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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: LOOKING AWAY
Veröffentlichungsdatum:
10.07.2026 07:07:29
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Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: LOOKING AWAY
She went to the grocery store on Saturday morning because the grocery store required nothing from her.No campaign strategy, no cheer formation, no unknown numbers or photographs or six-word text messages sitting unanswered in her phone. Just a list, an aisle, a task with a clear beginning and end, and Ava Bennett had always found comfort in tasks with clear beginnings and ends.She was in the cereal aisle at nine fifteen when she saw him.Not immediately. She was reading the back of a box with the focused attention she brought to things that did not require it, because sometimes giving unnecessary attention to small things was its own kind of rest, and she looked up to reach for something on the shelf above and found Mason Reed standing at the far end of the aisle.He had not seen her yet.He was with a boy she didn't recognize, maybe twelve or thirteen, with Mason's same jaw and a considerably more chaotic version of his energy, moving through the aisle with the specific restlessnes
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: AFTER THE WHISTLE
Crestwood lost by six points.Not a collapse, not a disaster, just six points, the particular kind of loss that was almost worse than a blowout because it arrived with the specific cruelty of something that could have gone differently, that had been going differently until the fourth quarter when a fumble on the thirty yard line handed Eastbridge the momentum and the momentum did not come back.Ava knew the score before the final whistle because she was on the sideline, which was where the cheer squad stood during home games, and she had been aware of the scoreboard in the peripheral, background way she was aware of most things during performances, present but not primary.The primary thing was the routine, which ran clean, the back formation transition landing exactly where it was supposed to land, half a beat corrected, not that she was thinking about that.When the final whistle blew the stadium noise changed character in the specific way it changed when a home team lost, the parti
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: EASTBRIDGE
The rivalry between Crestwood and Eastbridge High was not the kind that needed explaining.It had existed for eleven years, built from a combination of geographic proximity, evenly matched programs, and the specific institutional memory of schools that had been losing and winning against each other long enough that the losing hurt more than it would against anyone else. It lived in the hallways as a background hum most of the year and became a foreground roar in October, when the first of their two scheduled matchups landed on the calendar and the school oriented itself around it the way schools oriented themselves around things that temporarily made everyone feel like they were on the same side.The announcement went up Tuesday morning.Friday. Home game. Eastbridge.By second period the corridors had the particular charged quality of a building that had decided what it cared about for the week, and by third period Ava had been asked four separate times whether the cheer squad had a
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE ACCIDENTAL THING
Sofia arrived at the library at six fifty-eight.She was not early because of Noah. She was early because she was always early, because arriving before a situation gave her time to assess it before it required anything from her, and this particular situation, a seven am meeting with Mason Reed's best friend about information that had implications for people she cared about, felt like the kind of thing that benefited from assessment.She chose the back room.It was a small space, three tables, two windows facing the east courtyard, used primarily by students who needed quiet enough that even the library's usual hush felt insufficient. Sofia had spent considerable time in it over the years, enough to know that the second table had the best light and the chair nearest the window had a broken armrest that looked fine until you leaned on it.She sat at the second table.At seven exactly, Noah came through the door.He was not rushed, not performing punctuality, just there at the agreed tim
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: COLLATERAL DAMAGE
The argument started because of a water bottle.Specifically, Sofia's water bottle, which she had left on the bench outside the gym on Monday afternoon and which she returned to find occupied by someone's football gear, a pair of cleats and a training vest dumped on top of it with the casual disregard of someone who had not checked whether the bench was already in use.She moved the cleats.She picked up the vest."Hey," said a voice behind her. "That's mine."She turned around.Noah Ellis was standing three feet away with his practice bag over one shoulder and the mild, unhurried expression of someone who had not yet assessed whether this was going to be a problem."I know," Sofia said. "It was on top of my water bottle."He looked at the bench. "I didn't see it.""It was underneath your cleats.""I said I didn't see it." He reached past her and picked up the cleats without any particular urgency. "Sorry about the bottle.""You put your cleats on someone else's things.""Accidentally
Fake it with me CHAPTER THIRTY: THE TRUTH ABOUT LEADING
The first thing Ava did as cheer captain was call a practice.Not a celebration. Not an announcement. A practice, Monday morning, seven fifteen, the same time she had always arrived, except now the clipboard she carried had her name at the top under a different title and the girls assembling in the gym were looking at her with a slightly different quality of attention, something that was not quite the same as the attention they had given her before the election.She stood at the front of the formation and felt it.Not fear exactly. Something more specific than that, the particular awareness of someone who had wanted a thing for so long that the wanting had become the point, and was now standing inside the thing itself and discovering that the inside looked different from the outside in ways she had not fully accounted for."Before we start," she said, and the gym went quiet, "I want to say something."Seven faces looked at her."I've been leading this squad for a year as though the st
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