A/N: *shot* [I love you, Becky, for helping me with mistakes YET AGAIN! You rock socks. (: ]

Meant to Be: (I Hate) Everything about You

(three days grace)

I hate everything about you, why do I love you?

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After my embarrassing sob fest at the hospital, Luke drove me home, where my parents insisted that he stay for dinner as a thank you.

My dad had made his famous spaghetti, and my parents were laughing and joking like it was a normal day. But I could hear the strain in their voices as they forced themselves to be happy, and I could see the sadness in their eyes.

Of course, this didn’t stop the dinner from being awkward. Luke had only been to my house twice; both times he had never seen my parents. So, basically, this was his first time meeting them. Which meant the meal was a huge bore for me, because my mom and dad were asking him constant questions.

He responded with very intersting answers: his favorite color? Blue. What he wanted to do with his life? Become an architect (this surprised me). What college he was going to attend? Yale (also surprising, I didn’t really think he was smart enough to get into Yale).

During their interrogation, I sat eating my dinner and staring into space. I was extremely tired and bored, but was jolted awake by the next question my father asked.

“So how long have you two been together?”

At first, I wasn’t sure I’d heard right, but then I saw Penny chuckling from her seat at the other side of the table, and knew I’d heard correctly. I started to protest and tell my parents there was no way in hell I’d ever date Lucas Fort, but he spoke before me.

“Three months,” he said.

Everything after that happened very fast. First, my mother nodded with a smile on her face like she approved (which made me want to barf). Penny then tried to hold back her hysterical laughter. Even Liam was stirred from his state of complete silence. I, however, choked on my food, causing my younger siblings to snicker even more.

My parents, God bless their naïve souls, failed to notice this.

“A while then. You must be very serious about each other,” my dad said.

Oh, just shoot me now.

I glared at Luke, but he ignored me; a wide smirk plastered on his face.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Annette’s great.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder as he said this, causing my dad’s eyes to narrow. But, I also swear I saw my mom’s eyes light up at the sound of my full name.

I rolled my eyes at it all and tried to shrug Luke’s arm off of me, but he had a tight grip, so I just shot him another glare. But, again, he chose to ignore me.

After the horrendous dinner (which consisted of Luke playing footsies with me under the table the entire time, and my dad asking him more about his selfish, jerkface self), my mom announced that she was heading back to the hospital to be with Hannah some more. Penny and Liam went with, having nothing better to do. My father locked himself up in his room to work on stuff for his job, leaving Luke and I alone.

The first thing I wanted to do was punch him in the face for making me endure that hour of his gushy, disgusting act. But then I remembered how grateful I really was to him. I mean, he drove me around, and stayed with me while I had a mental breakdown. He had been there when I needed a shoulder to cry on.

I was at a loss of what to say, so I just sat next to him on the couch silently. After five awkward minutes of watching the old Star Trek series together, he finally spoke.

“I should probably leave now, huh? I don’t want to intrude on you or your family.”

Too late, I thought. But I said, “Yeah. I’ll walk you to your car, since, you know, we’ve been dating for three months and all.”

He smiled meekly. “Sorry about that, I just couldn’t pass up the golden opportunity,” he said.

“Whatever,” I replied as we began walking out to his car. “You’re just lucky I didn’t strangle you right then and there.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” he asked.

“Just consider us even,” I said. “You drive me to the hospital; I spare your life when you pretend we’re dating.” He laughed and nodded.

We were at his car now; awkwardly standing outside it as if waiting for the other to say something.

“Well….” I began. “Good night. And thanks…for everything.”

He smiled at me. “No problem,” he said.

I felt like just saying goodbye was a lame way to leave it, especially after everything we’d gone through that day, so I stepped in closer and gave him a hug. I think he was surprised, because he hesitated before wrapping his arms around me. But when he did, it felt…nice. It felt right. And that scared me, so I pulled away.

But as I did, he caught me before I detached myself completely, and then, before I knew it, he was kissing me.

My immediate reaction was to push away, but something was pulling me to him. So I stayed, and kissed him back; my heart fluttering and thumping as his hands made their way into my tousled hair.

I grunted for breath and we parted. I stared at him for a second, incredulous at what had just happened and wondering if I had really been so stupid as to ever hate him so much.

“Um,” I said.

“Um?” he laughed. “That’s all you can say? Nettie, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

I shuddered, thinking of how creepy that sounded. But, it was incredibly sweet at the same time, and I really didn’t know what to say to him. I hadn’t exactly been dreaming of the moment he’d kiss me, but I had definitely enjoyed that. I mean, how couldn’t I? Luke was a tremendous kisser.

He obviously noticed how conflicted I was, because he took my hand and spoke again.

“Look. You don’t have to give me an answer right away, but I’m sure that by now you’ve realized that I really, really like you. And, well…I’d love it if you’d go out with me. So, please, think it over, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And just like that, he was gone, and I was left to straighten out my emotions. So much for sleep.

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It was seven o’clock Monday morning, and Mikayla was dragging me through the halls. I’d told her the entire situation, and she (of course) insisted that I take Luke up on his offer.

I wanted to, I really did. I’d definitely felt something when he’d kissed me; something exciting. But I was scared. I still wasn’t sure if I could trust him.

My strong dislike of him that I’d had for years existed for a reason, and that was this: he was a jerk to everyone. Especially girls who fancied him. And since I clearly (and unfortunately) fell into that category now, I was afraid of what would happen if I said yes to him.

Mikayla said I was crazy for thinking he would ever hurt me.

“He’s only been totally in love with you since the seventh grade,” she’d said.

She was now bringing me to Luke’s locker. Her plan was to force me to “confess my undying love for him”.

“Mikayla! Oh my God, I’m not ready yet. And I’m not in love with him! Remember how he was my mortal enemy until a few days ago?”

She was now literally pushing me towards the guys as I tried to walk in the other direction. I wasn’t succeeding very well. I was also receiving several strange looks. But I didn’t care; I just kept on shouting at her.

But in the end, my resistance was futile. I was shoved right into Luke’s gorgeous, well-toned – err, I mean…his completely normal, so-not-perfect-at-all – chest.

“Uhh, hey,” I said, blushing.

“Hey,” he replied, smiling widely and wrapping his arms around my waist. This caused me to blush even more, especially since my previous outbursts had attracted a lot of attention, and now everyone was staring at us.

“Umm, you see uhh…we need to talk,” I said, untangling myself from his arms. People were whispering now, and I suddenly felt very self-conscious.

“…right now?” Luke asked, eyeing the audience we now had.

“Yes. Come on.” I grabbed his hand and led him away from the crowd, receiving a thumbs-up from Mikayla.

My heart was beating so fast, I thought I might explode from all the pressure. I still hadn’t thought of what I was going to say to Luke yet.

We finally reached a fairly unpopulated area.

“So umm, is this about your answer?” he asked carefully.

“Uh, yep.”

“…well?”

I took a deep breath.

“Mikayla thinks I should give you a chance.”

“And you think?”

“Well…I think that maybe I’ve been kind of…judgmental. And, well, you’re not as bad as I thought,” I said, biting my lower lip.

He stared at me. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Because if you aren’t, I don’t want to make a huge fool of myself.”

“Yeah,” I blurted out. “I mean, yes. I’d uh…I’d like, no, love to go out with you.”

His face lit up. “Seriously?! This is the best day of my life!” He laughed and kissed me again, this time with even more passion than the first. I didn’t hesitate in responding like before, because this time I’d been expecting it.

The kiss was long and wonderful; the whole time my heart soaring to new heights.

When we finally parted, both of us smiling, he said, “Man am I glad I listened to Ian.”

This immediately spiked my interest.

“What?”

“Well, you know. He said if I acted nicer to you and did stuff for you, then you’d like me more.”

I detached myself from him and started him down hard, trying to see if he was serious. He was.

“Wait a minute…so you’re telling me all this was an act?” I said angrily, the volume of my voice rising.

“Wha-? No! I mean, well, kind of…but I did it because I care about you!”

“No! No, you don’t!” I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes now. “You only care about impressing me. All of this stuff – the hospital, last night – it was all fake, wasn’t it?!”

“N-no! No way! Come on, Annette –“

“DON’T call me that!” I shouted at him. I was angry now. Angry at him, for hurting me, and angry at myself, for falling for his games. He stood there dumbfounded as I yelled at him, and I knew then that he really didn’t care about me. This whole thing, all I’d gone through. Everything. It was all for nothing. “God, I can’t believe I ever liked you, Lucas!”

And with that comment, I stormed off, fighting back sobs, and leaving him standing there, sad, like a lost puppy.

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Mikayla was waiting for me in the halls.

“How’d it go?” she asked. I ignored her and kept walking, wiping my wet eyes off on my sleeves. She followed me, immediately sensing that something had gone wrong. We speed-walked in silence all the way to the girl’s bathroom where I finally broke down in uncontrollable sobs. My faithful best friend wrapped me in a tight hug, asking no questions as I let all my frustration and sadness out.

I finally calmed down after a few minutes and explained to Mikayla how Luke was only being nice to me so I would go out with him; probably so he could get into my pants.

She refused to believe it.

“Nettie, I seriously doubt that Luke would ever take advantage of a girl like that, especially you.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” I asked sharply.

“I am on your side. Luke was a jerk and acted perfect to get you to like him. But you have to understand that he didn’t do it to get you to sleep with him, he did it because he cares about you. He did it because you refused to see the good in him because of your stupid grudge.”

“There is no good in him!” I protested. “He’s a lying, selfish bastard!”

“Nettie, really, all he wanted was one chance. He may have played dirty in order to get it, but it worked, didn’t it?”

I ignored that last part. “You’re just defending him because your boyfriend’s the one who put him up to it.”

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“Ian’s the one who told him to be nicer to me.”

It was silent for a while as she thought about this. I was too pissed off at her to notice how she hadn’t defended my using the title ‘boyfriend’ for Ian.

“Well, I’ll have a talk with him about that,” she finally said. “But I still think you’re being a drama queen.”

“I’m going home,” I told her suddenly. She looked at me. “I don’t want to see him again,” I explained. Mikayla nodded and left the bathroom to head to class. I was secretly hoping she’d stay with me a while longer, but I didn’t stop her – I’d already made her late enough.

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I did go home, but only to grab a sweatshirt. It was getting colder outside, and I had a feeling I would regret it if I went out wearing only a thin t-shirt.

After selecting a grey hoodie, I drove straight to the only place I could think of escaping to – the hospital.

I pulled into a parking spot, walked inside, and ran down the halls until I reached Hannah’s room. When I went in, I was surprised to see that she was awake. Not only that, but the wires were all gone, her left hand was wrapped, and a food tray sat on the bedside table next to her. So she was doing better.

Her big, beautiful eyes lit up when she saw me. “Nettie!”

“Hey, Hannah.” I smiled at her and took a seat on the edge of her cot. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Okay,” she replied. “Better.”

I lied down next to her and took her good hand. “That’s great,” I said.

“How are you?” she asked. I sighed.

“Not so great,” I admitted. “I finally gave Luke a chance, and he went and blew it.”

“Luke?” she asked. “You mean that one guy from before?” Her description was vague, but I knew she was thinking of the right person.

“Yeah. Him.”

“Oh. What did he do?” she asked me.

I thought about how people always say that talking about your problems makes you feel a lot better, and decided to tell Hannah the story.

So I did. I started from way back in middle school, when I’d first met Luke, and continued on to the present. Of course, I’d dumbed everything down quite a bit; making it easier for a six-year-old to understand. There were a few things that were hard for her to grasp, but for the most part, she was a great listener.

She would nod and make comments as I spoke; and she acted much more mature than any six-year-old I’d ever met. This did in fact make me feel better. It helped a lot to have someone to talk to, and by the time we were done it’d been two hours and Hannah was beginning to fall asleep.

When I noticed this, I kissed her forehead and silently sipped out, thanking the doctors and nurses on the way back to my car. They told me to please, come again soon.

And I planned on it. I promised myself at that moment that I would come to visit Hannah every day after school until she got released. It was good for me, and it was good for her. It was good for us.

As I drove home, I smiled to myself. I was already anticipating my next visit.

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A/N: Sorry for not updating in forever. You have no idea how long this took me to write! I literally fell asleep while writing last night because I stayed up so late trying to finish this. Oh well, it is extra long for you (eight pages on word), so hopefully that makes up for the wait! Hope you enjoyed it, pleaaaase review!

I promise the next chapter will come sooner!