Pretty Hate (New Adult Novel) Read online

  Pretty Hate

  Ava Ayers

  Copyright 2014 Ava Ayers and Pulp Friction Publishing, Inc.

  This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidence.

  Ava Ayers is a best-selling author of fantasy, romance and mainstream fiction novels. Her catalog is available both digitally and in print at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple and other retailers world-wide. If you would like to receive information on new releases, promotional codes for free or discounted books or to chat with Ava Ayers, drop her a line at [email protected]. You can catch up with Ava Ayers by visiting her website at avaayers.com or following her on Twitter @AvaAyersAuthor.

  For: AmandaHermione, Anna, Blanche, ElectraLight, Jill“HymnsFromTheRevolution”M, PoutyPenny, MikkiG, Natty, Nancy, Tricia, Boddingtons, Bill O’Reilly and anyone else who laughed me through a broken heart.

  And to the boys who broke it.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger, something better, pushing right back.

  -Albert Camus, The Stranger

  FOREWORD

  My mother calls it the pretty hate.

  It comes on you like a fever when someone you love up and leaves you with nothing but silence. You turn the hate on yourself as you cannibalize your heart while the rage burns through you and polishes your desperation into a diamond. It is one of the cruelest things in the world to do to another human being.

  Don’t do that.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Beth, why do you always get dressed lying down?” Billy said. “You have a hot body. You need to show it off.”

  I turned on my side and watched a drop of sweat crawl down the side of his neck and smiled.

  Billy Rider was dirt bikes and torn jeans and flannel shirts. He smelled like Gain laundry detergent and bubble gum. He was my boyfriend and we went together for seven months, three weeks and six days.

  He blew a bubble and I snatched the gum off his lips and stuck it in my mouth as I sat up.

  “I do show my body off,” I said as I put my bra back on, “to you. That’s as much as you should want me to show it, Billy.”

  “Hell, Beth, a man likes when their girl shows a little skin. Makes them feel proud.”

  “Aren’t you proud of me?”

  I pulled my sweater over my head and held my breath.

  “Yeah, darling, yeah, I am proud. I mean, like I said, you’re hot.”

  “Good, then there’s nothing to talk about, right?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he said and lit a cigarette, “I suppose you’re right.”

  I crawled over his body and sat on the side of the bed and grabbed my jeans off the floor. Billy folded his arms behind his head and leaned against his headboard that always bangs against the wall when we have sex. My stomach flips when I think about what his mother thought of me because her room was on the other side of that wall.

  “So, what time are you coming for Thanksgiving?” I said.

  “I guess I have to, right?”

  “Yeah, you have to. I want you to meet my mother, Billy. And well, Merry-Bell will be there and she’s making her--”

  “Your aunt still a wing nut?” Billy said as he peered at me through a smoke ring.

  “She’s different, yeah.”

  “Different? That’s what you call it? She eats paste, Beth.”

  “Glue. The school kind. It’s not toxic.”

  Billy looked at me and laughed. His blue eyes shone like mirrors when he laughed.

  “Whatever, she’s nuts. I still remember when they pulled her naked ass out of the fountain across from the jail. Your sisters gonna be there? I want to sit right in the middle of them,” he said as he scratched his chest. “A Billy sandwich with the lovely Munroe girls.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why? I’m a man, Beth. All men want to fuck other chicks. Well, except for men who don’t want to fuck chicks, but then, they’re not really men, are they?”

  “All men want to...” I said and stared at him. “Um, no, Mazie has a big project due and stayed in Boston. Rebel Love is going to some party.”

  “You sure have a fucked-up family, darling,” Billy said and smiled. “Wait! Don’t pull your jeans on yet. Stand up and show me your ass.”

  “You just saw my ass for an hour!”

  “Beth, why do you always have to talk back? I want to see your body some more. You know, Travis’ girl walks around buck naked all the time?”

  “Mandy Carnover walks around buck naked all the time? Please, Billy.”

  “What? You don’t think she’s hot? Come on, Beth! Mandy is major hot. I’d do her in a second!”

  I looked at him and shook my head.

  “I’m sorry, you’d do her? Did you really just say that?”

  “I did just say that. Again, I’m a man. You’ve got some very fucked-up ideas about men. I would think that living with Rebel Love and her pimp boyfriend would have shown you a thing or two about the ways of the real world.”

  “He isn’t a--”

  “Don’t even say it! I’ve been living in this town all my life. Same as you. Everyone from here to California and back knows what Ivory-Lou Franklin does for money.”

  I sighed and stood from the bed and faced Billy’s dresser covered in his football trophies. I looked up at the big rebel flag tacked to his ceiling and closed my eyes. I moved my hips from side to side and my face was probably as red as my silk panties I bought special for Billy. I loved Billy Rider. Billy whistled and hollered as I shook my ass in his face like the strippers do at Ivory-Lou’s strip club.

  My oldest sister’s boyfriend is a pimp and also owns a strip club called Knockers on the edge of town. Rebel Love used to work for him and she’s been his girlfriend for three years. It’s a source of shame. My middle sister, Mazie Goodnight, is a sophomore at Emerson College in Boston for documentary film production. She had her head screwed on tighter than Rebel Love did. But since she’s been away, she’s changed a lot. She’s a hardcore feminist and was arrested for participating in some weird demonstration where she and a group of girls went into a CVS drugstore and set the disposable razors on fire to convince women that shaving their pubic hair is barbaric.

  I stopped shaking my hips when I got a side stitch and turned and looked at Billy.

  “Have your fill yet?”

  “I will never have my fill of that ass,” Billy said as he stroked his stomach with his fingertips.

  “Never?” I said and smiled.

  “Never, Beth.”

  “I love you, Billy,” I said and took my jeans off the bed.

  “I know that you do, baby,” he said and pulled the blanket over his chest and close
d his eyes.

  “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?” I said as I put my jeans on.

  “Yup. Close my door when you leave, okay?”

  When I got home, I got into bed and stared at my ceiling as the tears streamed out of the sides of my eyes. I’d been waiting for Billy to tell me he loved me for three months. During the last football game of high school he got a concussion. I’m pretty sure he said his hearing was effected. My mother says I mumble a lot. I should have said it louder.

  The Thanksgiving before was a nightmare. My mother was served eviction papers from the Sherriff the day before Thanksgiving and we had fifteen days to vacate. Those fifteen days were some of her darkest.

  My mother lived in Johnny Munroe’s house for over twenty-two years. She met him in the hospital the day she had Rebel Love. He was there because he broke both his arms in a coal mining accident and my mother and he got to talking when they were wheeled outside for cigarettes. Johnny Munroe felt sorry for my mother because she never had one visitor come to see her and Rebel Love. They moved in with him almost immediately after they both got out of the hospital.

  They got married and had Mazie Goodnight less than a year later and Johnny Munroe adopted Rebel Love. They lived as a family and my mother says they were very happy until he was killed in another mining accident. He left her the house. I was born a year later, but Johnny Munroe is not my father. I just picked up his last name the same way you pick up someone else’s sock out of the Laundromat dryer.

  When the fifteen days we had to leave the house were up, my mother and I stood outside and stared at the house. She sobbed like I never heard her sob before. The Pentecostal preacher and his wife who lived next door stood on their front lawn and cheered.

  “Praise Jesus,” the preacher said as he raised his hands in the air, “the devil-woman and her spawn are defeated!”

  I put my mother in her car, made sure the trailer was hitched and sent her on her way. I waited for the neighbors to leave for church service and then I stomped through their flower bed and stood in front of their perfect house. I grabbed a bottle of RoundUp from their garden and sprayed Fuck You, big as I could, into their pristine front lawn.

  Rebel Love said I’d turn out as crazy as Merry-Bell if I lived with her and my mother. She told me to ask Ivory-Lou if I could move in with them.

  Ivory-Lou Franklin is the toughest guy in town and everyone is afraid of him. He’s about 6’2” and solid muscle. He’s a real handsome guy, but he always has a look on his face like he’s ready to tear you apart. I was shaking when I asked him and he grumbled a bit, but gave in. He has a real nice house and I have a lot of privacy. Now he’s more like an annoying brother to me and we bicker a lot. Still, he put me on their cell phone plan and never charges me rent even though he threatens to. Sometimes, I forget what he actually does for a living until the hookers come by the house for their meetings. In the world of pimping, Ivory-Lou is very successful.

  And when he thinks no one is looking, he’s very sweet to Rebel Love.

  As I set the table in Merry-Bell’s dining room on Thanksgiving, I looked up and saw the smoke pouring out of the kitchen. My mother ran past me screaming.

  “Son of a bitch!” she said as she ran into the kitchen.

  She opened the oven and the entire turkey was engulfed in flames.

  “Turn the oven off!” I said as I grabbed a box of salt.

  I threw an entire pound of salt into the oven and my mother closed the door. When the flames died, she opened the oven and pulled the rack out.

  “Jesus wept! She left the wrapper on the goddamn turkey.”

  I looked at the charred bird, covered in salt with bits of white plastic fused to its skin.

  “What’s all the hollering?” Merry-Bell said.

  I turned around and looked at Merry-Bell and closed my eyes.

  “Mama,” I said and hit her on the side with a potholder, “turn around.”

  We both stared at Merry-Bell for a long time.

  “Merry-Bell,” my mother said, “what is that?”

  “It’s inappropriate,” I said and looked at my mother and nodded.

  “What?” Merry-Bell said and twirled. “I made it. Vonny White wore the exact same thing on The Wheel last month and I designed it myself.”

  “Vanna,” my mother said. “It’s Vanna.”

  “But not the point,” I said. “Merry-Bell, I think that may be a bit...fancy for tonight. Especially since we’re only eating potatoes and green bean casserole.”

  “I need a drink,” my mother said and made herself a large vodka with a splash of orange juice.

  “Mother, you need to do something about this. Billy is coming over!” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Merry-Bell,” my mother said and took a long sip of her drink, “I can see your boobies and your hoo-ha.”

  Merry-Bell looked down at the dress and smiled.

  “I know,” she said and sat down at the kitchen table.

  “Merry-Bell, I can tell you put a lot of work into this, but--” I said.

  “No, not a lot. Doilies.”

  “What?” I said.

  “I made it out of doilies. I had a whole trunk full of them in the attic from your granny. She used to collect them.”

  My phone rang and I ran into the living room and grabbed it.

  “Hey, baby,” I said and put my hand on my chest, “you will not believe what just hap-”

  “Beth, we need to talk,” Billy said.

  My legs got quivery and my eardrums throbbed.

  “Okay, do you want to talk over here?”

  “Beth! Who’s on the phone?” my mother said from the kitchen.

  “Beth?” Billy said and sighed.

  “I’m here,” I said and leaned against Merry-Bell’s table.

  “Look, I’m not coming over to your aunt’s. Ever. Do you understand?”

  “Well, that’s...fine,” I said and took a deep breath. “We don’t have much to eat anyway. Want to do something later?”

  Merry-Bell ran into the living room and tugged on my arm as I tried to shake her off me.

  “Beth, is that your feller?” Merry-Bell said.

  “Yes!” I said.

  “Beth, are you even listening? I’m trying to fucking tell you something!” Billy said.

  “Tandy,” Merry-Bell screamed into my ear, “Beth’s feller Bobby’s on the horn!”

  “It’s Billy!” I hissed. “Billy? I’m listening, there’s a commotion.”

  “Beth!” Billy said. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m done! We are done. It’s over!”

  “Ooh, Beth, ask Bobby if he likes ambrosia!” Merry-Bell said.

  My legs gave out on me and I hit the floor ass-first.

  “Hello?” Billy said.

  “Billy, did you just break up with me?” I said and hung my head.

  “Yes!” he said. “Look, I just don’t want to be with you anymore, okay? Being with you is just too much work.”

  “Work? I did everything I could to make sure that being with me was not work, Billy. I love you.”

  I looked up and my mother stood next to Merry-Bell with her arms folded across her chest. She shook her head and knelt down in front of me and stared into my eyes.

  “Don’t you dare beg him, Beth,” my mother said.

  “Beth, I don’t love you,” Billy said. “I never did.”

  “Well, that’s okay. I mean, it sometimes takes a while for that feeling to come around. We’ll take it slow.”

  “Beth, it doesn’t take long for that feeling to come around. I have that feeling. I just don’t have that feeling for you,” he said.

  Merry-Bell looked at me, then my mother, then back to me and then the ceiling.

  “Would someone please tell me if I need to make the fucking ambrosia?” she screamed.

  “This is exactly what I mean, Beth!” Billy said. “Your crazy family is in the background and I can’t even get a word in.”

  “No, you got plenty
of words in. I can’t breathe, Billy. Are you saying you’re not in love with me?”

  “Jesus Christ, yes! I am telling you that I’m not and will never be in love with you. I am breaking up with you and I’m in love with someone else. You’re not a bad gal, Beth. You’re just not the gal for me. Goodbye,” Billy said and hung up.

  I stared at the dead phone and shook my head. My mother and Merry-Bell stared at me and I closed my eyes and cried. My mother patted my knee as if she was trying to kill a bug and Merry-Bell shrugged.

  “He broke up with me,” I said as I stared at Merry-Bell and cried.

  “Well, I’m guessing he don’t like ambrosia,” she said and sat down at the dining room table.

  “He did not break up with me because he doesn’t like fucking ambrosia!” I said.

  “Alright, alright,” my mother said. “I know you’re upset, but--”

  “Upset? I’m not upset! I’m devastated! This is the longest boyfriend I ever had. I loved him!”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. It was a casual thing,” my mother said.

  “It was not! You would say that because every man you ever had a relationship with was casual!”

  “That’s one, Beth. You may get two, you may not. I wouldn’t push your luck.”

  “Really? And what are you gonna do? Ground me? Oh, that’s right, I don’t have my room because you lost the house. Everything you touch turns to shit!”

  “That’s enough!” my mother said and got up and sat at the table by Merry-Bell. “I’m allowing you to bitch because I know you’re hurt, but I wasn’t the one who dumped you!”

  “I once knew a feller who touched things that turned to shit too,” Merry-Bell said. “He was one of those Arabs, you know, those boys who wipe their asses with their hands? Honest to jiminey. Always had shit on his hands and touched things all day long. Is Bobby an Arab?”

  “No, Merry-Bell,” my mother said and shook her head.

  “I’m quitting my job at The Bookworm,” I said and stood from the floor. “I need a change. I’m suffocating.”

  “Why? You’ve been there a long time, Beth. I’ll bet you get a raise soon,” my mother said.