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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE EASY THING
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-07-06 01:05:52
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Fake it with me CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: WHAT EVERYONE THINKS
By Wednesday morning the photograph had been up for less than twenty four hours and the school had already decided what it meant.Ava heard the first version at seven fifteen from Mia, who had collected four separate interpretations before first period and was presenting them with the organizational enthusiasm of someone who had found a project."Version one," Mia said, walking beside Ava toward the main building, "is that you and Mason have been secretly together since October and the photograph is his way of making it public.""No," Ava said."Version two is that you're not together but he's trying to get your attention and the photograph is a power move.""Also no.""Version three is that Mason did it to make someone else jealous, identity unknown.""Mia.""Version four, which is my personal favorite, is that you two made some kind of deal and the photograph is part of it and something interesting is about to happen.""None of those are correct," Ava said."Then what's correct?""H
Fake it with me CHAPTER FORTY: THE WRONG KIND OF HELP
She went to find Mason that evening.Not because Noah had told her he listened to the voice note four times, which was information she had filed under things that are true and inconvenient and was not currently acting on. Not because of the nineteen seconds she had sent before she could reconsider. Because the unknown number had set a time and a place for tomorrow and she needed to get there first and getting there first required knowing something she did not currently know, which was whether Mason had received the same message.She found him in the equipment room.Not practicing, not running drills, just sitting on the bench near the door with his phone in his hand and the specific stillness of someone who had been sitting with something for long enough that the sitting had become its own kind of decision.He looked up when she came in."You got the message," he said.Not a question."Yes," she said. "Did you?""Twenty minutes ago." He held up his phone. "Same time. Different locatio
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: BUILDING SOMETHING
The regional showcase was in two weeks.Ava had known this since August, had it marked in three separate places, her phone calendar, the whiteboard above her desk, and the back page of the notebook she carried everywhere, and for most of the year the date had existed as a fixed point she was orienting everything toward, the first major competition of her tenure as captain, the first public evidence of what her leadership actually produced.She called a full squad meeting Tuesday morning before school.Not a practice. A meeting. There was a difference, and the difference mattered, and she had spent Sunday evening after the gym, after the voice note, after everything, writing the agenda with the methodical focus she brought to things she needed to get right.The squad assembled at seven in the gym, twelve girls and the particular early-morning energy of people who had shown up before they were required to because they had been asked to and had decided to honor that.Ava stood at the fro
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: CLOSE ENOUGH TO MATTER
Monday arrived the way Mondays arrived after significant Sundays, with the particular requirement of assembling yourself back into the version that functioned in public, and Ava did this with the focused efficiency she brought to most things, standing at her bathroom mirror at six forty five with the specific intentionality of someone who understood that the day was going to require something from her and was making sure she had it available.She had not responded to Mason's text.Not the floor message and not the rival versus enemy message and not the two words from Friday night, and the not-responding had accumulated over the weekend into a weight she was carrying into Monday with the quiet awareness of something unresolved that was not going to resolve itself by being ignored.She went to school.First period passed. Second period passed. She moved through the morning with the competent, forward-facing energy she used on days that required it, attending to the things that required
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: THE GIRL BEHIND IT
Mason had not meant to see it.He had come through the corridor adjacent to the practice room because the east corridor was blocked for maintenance and the alternative route added seven minutes to the walk from the football field to the locker room, and seven minutes mattered when you had film review at four and a father who checked timestamps on the training logs.The practice room door was slightly ajar.He pushed it open.He saw her before she heard him.She was sitting on the floor in the center of the room with her knees drawn up and her hands in her lap, and she was looking at her reflection in the mirror with an expression he had never seen on her face in two years of sharing the same building, the same corridors, the same overcrowded schedule of events and conflicts and public exchanges that the school had decided was entertainment.He had seen Ava Bennett composed.He had seen her controlled, intimidating, precise, commanding, occasionally furious in the specific way she was
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING
The mistake happened on Sunday.Not at the meeting, which ran cleanly and efficiently and produced the clarity all four of them had been working toward for three weeks, Sofia and Noah presenting what they had assembled from the library sessions while Ava added the four words from her notebook and the picture completed itself in the specific, uncomfortable way pictures completed themselves when all the pieces were finally in the same room.They agreed on a plan.They agreed to move carefully and without announcing that they were moving.They agreed not to tell anyone what they knew until they were ready, which meant not Mason, though he was in the room, and not Lily, and not Chloe, and not anyone adjacent to the person the picture pointed to.After the meeting Ava went to the gym.This was where the mistake happened.She was running the competition routine alone, the one the squad was preparing for the regional showcase in three weeks, and she had run it eleven times before the mistake
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