I Hate You, Love Me

by Jamie Knight

  “Tina, I thought you hated Seth. Why the hell did you invite him?” asked Kyla.

  “I felt bad for ruining his study time,” Tina dismissed. “Besides his extensive studies, he’s got nothing to do on campus. No social life at all.”

  My blood boiled. God dammit, Tina is acting like such a cold-hearted shit head. Is that the best story she can come up with? That I’m a pity case? Dammit, why am I so mad? I have to start drinking. Booze will make this all go away.

  Sitting on the far end of the room with Jaden, I started to drink my beer. Jaden went on and on about some new bong that didn’t need water, but I wasn’t listening. Emma, this other girl, was clearly into him, but was playing it cool. Then there was this other chick, Mia. She said she arrived to the party late and was catching up on her drinking. We clinked bottles and it was a race.

  Over Mia’s shoulder, I could see this guy, Greg, making time with Tina. He was doing the thing where you make contact with a chick. Any kind of physical contact is important, as long as you don’t step over a line. As he talked and laughed, he put his hand on her shoulder. I could tell it was all fake. The entire conversation was just an excuse for him to touch her.

  Here I was living with Tina, having sex with her on the regular and sleeping in the same bed. And I still didn’t know if we were in a relationship because of her lies. I’m not saying it either, but I’m not the one who gets to decide. That’s her call.

  Even if I said we were in a relationship or that I wanted to be, I couldn’t trust her. Who sleeps with someone and doesn’t kiss them good night? Who sabotages her boyfriend’s internship? Who acts like a complete asshole in front of her friends and treats you like shit?

  Not someone in a relationship with me!

  So, there is no question now. Tina’s over there getting eye-groped by the Crossfit douche. I’m over here talking to Mia. Tina and I were clearly just fuck buddies, which is fine. What guy doesn’t want a hot fuck buddy? But shit, at least be honest about it. If not to me, then to yourself, Tina. There are safety issues here. Fuck it.

  I started dancing with Mia, I put my hands on her waist. I could tell, she had already made up her mind to bang me and that was fine with me. The only question at this point, was where.

  At some point, I saw Tina start arguing with this Crossfit douche. Then she ran outside crying. Shit. Now I have to watch out for her. I can’t have this drama in my place.

  “Excuse me a sec, Cass,” I said.

  I rushed outside. Tina was crying, leaning against a parked car. I put my hand on her shoulders. Not because I was making a move, but because, I don’t know, I just did.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” I said, starting to get frustrated. I was trying to get her to look at me but she just kept hiding her face. “Is that douche back there bothering you?”

  “No. You are,” she snapped.

  She looked up at me. Her face was red, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

  I stepped back and took my hands off her shoulders. “Whoa. What did I do? You’re the one that made me out to be a pathetic asshole in front of your friends. Not to mention the fact that I don’t want a party in my apartment.”

  “You don’t even care,” she whispered.

  “About that douche, Greg?” I pointed back at the apartment. “Yeah. I do. But if you’re going to fuck him, what am I supposed to do? I can’t keep you from being a whore.”

  She slapped me.

  It was so sudden I didn’t see it coming. My cheek burned and stung where her hand had hit it. It kind of pissed me off, but also focused me. I glared down at her. We were looking into each other’s eyes, intently. And I swear, I wanted her so bad. It was like, I knew we were going to have sex right then and there, in the open on top of a parked car. I leaned down, my lips meeting hers, soft and delicious.

  The door opened, and her friends came outside to check on us. Tina pushed me away.

  “What?” I stumbled back in shock.

  “Dude, back off,” said Jaden, running over to get between us.

  Greg joined him, flexing his muscular arms. “Yeah, man. Not cool.”

  “I think some signals were misinterpreted here,” I tried to explain, holding my hands up in a gesture of peace. I looked at Tina. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “It’s fine if you don’t like me that way,” I told her.

  “I could like you that way,” said Mia, sauntering over to me. “Walk me back to my place?”

  “Sure,” I said, glaring at Tina. She looked up, panic in her blue eyes. “It’s not like I live here.”

  Mia took my hand and led me back towards campus. The last time I looked back, Tina was silently crying.

  ***

  We reached her apartment complex and Mia invited me in.

  Her place was a modest, one-bedroom apartment just a two block walk from campus. I stayed pretty quiet on the short walk there and kept it up once we got inside. I didn’t know what to expect.

  She got bottles of water out of her fridge. She got one out for both of us, opened hers and chugged it down. I sat down heavily in her desk chair, sipped my water and stared at the wall.

  “So. How long have you been in love with Tina?” Mia asked, matter-of-factly.

  I spun my head around and looked at her. “What? No. Where did you get that idea? That’s not––uh, no,” I protested.

  “Shit, really?” laughed Mia, as she plopped down on her bed. “I’m completely wasted and even I see it. C’mon. Be real.”

  “Fuck, I don’t know,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “All we do is fight and fuck. I don’t think she even likes me.”

  “Oh, she likes you.” Mia grinned. “In Admin class, she can’t stop talking about you.”

  “Who cares?” I dismissed turning away, but I quickly looked back. “Wait. What did she say?”

  “Pretty much the same thing, that all you do is fight and fuck,” she said with a shrug. “And that she doesn’t think you like her. And why the fuck does she keep having sex with you and on and on.”

  “Well, she’s the one that’s making this confusing,” I countered. I set my bottle of water on her desk and crossed my arms in front of my chest.

  Mia rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, like she’s the one that fucked and then put on his pants and continued painting like nothing happened.”

  “She almost sabotaged my internship. She didn’t wake me up,” I snapped.

  “You keep pulling away.”

  “She’s crazy.”

  “About you!” Mia countered. “And then you just left the party with me!”

  I dropped my arms and brought a hand up to run my forehead. What was I doing here with Mia? I had no intention of sleeping with her. I looked over to her sitting on her bed. She smiled.

  “Well, I…” I began. “You know… This isn’t…”

  She rolled her eyes again. “I know, Seth. I didn’t ask you to come here for a hook-up. But you’re a good guy. And Tina has… well, Tina has not had it easy. I thought you two needed a good old fashioned Time Out.”

  Mia laughed at her joke, clearly still buzzed, before continuing. “Look, don’t get me wrong, I really care about Tina. But someone needed to call her bluff when yall were outside just now. Just tell Tina you want to be in a relationship or whatever,” she said. “If she says yes, then you are officially in one. If she says no, maybe you can crash on my couch and I’ll have a reliable babysitter.”

  “She’s crazy,” I insisted. “A maniac.”

  “You’re both nuts,” Mia laughed.

  “Wait. Did you say, babysitter? You have a kid?” I asked her in total disbelief. I couldn’t quite put that together. Mia was just a few years older than Tina and me. She looked our age and I’d always thought that she acted our age. But a kid? That’s light-years of more adult responsibility than anything I had in mind for the next decade.

  “Yeah,” Mia responded. “A classmate who’s in Baltimore this weekend owed me a favor and offered to sit my little boy overnig
ht. When I got Tina’s text that something was actually happening in the social realm, I had to jump on it. Being in college while also being a single mom is no song and dance, my friend. I will take any opportunity for adult conversation these days.”

  “I can only imagine,” I told her in amazement.

  She got up and opened her apartment’s front door. “Love makes you nuts, look at my situation. Just fucking go to her, Seth. Now, I have a hangover to cure in six hours or else that cure will involve a screaming two-year-old.”

  I saw Mia in a new light now. Instead of a classmate and peer, she was more like a big sister or something. I thanked her sincerely, wished her luck with the hangover and left.

  I started walking back to our apartment. Mia was probably right. No, she was totally right. One of us had to make a move and why not me? Tina certainly couldn’t be trusted to do it. I just had to make a play, make her my girlfriend or tell her to fuck right off.

  Do I love Tina? I don’t know. I love having sex with her, but can you build a relationship based on sex? Isn’t that the classic guy move? Find a chick that’s great in bed and worry about the rest later? Well, it’s not like we’re getting married. Plus, we’re already rooming together, maybe I should give it a try.

  At the very least, I need to go back to the apartment and talk to her about this. I’ll put my cards on the table and see what she says. This way, I’ll know where I stand and where we go from here.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tina

  The party didn’t take long to break up after Seth left. Greg eventually got frustrated and left, not that I blame him. I’m sure there were plenty of other girls on campus that would kill to be with him. I just couldn’t understand why I wasn’t one of them right now.

  Jaden left with Emma and Dylan with Kyla. Everyone kept asking me if I was okay. I told them I was, but ushered them out of the apartment as fast as I could. I cleaned up the apartment while I was waiting for Seth to come home. Should I call him? Was it even any of my business?

  As I wiped off counters, swept up beer bottle caps and cheese puffs, I kept telling myself I was doing so because I had to clean up the apartment after the party. But I did way more cleaning than necessary and then I cleaned stuff that clearly didn’t need cleaning, like between the buttons on the microwave. Yes, pressing business indeed.

  Cleaning helped me get my mind of Seth. The whole place was spotless by midnight. Finally, I just resigned myself to the fact that he had probably slept with Mia. She was so pretty with her deep red hair and green eyes. And I knew she was actually a kind and real person too, unlike a lot of my other friends.

  I went to bed crying.

  Almost as soon as I had the lights off, I heard the door open and my heart leapt. I was half tempted to get up, jump into Seth’s arms and kiss him. I could tell him it was all my fault, that I loved him and missed him. Why couldn’t I just do that? Maybe I would talk to him while he lied in bed next to me. Yeah, jumping into his arms was too dramatic, too movie-of-the-week. We had to talk, like adults.

  Unfortunately, he changed into his pajamas, walked over to the bed, grabbed his pillow and blanket and headed for the tub I had just cleaned. I didn’t know what to think then. Was he mad at me? Did he have sex with Mia? If he did, I think he would’ve stayed at her place. I was so confused and exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. I just lied there, listening to see if I could hear him sleeping in the tub.

  About 3:00 a. m., I heard the door to the bathroom open. Seth stepped into the room with me. I felt his gaze on my body but pretended to be asleep. I kept my breath even and didn’t move.

  “Tina?” he whispered. “You awake?”

  I didn’t move or speak. I wasn’t sure what I wanted and I had no idea what he wanted.

  “Tina?” He didn’t raise his voice or really try to wake me. “Tina, I didn’t…”

  My breath caught, and tears started streaming down my face. I was glad he couldn’t see me in the dark. I wanted him to come to bed, but I couldn’t breathe enough to speak.

  But before I could do anything, Seth plodded out and returned to the bathroom.

  ***

  Early the next morning, Seth was still asleep in the bathtub. I got up and got dressed. I stood in the bathroom door looking at him. Was he faking being asleep like I did? Why didn’t he just come to bed last night?

  What the fuck. I don’t understand this guy!

  I walked to campus and went straight into the coffee house. I got the biggest, blackest plain coffee I could afford from my change jar slash savings account and sat there thinking. I had hours before my classes started.

  What was I doing? What were we doing? We’re living together and having sex. Wasn’t that a relationship? I mean, why wouldn’t it be? Does someone have to say it’s a relationship to make it so? If that’s true, maybe that’s all I have to do.

  Picking up my phone, I switched over to text and found Seth’s number. I started writing a few different messages but kept erasing them. Was he even awake? Maybe he was still asleep. I aborted the whole process and put my head in my hands.

  “Hey, you okay?” said a voice.

  I looked up. It was Sal from my Poly Sci class. He was a nice guy. Everyone in the class liked him. He was pretty good looking too. I looked up at him. Would he be someone that I could have a relationship with and rebel against my parents? Was that the point of all this? What was I doing?

  “I’m fine,” I said, running a hand through my hair and trying to fix it. “Rough night studying. Stayed up too late. Just came here to think.”

  “Oh, should I go?” he asked.

  “No-no, sit,” I offered. “You’re fine, Sal. Sorry. Just out of it.”

  “Sometimes it helps to talk,” he smiled, taking the chair across from me. “You got problems at home or with classes?”

  “Both,” I said. “I have all this work to do for an internship I’ve barely started.”

  “Yeah, college can be intense,” he said, after taking a sip of his coffee. “But you have to learn to relax. It was hard for me. I was always an overachiever in high school.”

  “I could imagine that,” I said, nodding. “What about now?”

  “College has made me feel a lot smaller and humbler,” he laughed. “But that’s okay, right? I mean, I gained a new perspective. Before I came here, I didn’t know anyone from Asia or Europe or the Mid-West or the South even. You get all these different perspectives and it changes. I’m not the same person I was in my first semester.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” I agreed. “Seems like life got really complicated. Why is that?”

  “Maybe it was always complicated,” he said with a shrug. “It’s just that we’ve been trained to notice it more. Poly Sci definitely does that. Seems like everyone’s so anxious to protest for the sake of protesting. They don’t ask themselves if they truly know anything about the issue in question.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “My problems are a little more close to home. My parents are very religious. They’re having trouble letting go. I feel so boxed in with them.”

  “Give them time,” he advised. “My Italian parents were kind of like that. Not so much religious, but they didn’t want to let go of their little boy. But you know, you have to go out there, make mistakes and grow.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I just wish I could grow without making all those mistakes. It’s so embarrassing and confusing. I just… Well, I just don’t know where to turn sometimes, you know.”

  “You want to tell me the details of your problem, maybe say… over dinner?” he offered with a grin.

  I smiled and winced. “Sorry,” I said. “I can’t. Part of my deal is, I don’t know if I should be dating someone great like you or the guy I am already sort of, kind of dating.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Ah, it’s complicated, eh?”

  I nodded. “It’s very complicated. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you any longer then,” h
e said, standing up from the table. “I hope you figure things out.”

  “Thanks, Sal.”

  “No problem.”

  Sal got up and headed out. He seemed nice, but I couldn’t see myself with him. Not in a comfortable way. Aw, shit. There was only Seth in my head and in my heart. Why?

  I decided to call Lindsay. It had taken weeks and weeks of uncertain texting back and forth, but we’d finally made up. She apologized for not calling sooner about her engagement but still didn’t say much about her life with Brent. Maybe she was just trying not to rub it in that she was deliriously happy.

  I grabbed my phone, walked outside and found a park bench away from everyone.

  “Hey,” greeted Lindsay.

  “Hey,” I said. “How are the wedding plans going?”

  “Good-good,” she said curtly, but didn’t elaborate. “What’s wrong?”

  “How do you know something’s wrong? I could just be calling to talk to my friend,” I said. “Jeez, give me some credit.”

  “Okay,” she said and then added after a pause. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just had this guy hit on me from class. He’s cute, and sweet. I turned him down. I can’t seem to get comfortable around any guy but Seth. What’s wrong with me?” I asked.

  “You’re in love with Seth,” said Lindsay.

  “What? No. That’s dumb.” I twirled a lock of hair around my finger. “I’m not. I’ll admit, there is a sexual attraction, but…” I said, drifting off.

  “How many times?”

  “How many times, what?”

  “How many times have you played checkers? What do you think?” I could almost hear her shake her head through the phone.

  “Let’s see. There was then and then and… Oh, my God.”

  “Yeah, you must really hate him the way you keep banging him,” she said sarcastically.

  “But I don’t want to be in love with Seth!” I insisted. “I just wanted to have him piss off my parents for a while.”

  “So, you used him?”

  “No,” I said, then thinking about it. “Yes. Maybe. Okay.”