfortunately, he does have a certain kind of charm that I’m apparently susceptible to. I’m going to have to nip that in the bud.

  As I walk toward the quad where my first class is, I ponder the phrase nip it in the bud because it’s better than thinking about Carter. I find an empty bench outside the English building to eat my Pop-Tarts and drink the coffee that I picked up at the student center along the way.

  I decide to text Henry. Even if I don’t tell him about Carter, I should check in on him, see how things are going. That’s what a good friend would do.

  Paisley: Hey.

  Henry: Hey yourself.

  Paisley: How’s … everything?

  Henry: Well. It’s fine. Mostly. My roommate seems fine, but it’s been a lot of icebreakers and group activities. I need more alone time.

  Paisley: I’m sure you’ll get used to it soon.

  Henry: Yeah, I know. It’s an adjustment period. I can’t judge the whole experience from the past few days.

  Paisley: Exactly.

  Henry: Is there a reason for this impromptu text session?

  Paisley: Can’t a girl just text her best friend on a random Monday morning?

  Henry: Of course a girl can. But you’re putting off a weird vibe.

  Paisley: How can you get a weird vibe via text message?

  Henry: I like to think I know you, Paisley. And I can’t help feeling like something is up.

  Paisley: Nothing is up. Aside from me. But I’ve been up for hours thanks to my work-study assignment.

  Henry: Oh right! The early-morning shift. No wonder I was getting a weird vibe. You’re a morning person, but not an ASS CRACK OF DAWN morning person.

  Paisley: Really, who is?

  Henry: Besides my mother and people on sitcoms who meet up with their friends for breakfast before they go to work?

  Paisley: Yes, besides that.

  Henry: No one. Absolutely no one.

  Paisley: So, am I allowed to ask about the “A word”?

  Henry: Aardvark? Andromeda? Asshole?

  Paisley: ANXIETY.

  Henry: Oh that. I’m fine. I feel fine. Seeing a therapist this summer helped a lot. Taking medication is helping. I need to set up an appointment with someone on or near campus, but like. In general, I feel fine. Good.

  Paisley: Thank you for that update. Am I allowed to inquire about this regularly or is it an off-limits topic?

  Henry: I don’t know. Do we really need to talk about it? Haven’t we talked about it enough?

  Paisley: Sure. That’s why I asked. But you know I’m here if you need to talk.

  Henry: Yes, Paisley. I’m well aware. And thank you.

  Paisley: You’re welcome.

  Henry: Good talk.

  Paisley: Yes. Well, it’s almost time for my first class. CALCULUS. Tell me you’re proud of me.

  Henry: I’m so proud of you.

  Paisley: I’ll talk to you later! Have a good first day of class.

  Henry: You too. I’m on my way to calc too. But it’s calc for engineers and I’m worried I’m not ready for this.

  Paisley: You are the champion of calculus. Don’t you even worry your pretty little head about it, buckaroo.

  I know he’s standing somewhere laughing. Henry loves it when I say stuff like that.

  I try my best not to feel guilty about not telling him about Carter. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Henry is going to be so nervous all day today; I don’t want to bring anything up that might make him feel worse. I don’t usually tiptoe around Henry, but there’s just something about this Carter situation that makes me want to hide it from him.

  Probably my raging case of guilt and feeling like I betrayed Henry.

  But I will tell him. Eventually.

  I finish my breakfast and throw away my garbage. I stow my travel mug in my bag and make sure my phone is on airplane mode. I don’t want anything interrupting or ruining my first college class. This is why I’m here. To get a good education. It’s not about work study or Carter or even making friends. It’s about learning.

  I take a seat in the second row, toward the windows. It feels like the right seat for me. I want to do better in college than I ever did in high school. And I feel like the key to that is not letting myself slide into the back row.

  There’s still ten minutes until class starts and I regret not staying outside in the sunshine a little longer, but now there are more people trickling in so at least I can people watch.

  The back door of the classroom swings open and I glance back.

  “Unbelievable,” I mutter to myself.

  Carter Schmitt (ew) freezes in the doorway when he sees me. The person behind him walks right into him and curses.

  “Shit, dude. You can’t stop like that.”

  Carter clears his throat and steps out of the way. “Sorry about that.”

  “Whatever,” the guy says.

  Carter shakes his head and slumps into the very back corner seat. For some reason, that feels like a win for me.

  Class starts and I do my best not to think about Carter in the back. He doesn’t have any effect on me; he doesn’t matter. That’s my new motto. So what if we have classes together and work together and live in the same dorm? None of that matters.

  The universe isn’t trying to tell me something.

  Why would the universe be talking to me anyway? Doesn’t it have more important things to do?

  I have two classes in a row this morning and then another one this afternoon. Which isn’t bad. I’m taking five classes this fall, even though they recommended taking only four your first semester. But I don’t want to end up in summer classes. I want to get my money’s worth out of the school year and have time to make more money during the summer. Not sit in a classroom four mornings a week. I suppose I could take online classes if I had to, but even that would be a time suck.

  I take the same seat in my next class. Or the sameish seat. It’s a large lecture hall for General Psychology, so the second row is a lot bigger. And wouldn’t you know it, Carter walks into this room too.

  Why me? />
  Why now?

  I wish I could text Henry a whole string of expletives and angry emojis. He’s the only person who’s really going to get how terrible Carter is. But that would require having the guts to actually tell Henry about Carter.

  For lunch, rather than risking seeing Carter at the dining hall or even at the student center, I head to the basement of the psych building. There’s supposedly a small convenience store down there.

  I find it easily and get an apple and peanut butter crackers and a Coke. It’s not the healthiest, but I’m starving and I don’t know what else to do.

  I swear that I’ll eat a better dinner. I’m already imagining a plateful of french fries as I lurk outside my final class of the day, Early American History with Professor Brightly. And I know for a fact Carter will be in this one. Since, you know, I stalked him into it, a detail he hopefully won’t notice.

  I take a peek through the window in the door. The classroom is apparently empty the period before mine so maybe I can hang out in here for the next hour. I test the doorknob and jackpot! It’s unlocked. The classroom is medium-sized, so I find the same approximate seat in the second row again and crack open my bottle of Coke. I flip through my psych textbook, while crunching on my apple.

  Then, Carter walks in.

  Not only does Carter walk in. He’s carrying a bag of takeout from the student center and there are definitely french fries involved. My weakness.

  My stomach makes the loudest rumble. It would probably show up on the Richter scale.

  “A little hungry, Parsley?” Carter asks.

  I want to shoot back something brilliant, really put him in his place, but my stomach answers with another grumble of starvation. It’s hard to be clever when I’m this hungry.

  He walks up to me, pulls a half-empty sleeve of fries from the bag and hands them to me.

  “Seriously?” I say.

  He shrugs as he walks back to his preferred corner seat.

  I hold up a fry to the afternoon light pouring through the window. “Did you do something to this? Should I not eat it?”

  He doesn’t respond, and I’m way too hungry to worry about why he’s being nice to me.

  I will accept this gift. But in the future, I will be more prepared foodwise. It’d be too easy to fall into his trap, I just know. I must prepare for a long semester of seeing way too much of Carter Schmitt.

  It would help if he wasn’t so goddamned adorable.

  CHAPTER SIX

  -CARTER-

  The first week goes by with Paisley ducking me at every turn. I had hoped that my french fries would act as a peace offering. I guess life doesn’t work that way.

  We only end up having three classes together, which is really three too many, but there’s not much I can do about it. I consider switching around my class schedule, but it fits well with my work hours and I have the exact courses that I want.

  It’s Paisley’s issue, not mine. She can switch if she wants to. Not to mention that I’m 99 percent sure that she switched into my history class after I told her about it. So that’s her problem.

  She shows up every day we’re scheduled to work and to each of our classes. I see her once in a while in the dorm or at the dining hall, but she gives me a wide berth and I do the same for her.

  We’re both on the schedule for Saturday at nine thirty. The building opens at ten. That gives me a whole half hour to at least try.

  I show up with coffee for her, even though she usually brings her own. But I figure maybe she’ll need extra this morning. Maybe she went to a party last night and is hungover today. I feel this inexplicable need to make her like me. Or at least make her not hate me so much. I hope that coffee is the way to her heart.

  She accepts the cup as I unlock the doors. The late summer sun is almost blinding as it bounces off the windows that span the front of the gym. I notice that for once she’s not wearing a T-shirt with an aggressive slogan directed at me.

  “You really didn’t have to get me this,” she says as she takes a sip. Her voice is froggy. She probably did go out last night.

  “I just wanted to show you that I could do nice things. That I’m not the same kid I was in middle school,” I say as we get started on the opening procedures. She nods and walks over to the bathrooms and locker rooms to unlock them, so I don’t get to say anything more then.

  The gym is busier than I would have expected that morning, but around noon it slows for a few minutes.

  “So,” I start. “How was your first week of school?”

  “Listen,” she says. “Making out with you was basically the biggest mistake I have ever made. But the universe is obviously forcing us to be together at every turn. I really hope that we can grow past it and pretend to be strangers who just happen to work together and see each other all the time. We don’t have to be friends.”

  Wow, so that’s a gut punch. She really knows how to throw them.

  I don’t know how to answer her.

  She takes out her calculus textbook and gets to work on the problem sets we’re supposed to hand in next week. I do not understand calculus. I should have stuck with some kind of easier math.

  A few people come in and I check their IDs, giving them directions or answering questions. Paisley keeps working.

  I can’t stop thinking about kissing her.

  Especially that kiss on the Ferris wheel. It was a whopper of a kiss. Full of electricity and chemistry. The kind of thing you usually only hear about in movies.

  I need to come to terms with the fact that Paisley and I aren’t destined to be together.

  -PAISLEY-

  I am so annoyed by Carter being adorable and bringing me coffee that I have no choice but to ignore him completely for the duration of our shift.

  At some point while we’re sitting side by side at the fitness center front desk, Carter gets up to grab something from the office.

  I notice there’s a screw loose on the backrest of his chair. Just hanging on by a thread. My initial instinct is to find a screwdriver and fix it. I mean, that could end up being my chair tomorrow. The chairs in here are always being switched around.

  But this also might be a great moment for a tiny bit of revenge. For my own brand of justice. It’s nothing that will hurt him, but maybe make him look and feel like a fool. Would that be so bad?

  So I pull the screw and drop it on the floor.

  I am an evil genius.

  Carter comes back a moment later, plops down in his chair, and the back immediately falls off. He flails for a second but rights himself easily.

  “What the hell?” he asks, but it’s a rhetorical question and definitely not aimed in my direction.

  But it feels good. This small act of Paisley-branded justice is exactly what I needed. It’s a good balance.

  “Oh dear,” I say, acting like I only just noticed he was there. “What happened?”

  “Chair is falling apart,” he mutters. He picks up the screw and examines it, his eyes never coming to rest on me. I might as well be a houseplant.

  “Terrible,” I say.

  He walks off in search of a screwdriver.

  Let the games begin.

  Paisley 1, Carter 0.

  -CARTER-

  Thea: Everything is fine.

  Carter: I don’t believe you.

  Thea: Why don’t you believe me?

  Carter: Because no one ever starts a good news text message with “everything is fine.” That phrase is a disclaimer used to make the receiver feel better when they hear whatever comes after it. Usually a “but.”

  Thea: What are you talking about?

  Carter: Everything is fine, but … That’s how that sentence usually goes.

  Thea: Ah yes.

  Carter: And also you said you’d text me from work every morning and it’s currently ten o’clock on Sunday night. So you’ll see how this is already leaving me suspicious of your intentions.

  Thea: College is really teaching you some wonderful and n
ew deductive-reasoning skills.

  Carter: As much as I love our witty repartee, I need to know why you’re texting.

  Thea: And vocabulary! Look at you, using the word “repartee” correctly! So proud of you, baby brother.

  Carter: Thea. You’re killing me.

  Thea: Everything is fine, but Mom has a fever. I wanted to tell you, not to make you worried, but so that you’ll trust me to let you know when something is going on.

  Carter: I’m calling you.

  Thea: Don’t! I don’t want Mom to hear us talking about this. I just wanted to update you.

  Carter: What are you going to do?

  Thea: I called her nurse who said to give her something to take the fever down, that it’s probably nothing to worry about, but that if it doesn’t come down in the next forty-eight hours to bring her to the emergency room.

  Carter: Just bring her now. Why wait?

  Thea: For about eight million reasons.

  Carter: Such as?

  Thea: The hospital is full of germs and she could catch something else, something worse, than what she might have. It’s probably a small cold, but with her immune system annihilated thanks to the chemo, her body overcompensates.

  Carter: What’s she doing now?

  Thea: Napping in front of the TV.

  Carter: Why is she napping at ten o’clock at night? Shouldn’t she be in bed?

  Thea: Fine. Napping is the wrong word. She dozed off watching something on PBS so I decided this was a good moment to text you. She pays too much attention to the details and what I’m doing. I didn’t want her to realize that I was texting you because she would yell at me for making you nervous.

  Carter: I’m already nervous! I’m less nervous when I know what’s going on.

  Thea: I know. Which is why I texted you in the first place.

  Carter: You promise to text me when things get worse?

  Thea: IF things get worse. Don’t use WHEN.

  Carter: Things getting worse just feels inevitable. Like we can only be so lucky for so long.

  Thea: We were lucky. We’ll be lucky again.

  Carter: I’m glad you can be so optimistic.