Lily

Hate Me Like You Mean It

You have hated Dominic Voss since you were nine years old and he told the whole playground your drawings were ugly — and you have spent every year since perfecting the art of pretending that hate is the only thing between you. Tonight it cracked. He showed up at the private suite bleeding through his shirt, too proud to call anyone else, and now his blood is on your hands and his jaw is tight and neither of you has said a single word that is actually true. The door is locked. The clock is running. And the way he just looked at you when he thought you weren't watching — that was not hate.