Date = 5 September

Place = San Francisco

Uncle John’s house

Melaena Blackburn = 19 years old

Damion Grimm = 20 years old

POV - Melaena

Green eyes fly into my mind — brilliant green like summer apples covered in dew. Eyes with the ability to haunt my dreams. Day or night.

He moves his fingers under the lace of her panties, yanking them off. Moving slowly he kisses his way up her thigh, turning his head so his breath tickles her. She lets out a deep moan, moving her hips in anticipation.

I imagine my fingers combing through that silky raven-black hair.

He moves in, tongue lashing against her clit while his hands move under her hips pulling her into his face. She lets out a cry of pleasure, while he licks and sucks, moving his fingers into her wet ….

“Urgh!” I groan and close my eyes. Every single frickin time it’s the same. I can’t even read a trashy book without thinking of him. It’s not easy hating someone.

I press my legs together to dissolve the aching itch that forms between them as I throw the stupid book on the ground. Kiara peeps out of the closet.

“Melaena!” She’s using my full name for effect. “Stop reading yourself into a climax!” A pair of jeans hit me in the face before I can react.

“You better get packing! We’re leaving early in the morning,” she shouts excitedly pulling clothes from the shelves and throwing them on the bed. I stare at the heap thinking that she’s the one who needs to pack.

Kiara is a fashion-obsessed individual, unlike me. I will wear anything I like without thinking about who designed it or how much it costs.

She stops and looks at me, her eyes filled with mock.

“Please tell me you’re not sex dreaming about HIM again.” She picks up the book and peers at the cover picture.

“I’m not,” I lie in a snotty tone, knowing it will push a button.

“We’ve been on a year-long trip around the fucking world so you can get him out of your system,” she chastises. Swearing for real … she must be on a roll.

But she’s right. This past year, Kiara and I have been backpacking throughout Europe — a gap year we called it.

The purpose of this exercise was to clear my head … to decide what I wanted to do with my Donald Ducked life. So we’ve traveled from one holiday home, belonging to one of my family members, to the next, so I could clear my head and decide what I wanted.

But mostly I needed to get away from him.

My head is still a mess, and I haven’t decided what I wanted to do with my life — but that’s my own stupidness, and I’m not sharing it with the others — so I randomly picked something.

It was a great year. My brothers dropped in whenever possible. Even Uncle John and Axel joined us thrice — for Christmas, for Kiara’s 19th birthday, and again for mine.

But not him.

So tonight I’m going to see him face-to-face again for the first time in twelve months.

“And the first day back he’s haunting your mind again,” Kiara continues her charade. I just snort and pull my knees up to my chest.

Gmf. This time she’s wrong. He’s been haunting me the whole time.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get him out of my system … I hate him too much for that.”

She peers from the cupboard again with her war-face expression and growls out a snort.

She’s a realist who doesn’t believe in the nitty gritty stuff like soulmates … or love … or even hate for that matter. She dates good-looking blokes mostly for sex. A modern-day woman who takes what she needs and gives what she wants … her words not mine.

I, on the other hand, dream about …. well, let’s just say I dream about something different, something special, the sort of storybook love where two people’s eyes meet and BAM — true love forever. Like a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing — without the dying part, of course. Okay … let’s rather say I dreamed about it … in the past …

In the meantime, I’ve learned that real life is no fairy tale. Nope, real life is a frickin horror story. Where Romeo leaves poor Juliet in the tomb to fuck a slutty brunette on the side. And as if that’s not enough, he’ll again move on to the next brown-haired bimbo right the next day. And the next and the next.

The universe is cruel and mischievous, that’s for sure. Why else would it give me that eyes meet — BAM — part, just to let fate intervene and twist it into a screwed-up ball of claustrophobic frustration?

Yep, the perverted universe likes jokes, especially when it comes to love. No wonder people are getting more and more skeptical to risk their hearts … the living happily-ever-after dream is all just a warped cliché.

I would know — because of all the boys in the world, fate set me up to have my BAM moment with HIM! And it happened more than once — I had TWO BAM moments with the same boy. And they were really really good BAMs.

Until they were not.

The first one, at least, didn’t immediately turn into a disaster … it started with one. I was 9

yeah it kicked off young

and our principal decided to introduce us to cross-country running. The whole school was to participate. It turned out that the field they laid out for us, was very close to the proclaimed and mysterious haunted house.

Legend has it that a demon from hell guards the place — ripping anyone who dares to trespass on the property into shreds. People actually died in that place. Jackson told me … and my brothers never lie.

It was a stupid idea … I know that now … but back then Jason Steward, local class bully, dared a bunch of us to slip away and investigate the house. Anybody who chickened out would have been labeled a namby-pamby … and knowing Jason … he would make it stick until we graduated. I was not going to sink my social status before it even started.

However, it didn’t go quite as planned. The outing went haywire. Both Kiara and I got hurt, grounded, and put into detention — with Axel. Jason and the runaways never got caught. And we never blabbed them out. I’m no rat. Neither are Kiara or Axel.

Eventually, my social status still sank sensationally in my freshman year — but the two are not related. That’s a whole different story.

But at least some good prevailed from the whole ordeal — Axel became a very important part of our group and I learned a thing or two about life: I should tread lightly when I’m in a haunted house; I couldn’t trust my stupid classmates; and cross-country was not my thing.

Oh, I also had my first BAM moment with some green eyes.

Eyes I would not see again until the first day of my seventh-grade year starting at Harvard-Westlake. I was annoyed because I landed in the principal’s office … not once, but twice on the same day. Innocently blamed.

Granted I dumped some pink milk onto a senior’s head and gave Jason a perfect shiner, but it was not undeserved. I don’t like bullies.

Anyway, when Logan called out behind me at going-home-time, I slammed my locker shut and turned around, ready to share my beef and wail about the unfairness of the system, knowing my brother would at least understand. Kiara didn’t.

But no words escaped my mouth. My breath and everything else got sucked out with force by teasing bright apple eyes. The hot-as-hell eight-grader standing next to my brother filled out his uniform better than Thor himself ever would, his raven hair was messy and that skew smile churned the cafeteria food in my tummy.

And BAM — another moment. Same eyes. Same boy. How could it not be fated?

At first, I thought … this is it — the true storybook meet-cute at the locker on the first day of school.

And I felt every feeling in the book. The increased heartbeat, the butterflies, the sweaty palms. I thought for sure he was the one.

But fate laughed in my face — turns out the boy Logan started a lifetime BFF friendship with was the same obnoxious boy who helped Kiara out of the hole at the haunted house; the boy who gave me his jacket cause I was cold; and the boy I would learn to hate. And I mean passionately HATE.

Who knew that hate feels disturbingly the same as love … your stomach flips and twists; your heart rate increases way over the limit of normal; you get drunk and high on adrenaline; obsessive thoughts, and behaviors cloud your mind; and you feel out of control.

“You still got his jacket in your cupboard?” Kiara flings something against my head. “Don’t you ever learn?”

I stare at the black leather jacket as if seeing it for the first time and not as if I’ve had it for the past 10 years. Running down the right sleeve is a strange green M with the words ‘Monster Energy’, while the Reaper skull with wings decorates the other sleeve between smaller patches with different logos. On the back is a huge number 13.

I quickly fold it and stuff it into my bag. To burn later. Probably.

But Kiara is wrong again. I did learn my lesson. The hard way.

Another piece of clothing hits my head.

“Are you done packing?” she asks. I nod and close the suitcase. I can come back for the rest anytime I want. It’s not as if we’re moving out of state … just to our own beautiful townhouse complex.

The one built on the site of my sort-off childhood home. Sort-off, because we only lived in it for a month or so, before Mom was murdered … what … eight years ago … almost nine. And the home then mysteriously burnt down to ashes only a week after we moved to Uncle John’s. Faulty wiring the police said.

It was then that Uncle John decided to build five separate dwellings on the property — one for each kid. It’s ideal … we all stay together but separate.

It’s there where we will reside while at Standford … Kiara is enrolled to study accountancy, while I finally decided to study art for now. And then I’ll see where life leads me then. I’ll probably keep on freelancing for both Ubisoft and Rockstar games, or I could try getting in at Googleplex or Applepark.

I put the discarded novel on top of my suitcase. I don’t know why I even bother to read it. It’s not well written, the grammar sucks — a bunch of crap really. And the couple on the cover is so cliche. The whole stereotypical romantic pose makes my skin crawl with frustration. I sigh deeply. I’m so uptight my neck is pulling into a spasm.

“You know he’s going to be here tonight?”

Of course, I know. That’s the whole darn problem.

I hate Damion Grimm so much that I feel sick whenever he’s around and frustrated when he’s not.

He’s like an itch under my skin I just can’t get rid of — and I swear it’s increasing in intensity each year. It’s getting almost unbearable — so much that I’m scared of doing something irresponsible one of these days — like ripping off his balls or worse … licking them.

Yeah, there’s that. Don’t judge — I have a theory: Because the feelings of love and hate are so closely related, a person’s hypothalamus gets confused and wrongfully floods the body with dopamine, a neurotransmitter that produces feelings of euphoria and pleasure. It’s why hate can feel so thrilling and, at times, even addictive and why you can’t stop thinking about the hated person. The problem is that it also triggers the release of estrogen, which increases your libido. And voila … you want to seriously jump the bones of the person you hate. It’s all natural.

I realize Kiara is staring at me, tapping her foot impatiently, waiting for a response.

“Yes.” I pull my lips into a serious pout. I need her off my case.

“But I’m seeing Ren remember,” I say, having learned the trick to dealing with Kiara is a solid diversion. However, the same trick applies to me — I’m easily distracted.