"Hate is a strong word, Rory." Mom had said upon expressing my anger over my embarrassing run-in with Onyx that night. Of course she'd side with the overgrown man-child; she didn't see him for what he was. Nobody did. Nobody except me. "There's also this very fine line that separates hate and another extremely strong emotion. Love. I think you, my darling, are walking that line."

         I'd learned from countless rewatches of 10 Things and the hundreds of other rom-coms I sat with my mother through, that was an extremely overused trope, and knew that it couldn't ever possibly exist in the real world. I couldn't ever love Onyx, not when he'd done so many shitty things over the last ten years. Not when his love for himself was so monumental that he continuously hurt both of his parents with venomous words and disappearing acts.

      But leave it to my hopeless romantic mother to twist it so it fit into her cute little paradigm full of rainbows and unicorns prancing around fields with Knights in Shining Armor on their back. She'd been this way since I was seven and she'd found that she could take all wildest and craziest fantasies and slap it on a document full of blank pages. And be good at it. She had hit the New York Times Bestseller list with her debut novel Northern Lights just a few months before I, as well as my namesake, were born.

    As I sat in Chemistry the next morning, yet another class I unfortunately shared with Sir Sleeps A Lot, I wasn't surprised in the least to catch a strong waft of his ocean breeze scented cologne. Lifting my head up a fraction, I was immediately greeted by a white Smashing Pumpkins tee, so thin I could see his toned abdomen every time he shifted on his feet. He tapped his fingertips against the marble, eyes not on me, but my junior partner. She sunk into her chair under his intense gaze for a few seconds before she took the hint and hit the ground running across the room to another vacant seat. I tightened my grip on my phone in my hand as Onyx dropped his backpack on to the tile at our feet, slumping back into the chair with a satisfied look on his face.

      With that smirk, it was safe to say I should shoot a text to Mikey and tell him to prepare a beautiful, sentimental eulogy for my funeral.

    Okay, so maybe my best friend was right about the whole teen movies thing rubbing off on me thing.

         "Amy." Onyx greeted quietly.

         I heaved out an irritated sigh. "It's Aurora. Like Sleeping Beauty. Or Aurora Borealis."

        "Aurora Borawhatis?" Onyx responded with a drawing of his eyebrows.

         Unable to fight the urge any longer, I pressed my fingers into my temple. "It's the Northern Lights. You know, where you go to find the sky painted in beautiful colors."

      "You're named after the sky?"

      "You're named after a rock?" I retorted just as emotionless and confused, averting my eyes from the obnoxious blonde headed fool beside me and to the bald science teacher in his perch behind his cluttered desk, thick glasses askew on his nose as he rummaged through one of the three stacks of assignments on it. "There's literally twenty-two other students in this classroom you can go grace with your presence."

       "Yeah, but those twenty-two other students don't have a list of absolutely ridiculous and contradicting, reasons why they hate me."

        What did it matter how I felt about him? Rejection must not sit well with hm. Honestly it felt good to have him be the on squirming for once.

       "They're all valid." Is all I answered with, flipping my notebook open so I could take down the notes on the whiteboard. "Can you please keep your mouth shut if you insist on sitting here? You're distracting me."

     As if my words were an open invitation to invade my personal space, he reached out and shut my notebook and plucked my pencil from my hand in one swift movement. Angry, my head whipped in his direction, but he was scrolling through his phone, my supplies nowhere in sight. Catching my irritated pout in his peripheral he pressed his index finger and thumb against his phone screen and zoomed into whatever he was looking at.

         "I hate that you live next door. I hate your friends. I hate that your jokes are kind of funny." he rapped off the reasons with a quiet chuckle after each one, amusement evident in both his blue eyes and the smile he wore. "These reasons are anything but valid, Aurora."

       I crossed my arms over the marble, warmth creeping up the back of my neck and spreading through my cheeks; embarrassed and angry were understatements.  "If you're going to make my life a living hell and reveal the list to the entire school, please just do it. I'm not good with all this sitting in anticipation stuff."

      "You think so lowly of me." He mumbled with a bitter side eye. "I've never done anything to you."

       I ran my fingers through my dark hair, eyes on the Periodic Table taped to the wall over his head. Those words were a confirmation he had no memory of our childhood. "Look, that list was personal. Like a diary, I guess. You weren't supposed to ever see it so I don't see why it bothers you so much. They're my feelings and they don't go beyond that. It's not like I'm spreading rumors about you and all that."

      "I just don't understand what could have possibly made you hate me so much." His blue eyes fell on me once more. "We don't even associate with one another."

      "You're a jerk." I snapped. "You act like the entire student body here is dirt on the bottom of your shoe. You treat the girls at this school like they're a new toy you get tired of after a few days. You throw these giant parties and leave your parents to clean the mess."

      His jaw clenched hearing the reasoning he wanted desperately to hear. "But none of that affects you directly, Aurora. Why do you hate me? I've never done anything to you."

      "You don't have to do anything to me, you big oaf! You just have to be a compassionate human being to hate the things you do."

      "Did you just call me an oaf?"

      Is that really all he took from what I just said?

      "Mr. Hayes and Ms. Grace is there anything you'd like to share with the class?" Mr. Harlow had rose from his seat, disapproving glare on the two of us.

      "No, sir." I answered quietly. Onyx snickered beside me, but I kicked the side of his leg, earning a gasp of pain from him. After a moment he reached down to rub the spot, eyes piercing through me, and responded to our teacher.

      "No, sir."

**

         I found Angie in Anime club after sixth period. Mikey had basketball practice and my Mom had yet to gift me the car she'd been promising for the last two years, so my cute, quick witted, friend was my only hope.

    I knew as soon as she spotted me and nearly threw herself at me that she must have gotten word of what happened with Onyx, likely from Mikey. He wasn't exactly the best at keeping that big mouth shut.

       "You've got to tell me what happened." She demanded, clapping her small hands together with a grin. "In depth details too, woman."

      My mother and Angela Zhao were two peas in a pod. Not only were they both hopelessly in love with the idea of love, but they were both extremely persistent, petite, but crazily enough, more intimidating than half of Mikey's teammates.

        "Come on, Rory." Angie whined, slinging her book bag over her shoulder, almond shaped eyes crinkling around the corners. "It's not fair that Mike gets to hear everything first. I'm your best friend too."

         "To be fair, Mikey was there." I retorted, but caved. "It wasn't like that, though, Angie. He found my list."

          "The list?" her eyes became saucers.

           I groaned, scratching at my arm. "Yes."

         "Oh my God, what did he say?" she looked as if she were the one that was to be victim to his torment. "Did he give it back?"

         "I took it back." I said immediately. "But I think he took a picture of it because he was reciting it in Chem this morning."

      With that, I gave her a very detailed description of what had happened in the last forty-eight hours on our way out to her small lime green Kia. She waited until we were in the car, her hands grasping the steering wheel, to finally state the obvious.

        "It clearly bothers him that you don't like him."

        "I gathered that." I muttered. "I just don't understand why."

         A giddy smile broke out across her face. "Maybe he's secretly in love with you."

        "You sound like Mom." I rested my head against the window. "If that were the case, don't you think you'd bother to learn the name of the girl he's secretly in love with?"

       Her smile faltered and she blew a raspberry. "You're such a buzzkill to my hopes and dreams, Rory."

      "I'm just very good at contradicting all of yours and my mom's sickening ideas."

       She mocked me under her breath as she started the car, then added quietly. "What we do know is that he isn't happy that you have forty-nine reasons why you hate his very existence. What he's going to do about it?  Well, I guess we're just going to have to wait and see."