*** "You like me?" I whisper. "I hate you," he says, just as softly. "I've hated you since the day I met you. But it's not the kind of hate you think it is." My head snaps up. "What the hell does that even mean?" His jaw tightens, like he's wrestling with something he doesn't want to admit. "It means," he says slowly, "you hit nerves I didn't know I had. It means you get under my skin without even trying. It means every time I tell myself to stay away, I end up right back in front of you. It means you make me feel things I don't have names for yet... and I don't know how to handle that." His eyes lock onto mine, sharp and unguarded. "It means the part of me that wants you is louder than the part of me that knows I shouldn't. And it's not that I shouldn't. It's because both of us agree we can't stand each other. Yet, here we are. You know it's not right. I know it's not right. Yet, the universe is telling us something different. I don't even want to know what kind of explosion or whatever you want to call it... would happen if we kissed. Would that explosion ruin me, or create something new?" *** Shes the girl everyone thinks has it all - confident, pretty, untouchable. He's the only one who sees the version she hides - scared, angry, exhausted, human. He doesn't ask her to smile. He doesn't ask her to be perfect. He listens, and somehow that's more dangerous than anything else. Because the more he understands her, the harder it becomes to pretend she doesn't feel something she shouldn't. Something real that she can't control. This isn't the love she expected. It's the love that terrifies her because it feels true.