Lahat ng Kabanata ng Hate You, Till I Don't : Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

POV: Ave --- Ave – Tuesday Afternoon, Bedroom Floor The sun had started to set outside Ave’s window, a slow gold bleeding through pale curtains. Her bag lay spilled open on the floor, books and charger cords tangled like a defeated army. The day had been long, and her limbs felt heavy — not from fatigue, but from overthinking. Again. Ave didn’t usually re-read her old journals. Once something was written, she believed in letting it sit — like concrete, too set to reshape. But that evening, with Nia on her bed scrolling TikTok and Blake’s voice still haunting her from the night before, she pulled the shoebox out from the back of her closet. The one with the red ribbon. The one she hadn’t touched since the day after the robotics invitational. Nia looked up when the lid creaked open. “Oh snap. Is that your trauma box?” Ave blinked. “What?” “That’s what I call mine,” Nia said, eyes still on her screen. “You know. The box that holds every diary you ever wrote while processing so

POV: Blended (Ave + Blake) AVE – Thursday Morning, School Courtyard It had been three days since everything exploded. Ave had stopped counting hours. Minutes. Pings. She muted every group chat, turned off notifications, and made her lock screen a blank photo. The world outside her head had gone blurry—and she was okay with that. Except she wasn’t. Not really. She walked toward the courtyard with her hoodie up, earbuds in, playlist on shuffle. It was early—too early for anyone to be around. She didn’t want people. She didn’t want apologies. She didn’t even want Nia. She just wanted— “I thought you’d be here.” Blake’s voice froze her mid-step. He was sitting on their usual bench. The one behind the art block. Quiet. Out of the way. A place they’d used for sneaky code debugging and secret donut-eating after late rehearsals. Ave’s jaw clenched. She pulled her earbuds out slowly. “Why are you here?” “I figured this was the only place you wouldn’t run from me.” “You don’t know

POV: Blended (Blake + Ave)BLAKE — Friday Evening, School GymThe lights were dimmed low. Neon blues pulsed across the floor. The gym had been transformed with cheap decorations and string lights, but somehow… it worked.Blake hadn’t wanted to come.He was allergic to school dances. Too loud. Too many eyes. Too much sweat and glitter and forced fun. But Tyree dragged him out anyway.“You need a break, man,” Tyree had said. “Your frown’s starting to age you.”So Blake stood at the edge of the crowd now, drink in hand, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, watching everyone laugh and spin in loops of sugar-rush energy.He hadn’t expected her to be here.But there she was.Ave Imani, in a midnight blue dress that looked both effortless and dangerous. Her hair pulled half-up, cheeks flushed with just enough shimmer, and her lips—Blake didn’t look at her lips.Much.She was standing near the snack table with Nia and Jamie, smiling at something Jamie had said. Laughing, even.She looked—Ha

POV: Ave --- Ave didn't expect anything when she opened her email that night. She certainly didn’t expect to see a single-line message from Blake with a subject line that read: > For the girl who never stops solving. No “hey.” No signature. No emojis. Just a string of letters and numbers: > 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 01110100 Binary. Of course it was binary. Her brows furrowed. She copied and pasted it into a translator without hesitation. The result made her freeze. "heart" That was it. One word. No explanation. Ave stared at the screen. She’d expected Blake to maybe apologize for the last few awkward encounters. Or tease her about how she still double-checked his code. Or pretend like nothing had happened between them at all. But this? This was Blake being... sincere. Quiet. Vulnerable. And it scared her more than anything. --- The next morning at school, Ave couldn’t stop thinking about the message. It played on repeat in her head like a radio stuck on the

POV: Blended (Ave + Blake) --- Ave — Friday Night, Robotics Lab The clock read 11:42 PM. The rest of the school was long dark, long quiet, but the tech lab pulsed with low fluorescent light and hums from the soldering iron. Ave sat cross-legged on the floor, her hair pulled into a messy bun, fingers steady as she aligned the final moisture sensor. Blake sat beside her, legs stretched out, coding tablet on his lap. He was focused, mouth slightly parted, brows furrowed in concentration. They hadn’t said much in the last hour. Not because they were avoiding anything. Because this… was them now. Tethered. Uncomplicated. At least for tonight. > Final qualifier in two days. One prototype. One pitch. One chance. But right now, Ave wasn’t thinking about the judges. She was thinking about how Blake kept passing her tools without her asking. How their rhythm hadn’t broken all night. How being near him no longer made her skin crawl with memory, but glow with something warmer.