Page 61 of I Hate You More

My gut clenched as I realized what I was thinking, and a strange feeling rushed through me. I was actually concerned about Ally. I actually cared how my actions made her feel. This wasn’t the way I was supposed to act around her, and I needed to leave before I did something we both regretted.

I quickly drew back from her, and the electric connection between us seemed to fade as her gaze dropped to the ground. Now that I had a little distance, it felt like I could breathe again—like my mind wasn’t filled with a thick fog that made it hard to think.

“I don’t care either way about the truce,” I said. “Just please don’t pretend to be something you’re not around me.”

Ally’s eyes lifted to meet mine. She was frowning at me in a way I couldn’t begin to decipher, but she slowly started to nod. It seemed we’d come to an understanding.

She opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something more, but before she could speak, I turned and walked back toward the bleachers. She’d agreed to stop acting like a robot and that was all I’d wanted. I didn’t need her questioning why I cared so much that she act like herself—not when I was unwilling to ask the same question of myself. I was far too afraid of what the answer would be.

20

Ally

I staredat the ceiling as I tried to fall asleep, but like the other two nights this weekend, sleep just wouldn’t come. My body might have been exhausted, but my mind was wide-awake. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Chase had insisted I stop being nice to him or how Operation Pest Control was becoming a complete failure.

He was correct in thinking I’d been acting differently around him recently, but I’d been trying to make him interested in me not drive him further away. The flirting had all been Tessa’s idea and was supposed to help me accomplish the final step of the plan.

She’d suggested it when she found out what Chase had said to me in his grandpa’s truck last weekend. She was convinced that meant he was ready for us to kiss and that the football game was the perfect chance to make it happen in front of my dad.

So, all week, I’d been flirting with him—or, at least, trying to. But when Friday night came along, I had a sudden attack of nerves, and I wasn’t sure if I could go through with it. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I felt so much pressure to time everything perfectly. When my opportunity to kiss him appeared, I completely froze up, giving him enough time to back away. I should have just launched myself at him, whether he liked it or not. But for a second, I’d reconsidered the whole thing, and then my chance was gone.

I felt at a complete loss for what to do now. It seemed I couldn’t win. When I was mean to him, he wanted a truce, but when I was nice to him, he wanted me to be mean again. I couldn’t understand where I’d gone wrong in my attempts to make him like me, but his lack of explanation had my mind clutching for answers.

I let out a breath and glared upwards, like it was the ceiling’s fault that Operation Pest Control was a disaster. But really, I could only blame myself for doing a hopeless job at completing Tessa’s four-step plan.

It didn’t help that my own emotions kept getting in the way. Chase told me I drove him crazy, but he liked it, and I was beginning to understand exactly what he meant. I almost wished we could just go back to simply hating one another. Life was so much easier when my heart and mind weren’t a jumbled mess.

I just needed to stop thinking about him all the time. But, even now, I kept glancing toward my door. It seemed unfair that he slept peacefully only mere meters from where I lay, while I was kept up at night with his words running through my mind on repeat.

Before I could overthink it, I threw my covers off and pushed myself from my bed. I walked over to my door and flung it open, before crossing the corridor toward Chase’s room.

I hesitated outside the door for the briefest of seconds. What the hell was I doing? My Dad was asleep just down the hall, and my brother was in his room only two doors down. Barging into Chase’s room definitely wasn’t a part of Tessa’s carefully constructed plan—not unless I was going in there to seduce him. But seduction was the last thing on my mind. I had too many questions rattling around my head and I needed answers if I was ever going to get to sleep.

“Screw the plan,” I muttered under my breath as my hand slipped around the door handle, and I slowly started to turn it. My heart was practically pounding in my ears, but I couldn’t bring myself to step away and return to my bed.

I pushed the door open and found Chase’s room was dark. The moonlight streamed in through his open window and highlighted his bed, but the rest of the room was bathed in shadow. At the sound of the door opening, Chase sat up.

“Shane?” he asked, his voice sounding far too alert for someone who was supposed to be asleep.

I darted into the room before my dad could hear Chase’s voice from down the corridor;, and closed the door behind me. “No, it’s not Shane.”

I pressed my back against the door as I tried to calm my rapidly beating heart. It didn’t help that, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see that Chase slept without a shirt. I swallowed and drew my gaze away, feeling my cheeks warm at the sight.

“What are you doing in here, Ally?” His voice was hard,, but not unkind. I knew he was probably annoyed I had just barged into his room in the middle of the night, but this wasn’t about him.

“I can’t sleep,” I admitted.

“So, you decided to wake me up?”

I shrugged. Not that he could see it in the darkness of his room.

“Why do you care if I act differently around you?” I asked, in a sudden rush of words.

“You woke me up to ask me that?” he grumbled.

“No,” I replied. “Yes. I don’t know.”

There was silence for a moment, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to respond, but then he started talking. “The girls at school are always fake when they’re around me and I hate it. I guess I didn’t want to see you acting like that too.” He let out a long breath before he continued. “I don’t think you should be in here, Ally.”

---