At First Hate by K.A. Linde

Harvard

November 17, 2013

Derek still hadn’t said he loved me.

And I hadn’t been stupid enough to say it again.

I’d thought that things would change afterward, but it was all remarkably the same. The same lab dates. The same Law Library study sessions. The same sailing expeditions. We were busy, but we were together. So, maybe it didn’t matter that I loved him… and he didn’t love me.

Maybe.

“You can’t stay in here all night,” Misty complained. She’d already changed into something straight out of Martha’s Vineyard. “There’s a huge party tonight. It’s Harvard/Yale.”

I wrinkled my nose and turned back to my work. “You know I don’t care about football.”

“I know, but again, it’s Harvard/Yale.”

“You keep repeating that like I care.”

“It’s your third year. I’d think you’d get into it by now.”

“I care about Duke. The rest is meh.”

“Come on. I bet Derek wants to celebrate.”

“I’m sure he does, and he is. He went to the game with his boss or something. He said he was meeting friends.”

Misty huffed. “Suit yourself. Don’t say I didn’t ever do anything for you.”

I laughed and pulled away from my work. “Is it that important to you?”

“Kyle’s bringing a date,” she said with a pouty face.

“Ah.”

Misty and Kyle had dated fall and spring semester. They’d had a falling-out this summer, and she wanted him back. I hadn’t realized he was dating someone new.

“All right. I’ll go with you.”

“Yes!”

Misty had come prepared. She’d brought me an outfit to wear to the party. A red minidress that was impractical in this weather and that I never wore anymore anyway, but it was what I had. I slipped out of my lab coat and into the dress. Misty passed me red lipstick, and then we were out the door.

The party was not far from the labs. The house party was packed and warm inside with all the body heat. I texted Derek when I got there to let him know I was out with Misty. The text never registered as Read though. I didn’t know what he was up to. Normally, he at least texted me throughout the day. His boss must have gotten him drunk at the game.

I shook my head and pushed through to the kitchen. I took a beer and followed Misty into another room. She found Kyle almost right away. He was with a blonde that I’d never seen before. Instead of just going to talk to him, she found Matt and danced seductively with him. I leaned against the wall to watch the showdown, nursing my beer and wishing I were still in the lab.

I checked my phone again. Still nothing from Derek. He’d now read the text at least.

With a yawn into my beer, I stepped into the next room over, and my feet stilled. Derek was at the head of the table, sitting with a half-dozen people that I knew all too well. A bunch of his douche friends from high school who had traumatized both me and Lila for years. I disliked every single one of them on sight.

Chuck Henderson was hot but a total bastard. I’d seen Derek throw him out of a party for touching Amelia. And now, he was here. With his two cronies, Michael and Joseph. Neither of them had ever had an original thought in their heads. Trask and Hooper sat nearest to where I’d walked in. They’d both played basketball with Derek in high school. He hadn’t mentioned that he was having friends in town just that he was going out with friends. Why hadn’t he specified?

Derek didn’t look up at my entrance, but Chuck did.

His smile widened to pure Cheshire, but he was drunk as hell. “Minivan!” he crowed.

My body seized at that word out of Chuck Henderson’s mouth. Derek sometimes still used it affectionately, like it was our little secret. But this was how he’d first used that word. To try to tear me down for my circumstances when they were all pretty little rich boys at the private Catholic school. They were above me. That was how that had been used. And how Chuck was using it right now.

Derek’s head jerked up. I could tell that he was beyond drunk. I’d seen him intoxicated but never like this. He could barely hold his head up. And when that word was uttered, all the other guys started laughing.

And to my horror, Derek followed along. He laughed. He actually fucking laughed at that word. Like it was funny and not humiliating.

It didn’t matter that I was a PhD student at Harvard. That I’d finally escaped the horror of being the poor girl at school who drove a fucking minivan. It didn’t matter that I was on my way to a breakthrough in my research. That I was dating Derek Ballentine of all people. That I was someone here.

Suddenly, I was back in high school. Just the nerdy girl to make fun of. Not anyone at all. Not good enough.

“Minivan!” Michael said, cracking up.

“Fuck, I’d forgotten that nickname,” Joseph said.

“How could you forget?” Chuck asked with another drunk laugh. “She drove a fucking minivan.”

I wanted to open my mouth. To tell them to all go fuck themselves. And yet I stood paralyzed. Stuck in a time loop of terror. Repeating old hurts that I’d thought I’d finally healed over. Instead, the wounds were being ripped open and revealed for everyone to see. Just another poor girl trying to be something she wasn’t.

“Derek?” I managed to croak.

“Come on over here, Minivan,” he said with another chuckle.

The word felt sour in my stomach. It had lost the edge of an inside joke when it was stolen and appropriated by the enemy.

I took a step back and shook my head. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’re going to let her talk to you like that, D-Man?” Chuck egged him on.

Derek stumbled to his feet. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“D-Man?” I said in exasperation. “Seriously?”

Derek laughed again at something one of the other guys had said, and I just shook my head. I was done. This was fucking ridiculous. I didn’t have to stay here and be ridiculed.

“Whatever.” I stormed away from the lot of them.

I heard laughter in my wake, and then suddenly, Derek was there. He grasped my elbow.

“Mars, hold up.”

“Oh, it’s Mars now?” I demanded, snatching my arm away.

He teetered forward drunkenly, reaching for the doorframe for support. “It was just a joke.”

“So, I’m a joke to you now?”

“Just lighten up,” he said with that smarmy smirk on his lips. “You’re overreacting.”

My spine straightened at that word. “Excuse me?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing to me, Derek. Or should I say, D-Man?” I snarled. “You didn’t even tell me your friends were in town.”

“Why should I?”

“I don’t know. I thought we were dating.”

“You hate my friends,” he said with a shrug. “I knew you wouldn’t want to hang out with them.”

“You mean, you knew that you didn’t want to introduce me as your girlfriend,” I snapped right back.

He glared down at me as he met my rising anger. “Like you with Lila. Tell me, Minivan, does your best friend know you’re dating me?”

“That’s different.”

“How? From my vantage point, it’s the same goddamn thing,” he said. “This isn’t real to you, Marley. You say you love me, but you won’t even tell Lila. And then you have the audacity to be mad at me. Rich. Real rich.”

I balked at the way he had thrown aside the fact that I loved him. As if it had never mattered. My spine was ramrod straight, and my hands balled into fists. “I should have told Lila. Fine. You’re right. Is that what you wanted to hear? You’re still a drunk asshole who let your friends make fun of me.”

“They weren’t making fun of you. They were calling you a nickname. It’s not a big deal.”

“No big deal to you,” I yelled back at him. “Because you have no idea what it’s like to be the person who drives the minivan. Who is made fun of for it.”

“No, I don’t,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll never know what that’s like. I shouldn’t have to feel bad that I didn’t grow up poor.”

My stomach dropped at the words. “The great Derek Ballentine. Forgive me for forgetting your eminence above the rest of us peons.”

I shook my head at his stupidity and pushed my way through the party. I couldn’t believe that the guy I’d spent the last year with could be this callous and uncaring. He might be drunk, but he was being a mean drunk. And the truth was finally coming out.

Derek and I were from different worlds. Just when I’d let myself think that we were on the same playing field, I was reminded how wrong I was. He would always be the rich legacy kid, and I’d always be the poor scholarship kid.

Still, he followed me out of the house. Oh, how history repeated itself. A year ago, he’d begged me to try this again. And now, he was ruining it all just as easily.

“Marley,” he said, stumbling drunkenly out into the freezing weather. “I don’t know why you’re so mad.”

“Then, you’re a fucking idiot. I’ve been waiting for this.” Tears welled in my eyes, and I swiped at them. “Waiting for you to hurt me like you did before. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. This is my third time, and it’s the same old shit, Derek.”

“Then that’s your own fault,” he said so casually that my heart broke.

Tears fell down my cheeks at the words. The easy way he’d said that, as if it were so obvious. Because the problem was… I’d hoped that he was different this time. I’d waited months before giving in to him because I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t break my heart. Now, he was here, shattering it into a million pieces, just like Gran’s tea set.

“You’re right,” I said with a nod. “I see you for exactly who you are now. I won’t forget it.”