Page 149 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

“I’m too selfish to let her go,” I reiterated. “But if the second-best thing I can do is throw myself under the bus so she’s not forced to choose between me and her family when Christmas rolls around, then so fucking be it. Yeah, it’ll suck. Yeah, she’ll be pissed. But the truth will come out eventually, shit will die down, your reputation will continue to benefit from the boost, and I’ll be able to fucking breathe knowing that she didn’t give me this chance in vain.

“I don’t deserve her. You’re right. But holy shit, dude, would I do anything to be the guyshedeserves.” Let them rake me over the coals. I didn’t care, as long as I got to stay in this dream with her.

Adrien’s face had gone painstakingly blank, though I thought I saw a glimmer of something like recognition pass over his eyes before they flicked to something behind me.

“Addy?” I turned to find Ria squinting at the two of us, her brown hair ruffled and disheveled from sleep. “What’s going on? Everything okay?”

Adrien cleared his throat. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

She tilted her head like she’d picked up on something peculiar in his response. I became invisible as she sauntered toward him and placed a palm on his cheek. Nothing was said, though Adrien gave a gentle shake of his head before placing a tender kiss on her palm.

I looked away just as my phone went off.

Gampy had made it. My gremlin was awake.

46

Dear me/ journal/ god.

Loch Ness and I started working on our project today. We sat down and she did the drawings for the design while I made the list of materials and we talked about what I was going to say to my dad when I met him. She helped me not be so nervous because she said that he’s probably going to be so nervous too and since she was going to be there with us she could just talk about herself if it ever got awkward.

She loves talking about herself a lot so I know she will be able to do it.

We didn’t tell my mom or anyone else about why we were doing the project. I don’t want to get her hopes up in case our invention doesn’t work and Alice promised to keep it a secret too.

I don’t like keeping secrets very much but sometimes you don’t have a choice. I only have one other one, but it’s really really big and it’s about Alice.

I’ll tell her one day I think. When I’m older like Adrien and not afraid of anything anymore and also on my way to becoming a famous soccer player who also runs the biggest gaming company in the world.

Until then no one else can know what it is. Not even you.

Alice

One of them was lying.

Or, more plausibly, both of them were lying.

Using my arm as a machete, I slashed my way through the forest and toward the voices, running well ahead of Gampy and my parents.

“No” was the first thing I heard.

“Kill it, or I’ll kill you” was the second.

“Adrien,” I snarled, so distracted that I overshot my next slash and almost lost an eye when the stupid fucking tree branch—literal tree branch—whipped back in my face. “Touch him again and I’ll hand-feed you limb by limb to a fucking wood chipper, do you hear me?”

“Alice?”

I perked up, jiggling around the corner toward his voice like a magnet. “What happened? You okay?”

“Morning, Lice,” my dead-to-me brother said.

Dominic smiled as I cupped his face in my hands, scanning it for signs of a freshly forming bruise. “I’m fine. I told you nothing’s happened. See?”

Nope. Lying.

I whipped around to confront Adrien just as Mom, Dad, and Gampy finally made the trek to the living room. Maxwell took flight the second he saw Dominic, landing on his shoulder with a happy chirp.

Ria stepped in front of me before I could bite her husband’s head off.