People hate the FL but I hate the ML a bit more. They're both awful yes, it's just that the ML made much of this spiral out of control when they were younger by not saying stuff when he should and terrible timed lying that contributed to things getting out of hand. He could have told the ML was behind bullying him but didn't when she asked who did it. And he didn't have to lie about being with someone else because they were both obviously I to each other when they were younger. FL wasn't really satisfied with being with the bully so if she knew that bf was bullying ML and he didn't lie about liking someone else then maybe the outcome would be different. Just not leading to the bully easily blackmailing ML like that
People hate the FL but I hate the ML a bit more. They're both awful yes, it's just that the ML made much of this spiral out of control when they were younger by not saying stuff when he should and terrible timed lying that contributed to things getting out of hand. He could have told the ML was behind bullying him but didn't when she asked who did it. And he didn't have to lie about being with someone else because they were both obviously I to each other when they were younger. FL wasn't really satisfied with being with the bully so if she knew that bf was bullying ML and he didn't lie about liking someone else then maybe the outcome would be different. Just not leading to the bully easily blackmailing ML like that