Page 3 of Don't Date Your Nemesis

“They couldn’t even bother to spell her name right,” I muttered to the empty pool deck.

I scrolled through the comments, each one worse than the last. People tearing apart her body, her acting, her right to be upset about her boyfriend cheating on her with her own sister.

I should have felt vindicated because Deepika Sharma had hated me since we were eight years old.

The memory hit me as if it were yesterday. The harsh summer sun falling over us as Kiara’s cousins visited San Francisco from LA. Some business connection between our fathers that meant I had to ‘be nice’ to their daughters. But only one of her cousins showed up, Deepika.

I was showing off in our pool, doing flip turns and underwater handstands, because that’s what eight-year-old boys did when they wanted to impress people. Or in my case, when I wanted everyone to know I was the best at something. Even better than Ethan, the quiet, grumpy kid who was attached at the hip with Kiara.

Deepika had been sitting at the edge, feet dangling in the water, wearing this frilly pink dress that looked expensive. She couldn’t swim well. I remember her saying something about only knowing how to float, but I was too busy being a cocky little shit to care.

“Watch this!” I shouted and dove deep, coming up right next to her with an enormous splash.

Water went everywhere. All over her dress, her face, and her dark hair in a cute ribbon.

And all over her hand that donned a delicate gold ring (that was loose on her small finger) with a tiny stone that caught the sunlight. I watched her face change as she looked down at it and watched the ring slip off her wet finger in what felt like slow motion.

It hit the pool deck and bounced once. Then it rolled right into the pool.

It was gone.

Her face crumpled. “That was from my grandmother,” she whispered, staring at the water where the ring had disappeared. “She died last year. It was her ring.”

I was frozen, suddenly aware that I had done something terrible, that there were some things you couldn’t just apologize your way out of. The ring was at the bottom of the deep end, twelve feet down, and Deepika couldn’t swim well enough to get it.

“I didn’t mean—” I started.

But she didn’t let me finish. With both hands, she shoved me hard, and we ended up in the water together. What started as her trying to dunk me in revenge turned into both of us thrashing around, each trying to prove we were stronger, better, and more capable of drowning the other.

My mom had pulled us out, both of us sputtering and furious, and the Sharmas had left early.

I never apologized properly, and she never forgave me.

We had been enemies ever since.

The last time we met was two years ago at some industry party where Hollywood and the sports world collided. She had looked at me with those sharp dark eyes and said, “Still the same arrogant, over-hyped pretty boy with more ego than talent, I see.”

I smirked and winked at her. “And you’re still a wannabe starlet who couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag.”

She walked away, and I felt hollow for the rest of the night, the way I always did after our encounters. Like we were both reciting lines from a script we had memorized too well.

I bet she writes out all her disses in her notes app. Just like I do. Probably even recites them in the mirror if we ever end up stumbling into each other.

I can’t prove it, but I’m sure of it.

Every charity event, every industry party where our worlds collided, we circled each other like sharks, all sharp smiles and sharper words, still eight years old and drowning in that pool.

I hated her because she hated me first.

But reading that article, seeing the comments dissecting her like she was something less than human...

I felt something uncomfortably close to pity.

Nobody deserved it. Not even Deepika Sharma, with her devastating smile and her ability to make me feel like an idiot with just one perfectly arched eyebrow.

‘Depika,’ I read again, shaking my head. The disrespect was almost impressive in its laziness.

My thumb hovered over the share button. Some petty part of me wanted to add to the pile, wanted to screenshot and send to the group chat with a laughing emoji.