The Continuing Mis Adventures Of Ali and Friends

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Fine Line Between Love and Hate

(Friend in Focus: Nate)

(this started out as something that actually happened…and then the rest of it was played out in my mind ^^;;)

Ali, having felt bad that she'd tortured Nathan the day before, found him in his frat room on campus. Most of what Ali had said the day before was in jest, but since it was through text messaging, she knew how difficult it was to tell the difference at times.

Knocking timidly on the door, Ali startled Nate out of his computer game play. "Oh, hey," Nate greeted her before focusing his attention back on the screen. He was playing more WoW and he and his guild members were storming the castle1.

"I, uh.." Ali cleared her throat. "I wanted to apologize if I sounded mean yesterday. I was just joking. And I want you to know that I don't really hate you, Nate."

"I know," Nate replied off handedly. Surprised, Ali repeated:

"You know?"

There passed several seconds' silence before his guild overthrew the last of the MPCs23. Nate let his fellow gamers know he was going to go AFK and sat back in his chair as he focused his attention back on his nerdy little friend.

"Well, yeah. You always say you hate me, Ali, but that rarely seems to be the case. Plus, who could blame you? I'm awesome." A wide grin spread across Nate's face as he mimicked John's heroic pose.

Ali's eyes narrowed.

"Either way," he continued nonchalantly. "I know you love me." His blue eyes flashed at her as he smiled.

Ali's eyes narrowed even further until her pupils were barely visible. "Who said I love you?" She growled.

"You did," he pointed out. "And either way, it's obvious. You wouldn't come all this way over here to tell me you didn't hate me if you didn't love me."

Ali was caught in the paradox of realistic thinking yet again. A low growl emanated from her throat as she glared daggers at her psychology friend. He was always doing this to her; twisting things around to make himself seem more arrogant.

The problem at hand was that it always worked.

Nate's focus once again returned to his computer screen while Ali stood in the doorway, unable to think of anything snappy to say to him. Several minutes passed as Nate, humming to himself, continued his avatar'd rampage on the MMORPG-world of Blizzard Entertainment. Ali continued to glare at him. He was so smug. He thought he knew her so well. All her mannerisms and behaviors were just so transparent that he had them all figured out… The more those thoughts ran through Ali's mind, the more Ali detested herself for coming to him and apologizing. He was learning her tricks too fast; before she even knew they were tricks! He was some vile demon!

"I hate you!" Ali finally screamed at him before running down the hallway and disappearing down TKE's narrow stairwell.

Nate, shocked by the sudden exclamation, peered around his doorframe and down the hall where Ali had disappeared. Instead of chasing after her, he went back to his video game. "Eh," he muttered as he shrugged it off. "She'll be back."


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