Chapter 164: Please... Don’t Hate Me
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His fingers tightened just a bit against my sides, grounding himself as he spoke faster, like he was scared to stop for fear of losing his nerve entirely.
"And by the time I realized how stupid my actions were, you already hated me. And honestly, rightfully so. My friends were ganging up on you, making things worse, and I couldn’t just... stop it all. Not suddenly. I knew no one would miss it, and they’d start asking questions I didn’t know how to answer. So I kept being the same jerk because if I backed off too quickly, it would seem odd, and I was too cowardly to admit why I wanted to back off."
He suddenly paused, breath shaking as he looked down at me, his green eyes raw and vulnerable in a way I had never seen. The hallway felt cramped again, the air thick with everything he had just confessed, years of cruelty twisted into desperate self-defense.
My chest ached under the weight of it all, realizing the pain he caused came from feelings he didn’t know how to handle.
Adrien ran his hand through his hair, exhaling a shaky breath, as if that confession had emptied something inside.
"I know this sounds crazy," he whispered, his voice softening, almost pleading. "I get that I don’t deserve even a second of your understanding after all I’ve done. You don’t have to say anything right now. Just... please, Noah. Don’t hate me. Not more than you already do."
He looked so lost at that moment-confused, genuinely scared, with his broad shoulders slightly hunched as if bracing for my rejection.
Those sharp features I once feared were softened by vulnerability, his gaze darting between my eyes and my mouth, like he was still reeling from our kiss and worried it might have been the only one he would ever get.
But I couldn’t bring myself to hate him. Not anymore. Not after seeing him like this, so exposed and trembling with the worry that I’d turn away. The anger and hurt still bubbled beneath the surface, but they felt distant, muffled by the warmth spreading through me from his honesty and the way he looked at me like I held his entire world.