Page 90 of Hate Me Like You Mean It
I got booted from the auditorium when Romeo died, and was still wheezing outside when the audience finally started to clap. Later that night, Alice had pounded on my bedroom window and vowed retaliation for, and I quote, “cackling so hard at her impeccable performance that it, quite literally, without an ounce of exaggeration, sounded like a goose was choking in the audience.”
For weeks after the fact, I’d randomly burst into hysterics, thinking about her trying to squeeze out a single tear for the death of her counterpart.
As for her promised vengeance, she’d broken into my gym bag the night before a big game and swapped out my soccer shorts for her tiny gym ones. Not wanting to give her the win, I’d worn—and flaunted them, along with my amazing legs—proudly.
She’d almost keeled over in the stands from laughter, all the tears she’d failed to produce for Douchebro Romeo streaming down her face as she fought for breath and took pictures until her phone died. One of the photos was taped to the inside of her locker for a while.
She had one standard, smiling snapshot of her family taped in there, one of her and my mom, and one with Rachel. The rest of the space had been overstuffed with every unflattering picture of me she could get her grubby little hands on.
Her boyfriend in junior year had hated it. The relationship was short-lived, though later he would play her counterpart in a high school production of Shakespeare’s most famous comedy,Romeo and Juliet, where she’d almost pop a blood vessel trying to shed a tear for him.
I rubbed at my mouth, trying to wipe the smile away.
It didn’t go anywhere.
Garbage.
All of it.
After spending the better part of an hour rummaging through Robert’s box of manipulation, I had no doubt in my mind that, in addition to emptying my old trash bin straight ontothe pile of nothings, Robert had searched every last square foot of our old house with a magnifying glass, handpicked the most useless, worthless pieces of old junk he could find, and flew it all the way across the country for me to throw out.
Take, for example, an old, half-torn exam schedule with yellow gum stuck to the back.
Or the ancient camera Robert had insisted on filming his ridiculous YouTube videos with, because “that wasn’t what phones are for. Stop arguing with me, Dominic. I was there when they were invented.” Meanwhile, I’d been stuck with the irritatingly time-consuming process of transferring, converting, editing, and uploading.
Other notably useless items included:
A couple of old comic books Alice had defaced after I drew a goatee on her beloved Cristiano Ronaldo poster. (She’d been obsessed with him for reasons unknown. He wasn’t even that good, according to eight-year-old me.) (Two weeks later, I’d finally convinced Coach Mittal to let me on the soccer team, even though I’d missed the signup deadline.)
A pouch full of seashells I’d spent four days gluing back together after Adrien had accidentally stepped on them. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been pretty choked up about it, given she’d spent years on the collection. There was at least one from every beach she’d ever been to up to that point. I’d meant to give the pouch back to her, but I’d lost my nerve, convinced she’d take one look at my clumsy glue-work and laugh.
Same thing with the necklace I’d bought for her sixteenth birthday. She’d been flipping through a magazine at Heathrow while waiting for her phone to charge, paused when she saw the picture of a dainty rose-gold choker, mumbling a barely audible “cute” under her breath. So I took up tutoring and saved up for a few months… only to realize, halfway through her massive sweet sixteen party, how laughably naive I’d been to think she’d likeit. By the time she’d opened—and gushed over—the third Cartier bracelet someone’s parents’ assistant had bought and wrapped for her, I’d quietly gathered my gift from the pile and slipped out a back door.
Except my exit hadn’t gone unnoticed. People had started trickling out shortly after, citing the party was “lame.” Alice hadn’t spoken to me for almost two weeks after that one, finally breaking her silence to inform me I desperately needed a haircut because she didn’t want people to think, and I quote, that “she’s the type of person who’d own a mop dog. Or a yak or whatever the cows with shaggy bangs were called.”
As a peace offering, she’d taken the initiative to book the appointment for me.
It was a pet groomer. They’d been very confused when I’d shown up not holding a black Silkie chicken named “Dommy with au.”
Like I said, garbage.
There was a reason I’d left this shit behind.
My jaw worked, a familiar burn dragging through my veins and gathering in the pit of my ribs as I tipped the box, peering inside.
A half-empty pack of cinnamon gum, a worn, water-stained walkie-talkie user guide, theMortal Kombatgame Alice had “gifted” to “me” for Christmas one year after her parents told her she was too young to play a game with that much gore, and an old, broken action figure Alice had mutilated after I beat her at tag.
She’d sawed off his leg with a box of plastic knives at the tender age of seven (her most homicidal and bloodthirsty year, without question), covered the severed limb with hot sauce, and left it on my pillow as a direct threat to me. When confronted, she’d eyed me up and down like a Victorian-era queen mightregard a clown who’d bored her and accused me of cheating at tag.
Because of my growth spurt.
Again, she was seven.
I began dumping everything I hadn’t already trashed back into the box. Shuffling through it had been a waste of time. What I really needed was to talk to Alice.
I was about to chuck the last item into the cardboard and fish my phone out of my back pocket when the base of my palm grazed an odd, unexpected texture.
I looked down at the ancient camcorder, shifting my hand to see a sharp, glossy triangle poking out of the closed LCD screen. A folded Polaroid picture fell out as soon as I flipped the screen open, and I instinctively bumped it with the top of my foot, bending to snatch it before it hit the ground.
