Hate at First Sight

by Penelope Bloom

  I plant my hands on the sides of the sink, leaning forward and looking myself in the eyes. This is why you don’t drink half a box of wine, Lindsey. In fact, this is probably why you shouldn’t even drink boxed wine in any quantity. I sigh, splashing some water on my face. I wonder what the great and illustrious Chris Savage must’ve thought when he saw this face. My mascara is a mess and there are pieces of dead leaves all tangled in my hair, which looks like a tumbleweed. I decide to take a quick shower because even if Chris was the most hideous man on the planet, I wouldn't want him to see me like this.

  I try pouring a little bit of the whiskey on a cut across my forearm and let out a very undignified squeal of pain. I’m so caught off-guard by the intensity of the pain that the bottle slips from my hand, falling to the ground and exploding in a shower of glass.

  "Shit," I whisper. I look down at the mess by my feet and then almost make the mistake of jumping onto the glass in my bare feet when some of the spilled whiskey drips down my legs and into the cuts there. I squeeze my hands tight on the sink, completely naked and entirely in disbelief at how I managed to get myself into this.

  “You breaking my shit?” asks a hard voice outside the door.

  “Don’t you mean, ‘are you okay in there?’” I ask, not even trying to hide the irritation in my voice.

  "No," he says, shaking the doorknob as he tries to get in. "I mean, ‘is the crazy stalker I let into my house breaking shit.' Open the door."

  "Don't," I say. I slide my feet like I'm trying to ice skate for the first time in my life to the door, so I don't risk stepping on the glass shards. I put both hands against the door. "I'm not—" I look at the ceiling, searching for the right way to put it. "I'm not decent.”

  There’s a scraping sound above the door and then a metallic clink inside the door handle. He has a key. Shit! I throw my shoulder into the door, finally finding the words I was looking for. “I’m naked!” I shout. “Don’t open the door!” My heart is thundering in my chest. My mind runs with all the possible ways this could turn bad. I came inside Chris Savage’s private cabin in the woods. I went into his bathroom and took off all my clothes. How stupid am I? “I just—I dropped the bottle. It’s okay.”

  I hear his footsteps move away from the door and breathe a small sigh of relief until he returns just a few seconds later. He shoves the door open enough to stick his arm through with a broom and dustpan. I spin my head to the mirror in a panic, knowing from his angle, he could probably get an eye-full if he was looking, but I’m surprised to see he’s looking down at the ground, not even trying to gawk at me.

  Make that two or three marks in his favor, then.

  I snatch the broom and dustpan from his hand and then shove the door closed. I look at my own reflection in the mirror and think it’s not really so surprising that he wouldn’t want to look, but it doesn’t make me hate him any less for making me feel so inferior without even trying. Some crazy part of me wanted him to try and sneak a look when he found out I’m naked. I mean, maybe I’m not a ten out of ten, but wouldn’t most guys at least be curious enough to peek?

  I kneel down, scooping up glass with the small broom and pouring it into the trash can. Guys like him have some kind of unfair power to turn rational, ordinary women into idiots, I decide. I also decide I'm not going to let it work on me anymore. I got caught off guard when he came bursting through the bushes, but that's all he gets. He's just a guy. A guy who appears to be a first-class jerk. I'm not going to worship the ground he walks on and I'm not going to fall all over myself in front of him. Get your shit together, Lindsey.

  Yes. My shit is very much in need of being put together, and step one is taking a shower, whether he likes it or not.

  The warm water feels fantastic, unlike the whiskey Chris tried to make me pour on my cuts. I watch a surprising amount of leaves and debris flow down the drain from my hair and skin. The only bottle in the shower is his body wash, which I suppose will have to do. I start scrubbing down, wondering what Brook and Amelia are going to think when I come home from a drunken walk in the woods, scared sober and freshly showered, smelling like a man's body wash. The thought makes me grin while simultaneously reminding me just how far out of left field my little mission has taken me. Why the hell is T.S. Barnes using this address anyway?

  I spend the rest of my shower trying to figure that out, and eventually decide she must’ve lived here at some point and neglected to change her address. I form some other theories, but that is the simplest, and generally the simplest possibility is the right one, so it’s the one I stick with.

  I wrap a towel around myself and step out, looking at my tattered clothes with disgust. I could ask him to borrow a shirt or something, but I don’t trust myself to ask that. I already resolved to be like a steel trap until I’ve navigated my way out of this nightmare with Chris Savage. The last thing I need is some irritatingly arousing man-scent from his clothes following me around and messing with my willpower.

  I slip my clothes back on, frowning at the way my blouse is torn but forcing myself to get over it. Chris apparently didn’t care to look when he had a chance, so why should I be self-conscious?

  I find him in the living room with a bottle of beer in his hand. He rolls his head to the side and arches an eyebrow at me.

  It’s not sexy, I remind myself as I take in the way his brown eyes seem to sparkle while they follow me across the room.

  “I’ve done my good deed. You can figure how to let yourself out on your own, can’t you?” he asks.

  I give him a look of disbelief, making a noise between a sigh and a groan as I turn, getting ready to show him how hard I can slam a door when I want to. I stop in my tracks when I see a book on his shelf. Regret by T.S. Barnes.

  “T.S. Barnes…” I say slowly, turning to face him as I lift up the book and show him. “Big fan, are you?”

  For the first time, I see his disinterested expression slip toward something approaching panic. “Put that down,” he says. He’s standing now, arm outstretched like I’m holding a live grenade with the pin pulled.

  “It’s a pen name,” I say. The realization washes over me like an unpleasantly cold blanket. “You’re T.S. Barnes. That’s what you’ve been doing since you disappeared.” The words haven’t even finished leaving my lips before I also make the connection that I actually sent my embarrassing fangasm email to Chris Savage.

  “And you better not tell a fucking soul,” he growls.

  “That sounds a lot like a favor you’re asking for.” My voice is colder and harder than ever before, but this man’s particular flavor of arrogance is rubbing me the wrong way and I’m on the wrong side of drunk for dealing with it.

  “You can call it whatever makes you feel better. If you tell anyone—”

  “Then maybe you’ll think twice next time you treat someone like shit,” I snap, taking his copy of the book and slamming the door behind me. Forget the fact that I can barely believe such a heartfelt book came from a man like that. Forget how good he looks or anything else. I’ve been through too much to let someone treat me like an annoying gnat. I’ve—

  There’s a deafening metallic clatter as I slam into his trash can in my hurry to get away from his cabin. I go spinning to the ground in a glorious blur of clumsy and pathetic, landing face first on a stack of white printed pages. When I get back to my knees, I realize what I’m looking at.

  It’s a manuscript by T.S. Barnes, a manuscript he threw away. I don’t even hesitate before scooping it up and tucking it under my arm. Why did you want to throw this away, Chris? What secrets are in here?

  4

  Chris

  I rake a hand through my hair and pick the axe back up again. I'm covered in sweat and it's hotter than two squirrels fucking in a wool sock outside, but for some reason, I'm chopping wood. I've chopped half a forest worth of firewood in the last few hours if the ridiculous pile of wood leaning against the cabin is any indication. It's only when I hear a car pull up out front that
I take a step back and wonder what the hell I'm doing.

  I won’t need firewood for months. But ever since that psycho fan came by a couple days ago, I’ve felt a different kind of restlessness. Before, it was a kind of slow molasses kind of depression, like my brain was running on low fuel and all I could do was coast on the fumes. Psycho fan—because I refuse to call her by her name, even in my own damn head—poured enough fuel in my brain to make me feel like I’m running on overdrive. Except all the manic energy just makes me want to break shit and hit things. Thanks for that, Psycho Fan.

  A car door slams and I hear the crunch of footsteps coming around to where I am at the side of the cabin. I'm not entirely surprised when I see my little sister, Lydia. She's wearing workout clothes, as usual. She got into the whole Crossfit thing a few years ago, and at some point along the way, my frail little sister who loved to read and draw pictures became… Well, okay, she's still emotionally a little frail, and I’m pretty sure she still reads like a maniac and draws, it’s just that she could probably snap most guys in half with her bare hands now. She runs her own gym and eats, breathes, and sleeps working out.

  “That looks like fun,” she says, eyeing the axe in my hand.

  I toss it aside dejectedly. “Yeah. It’s a fucking blast.”

  “Want to guess why I’m here, or should I just tell you.”

  I use my shirt to mop the sweat from my forehead, plopping down on the tree stump I was using to hold the wood I cut. I stare off into the trees and decide to watch the way they sway with the wind and listen to the rustling of the branches instead of responding. The sights and sounds out here have become my drug since I walked away from it all. A lame ass drug, but it’s all I’ve got besides the alcohol.

  She knows me well enough not to pester me though, which is one of the reasons she's on the extremely short list of people I actually give a shit about in the world—for now. She sits down against a tree a few feet away from me, following my eyes and looking at the same trees. After our parents died, Lydia started reaching out to me. It wasn't immediate, but she managed to work her way back into my life for the first time since we were kids.

  It’s a long time before either of us speaks, and it’s me who breaks the silence. “I don’t want to write the book they want me to,” I say. “Alec came by a couple days ago trying to force it on me, but I won’t do it.”

  “Won’t or can’t?” Lydia asks. It’s not a dig. My sister, despite the years I spent trying to mentally lump her and my parents into some kind of oppressive force, is kind. She doesn’t use her words to hurt people, not like me.

  “Won’t,” I say. More words want to come out, but I can’t make them. I want to soften my voice for her. I want to stop being so cold to the only person who really gives a shit about me anymore, but every time I try I just close up.

  I felt this kind of emptiness getting bigger and more potent inside me for the past few years. It was always there, but somehow the fame fed it. Every fangirl, every paycheck, every average person's "dream come true" moment just made the emptiness bigger and bigger until it felt like everything I did was putting me closer and closer to the edge of losing it. Then my parents went and died on me. I'd spent my whole life convincing myself I was justified in being an asshole because of them, but without them around, I don't have any lies to hide behind.

  “I could cook you dinner tonight, if you want,” she says. “I’ve got some groceries in the car and I could make you something that’ll put some meat back on your bones. I think you’re losing a little mass out here, Chris. Your biceps—”

  I toss a small stick at her and she swats it away with a grin. “I’m serious though,” she says, expression more serious. “Let me make you dinner or something. I keep thinking about you here all by yourself and it turns my stomach, Chris. I know us being civil with each other is still pretty new, but it doesn’t have to be weird, I can—”

  “I already ate,” I say, standing and brushing off my pants. My stomach rumbles quietly like the fucking traitor it is.

  Lydia catches it, raising an eyebrow. “Your protein-starved stomach disagrees. “Chickennnn!” she says, making a voice I assume is supposed to be my stomach’s. “Fissshhh! Pleeease, I want protein!”

  I sigh, unable to help from smiling just a little. “If my stomach could talk, I don’t think it’d sound like the cookie monster.”

  “Well it is talking,” she says when it rumbles again. “And if that’s not what the cookie monster sounds like, then I need new ears.”

  “You should get home,” I say. I start walking toward the cabin.

  “Chris,” she says. “I’m going to keep trying, no matter how long it takes for you to realize you won’t scare me off. Okay?”

  I don’t turn to face her because it’ll only make it harder to shut her out. I grip the doorframe until I hear her shoes crunching across the grass as she makes her way back to her car.

  Inside, I grab myself a beer and strip out of my sweaty shirt, tossing it aside. I sink down on the couch and stare ahead at the cardboard box beside the fireplace. My mom's journals. There are a dozen of them, all hand-written and weather-worn. I still remember when I came out here to clean the place up after they died. I found the box in the attic gathering dust, and when I cracked open the first journal, I saw my mom's neat, flowing handwriting. It was the strangest fucking thing.

  She is dead, but there she was. I hated her. I hated her. I devoted my life to doing anything I could to spite my family, and in that single moment, I felt the weight of my mistake come crashing down around me like a mountain. They weren't perfect. They weren't even close. They pushed me to do and be things I wasn't, but what parents don't?

  Except it took them dying for me to see it because I’m a selfish asshole. I guess I always have been. They tried to tell me who to be, so I told them to fuck off both literally and figuratively. I left and set out to make myself into the exact opposite of what they wanted. I spent so many wasted years with my head down, mind buried in the pursuit of something so fucking petty that all I could feel with that journal in my hands was shame.

  Why had it taken me so long to see? Why did it take me losing so much before I realized?

  But it had. And they were dead. And the last thing I said to them was a hateful combination of creative cursing with a few turns of phrases designed to hurt. Because that’s what I do. I make people wish they never liked me, never trusted me, never met me. I let them come in, and then I show them why they should’ve just stayed away. It’s easier that way, I guess.

  That journal in my hands made me see myself how they would. Really see myself. I saw all the trappings of success and the way it had wrapped itself around me like a rotten glove. A body that you can only get with a professional nutritionist and personal trainers. Shoes that cost more than most people will spend in a lifetime on their wardrobes. A fucking ego the size of the mountain I am standing on. I saw myself for what a piece of shit I was, and I dropped the journal. I closed up the box and walked away.

  Every minute I spent away from that box helped the feeling of worthlessness subside. Until a few beers had me close to my usual self. Close. But I still couldn't leave. Those fucking journals were pulling at me and I knew I wasn't going to leave the cabin until I managed to read them. I told myself tomorrow. Then two days. Then three.

  Then they were writing articles about how I had turned recluse and how I was turning my back on my fans.

  Fans. I grunt, standing to grab myself a beer. I’m not even halfway to the fridge when there’s an angry knocking at my door. I throw a hand up as if to say, what now?

  “Fuck off!” I yell over the commotion, but the knocking doesn’t stop.

  I go to the door and yank it open, wearing a scowl I hope will send the message loud and clear that I want to be left alone.

  I shake my head when I see who it is. Psycho fan. “Not sure if you could hear me while you were trying to break my damn door down, but I said fuck off.”

 
She thrusts a stack of papers at me with a strange expression on her face. Almost like she’s angry. “You threw this in the trash?”

  My eyes wander down to the top page. “Give me that,” I say, snatching it from her. “What are you, a fucking raccoon? You go through people’s trash and then bring it back to them?”

  She puts her fists on her hips, still glaring at me like she’s the one who has a right to be pissed. “I bumped into your trashcan after you threw me out the other night. This practically fell into my lap.”

  “And instead of leaving it there like a normal person you took it home and… what? Read it?” My stomach clenches in a cold ball at the thought of someone reading this. I’m keeping my composure on the outside, but there’s a reason I threw this away. A reason I never wanted anyone to see it.

  “I read every word,” she says. “And you’re an asshole for throwing it in the trash.” She punctuates her words by actually shoving me. It feels like a puppy is trying to push me over, but she screws up her face and slams her palms into my chest.

  I distractedly peel her hands away, still looking at it. “You read it…” I say slowly, still digesting the information as much as I can.

  “Yes,” she says. “I. Read. It. And I brought it back to you because you’re going to finish it.”

  I look up at her, raising an eyebrow as I see her for what might be the first time. It’s not dark out and she isn’t bleeding from a dozen cuts with enough leaves in her hair to pass for a tree. It’s not just the physical side of her I’m really getting a glimpse of. She has backbone, which is rare to begin with, and even more rare when it’s strong enough to hold up in front of me.

  She's pretty enough that at the right time and in the right place I might've taken a shot at her a few months ago, back when I was only thinking about sex, money, and making sure I left a path of scorched earth wherever I went. She's got small breasts, but they fit her feminine frame. Her brown hair is naturally wavy and thick as hell, making her small heart-shaped face seem like some kind of delicate prize hidden in a thicket. She has these greenish-brown eyes that skirt the line between seductive and innocent in a way that is admittedly sexy.