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We stayed like this, eyes closed, close Waiting
Hoping this wasn’t the wrong thing That after all this turether, that someone outside of it would understand
If Erica couldn’t accept whatever he’d say, then who else could? Did we have any chance at all?
I knehat Kota would say before he said it I only hoped she’d understand “Because we’re both dating her”
“You’rewhat?”
“We both like her, so we decided between us that we’dboth date her He wasn’t doing anything behinddidn’t have a choice She agreed to it I’ this sound worse than it is”
Erica e noise as she exhaled quickly “Idon’t even knohat to say First, your school has you mixed up in a weird undercover operation, and now you’re saying you’re allowingthat Sang couldn’t decide between the two of you so you agreed to this?”
“We didn’t ask her to pick,” Kota said “Nathan openly confessed to having feelings for her He didn’t want it to cause proble for solutions so he didn’t make a mistake like that I talked to her about it We orried about it splitting up things or causing proble this I suggested he give it a try, with Sang in agreement with it”
Half-truths about how it happened
I wondered why he wasn’t talking about the others, but I realized maybe that was a bit too far If she couldn’t accept Nathan and Kota dating me at the same time, it’d be impossible for us to explain the whole real situation
Baby steps One thing at a time
I couldn’t wait any h this alone any longer
I kissed Luke on the nose quickly, releasing him
He stared at me, his face paler than I’d seen it before His usually happy face serious Now determined
I was, too I straightened up, fixed what I could ofit out of my face, and then opened the door
Luke stepped away, hiding, and I closed the door for him
They were sitting at the table Kota turned around Erica looked up, her eyes wide, her face strained with questions and concerns
“Morning,” I said, hoping they assu Kota needed a break, and Erica needed ti her
Kota remained seated but stretched out an arm to me I went to him, unsure what he wanted He wrapped an ar,” he said “Are you hungry?”
“Are you?” I asked “I can s and toast, perhaps?”
“Sure,” he said And he looked over at hisher about what happened with Hendricksand Nathan About you, me and Nathan”
“Oh,” I said My face was still hot, the blush deepening, but she wasn’t outwardly protesting Maybe he just wantedwas true “Yeah,” I said “We didn’t mean to lie about it before”
“We just weren’t sure you’d be okay with it,” Kota said “Nathan h to talk about it”
“He didn’t attack me,” I said “I knohat Jessica sawthat she probably didn’t understand the situation We were talking about sos like no and whatever else To Jessica, it probably sounded awful”
Erica’s face had frozen I thought she was looking at Kota, but her attention had altered to sohts “I want to be supportive of what you’re doing,” she said “I think I’ure out how you caht to do it”
“We sort of stumbled into the idea,” Kota said “I know it’s weird, but for some reason, it works for us”
She shook off her thoughts and refocused on us “I think I need to hear this froether But let’s put it aside, for now We need to figure out what to say to the police as well He may need to be here We’ll need to focus” She looked at et him?”
“I’ll go see if she’s up,” I said, eager to do as she asked She wasn’t yelling She wasn’t deerous After all the lies, after all the craziness she’d experienced, I wondered how she was able to absorb it and deal with it Did we not give her enough credit?
Part of me wondered if she hadn’t suspected the Academy to be more than as on the surface She’d told me before soed Kota so drastically and helped thehed what happened last night It wasn’t always dangerous like that