Chapter Nineteen

Hayes is Lincoln.

He has to be. Even if the pieces don't fit perfectly, that doesn't mean they aren't the same person. Lincoln and Hayes are so similar—they give good advice, they're mature and responsible, and Hayes never said he's a freshman. He sometimes seems like he could be older than me, like when we talked about imposter syndrome. They've both mentioned having a sibling and an ex-girlfriend who dumped them, which seems like a loose connection, but it's there. Lincoln is competitive, maybe even as intensely as Hayes, and he said his mom was angry at him for playing in that kickball tournament. And it's that—the tournament—that is too big a coincidence to ignore.

The puzzle is coming together, and I can't deny the picture it's making.

I keep waiting for the excitement to hit—it's Lincoln. I know who Hayes is, and it's who I've suspected for a while, and he's cute and nice and has shown at least an iota of interest in me!

Whatever else I'm feeling doesn't matter. I'm not naming those feelings, or who they're about, or where my stupid heart gets the nerve to build up so much hope for such a statistically unlikely situation.

And I can say that now, as someone who officially passed statistics.

Instead, I'm focused on being back at school, my new classes, and how I'll tell Lincoln when I finally go for it. Which should be soon.

But when I see him in the dining hall my second night back, I feel myself chicken out almost before I've fully processed his presence.

"Why are you hiding?" Dara asks from the seat beside me as I reach under the table for the fork I "dropped" as soon as I spotted him.

"I'm not hiding," I mutter, my voice strained as I peek up again. Lincoln is nowhere in sight.

"It looks a little like hiding," Madison says from across the table. She twirls some pasta onto her fork and pops it into her mouth. Then she grimaces. "This food is a little—well, I mean, I'm happy to be back, and of course I'm so grateful to have the dining hall—"

"Madison, you can be real with us," Dara says. "If the food sucks, just say it sucks." She puts on a deep, sophisticated voice and sweeps a hand across the table. "Speak freely, my child."

Madison blinks at her. "What was that?"

Dara's shoulders drop. "My impression of a priest. I haven't been to church in a while, but I thought it was pretty good?"

Madison giggles. "We don't have priests at my church. We aren't Catholic. We have a pastor. My dad, remember?"

"Oh, that's right."

Madison flushes, takes another bite of her dinner to stall, and finally says, "Anyway, I was just going to say I'm happy to be back, but I miss the food at home. Although being home was… not as easy as last time."

Dara looks at me, then at Madison. "Speak freely, my child," she repeats in her possibly-a-priest impression.

Madison smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "I'm feeling a little weird about the drinking thing. Guilty, I guess, to have done something I know my parents and maybe even God wouldn't approve of. And I don't want to have to do things I don't want to do in order to be accepted. But at the same time, I want to do the things my friends are doing, and to learn more about the world and all the people in it. And I think I'm learning, as I get to know more people, that maybe things my church has taught me could be… hurtful to some of my new friends."

I have no idea what to say. I don't think it's any secret that my family isn't religious—unless you count worshipping at the altar of J.R.R. Tolkien. This is way out of my league.

"It's also hard when the things I want to do—like auditioning for the spring musical—are things my parents wouldn't like. I had to fight with them just to do glee club. They loved when I wanted to sing in the church choir. But now that I'm singing for something else, they don't approve, and that makes me sad. I don't like doing things they don't approve of, but I also want to be happy. And singing makes me really happy—in the choir, and in everything I'm doing now."

"I don't think I can tell you anything about religion," Dara says, "but when I was really struggling, I know what helped me. Therapy."

"I could never get my parents to pay for therapy," Madison says.

"There are counselors in the clinic," says Dara. "That's who I talk to. I go once a week, and it's totally free."

I blink at her. I knew about the counselors from the list of ideas I saw when I broke into Three's computer, and after Ellie was kicked out, our RA suggested counseling to me too. But hearing about it from Chloe—or Three's list—versus hearing that Dara goes every week is vastly different.

Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing to consider. Not only for Madison, but for me.

"And even if you hate it, at least it's not your Papa Pastor, and you can…" Dara smirks, and I know what's coming before she even says it. "Speak freely, my child."

"Okay. Pinch me."

I've just settled into my chair at the grunt desk when Three speaks from the seat beside me. It took me five minutes to work up the nerve to open the office door, not knowing if he'd be inside but guessing it was likely. I didn't know what I'd be dealing with after our last encounter—frosty Three or intense Three. But of course, he never acts the way I expect.

I sigh heavily and level him with an exasperated look. "No thanks."

"Come on, Wyn Evans deigned to thank me for my stats study guide?" He holds his arm out to me. "I need proof this hasn't been one long dream."

I push his arm away. "You've been holding on to that joke all break, haven't you?"

"I would've texted, but I like to see that disgusted look on your face."

"Clearly." I twist toward him, leaning my elbow on the desk. "I was surprised I didn't hear from you about our story. You seem like the type who doesn't allow rest."

He shrugs. "I worked on it a little."

"I thought you might be trying to cut me out again."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

I eye him. "Yeah, clearly you dream of other stuff."

He smirks. "Should we talk about your dreams?"

I ignore him, reaching down to pull my laptop from my bag. "Well, I don't know what you did all break, but I spent it scouring the fraternities' social media accounts. Some years were better than others, but for the most part, I was able to get the names of almost every person in every Dirty Four pledge class for the last five years."

Three blinks at me. "Dirty Four?"

"Sigma Rho, Theta Kappa Alpha, Alpha Xi Omega, and Gamma Theta Nu." I tick them off on my fingers, the two frats Three and I uncovered together and the two he'd already sussed out before I joined this story.

"You gave them a nickname." He says it seriously, but the corner of his mouth twitches.

I try not to bristle. "It's easier that way." I open my laptop and pull up the spreadsheet I labored over for weeks. Despite all the time I spent on social media doing this research, I very maturely resisted checking up on Three over winter break. Even if I wondered, often, what Christmas looked like at his house this year, after he said his cousin Wells gave him such a hard time about missing Thanksgiving. But I didn't want to feed that particular obsession.

Instead, I distracted myself by researching new ideas for a human-interest piece and spending time with my parents. After our blowup about how they ditched me on Thanksgiving, they were determined to make me the center of their world for the rest of winter break. By the end, I was so smothered in parental affection, I was kind of craving my empty dorm room.

"I have it broken out into sheets for each fraternity," I continue, showing Three the contents of my spreadsheet, "then organized by name with social media handles and links, and which private accounts never accepted my request."

Three's attention swivels to me, so I quickly add, "I made a fake, obviously."

He relaxes.

"I've highlighted the ones that seem interesting. Yellow for possible involvement, orange for likely involvement, red for anyone who left school."

"What about red and green?" He points to a dual-color box on the page. He's all business now, jokes forgotten. "There's only a couple of those."

"Left school and might talk to us. And if there are alumni involved or the drugs are tied deeply to how the frats function, then these guys could know something."

He pulls my laptop across the desk so it sits perfectly between us. "Did you already reach out to some of them?"

"No. I thought you might have a better chance."

"Really?" He sounds pleased. "Are you saying I'm a better reporter than you?"

I scoff, knocking my knee into his. But I'm thrown when instead of the sting of colliding kneecaps, I feel a zing all the way up into my stomach.

That's new.

Three has gone still beside me, but I can't bring myself to look at his face.

"You're a pledge," I say belatedly, my voice coming out too loud. "I was thinking they might talk to you because of, you know, brotherhood. Loyalty. Misogyny. All that fun stuff."

Three exhales. "Evans—"

"I have a lot of work to do," I say, grabbing my headphones. And it's not because I need to drown him out. It's because I've had Madison's spring musical audition song stuck in my head for days now, ever since she decided to go for it, and I need something new to take up space in my brain. It has nothing to do with Three. "Why don't you try messaging some of them and let me know how it goes?"

I feel his gaze on my face as I pop in my earbuds, but I ignore him as I email him a copy of my spreadsheet. We aren't the type of partners who have a shared folder. I know he wouldn't put the story out without me at this point, but when we first started, neither of us trusted the other enough to share anything like that.

And that's what I need to remember. I don't trust Three. And now that it's spring semester, I need to focus on what's important—winning the Campus Life spot and getting into the journalism program. Whatever happened between me and Three last semester, I can't let it distract me. He's too good at mind games, and I'm dangerously close to expecting something I shouldn't.

And I have Hayes, who I'm 99 percent sure is Lincoln. Someone I know I have a reasonable chance with if we meet in person. And once we finish working on this story together, Three is nobody to me. Just one great kiss, a study guide, and ten years' worth of headaches. I can move on from that.

I have to.