"Matlin, explain to me why Miles Hollingsworth won't leave me alone," Grace walked into class after a particularly frustrating conversation with Miles and practically slammed her books down.
Maya, Tiny and Zig all looked up at her. "Good way or bad way?" asked Maya.
Grace made a face, and looked around to make sure no one could hear and then whispered, "He . . . he likes me,"
Tiny and Zig burst out laughing and Grace slapped both of them in the chest. "It's not funny! It's disgusting. He's – he's everything I hate. He's horrible,"
"I second that," said Zig, putting an arm around Maya.
"Just – how do I get him to leave me alone?" Grace asked her.
Maya shrugged. "I doubt Miles has ever heard the word 'no' in his life. What Miles wants, Miles gets, and he's probably not gonna stop,"
"Maybe if you just go out with him you can end the lesbian rumors," joked Tiny and Grace just rolled her eyes.
Miles is always waiting by her locker before lunch. She attempts to ignore him and open it, but he's leaning up against the one next to her, smirking and she tries to pretend that it's not . . . cute. "Hey," said Miles, like he was waiting for her to say hi first.
Grace turned to him and gave him a sarcastic smile. "Afternoon, Miles. Nice pants," she motioned to his stupid salmon pants that got more and ugly every time she saw them.
"Than you. Wore them especially for you," he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Lovely. I mean, I just love the way you dress like totally turns me on,"
"I know,"
Grace grabbed her lunch, shut her locker and started walking down the hallway. Miles followed, "So uh, wanna go out this Saturday night? Go out to dinner, maybe see a movie before?"
She looked at him like he had just said the most offensive thing she'd ever heard. "I would literally rather get run over by a bus,"
"Come on, Grace, what is it about me that you hate so much?"
"Everything," she said, refusing to look at him.
"Is this because of my beef with your bestie Zigmund last year? I'm over that, I can move on,"
She rolled her eyes. "No. I just don't like you, simple as that,"
"Alright, well, you'll change your mind eventually. They always do,"
Grace turned to him and stopped. "First of all, I'm not 'they.' Second of all, never gonna happen," She walked away, leaving him standing there.
"We'll see about that," he called her after her.
She turned around and flipped him off.
Miles smiled as she walked away.
Grace hates Miles more than she's ever hated anything in her life. She hates his stupid shoes and his stupid pants and that stupid smile he always has on his face. She hates how cocky he is, hates how the cockiness goes away and the kindness comes out when he talks to his sister, hates how he always defends his brother. She hates how he acts like he knows everything about her, hates when he tells her she looks nice, hates that she has her number and sends her stupid emojis like something out of a stupid teen show.
She tells this to anyone who will listen, complains constantly about Miles. And yet, she keeps talking to him. She responds to his stupid emojis with more emojis and then ends every conversation with telling him to fuck off.
Grace walks to lunch and sees that Miles isn't at her locker and she chooses to ignore the disappointment in her stomach. But before she can even think about Miles, she sees him getting thrown into a locker by Tiny and she doesn't think, she runs over and pushes Tiny off of him so hard that he falls on the floor. It's only after she does it that she regrets it, and Miles is smirking at her in the stupid way he does and Tiny is looking at her, betrayed.
"Uh – Tiny – stop fighting. You're gonna get suspended," is all she can muster out as an excuse and she walks away as fast as she can into the closest bathroom. She hates Miles and Tiny is her friend. Why did she do that?
"I hate you," she says to him one random Monday morning at his locker.
Miles looks up from his phone and giggles. "Whoa, what did I do?"
"Just – everything. Why can't you leave me alone?" Grace is practically standing on her tip toes to get in his face and she ignores how much she likes that he's so tall.
"Because I know you like me,"
Grace threw her head back in disgust. "Why would you think that? I'm horrible to you,"
"I don't know, to be honest. But I know I like you," he put his phone in his pocket.
She practically growled. "Once again, I'm horrible to you. All I do is make fun of you!"
"I like that," said Miles. "It's . . . intruiging."
"Intruiging?"
"Uh huh,"
She walked away as fast as she could down the hall, pissed off and angry and she didn't really know why at this point.
"I just – I hate him. I hate him so much, Matlin. He's – he's slept with half the school first of all and his pants are stupid and he thinks he's so much better than everyone just because he's sort of good looking," Grace rants one day after school when she's hanging out with Maya.
Maya says nothing, just keeps avoiding eye contact with her and looking at her textbook. Grace reads her, "What? Why aren't you saying anything?"
"Haven't we had this conversation like a thousand times before?"
"Um, no? What are you talking about?"
Maya shut her textbook and gave her a look. "You're serious?"
Grace nods.
"You don't hate him, Grace. You never stop talking about him. Every word out of your mouth is 'Miles.' You talk about him more than I did when we were dating. You're obsessed with him,"
She doesn't even know what to say because it hits Grace right then that she doesn't hate Miles. That she actually is intruiged by him like he is by her, and she likes fighting with him and seeing his stupid face and his dumb pants every day. Grace would never, ever admit that though. "You're wrong, I do hate him."
Miles is sitting at the Dot having a coffee when Grace just sits down across from him, uninvited and puts down her bag and starts talking about some teacher she hates right away. Miles is shocked but he doesn't question it, he's too happy that she's even here and when she looks up at him for the first time he's smiling. "Shut up," is all she says.
Grace starts spending more and more time with Miles. He brings her coffee in the morning and they eat lunch together and she hangs out at his house and they go the park together and just walk around. They talk about trivial things sometimes, like debate who the best character on The Walking Dead is or about whether or not Perino's secretly gay. Sometimes they talk about serious things, like his dad or how she hates that people think she's a bad kid and even once, she tells him everything about her cystic fibrosis like she's never done with anything. Miles just nods, asks the occasional question and when she's finished, she expects for him to say something optimistic and stupid. But he doesn't, he just says, "So dying's gotta suck, huh?" And for the first time in a long time, Grace lets out a real, actual laugh where her whole face lights up. Her hair falls in her eyes and Miles pushes it behind her ear and then she stops laughing and stares at him.
His hand on her cheek and his eyes looking into her hers and Grace doesn't know what comes over. She grabs him by his stupid polo shirt and pulls him down so that his lips touch hers.
The kiss lasts only a few seconds because she regrets it immeaditely because she can't like Miles Hollingsworth. She can't be hanging out with him and she certainly can't be kissing him. She takes off.
Grace is walking with Zig when Miles approaches them the next day at school. "Uh, hey Grace, can I talk to you?"
"No," she says, looking anywhere but him.
"It's pretty important,"
"Don't care,"
"Can't we just talk about the kiss?"
Zig stops her from walking away and steps in front of Miles. "What are you lying about, Miles? Stop trying to start shit,"
"I'm not lying, Zigmund," he says with malice in his voice. "Grace, come on –"
"Why would she kiss you? She hates you,"
"Not really," Grace says before she can stop herself.
Miles and Zig both stare at her, Zig in disgust, Miles with delight. "Not really?" asked Miles.
"Uh, not always," Grace says, the only thing she can say. She can't take what she said back.
Miles crosses his arms and smirks at her, like she just said the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. Grace rolled her eyes. "I just mean that you're alright a small portion of the time. A very, very small portion,"
"I'm gonna go," Zig says awkwardly and walks away slowly and then hurries away.
"You think I'm cute," says Miles.
"You're horrible."
"Come on, Grace, just admit it. You like me and you want to kiss me again,"
Grace rolled her eyes. "I'd rather be impaled. I don't know what came over me yesterday,"
"Lust, maybe?" Miles wiggles his eyebrows and she hits him in the side, trying not to blush at the thought of seeing him naked, of her being naked, of the two of them doing it.
"You're disgusting," she says with malice.
"Yeah, but you thought about that didn't you?"
Grace hides her smile and turns away. "Fuck off,"
"That's not a no!" Miles calls after her.
Grace grabs Maya by the arm in the hallway and pulls her away from Zig so fast that she gets whiplash. She covers her mouth and pulls her into the nearest empty classroom and locks the door. "What the hell?!" says Maya.
"Help me," Grace says, hiding her face in her hands.
"Are you okay?" Maya asks, like something is actually wrong.
"If you tell Zigmund or Tiny or anyone, I'll literally kill you. I'm serious. This is a secret. You're dead," Grace approaches her with the tone she almost never has – pure anger.
"Okay, okay, I promise. What's up?"
Grace looks around, anywhere but at Maya and whispers something so lowly that Maya can't even hear her.
"What?" says Maya.
Grace whispers it a little louder.
"Still can't hear you,"
"I like . . . I like Miles, okay?" she says threw her teeth. Maya starts laughing immeaditely and Grace slaps her in the arm. "It's not funny, okay? There's something seriously wrong with me,"
Maya kept giggling and shakes her head, "There's nothing wrong with you, I just – you know – you and Miles,"
"It's stupid. I hate him, I hate everything about him,"
"But you like him,"
Grace hid her face in her hands.
"And he likes you," says Maya. "So, why don't you just tell him? It's not like he's gonna reject you,"
"Because I can't like him, I can't! He's Miles Hollingsworth, Zig's arch enemy, the most conceited, rich douchebag in the school with stupid pants and walks like he's some sort of king or something. He's gross,"
Maya crossed her arms. "But you like him,"
"Ew, stop saying it out loud,"
"Won't make it any less true. You need to just ask him out," Maya giggled again. "I've never seen you this nervous before,"
"I'm not – I'm not nervous," she says. It's a lie because she is, she's so scared because Miles is all of those awful things but he's also a lot more. She hates it and all Grace keeps imagining is the smug look on his face if he found out and she finds herself wanting to kiss it right off of him. "I just – I hate him. He's horrible,"
Grace takes Miles by the shirt the same way that she did to Maya that morning and pulls him into the same empty classroom. She locks the door like she did before and Miles already has the smug look on his face but is saying nothing and Grace couldn't be more grateful.
"If you tell a soul about this, I'll fucking kill you. Clear?"
"Tell a soul about what? The two of us in an empty classroom?" says Miles.
Grace kisses him then, longer then she had a week ago and it's good. She hates how much she likes it, likes how good of a kisser Miles is, how his hands feel on his hips, how hers feel against his chest. His hands slowly move up to grab at her hair, his long fingers tangling it. Grace pulls apart for a second and looks up at him, giving her a genuine smile. "Wow," he says. "Didn't think you actually liked me,"
"You're alright," is all she can say.