Fated to Hate You

Chapter 19: I think I already have

I should not have agreed to play Marco Polo with Parker. For as smart as I am, I sure am an idiot when I'm around Parker. He's a monster at this game. We are on our fifth round of the game, and he's beaten me every. single. time.

I don't get it. Well, I actually do but still, it's unfair how good he is at everything.

He's the only who's ever beaten me. Whenever I play with my family or friends, I always win. Even against my brother and he's almost twice my size.

"This isn't fair!" I whined. "Keep in mind you agreed to this," Parker replied as we circled each other. His eyes were closed, but he could obviously tell where my voice was coming from. "Yeah, but I didn't think you would actually be good!" I exclaimed.

He chuckled and started swimming towards me. In order to evade him, I went under the water and sank to the bottom, letting him swim right over me. I popped back up once the coast was clear. "You can't hide forever Blaze," he said in an amused tone.

I looked around for him, but he was gone. Shit! He's doing it again. Every time he's won it's because he's managed to sneak up on me.

Pushing my luck, I sank back to the bottom of the pool and kept an eye out for a form moving in the water, which was a lot harder now considering it was pitch black out. Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around my body and lifted me out of the water. "Gotcha!" Parker yelled.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, which caused me to inhale some water. Coughing, I managed to fling myself out of his arms and over to the side of the pool. I heard him swimming after me. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

"Yeah sure," I coughed again. I think I just coughed up some of the water. My mouth tasted like chlorine. "No, I'm serious. Although, it was really funny. You should've seen your face as I picked you up. You looked like a deer in headlights. It was very- OW! What was that for?" Parker exclaimed, clutching his arm.

I punched him because he was being annoying, but despite that, I couldn't help but laugh a little. One could only imagine how ridiculous we looked right now. Me, coughing up chlorine water, and Parker clutching his arm in pain. We were both a mess.

If you had told me a couple months ago that I would be here in this situation with Parker, I would've laughed in your face. It was so hard to believe, that even now it felt like a fever dream. I think I was too quick to judge him before.

I had always thought he was some conceited athlete who go whatever he wanted, including girls, and the only point to his existence was to annoy me to death. It felt weird thinking about that now. I mean, for our entire lives, the only thing we've done with each other is fight, but now we're sort of friends.

I have to admit, part of me is glad we are friends now. It is so much less work being friends than enemies. Now I don't have to constantly watch my back or worry about who's going to be place first in some petty competition between us.

Of course, if we stopped fighting completely, we wouldn't be Blaze and Parker. A little fighting here and there is good for the soul, it keeps things interesting. And the one thing I hate more than broccoli is being bored.

This was still very new to me, so I stopped thinking about it to give my brain a break and hopped out of the pool. Parker followed and we sat down on some lawn chairs. "You want something to drink?" I asked him.

"Sure," he mumbled, settling in to his chair.

Walking into the kitchen, I grabbed 2 cans of Coke from the fridge and shut the door. Parker was half asleep when I came back out, but woke up when I set the can down next to him.