Page 2 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

When I woke up the next morning, the guesthouse was empty, and the Crawfords were gone.

1

Hello… me?

Wait. How does this work? Who am I supposed to be talking to when I write in here? Myself? The journal? God??? Why didn’t this thing come with instructions?

Gampy’s making me do this because he says journaling is good for the preteen soul, but it’s already stressing me out. I’ll be keeping my entries short.

You understand.

Present day

It started with a featherlight tickle in the back of my left eye. Barely there. Barely noticeable at all.

By late afternoon, my entire head was trapped inside a black chamber of hammering pain that wouldn’t relent. I was nauseous. Restless. Couldn’t go ten seconds without checking the time.

Skipping lunch hadn’t helped, but my first paycheck wasn’t due for another week, and my checking account was one miscalculated tap away from triggering what the bank referred to as “overdraft fees,” a method via which financial institutions punished people who didn’t have money by taking away more money that they, again, did not have. The first time it’d happened, I’d called my accountant to make sure I wasn’t being scammed.

He said I was.

He also said there was nothing we could do about it. Not unless I was willing to start dipping into my trust fund again. And did my parents know I didn’t have access to enough cash to afford a grocery run?

No. No, they did not. And I informed him that under no circumstances were they to be made privy to the situation, capisce? (Though the actual conversation was considerably more civil and included a lot more pleading on my end than I cared to admit.)

It wasn’t like I wasstarving. I’d stuffed myself with two complimentary bagels at the weekly sales meeting this morning. There was no reason for my stomach to be growling half this much. The modern human body was so weak.

I glanced at the time again, holding my breath. 3:49. Almost there. I could do this.

My neck locked up with everyswooshof a new email hitting my inbox, and I held my breath until I’d scanned the contents, ensured I was still in the clear.

4:09.

Sweat was starting to gather over the back of my neck. I was so,soclose. This was the furthest I’d made it in months.

4:28.

It was almost over. I couldn’t believe it. I was finally, finally,finallygoing to make it through.

5:00.

I shoved away from my desk and grabbed my bag, my pulse pounding against my eardrums. Without a word, without a goodbye, and avoiding all eye contact, I tucked my chin and all but ran for the exit.

“Alice.”

Nope. Not happening.

I picked up the pace, pretending like I couldn’t hear her.

“Hey, Alice!” Corinna called again, loud enough to rally the collective attention of all surrounding cubicles. “Wait just a second!”

I had my earbuds in—couldn’t hear her, didn’t need to stop walking.

I was five, maybe four feet away from the glass doors when she broke into a sprint and grabbed my shoulder.

My fingers curled, a multilingual collection of curses thrashing in my head, demanding to be yelled. I twisted on my heel, wrestling my mouth into a wooden smile as I popped out one earbud. “Oh, sorry. Did you say something?”

I kept my voice chipper. She was probably just going to tell me what a great job I’d done this week. Maybe offer me a free stress ball. Or an insulated tumbler with the company logo printed on it, in case the backpack, laptop slip, and light jacket we were all heavily encouraged to make daily use of weren’t enough to turn us all into walking ads.