I hate him. It's as simple as that. Whenever I see him my eyes and heart burn. My ears ring, my muscles tense, and I imagine killing him in hundreds of violent ways. His smooth muscles fill me with loathing. His smirking lips and mocking eyes make my hands twitch with homicidal need. When we're kissing and I slip my hands around his neck, all I can think about is choking him. When we grope, I have to try so, so hard not to knee him in the nuts. It's a good thing he likes rough sex, I guess, because when I top, I thrust hard enough to really hurt. I hate him. I hate being near him, I hate kissing him, I hate fucking him, and I hate breathing his air.

But you don't say 'no' to Spot Conlon.

I didn't hate him when it started, either, and Spot Conlon expects to get what he wants, especially when it's something he's gotten before.

At first I thought I liked him. Hell, the first time I was happy when he kissed me. But it turns out Spot Conlon is one to drive you crazy—play with your heart as casually as he plays with your balls. God, I hate him. I hate the angle at which he tilts his head when he asks questions. I can't stand the vocal inflections he calls flirting, and I especially can't stand the fact that it works every time. The curve of his back when he lies next to me in fetal position as he sleeps just invites a well-placed knife. The idea of seeing the blood and watching his eyes glaze over is exciting, intoxicating—just enough to get me through another agonizing day at his side.

I can't name one thing about him that I hate—each one leads seamlessly into another item on the infinitely long list. Once I begin, I can't stop myself. The ideas pour into my head like the water from that infernal river he keeps base at. When I see a river, be it that one or another, I want to drown him—it'd be so easy to be rid of the bastard for forever and make it seem like an accident. I could push him off the pier, then dive in after him and push him down under the water till he chokes to death on the water filling his lungs, and when I swim to the surface with his body, I could easily claim I tried to drag him to the surface but he was too heavy and I was too late. Hell, I could make it seem like a suicide that way.

God, if only he'd commit suicide.

I hate him. I hate his skinny, white ass. I hate his light accent. I hate his red suspenders, his stupid key necklace, his cane, his slingshot, his entire borough. I hate having to sleep with him. I hate having to get drunk or high after every time. I hate him too much to express—I hate the rhythm of his slow, sleeping breaths, and the light footfalls when he walks, and the shape of his eyebrows, the scent of his neck. I hate his seductive smile and his invincible hold on Brooklyn.

I apologise to God every time I let him touch me, and I'm not even Catholic anymore. The first day I met him was the very same day I snapped the cord on my old rosary and watched the beads fall into the river off the Brooklyn Bridge. At the time I thought it was a blessing, a sign that I'd done the right thing. Now I'd do anything to take it back. I'd do anything for that rosary to be in one piece and Spot Conlon to have never walked into my life.

Lord, I hate him. I can't wear the clothes I had on when I met him. I burned them—BURNED them. I'd love to have them back and burn him instead.

I hate the dimples in his thin, perfectly toned back, and the ridiculously tanned color of them. I hate the inexplicable tan line on his wrist and the structure of the bones on his shoulders. I hate the color of his hair, I hate how sometimes he'll go a few days without shaving. I hate the way he looks at me, like he's appraising something about me that not even I know. I hate the way he looks at other boys—just like he looks at me. Sometimes he looks at me like that while I eat my dinner in his room and it takes all my willpower not to stab his eyes out with my fork.

When we sleep in the same bed, I hang off the mattress rather than touch him for one second longer than necessary. When we smoke together, I fantasize about burning him with the red hot tip of my cigarette. When he speaks my name, I smile and answer instead of succumbing to my urge to rip out his tongue and tear out his voice box. When I feel his fingers on me I cringe away subconsciously and it seems like my skin blisters and peels away where he touched. Sometimes when I lie naked next to him I take out my pocketknife and trace patterns in the air by his back. My jaw twitches when his voice grates on my ears, shattering my eardrums with its horrid pitch and clashing key. He tries to sing to me and it sounds like dead cats howling in dissonance with nails on a blackboard. He makes snide remarks and insults the intelligence of those smarter than him.

I hate him. I once shoved a knife beneath his ribs but I missed any vital organs and he slowly healed, then told me the one thing I want more than anything else to disprove:

"You cannot kill what you did not create."

I can't begin to describe how much I hate Spot Conlon. I don't know why I'm even trying—perhaps the God damn devil's spawn boy finally made me crack, or perhaps I'm bored, or perhaps I have to remind myself while he's gone how agonizing every second with him is. But the fact of the matter is I hate Spot Conlon with every fiber of my being—with the passion of love and hate of all the world channeled into my despisation of the one boy I can't avoid, because no matter how much I hate him, you don't say 'no' to Spot Conlon.