There was an upcoming test in chem class, and I knew, the moment I glanced back through my notebook, that I definitely was going to fail it. It turned out that Lila had exactly the same sentiments as I did when we exchanged a glance. I elbowed her when Bredbenner turned to his computer (slowly, since he'd finally figured out how to use it properly about a week ago). "Hey, a study session, my place later, okay?"

Lila opened her arms to me like she wanted to hug me, but I held her off by shoving her away gently. "He'll think we're in a romantic relationship," I whispered not so quietly. "And please don't hug me. I can't stand physical contact."

The pout Lila sent me looked exactly like one of the smolders that her brother put on whenever I refused to give into his whims (which, incidentally, involved a lot of touching, especially around the face area). I blinked several times. No, I was not going to link my best friend to my...whoever he was.

Luckily for me, Lila didn't seem to see my lapse in interaction. "You know you love me," she whined, her pout becoming even more prominent.

"Push that lip where it's supposed to be, L." I jokingly shoved her arm, and she huffed, flipping her hair as she turned back to her notebook.

"You've been mentioning romance a lot, you know," she commented casually, innocently looking up at Bredbenner when he glanced back at the class. I followed her lead, plastering a grin on my face (but I probably looked like the Joker who was about to kill people in their sleep since Bredbenner turned back to the board rather quickly).

My heart stuttered a little, and I could feel my hands clamming up a little. Oh shit. This was the day that I knew would be coming all along. I bit my lip. "The hell're you talking about?"

She sent me a flat look. "You know I've never been oblivious to your antics, A. Like, I'm not stupid even though my brother might be a whole lot smarter than I am."

I hoped that my warm cheeks were part of a reaction to her discovery rather than her mention of Luc. If it was to the latter, Lila would probably figure it out in about three and a half seconds, and there was going to be no way for me to delay things again. "Um..."

"Come on; you know I've got your back, girlfriend." Lila ducked down and scribbled some nonsense in the margins of her page when she saw Bredbenner approaching. I glanced up at the board (to take my own notes, rather than Lila's, for once!), sneaking looks at Lila to check if she was considering me suspiciously in any way.

No, she wouldn't do that. Lila was much more subtle than that. I'd have a lot more luck with Olivia, who was in pre-calc right now.

Once Bredbenner's eyes were on some poor kid, I said to Lila, "There might be something."

Lila perked up then, immediately. "Is there a guy?" she asked brightly under her breath.

Damn, she was perceptive. I shouldn't have underestimated her like this because I could have planned ahead all the responses to the questions she would surely ask while I was too wrapped up with her brother. Fuck Luc Mercier.

Actually, that wouldn't be such a bad idea.

The heat in my cheeks intensified. Really, I needed to stop thinking like this. Lila was looking at me then with her eyebrows raised and her hazel eyes sharp. I pretended to rub my right contact to avoid eye contact with her (to be fair, my right eye was twitching, but probably because of some pollen from outside or something, not my contacts).

"Well?" Lila said. She was looking much too excited to find out about my love life (which, thanks to Luc, was no longer non-existent) as she bounced in her seat (to her credit, almost imperceptibly). "Come on, Audrey. I've waiting for this moment for years."

"You've known me for about three years, Lila," I said. "And, like, we spent the first year awkwardly looking at each other over the seniors' poems for The Aquiline."

Lila waved a hand dismissively at me. "But we spent the best of the second year and this year, like, totally chilling. So spill-now. I know you're stalling."

Ugh, no way I could dig myself out of this hole. I listened to Bredbenner explain a part of our notes that I didn't really get, so I wrote down a couple points about what he said. I could feel Lila huffing with exasperation as she fidgeted by my side (it was true that I'd gotten to know her very well over a relatively short time). "Audrey, seriously."

I shrugged. Oh God, if I was going to die now, I might as well do it as quickly as I could. "You, er, know this person very well."

Lila looked like she was going to throw her hands up like she was in some dramatic theater production (which would be disastrous, since although she appeared to be a genius in every single way, she was absolutely horrid at memorizing lines, as she and I both discovered in our freshman year). Luckily for me, Bredbenner seemed to be paying especially careful attention to his students today, so she held herself in.

I really was thanking my lucky stars. Usually, Bredbenner couldn't care less about his students' academic records as long as they didn't piss him off.

"That's so, like, specific, Audrey," Lila said sarcastically. She flipped her ponytail in the air flippantly. "I'm basically sisters with Luc's rugby team."

Well, she was getting warmer. I supposed.

"He's in that group," I offered helpfully, adding a new section title to my notes. Chemistry really was very fun today. I couldn't wait to burn off my hands with all the acid Bredbenner had in the dusty cabinets in the back, especially while not wearing gloves. Honestly, I'd never anticipated a lab as much as this one before.

Actually, I'd never anticipated a lab in any class ever in my life.

Lila rolled her eyes. "Well, I only have to pick between ten people, not including my idiot brother."

Yeah, actually, she was pretty far from the target. Dieu merci. I nodded on encouragingly. "Sure, if you really think so."

So basically, I had my entertainment set out for the rest of chemistry class (aside from almost burning the skin off my hand by forgetting to put my right glove on, but thankfully, Bredbenner came around to remind me-I'd never loved him as much as I did right now, but at the same time, he did call me stupid somewhat indirectly, so...). It was fun to watch Lila be wrong about something, the way it was funny to see Luc fail at things (like playing with kids).

↔

At lunch the game continued, but with an additional player. Olivia latched into every word Lila said as soon as she oh-so-casually mentioned, "Audrey likes someone..."

"Really?" Olivia set her fork down with a clack on her plate. It didn't really make a difference since the entire cafeteria was in an uproar today (for no particular reason-actually, maybe the upcoming rugby game had something to do with things). It really annoyed me for some reason, though, even though Olivia herself was one to care about trivial things like such.

"Don't listen to her," I grumbled, stuffing my green beans into my mouth. Today we were having a nasty lunch (worthy of those of public school), and I was feeling disgruntled enough from third period (we'd had a pop quiz in AP Government today, and I knew for sure that I'd failed that examination). "She likes to gossip, as you can see."

"But lots of gossip is actually correct," Lila pointed out. "The subjects of gossip usually hate it so much because they're, like, so on point."

Huh.

"Just, please." I held up a hand at the two of them. They both were sitting across from me today. "I need to contemplate the futility of life and the meager achievements of the human race."

Olivia snorted, barely covering it up with her hand. She'd brought her own lunch today. Lucky bitch. And she wouldn't even let me steal any bits of her pasta. Ugh. I was just about ready to disown her as my friend. "Why did she not join the drama geeks this year?" she asked Lila.

Lila shrugged, her shoulders practically touching her ears. (And Olivia wasn't talking about her. What was the world coming to?) "Something about commitments." She paused. "Woah. Dude, what if she'd liked this guy for the entire school year, and we didn't notice?"

I covered my face with my hands, completely ignoring the fact that the green beans that were in my mouth were still blandly resting on my tongue. "You guys are completely aware that I'm still sitting here, right?"

And just then, the rumble of people's conversations seemed to increase. I opened one eye, nonplussed, and tried to observe without catching either of the other two's eyes. Oh goodness. One tall, dark and messy-haired jock who was becoming a very familiar presence at our lunch table was standing right there. Next to my backpack, which was slung carelessly over the chair next to me. And he was close, like really close.

I could smell his cologne from here, and I felt like I needed to excuse myself in the restroom to recover and swoon a little. Oh mon Dieu.

Luc did have the worst timing ever-this was the first time I'd actively sympathized with Excelsior's very demanding varsity rugby coach. (Most of the time, I was too intimidated by his stature alone to even exchange niceties with him.)

Putting my palm over my previously open eye, I closed both of my eyes and pinched them tightly.

"I hope you're not having a headache." Lila sounded much too amused to actually sound like she cared about my well-being. She was probably hoping that she was the cause for my pains, and to be completely honest, I thought she wasn't too far off. Her twin had a larger deal in the matter.

I felt someone pat my head. That seemed like Lila. But again, Lila would have messed with my hair, so it had to be Olivia. Her voice confirmed it. "Aw, poor baby. Stop bullying her."

"Wait, what's up?" Luc asked as he slid in next to me. I heard the thump of my backpack right next to the leg of my chair. "I hope she isn't ill."

"No one uses the word 'ill' anymore," Lila responded to him sharply. "If you wanted to sound like an English professor, you can recite Shakespeare." She broke off abruptly. "Nah, actually, I don't think Audrey and her headache would appreciate that much right now. Just go away."

Luc sounded just as amused as his sister had been a couple moments before he'd joined our lunch table. "Don't be a bitch." He poked my arm hesitantly. Ugh, could he not touch me? I kept thinking back to the afternoon we'd gone to the preschool as well as all our car rides as well as our lunchtime conversations in the last week... "Yo, you cool, Audrey?"

Reluctantly, I took my hands down from my face. I probably had red handprints on my face now. I definitely wanted him to see me in this state. "No."

He held his hands up. "Don't take your anger out on your favorite person."

"Shut up." I poked him back to return the favor. "Now please do fuck off."

Luc pretended to flinch and ran his hand through his hair. "I've never been rejected so harshly before."

"Well, today is a day of firsts," I said dryly. Then, I chose that moment to look up at my friends. Wrong timing, Audrey.

It seemed that Lila had finally connected the dots. She leaned forward, and involuntarily, I gulped. This was the end. All of this was building up to this. And Olivia was right there...

"Yo, Luc," she said loudly, "you like Audrey?"

In sync, Luc and I both flushed. Luckily for us, Luc recovered first, not without fumbling over his response (but again, I wouldn't have been able to say anything at all for the next three minutes). "Just, er, fuck off, would you? Audrey and I, um"-he chose this exact moment to glance over at me-"are, uh, totally cool."

And he was stealing "totally" from my vocabulary. Smooth, Luc.

"Omigosh!" Lila squealed, putting her hands over her cheeks. "You two are, like, definitely getting it on together. And like, I figured it out!" She leaned across the table, completely disregarding the lunch tray in front of her. That led my eyes to Olivia since her lunch was so delectable right now.

More bad timing on my part.

Olivia's expression was as cool and blank as she could possibly maintain right now, which wasn't very much. I could see the faint furrow in her brows, and her eyes were glistening a little. Oh gosh. For the first time in a long time, I wondered why in the world I chose Luc Mercier. Why didn't I choose Eli or someone else? That would make things so much less messed up.

She coughed in her fist, and then she made eye contact with me. I was sure I was still bright red from Lila's comment (Lila was, at this moment, having an eye-to-eye conversation with her twin, and was therefore oblivious to everything). She shook her head at me, like she wasn't going to break down. A second later, she nodded at me and gave me a weak smile, like she was totally okay with everything.

Not. True.

She stood up abruptly. "Excuse me." Then she headed out of the cafeteria, presumably to the restroom. I stared after her guiltily, biting my lip. Oh gosh, this was going to take a while.

Right at that moment, there was a lull in the conversations in the lunch room, and my stomach growled. Very loudly. I bit my lip and innocently stuffed more green beans and mashed potatoes in my mouth. Luc and Lila turned to me, raising their eyebrows.

"Olivia good?" Lila wondered.

I bit my cheek. "She'll be fine." Eventually. After I had a talk with her, probably.

Luc shrugged. "At least we don't have to keep pretending in front of them, right?" he whispered into my ear.

I shot a little smile at him. "Sure." And a little guiltily, I took a clean fork from my lunch tray, stabbed a meatball from Olivia's pasta, and stuffed it in my mouth.

I had to survive on edible food sometimes.

→

Excuse me, everyone-I have to go celebrate finishing this chapter BEFORE 10pm. Where's the applause? None? Fine.

Anyway, the secret (not so much - Audrey and Luc never stated it outright that they were sort of/sort of not really seeing each other, and this is the first time they kind of admit to it) is out! How do you feel about Lila? She's pretty astute, haha. And don't worry too much about Olivia. There's lots for her coming up soon!

Thank you so much for everything, (I'm getting sentimental now...exactly 10 chapters left of this book, and I'm two-thirds of the way finished) guys, and I will see you tomorrow!

Yours,

Anne

(who is currently drowning in play practice but somehow finds time to dedicate to writing a chapter a day-now where's the applause?)