Hate to Love You novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Nobody's Sister
On her first day at Garnet Falls High, Kennedy passes her own brother Mason in the hall as agreed and tells the counselor she has no family here; then Shay Dunleavy, the boy Mason hates most, takes the seat beside her and asks if Hollowell has a sister. She says no. Hook: He says Hollowell has a sister, she lies 'no'.
The first thing I did at Garnet Falls High was lie to a woman who was only trying to be kind.
"Do you have any family in the district, Kennedy?" the counselor asked.
She had my transfer file open on her desk.
It was thick with the paperwork of a year I didn't want to talk about.
"No," I said. "Just me and my dad. He works nights."
My father was twenty minutes away, selling a man a box of deck screws.
He didn't work nights, and he didn't know I'd said it.
"Well, you're nineteen, so you're the oldest senior we've ever had," she said, smiling. "No one will think twice."
"That's what I'm hoping."
She slid a schedule across the desk.
I read it, folded it, and walked out into a hallway that smelled like floor wax and body spray.
Last year I was a senior in Dayton, Ohio, for exactly six weeks.
Then my mother's doctor said the word stage four, and I stopped going.
She died in April.
I missed every credit I needed, so here I was, repeating senior year in a town where nobody had ever seen me.
That was the whole point.
I wanted one year as nobody.
Not the girl whose mom died.
Not the girl people lowered their voices around.
Just a girl with a locker.
I found it in the east hall, between a fire extinguisher and a trophy case.
The trophy case had a framed photo in the middle shelf.
GARNET FALLS BADGERS, it said, DISTRICT CHAMPIONS.
My brother stood in the center of it, holding the ball against his hip.
Mason Hollowell, number three, point guard and captain.
He was eighteen and looked like a boy who'd never been told no.
I stared at the picture longer than I meant to.
I hadn't lived in the same house as him since I was nine.
I'd only come to Garnet Falls three days ago.
Then I heard his voice behind me.
"Yo, did you see the list? Dunleavy's coming here."
I didn't turn around.
I knew that voice from every phone call of the last six months.
It was Mason, with three boys in letter jackets around him.
"The Dunleavy?" one of them said. "From Eastlake?"
"His mom got some job at the hospital," Mason said. "He's in our district now. Our school."
"No way."
"He's the reason we lost state," Mason said. "I swear to God, if he walks in here, I'll lose it."
His friends went quiet in a way that told me they'd heard this before.
I opened my locker and kept my face inside it.
Mason walked past, close enough that his sleeve brushed mine.
He didn't look at me.
That was the deal we'd made on the phone two weeks ago.
At school we were strangers.
At home we were roommates.
I'd agreed because I wanted it as much as he did.
Still, it stung more than I'd expected.
"Hey," said a girl at the next locker. "You're new."
She had a red bob, thick glasses, and a camera on a strap.
"Kennedy," I said.
"Jess. I run the paper. I'm going to put you in it." She grinned. "Kidding. Mostly."
I laughed for the first time in a year.
The bell rang.
Homeroom was room 114, last row, by the window.
I took the seat by the window.
The room filled slowly.
A teacher read announcements about parking permits.
The chair next to mine scraped back.
Someone sat down, long legs bumping my desk.
"Sorry," a boy said. "Is this seat taken?"
I looked up.
He was tall, with dark curly hair and gray eyes, and a crooked half smile.
He wore a faded hoodie with a hawk across the chest.
A hawk, in a school of badgers.
My stomach dropped.
He held out his hand.
"Shay Dunleavy. I'm told I'm the most hated person in this building."
"Kennedy," I said, because my mouth did it before my brain.
"Kennedy what?"
"Henslow."
He shook it.
His hand was warm and rough from years of a basketball.
"Nice to meet you, Kennedy Henslow. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Someone told me Hollowell has a sister. Younger, older, nobody's sure." He tilted his head. "You wouldn't know anything about that?"
The whole room seemed to lean in.
My brother's rival was looking at me with calm gray eyes.
"No," I said. "I don't know anyone named Hollowell."
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