Disclaimer: I do not own House of Anubis, any of the characters related to it, OR the any of the lyrics to this poem.
"I hate the way you talk to me,
And the way you cut your hair…"
Eddie Miller was so irritating. The most irritating person Patricia had ever met in her life.
Ever since the first moment they met, he'd driven her completely crazy. He was so good at returning her snarky comments with even snarkier ones, and she hated that; no one had ever matched her in that way. Usually, when talking to anyone, she was the one with the upper hand; but when it came to Eddie, it was a fight for the upper hand.
And Eddie wasn't just irritating; he could be mean sometimes, too. Admittedly, she could be mean too, but still.
They fought all the time. Literally all. The. Time.
One of the worst times for Eddie to pick a fight with her was when she was already in a bad mood.
Patricia was studying for her upcoming maths exam, and she was terrified. The exam had her ridiculously nervous.
She'd spent the whole Saturday morning in Anubis House, alone, just over-thinking it. And she was feeling sort of on edge.
"Would you just shut up for a second? I'm trying to work." Patricia scolded, staring daggers at Eddie who was sitting on the arm chair next to her sofa and drumming loudly away with his hand and a pencil.
"I'm having fun. You should try it sometime."
Patricia narrowed her eyes and looked back down at her work. Her legs were tucked up to her side and she was already in a bad mood without Eddie being there, being annoying.
And after a few minutes, Eddie smirked to himself as an idea came in to his head, and he started drumming again. But this time, instead of on the table, he drummed the pencil on Patricia's ankle.
"Seriously?" Patricia questioned coldly. "Why are you so childish!? Stop it!"
Eddie laughed at her.
"Stop laughing, weasel," she scowled, "I'm trying to do homework. You should try it sometime." Patricia made her voice in to a mocking, high pitched tone and she narrowed her lips in to a condescending smile.
Eddie just smiled back – a fake, over-exaggerated smile – and shook his head. "Work is overrated."
"You're hopeless."
"And you're irritating."
"Me? I'm irritating? Right. Okay." She said sarcastically, getting back to writing. And then she muttered under her breath, "weasel."
"What are you even studying for anyways?"
"Our maths exam in two weeks.… Obviously."
Eddie snorted and sat back in his chair.
"What's so funny, slime ball? Worried you'll fail but don't want to admit it?"
"I'm not the one who should be worried about failing," Eddie said, looking at her meanly.
"What did you just say?"
"Nothing, nothing," Eddie said lightly.
"I'm not stupid, Eddie," Patricia sat up in her seat and scowled at him. "I know you said something. What did you say?"
"Nothing!"
"Fine, whatever. Just leave me alone, will you?"
"This isn't your living room, you know that, right? I can be in here as much as I want."
"You are literally the most annoying person I've ever met." Patricia looked back down at her notebook and clicked her pen.
"Right back at you."
Patricia looked up again and scowled at him from under dark eyelashes. She was being totally serious about him leaving her alone; she was about to be pushed over the edge. She was so frustrated with him.
"Fine, fine, I'll leave you alone." Eddie stood up and grabbed his bag.
"Smell you later, weasel." Patricia's tone was harsher than usual, and as Eddie got to the living room door, he turned on his heel and narrowed his eyes at her.
"You know what, Patricia? Sometimes I wish you had a twin; all the looks but none of your fake, I'm-so-bad persona and none of your irritating personality. Seriously."
Patricia was staring down at her notebook and she felt her jaw clench.
Eddie didn't know about Piper.
He didn't know how Patricia had always felt about Piper, and how Piper was always seen as the better twin with better everything. Everything Eddie had just wished for.
He was standing there, staring at her, just waiting for a reaction. And Patricia tried to find an insult to throw back at him – or just any kind of comeback – but the only insults she was thinking of were insults about herself.
She played with her pen in between her hands for a few seconds, trying so hard to swallow back the stupid tears that were rising, and then she stood up, still not looking at him.
He'd hit a weak spot. Little did he know that it was Patricia's weakest spot, and everything he'd just said was real. Patricia had always wished she was Piper, and now Eddie did, too; without even realising it.
She walked past him, her books in her arms and her face down and hidden behind her scarlet red hair.
Furiously, she wiped away the single tear that was on her cheek and made her way up to her room.
"Yacker?" Eddie questioned behind her. But it was too late; the bomb had been dropped.
She'd been on edge all day, and Eddie just had to come in and make it worse. The way he spoke to her made her feel things. And she hated that.
Sometimes she really, really hated him.
But the thing she hated the most was that, despite his rudeness, his cocky attitude and the fact he'd just hit a completely raw spot somewhere within Patricia; she didn't hate him. She wished she could.
Later that day, ten minutes before dinner was ready, Patricia came downstairs on her own.
She'd spent the afternoon upstairs in her room, alone, studying some more. She didn't want to see Eddie; especially because he was the only one home and it would have been even more awkward.
But at one point, Patricia had gone downstairs to get a drink and Eddie was just coming out of his room.
He'd tried to catch up with her pace. "Yacker, why aren't you speaking to me?" He'd asked, genuinely puzzled.
Patricia just opened the fridge, pulled out a can of Pepsi and went back upstairs again. Eddie was confused.
Patricia wasn't.
She hated him. She hated the fact that everyone thought the same thing about her and Piper.
"Patricia," Eddie said now as soon as Patricia got to the bottom of the stairs. It almost seemed like he'd been waiting for her to come down. She took one look at him, saw how cute he looked with his hair all freshly-cut and tousled, and nearly crumbled. Nearly. Not that she'd ever admit that out loud.
"Get out of my way, weasel." Patricia tried to sound confident, but she was looking down at the floor.
"Look, Yacker…," he started, putting his hand on her arm. She squirmed away. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier."
She tried to play dumb. "What did you say earlier? I can't remember."
"About the twin thing," his voice was quiet and soft. He glanced above her shoulder and saw Joy coming down the stairs, so he pulled Patricia aside in to a corner. "I… I didn't mean it, okay? You're perfect the way you are."
Patricia raised her eyebrows. Wait… what?
"OK, maybe not perfect, but…"
Stifling a smile, she hit him on the arm playfully.
Eddie laughed, and looked her right in the eyes. He reached down and took her hand gently, but firm enough so that she couldn't pull it away.
"I'm sorry, OK?"
And the way he was speaking to her – so soft, so genuine – just made her come apart.
Whoa, she thought to herself, I'm supposed to hate you right now. Where has this nice guy come from? What am I supposed to feel when you talk to me like that?
She wasn't used to this. Eddie being… nice. Sincere.
All this time she thought she hated when he was being mean, but now it turned out that she hated when he was being nice even more; it made her wish she could hate him. But she couldn't, and she always knew that.
Nice Eddie made her weaker than mean Eddie ever could.
"It's okay," Patricia said, her voice quite small.
"I mean, to be honest I'm glad you don't have a twin. Can you imagine that?"
Patricia held her grin back and smirked instead, nodding simply.
"What are you smirking at?" Eddie asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing," Patricia said, beginning to walk away. "Nothing at all."
A/N: So, this one-shot was posted for HOA one shot day (today) 2014, and I'm going to continue it as a series with the rest of the lines of the poem from "10 Things I Hate About You". Unfortunately, the first chapter was hard to write to the first lines, so I'm sorry it wasn't particularly well written! The other chapters will (hopefully) be better.
A MASSIVE thank you to the wonderfully wonderful shadowswan for the amazing help with this chapter. Could not have written it without her.
Please leave reviews! And please check out my other fanfics: All This Time(multi-chapter), Everything We Are (one-shot series) and It Ain't Pretty (Austin and Ally one-shot).
Love :* xxx