Page 1 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

PROLOGUE

Eight yearsago

“Alice!”

Dread skimmed down my back, making my stomach crumple in on itself. I shut my locker with forced confidence and turned around, crossing my arms so he wouldn’t see my hands shaking.

“What did you do!”

The lunchtime sea of students parted as Dominic Crawford—the undisputed center of Lockhill Prep’s social gravity, their elected valedictorian and supreme leader—tore through the hallway, his handsome face contorted with rage.

“What the fuck did you do!”

My back hit metal as he crowded me against the lockers, the towering bulk of his frame shoving my pulse into a clumsy sprint. I didn’t cower, though. I wasn’t afraid of him.

“Back up, man.” Ravi nudged at his shoulder, but Dom shrugged him off. His dark curls had fallen over his forehead, the tie of his school uniform yanked haphazardly loose.

“What the fuck did you do, Alice?” His voice dropped to a low growl, his deceptively angelic, gilded irises simmering withpanic and infernal fury. I met them with cool indifference, ignoring the deafening rush of my blood, the blunt hammering of my heart.

“Fucking answer me!”

“Dom, calm down.” Rachel placed a hand on his chest and tried to wedge herself between us.

He didn’t spare her so much as a glance. Didn’t budge so much as an inch.

“Take it back.” There was an edge of pleading desperation to his voice now, but I didn’t think anyone else caught it.

I opened my mouth to respond, but the doubt and guilt had gathered into a dense clump in my throat, making it impossible to form words.

“Take it back!” His eyes turned glassy as they slipped between mine, their rims pink.

“You need to back the fuck up, man.” Ravi shoved at him harder, and Dom stumbled back a step.

Formerlyundisputed supreme leader may have been the more appropriate title. The higher the pedestal, the farther the fall.

“Your mom’s lucky she’s not pressing charges,” Ravi continued. “If eighty grand worth of jewelry went missing from my house, my parents would’ve?—”

“She’s lying!” Dominic thundered, gesturing at me like I was the root of all evil and he couldn’t understand how no one else saw it.

Students were crowding around us, smirking and whispering amongst themselves as they watched the untouchable deity they’d worshipped for years unravel into a messy, bleeding mortal before their very eyes. He didn’t seem to care.

“We’ve all seen the picture, Dom,” Rachel said quietly, and the tension stabbed deeper into my neck.

“Is it because of the letter? Is that why you did this?” He was frantic, spitting every word like his life depended on it. “You hate me that much? You want me gone that fucking badly, Alice?”

My attention slid between him, Rachel, and the whispering mass of vultures circling us. I needed to say something. Anything.

But it was too late. When I blinked up at him again, his golden eyes were brimming with tears. “Fuck you.” His lips wobbled, acid dripping from his tone. “Fuck you, and fuck your whole family. I won’t forget this one,Lice.”

He took a shaky sleeve to his face and pinned me with one last devastating glare before storming off.

“It’s going to be okay,” Rachel whispered, rubbing my arm soothingly. “I promise.”

I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to look at her. Or at Ravi, or myself.

Pushing away from the lockers, I slipped my backpack over one shoulder and walked through the hallway with my chin leveled, ignoring the lingering stares and hushed judgment of my peers.

I attended the rest of my classes as though nothing had happened. Beelined for my room when I got home, locked my door, and crawled under the covers.