Love to Hate You

Chapter Twelve

“I got kicked out.”

“What?”

Sean’s voice is one of disbelief and confusion.  I know. This wasn’t the plan.

“I don’t understand. How did you get kicked out?” he asks.  I suck in my cheeks. His voice doesn’t exactly sound impressed. In fact, it sounds panicked. Moving my phone to rest between my other ear and shoulder, I let out a long sigh and pick up a shirt from the laundry basket on my bed, folding it messily.

“Well, it’s not like I was expecting to get kicked out. That wasn’t on the agenda. He just got so mean and I got…well, you know how I get,” I say irritably, as I fold another shirt and throw it onto the pile.

There’s a bit of movement on the other end before Sean finally replies, “I just don’t get how this whole thing started, in the first place. What happened?”

I stop folding, and brace myself on the laundry basket, dropping my head.  I was hoping to not have to explain my fight with Stephanie with him. There’s a long moment of silence, the kind that makes the other person question if you’re still on the phone.

“Reese? Hello?”

I let out a low grumble and push the laundry basket away, reaching for the pile of folded clothes.

“I got in a fight with Stephanie,” I mumble as I walk to my dresser.

“What? You got in a fight? Reese—“

“She was mocking me and calling me a bitch! Hey, I already know that, no need to point it out—and then she had the nerve to say that she had pictures of us kissing and that she told Justin!” I say defensively, feeling odd anger rip off the scab of the healing wound.

“He knows?”

“Yes, he knows, and he’s pissed about it! I checked the Heartbreaker website and there are huge red X’s all over the pictures with me in them and he has a huge post about me leaving the band and his little cult followers are all making hate comments about me,” I try to tell him casually, even though it hurts to know that the people who once liked me hate me.

Sean takes a little breath and says, “We deserve it, I guess.”

“What?” I ask angrily, slamming my dresser closed so hard that some things roll off of the top of it.

“We deserve it. We should have been more careful,” he repeats.

“Sean!”

“Well, what?” he asks from the safety of his house, “We should have been more discreet about what was going on with us—with Karma.”

“He doesn’t know about Karma. Just...us.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…” I say awkwardly, now leaning against my dresser, biting my lip.

“What about Karma, then?” he asks after a moment, “Since they’re still clueless, should we wait?”

I hadn’t thought about how the break-up would affect Karma. Obviously, it’s important to keep it a secret for Alex, Austin, and Kris. But, how long do we keep it a secret? How long is long enough? Should we just come out already? When I saw the stats of the website, I saw that over a million people were following. A million people now hate me. Would they hate Karma if we jumped out of nowhere and attacked Justin? Is it too much too soon?

Maybe we should wait. We should wait just a little bit longer. It would seem as though Sean and I disappeared and all of the drama died down, enough time for Justin’s fame to bloom without interruption. Meanwhile, we’ll be building our own website, our own fan base alongside him. I’m sure it wouldn’t take long for Kris to figure out how to restrict certain viewers from the site. Then, when everything on both sides is built up we fight it out—with the first attack by Karma, yours truly.