As Long as You Loathe Me

Chapter One

“You Belong With Me (Taylor’s Version)”

by Taylor Swift

Meera

You know that moment in every love story when the protagonist realizes they’re this close to losing the love of their life, so they have to do something really drastic to get their happily-ever-after before it’s too late?

As I sit beside Sushant on the school bus, listening to him go on and on and on about looking up date-night restaurants in New York for him and his girlfriend, I realize one thing: This is that gotta-win-my-love-back moment for me.

Except, well, Sushant was never really mine. He’s always been Lucy’s. Goddamn Lucy.

“And, yeah, you have to book a table, like, four months in advance, but they apparently have the best steaks in the—” Sushant pauses when he notices my quirked eyebrow. “What?” He shows me the restaurant. “Look, it’s so close to this romance-only bookstore. I could take Lucy there before dinner.”

“Why are you planning this already?” I ask. “You don’t even know for sure if you’re both going to college in New York.”

Sushant frowns. “Of course we are. I’ll get that scholarship any day now, and Lucy’s got the perfect application for NYU.” He brightens. “So, what do you think? Should I add a reminder on my phone to make a reservation for our first night there?”

I shake my head indignantly as I look over the restaurant menu, wishing I could shake some sense into him instead. “Two hundred dollars…for a steak? What, is it gold-plated or made of diamonds?”

He blinks in confusion. “Meera, I’ve always wanted to take Lucy to a fancy restaurant, and it sucks that we don’t have one here in town. Maybe in New York I can give her the kind of romance she deserves.”

“Yeah,” I snap, “and I’m sure the gigantic New York rats and the muggers on the streets won’t bother you at all on your romantic date nights.”

Sushant bites his lip, clearly at a loss for words.

The bus lurches to a stop to pick up another student, and I take the opportunity to collect my thoughts before speaking.

“Let me get this straight: You’re giving up your scholarship to Berkeley to move three thousand miles away from home to the most expensive city in America…

because you want to buy your girlfriend overpriced steaks?

Do you hear yourself right now, Sushant? ”

He frowns at me. “I do, and it sounds like the perfect future to me. A future with Lucy.”

Scoffing, I lean back in my seat and turn my gaze to the window. “Cool.” I can feel his questioning eyes on me, but I plug my earphones in and blast my favorite Spotify mix—EDM songs, of course—loud enough to drown out the thumping of my heart.

He’s moving. In a few short months, I’m going to lose the only boy I’ve ever loved to the only girl I’ve ever hated. Just my lousy luck.

I know what my father would say. Appa’s voice rings in my ears, calm and spiritual as ever: “Hate is a strong word, putta. Hate carries negative energy. Your higher self knows love is the only real force and hate is simply a manifestation of your own insecurities.”

But what does he know about heartbreak? Appa and Dad were high school sweethearts, each other’s first love, and they’ve never had to fight anyone or anything in their quest for happily-ever-after—except perhaps Appa’s traditional South Indian parents.

But even they warmed up to the idea of having a son-in-law instead of a daughter-in-law shortly after I was born through artificial insemination and surrogacy.

As for me? I’m fighting persistently frizzy hair, a depressingly low peg on the high school social hierarchy, and, worst of all, the most beautiful, smart, perfect girl there ever was: Lucy Hughson.

The bus finally pulls into the high school parking lot, and Sushant turns to me, smiling. “See you after football practice? Gianni’s Pizza? I need help studying for the French midterm.”

“I have plans already,” I lie stiffly, slinging my backpack over my shoulders and following him down the steps of the bus.

He’s now whistling to the tune of some random song.

It never ceases to surprise me how quickly this boy lets conflict slide.

If I were in his place, I’d be paranoid wondering if my since-fetuses neighbor was mad at me.

But Sushant? He doesn’t care. He has other things to worry about, after all.

Like his girlfriend, whose Honda has just pulled into its designated parking spot under three shady trees.

Nobody else parks there. It’s an unspoken rule that the best parking spot on campus is reserved for our darling head cheerleader.

Sushant squeezes my shoulder before heading over to Lucy.

She gets out of her car and gives him a hug and a kiss that lingers.

I avert my gaze, teeth gritted, and tighten my grip on the straps of my backpack.

I have to do something to stop Sushant from making the biggest mistake of his life—giving up everything for a girl who could never deserve him.

“You’re joking, right?” My more socially acceptable friends (and by that I mean “just as unpopular as me”) stare at me, wide-eyed, when we congregate at our adjoining lockers and I fill them in on my vague plan to break up the It Couple.

“I’m not joking,” I say, shrugging. “I can’t let the love of my life slip through my fingers.”

Ron blows a strand of his shaggy, straight brown hair out of his eyes and leans against his locker. His pale, freckled nose has a smudge of white sunscreen on it. He speaks before I can point it out. “We’re seventeen, Meera. We have a long way to go before we meet the loves of our lives.”

“You know who she’s going to bring up,” Valeria mumbles under her breath. She’s snacking on a Snickers bar from the candy collection stashed in her locker, one toned arm resting on her hip.

I raise a finger to shush them. “Need I mention my parents? They locked eyes across a crowded, noisy classroom on the first day of senior year over twenty years ago and knew they were meant to be.”

Valeria shoots Ron an I-told-you-so look, then sighs. “We’ve discussed this. Sushant doesn’t know you are meant to be. Hence, your parents’ example doesn’t apply.”

“I thought you’d accepted your fate as his neighbor and nothing more,” Ron says, chuckling. “What changed?”

He’s right. Since we became friends a little over a year ago, they’ve heard me rant about Lucy and Sushant’s relationship over and over, but apart from one (failed) attempt to get Sushant to notice me romantically, I’ve been all talk, no action.

I blow out a breath. “The entire bus ride, he wouldn’t shut up about how excited he is for their perfect future in New York, and yet I vividly recall him telling me three years ago that he never wants to leave the West Coast. She’s clearly brainwashing him.”

“That was three years ago,” Ron points out. “He might have changed his mind.”

“Because she forced him to change it.” The first bell rings, and I lead us down the hallway. “Maybe Sushant doesn’t know it yet, but she’s not the one for—”

My words are cut short when Lucy walks past us with her new best friend, Natalie—my replacement. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that? Lucy and I were once inseparable, until she unceremoniously friend-dumped me.

Lucy’s head is held high, and a designer purse hangs from one wrist. She’s too cool for backpacks. Her red hair is beachy-wavy today, and she shows off four-inch heels and a short skirt that fits her like a dream.

And here I’m wearing an oversized black T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and five-year-old sneakers whose soles are glued on.

Right before the queen bee turns the corner, she looks over her shoulder. Our eyes meet, and I narrow my gaze. Her green eyes flicker with a difficult emotion I can’t quite place, and then she’s out of sight. The sound of her heels echoes long after she’s gone.

“Sushant belongs with me,” I say, glaring at the space Lucy just deserted and ignoring the little annoyed murmurs my friends let out. “And I’m going to prove it to him.”

Lucy

I can feel Meera Rao-George’s gaze—or should I say “glare”?

—on me as Natalie and I walk down the hall.

It’s hard to shake off the guilt I feel for what I did.

Not just the guilt of ending our six-year friendship with no warning, but also the guilt of becoming this popular version of myself that I always knew she would despise.

I know, because I despise it too. Before I joined the cheer squad, I was just another invisible face in the high school crowd, but I had one perfect person with whom I could let my walls down and be my anxious, introverted, happy self without judgment.

Until my feelings became…complicated, and I had to shut her—and the world—out for my own good by changing everything about myself.

Being popular comes with invitations to parties and access to booze, but it also brings with it the chronic fear of never being able to show people who you really are and wondering if that’s for the best…

“So, do you know when you’ll hear back from NYU?” Natalie asks, nudging my foot with hers once we’re sitting at our usual desks in class. “Although part of me wishes you hadn’t applied to a college so far away.”

I cock my head at my friend. “New York is where my dream job is. You know that.”

She tugs on a coil of her curly black hair. “I know, and you’re gonna publish the best books someday. It’s just…I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

My throat catches as I shrug nonchalantly. “Who knows? Without me around, you might rule Madre Maria.”

Natalie has a dreamy, reverent look on her face when she says, “Nobody can replace you, Lucy.”

Natalie’s going to community college here. It’s crazy how many people from high school plan on never leaving this small town, where everybody knows everybody’s business and no one can keep a secret for longer than a week.