0 5

h o s t i l e

Days passed, and Joey's broken heart soon began to heal. Time was the best medicine and each day, I watched him become a little more upbeat, a little more cheerful.

I soon began to realise the social influence Joey had in his school. Weeks ago, all Savvy's had were its regular old customers. I had been working long enough to recognise almost everyone. But after Joey began working at the diner, I saw new faces, faces I didn't recognise and hadn't ever seen before.

"Are they your schoolmates?" I asked Joey suspiciously, when I noticed him greeting five consecutive tables, and smile at the last table flirtatiously - the table was, of course, filled with girls who seemed more hungry for him than the food they were ordering.

"Yes," he replied proudly.

"Did you run around topless in school to advertise for the diner or something?"

He laughed so hard I half thought he was going to burst out a lung from his exertions. "I know you enjoy picturing me topless, Kira, but no. I just told some of my friends that I'd give them half a quid off any pies or cakes they bought. This is proper advertising."

"No!" I cried, appalled, "This is charity. You can't just give discounts any time you want. Mikel won't allow it."

"Let's ask Mikel then," he said, mildly.

And I lost the debate. Mikel was more than thrilled to see the increase in customers. Discounts were something he could easily overlook so long as Joey brought in new diners.

"It helps boost our business," Mikel declared firmly, before turning to Joey. "You're a lifesaver. Kira doesn't know what she's saying."

"Kira is standing right here!" I exclaimed, feeling my annoyance grow as Joey shot me a self-satisfied smirk. "And I know what I'm saying. I know about business."

Mikel simply chuckled. "Sure you do, mate," he patted my head obligingly, "Now why don't you invite some of your non-existent friends over to our diner?"

I wished heartily that I could kill him with my glare. Ignoring Joey's probing, curious gaze, I all but snarled at Mikel. "You know that's a touchy topic. Now drop it."

"It's dropped," Mikel returned, smiling lightly, before heading back into the kitchen.

An irrational ball of hurt swelled up in me as I watched his departing figure. I was more than annoyed with Mikel, but I only knew he was joking. If anything, he was merely being brutally honest. Avoiding Joey's gaze, I brushed past him and headed to the nearest table to clear the plates. To my greatest dismay, I felt his presence near me. He hovered behind me uncertainly and when I turned to head back into the kitchen, he took the stack of plates from me.

"Is it true?" he murmured, his eyes searching my face as though he was intent on sifting out the answer just by looking at my expression. "Whatever Mikel just said?"

My throat was dry and I could hardly meet his eyes. "It's irrelevant."

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It was more than a month since Joey had broken up with Fiona. And now, another list had to be made. We were in the storeroom once again that day, and I'd made Joey make a list of Fiona's good and bad traits, while I took over the the task of checking through the inventory on my own. He'd resisted at first, but he was soon absorbed in making the list.

"Alright," he said at last, scribbling one last word before handing the paper to me, "Now I'm done."

I studied it. The list was marginally different this time:

Fiona was intelligent. She had a way of twisting her words and manipulating people into doing whatever she wanted them to do. She was a master at persuasion.

She was gorgeous. Possibly the most beautiful girl I had ever dated. But she knew that too, and used it to her advantage. She kept telling me she was the best I ever had, the best I ever will have. And I suppose, because of that, I was terrified of losing her.

She was independent. Which should've been a good thing, except sometimes it felt like she didn't need me at all. Or, maybe, she never needed me to begin with.

She was funny; she had an excellent sense of humour. But then most of what she said couldn't be taken seriously. Like when she told me she loved me. She was obviously lying. She could always lie with a straight face.

She was amazing. Far too amazing. So much so that it made me scared to lose her. Because - what if I didn't get someone like her again? What if I fucked up and lost the best thing I ever had?

Those were the questions she often asked me, and it was stupid of me to plague myself with those thoughts, because now I see that I had put her on a pedestal and blinded myself to all her flaws.

She is a bitch. She is a heartbreaker. She is, to put simply, a bad person.

And it was stupid of me to fall in love with her.

I read in silence, my mind consumed with thoughts. It was excellent - perfect, if I was being honest - that Joey had finally seen Fiona for who she was. He no longer thought so highly of her. And, more than anything, he'd wrote it in the past tense:

She was intelligent. She was gorgeous. She was independent. She was funny. It was all in the past. That was a clear indication that he no longer wallowed in the depths of their ruined relationship, but was moving on. And I couldn't be happier for him.

But there was something else that nagged at me. It seemed like I had succeeded only far too well at helping him get over the breakup. And he'd now begun to think so badly of Fiona that his feelings seemed to border on hate.

I couldn't let that happen, for hate was a dangerous emotion. I only knew far too well, having spent months wallowing in hate and bitterness. It ate at you, from the inside out, until you were nothing but an ugly mess.

"Do I pass?" Joey asked, when I was silent for far too long.

"This isn't a list."

"Give me an A for effort, then," he joked, but sobered up as I turned to look at him. There was no hiding my inner turmoil or the hesitance reflected in my eyes, and he frowned. "What's wrong?"

"You're beginning to hate her," I pointed out, opting for the blunt, direct approach. "It's bad for you."

His frown deepened. "I don't get it. First you tell me not to put her on a pedestal, then you tell me that I'm not supposed to hate her. What do you want me to do, really?"

I smiled. "Maybe I wasn't clear about the breakup formula when we first began, but I never meant for you to hate Fiona. Look, the breakup formula is basically about reliving your story with Fiona backwards."

Joey was so surprised he could hardly speak, and when he did, his tone was incredulous. "What?"

I laughed and raised a hand to stop him. "Hear me out. First, you force yourself to rethink the breakup. Go through all the reasons why you two broke up - although in your case, you weren't given any reasons at all. That's fine too. You pull her down from her pedestal; force yourself to acknowledge her flaws. You're through with that."

He nodded slowly. "I see where you're coming from. Go on."

"But you don't let hate consume you. It's terrifying when that happens, because you'll find yourself becoming some vengeful, bitter sort of person. Instead, you think of the good times you had with Fiona, and remember that while she was flawed, at some point, you actually were happy with her. Once you find the equilibrium between love and hate, that's when you'll be at peace with yourself and the things that have happened. It's an arduous process, but so long as you surround yourself with friends and keep yourself busy, you'll eventually stop thinking about the person."

"And I'll forget about her forever," Joey added.

I saw the hope in his eyes, and the corner of my lips curled up in a small smile. "Exactly."