Page 22 of I Hate You More

We all let out a collective sigh in relief.

“Good, because I was beginning to worry about you,” Miles said.

I, on the other hand, had started worrying about myself. Mia might have been joking, but for a few short moments, I’d been serious. I couldn’t believe I was so desperate to get rid of Chase that I’d considered framing him as an appropriate solution to getting him out of the house. If I was desperate enough to consider planting drugs in his room, perhaps I was desperate enough to date him.

I let out a long breath, a feeling of defeat making my lungs constrict. “Maybe you’re right,” I said, turning to Tessa. “Maybe getting caught dating Chase is the solution I’m after.”

My best friend’s eyes lit up brightly, and she clapped her hands. “I knew you’d come around.”

I grimaced at her enthusiasm and shook my head. “You really don’t need to look so pleased about this. It’s never going to work.”

“Well, it’s never going to work with that attitude,” Tessa said, pouting.

“I’m just being realistic,” I replied. “Even if I can manage to get past his attitude for long enough to flirt with him, I wouldn’t know how to begin to get him to date me. It’s not like I’ve got a heap of experience dating boys.”

“We’ll help you,” Mia said.

“All the help in the world doesn’t change the fact that Chase dates cheerleaders like Jenna, not losers like me.”

“You’re not a loser,” Mia said.

“You know what I mean.” I wasn’t a loser, but I wasn’t Miss Popularity either. I was somewhere in that hazy middle zone of the school’s social hierarchy where I liked to think the normal people existed.

“And you totally could have been a cheerleader,” Tessa said with a roll of her eyes.

I laughed. “I might be able to dance, but I’ve got about as much pep as a shop assistant at the end of a ten-hour shift.”

“True,” Tessa said with a smirk. “Man, I would pay good money to see you cheering.”

“And I’d pay good money to avoid such a terrible experience,” I replied. “Can we get back on topic? How am I going to do this?”

Tessa nodded. “Well, you can’t just walk up to him and ask him out on a date.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t work for any of the other girls in school,” Mia agreed. “Except maybe Jenna, but she had to put in hours of hard flirting time, and she must have asked him out a thousand times.”

“I don’t have that much time,” I said. “If we’re doing this, we need to do it fast.” I pushed down a shiver of repulsion that crept up my spine as I imagined asking Chase on a date. I couldn’t even imagine doing it once, let alone a thousand times.

“Agreed,” Tessa replied. “Come over to my house tonight, and we’ll come up with a proper plan of attack.”

“A plan?”

Tessa nodded, and a little of the apprehension in my chest eased. I might not have had a clue how to get Chase to date me, but I might be able follow a plan if my friends were there to guide me through it.

“Okay. I’ll be over tonight.”

Tessa grinned in response. “By the time we’re done with Chase, that boy isn’t going to know what hit him.”

I hoped she was right.

* * *

“So,I think we should start by outlining our plan on paper,” Tessa said, as we sat on her bedroom floor after school. She had a huge piece of pink poster paper laid out in front of her and a ton of multicolored markers at her side. Mia was holding a pot of glitter, so whatever the plan was, they apparently wanted to make it pretty—that was at least one thing about the whole process I could get behind.

Miles had refused to join the planning session because he wanted to study. I got the feeling it was a bit of an excuse, but I really didn’t blame him. I knew I should be studying too, and tendrils of guilt had coiled through me when I’d crossed out an hour of homework in my diary to do this instead. I was supposed to be working on today’s math problems, not playing with glitter, but this felt like a necessary evil.

Nerves fluttered around my stomach as I considered what we were doing. In the heat of anger, I was ready to do anything to take Chase down. But now that I’d had a little time to cool off since our recent confrontations, Tessa’s plan sounded a little insane.

Tessa took a black marker and wrote “Operation Pest Control” across the top of the page.

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