Page 4 of Built to Hate You

I sigh. Fuck. Okay. I guess I don’t have a choice.

Fine. Tell me when and where. I can meet whenever.

Five minutes later, his reply appears.

* * *

The coffee shopwe meet at is quiet but bustling. It’s located halfway between us, about a thirty minute drive away for each of us. I spot Axel sitting over by the wall as soon as I walk in. But I go up to the counter first to get coffee, taking the extra few minutes to try to calm myself down.

When he sees me walking over, he stands up—a gesture that seems so unlike him, and I don’t know what to make of it. Axel Moreland is not chivalrous. He’s not polite. And he shouldn’t pretend like he is.

“Hi, Mia,” he says.

“Hi,” I say, my voice cool. We both sit down. I fidget with the position of my chair.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” Axel says.

I nod. I finally look up at him. “Well?”

“Right,” he says. “So…I need to tell you that I’m sorry.Deeplysorry. The way I treated you in high school—” He pauses. “The way I bullied you in high school, it was beyond unacceptable. I’m not going to give you any excuses. I’m not going to expect that you forgive me. But I need you to know that I have such remorse about it. I feel horrible about it.”

He takes a breath and continues. “I even considered contacting you a few years ago to tell you all of this. And I probably should have. But…well, obviously I didn’t. It’s a cowardly excuse, but I didn’t want to hurt you anymore than I already had by rehashing the past. Anyway…I’m sorry, Mia. I’m so, so sorry. But like I said, I don’t expect you to forgive me. You can walk out of this coffee shop right now if you want. I’ll still cancel the contract. You have my word.”

I’m quiet for a while. I’m absorbing everything he just said. Processing it all. And I’m fighting off the part of me that wants to tell him that while apologies are nice, saying sorry doesn’t give me back what he took from me, and that I’ll never forgive him. Am I really that kind of person, though? Someone who clings to a grudge so stubbornly that she can’t give someone a second chance?

Axel really does seem genuinely sorry. I can see it in his eyes. I can see that he wishes he could undo all that shit in the past.

“Thank you for saying that,” I say.

Axel nods.

“I shouldn’t have accosted you the way I did,” I continue. “I let my emotions get the best of me. I’m sorry if I caused any issues at your office.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

I take a breath. “Look…you don’t have to cancel the contract. My parents are excited to work with you. And from what I’ve seen, your company looks like they do very good work.”

“We do. I see to it.” He gives me a careful smile. “Can we start over, Mia?”

Start over? Yeah, right. Like I’ll ever be able to forget the past. But…I get what he means. And now that I’ve spent a little bit more time with him, hedoesseem really different than his old self.

“We can try,” I say. And when he holds out his hand, I shake it.

* * *

I avoid thinkingabout him working on my parents’ house, though. And in the weeks that follow, when my mom gives me updates about how the renovation is going, I pretend that it’s just some random company that’s working for them. I pretend that Axel has never set foot in their house, has never touched a thing inside of it. I can deal with not holding a grudge against him. But I can’t deal with anything more than that.

One day, though, I drive up to my parents’ house to have dinner with them, and when I get there, there are several trucks still parked out on the street. And as I walk up to the house, I see Axel and another guy walking out from the side yard, both in hardhats and their work gear.

He sees me, too, and gives me a quick wave. I nod and continue up to the house. My mom answers the front door.

“Hi, honey,” she says. “Come on in. I think the guys are finishing up for the day soon. And then we can head out to dinner.”

“Sounds good,” I say, stepping into the house. The front part of the house is untouched; all the renovation that’s going on is currently in other parts of the house. “Do you and Dad have any cravings for dinner?”

My mom nods. “Your father and I were just talking about—”

But then the door opens behind us. When I hear Axel’s voice, I flinch.

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