Chapter 4 The Part Where I Should Have Lied

Declan's POV

My phone has been buzzing since third period, and I have been ignoring it since third period, and that strategy is working perfectly until Fitz sits across from me at lunch, puts both elbows on the table, and says, "Talk."

I take a bite of my sandwich.

"Declan."

"I heard you."

"The whole school has seen that video." He slides his phone across the table. The gossip account post. Thirty-two thousand impressions. I already know. I saw it in the hallway between second and third, and I kept walking because stopping would have meant reacting, and reacting would have meant everyone watching me react. "Who is she?"

I chew. Swallow. Take another bite.

"Declan. Who. Is. She."

"Wren Calloway," I say.

Fitz stares at me. "I know her name. The whole school knows her name. She has forty thousand followers and her own segment on the school media channel, and everyone knows her name. I am asking who she is to you."

I put the sandwich down.

No version of this goes well. I know that. I have known it since last night, since the photo, since her text, since I lay in the dark staring at my phone for an hour trying to figure out how to reply to I know you're awake, I can hear your keyboard without it becoming something. I never replied. I still have not replied. That was probably its own kind of answer.

"She is my stepsister," I say.

Fitz's face does something I have never seen it do before. It goes completely still. Like all his expressions were left at the same time, and we have not decided which one to send back.

"Say that again," he says.

"My dad married her mom. We moved in on Saturday. She goes here. I did not know she went here until this morning."

Fitz picks up his phone. Look at the video. Look at me. Look at the video again. "You showed up to school with your stepsister on the first day, and the entire internet thinks you are dating, and you said nothing this morning when I texted you?"

"I was processing."

"You were," He puts the phone face down. Runs both hands through his hair. "Declan. This is either the worst situation I have ever heard of or the best one, and I cannot figure out which."

"Worst," I say. "Definitely worst."

He lets it go for approximately four minutes.

Then he puts his fork down and looks at me with the specific expression he uses when he is about to say something I do not want to hear but need to. Fitz has two modes. Loud and ridiculous, which is eighty percent of the time, and quiet and direct, which is the twenty percent that actually matters.

This is the twenty percent.

"The review board met last week," he says.

I stop chewing.

"I heard Osei talking to the department head before the first period. They pulled the provisional files. Yours was in the stack."

I put my sandwich down.

"Three missed deadlines, Dec. One incomplete project. They are not going to carry you through the semester on potential. You know that."

I know that. I have known that since August, when I missed the first deadline because my dad needed me to handle three things he should have handled himself, and I ran out of hours in the day. I know exactly where I stand. I have a spreadsheet on my phone that I open sometimes and then close immediately because looking at it too long makes it real in a way I cannot manage.

"If you do not turn in the full portfolio by the end of the semester," Fitz says, "you are out."

"I know."

"Not on probation. Out."

"I know, Fitz."

He looks at me for a second. Then he picks his fork back up. He does not say anything else because he understands that I have already had this conversation with myself a hundred times in the dark, and me having it again out loud does not add anything.

That is why he is my best friend.

I nod like I have a plan.

I do not have a plan.

I eat half my lunch and throw the rest away.

On the way back from the trash, I make the mistake of looking across the cafeteria.

Wren is three tables over with Celeste and two other girls I do not know. Her camera is up, pointed at something Celeste is doing, and she is laughing. Not the careful kind of laugh she does when she knows people are watching. The real kind, sudden and unguarded, her whole face in it. She has not looked in my direction once since lunch started. She is completely in her element, and I am standing by a trash can watching her like an idiot.

I go back to my seat.

Fitz is watching me with an expression I do not like.

"Do not," I say.

"I did not say anything."

"You were about to."

He holds both hands up. I sit down. I open my composition notebook and stare at the four bars I wrote last night, the ones I crossed out and rewrote and crossed out again. Below them, in smaller writing, are the six words I did not mean to write and shoved under my mattress this morning.

I close the notebook.

My phone buzzes.

It is not Fitz. It is not the gossip account. It is a number I do not have saved, but recognize immediately because I stared at it for an hour last night.

One message.

Osei called me. He wants to meet with both of us after school today. Don't be late.

I read it twice.

Both of us.

I look up across the cafeteria. Wren's camera is down now. She is looking directly at me with an expression I cannot read from here, flat and careful, the same look she gave me at the top of the stairs Saturday morning.

She already knows something I do not.

I can tell by the way she holds my gaze for exactly two seconds and then looks away first.

Which means whatever Osei said on that phone call, it was not good.

I am outside the media room at three-fifteen.

Wren gets there at three-sixteen and stands next to me without speaking. We wait. The door is closed. Through it, I can hear Osei on a call, his voice low and fast.

Then I hear another voice.

One I recognize.

The head of the scholarship review board.

My mouth goes dry.

Wren turns her head slightly toward me. I do not look at her. But I hear her breath change, just barely, and I know she heard it too.

The door opens.

Osei looks at both of us and says, "Come in and close the door. What I am about to tell you does not leave this room."