บททั้งหมดของ When Best Friends Kiss: บทที่ 171 - บทที่ 180

The kitchen was still a bright, flour-dusted haven, but the comforting chaos now felt miles away, separated from me by a sheet of glass. I stood in the doorway, the lingering scent of cinnamon and rising dough catching in my throat. The jazz, once a lively counterpoint to Nana’s humming, now sounded tinny and distant, a song being played in another room.“Did you talk to Amanda?” Piper asked, finally giving up on the dog’s tail and flopping dramatically onto a kitchen chair. “Did she get the lead? You’ve got that ‘I just accidentally signed up for mandatory summer school’ look on your face.”Nana stopped rolling the dough and looked at me, her brown eyes, always so warm and perceptive, narrowing slightly. “She’s right, Rory-girl. What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, and not one of the friendly ones.”I forced a smile, one that felt stiff and cracked, like old paint. “It’s nothing, Nana. Just… history. Mr. Morris gave us a surprise essay prompt. I need to go back over my note

Todd was still leaning close, his warmth a pleasant weight against my shoulder, but his focus had snapped back to the problem at hand.“Principal Reynolds is too much of a spectacle,” Todd decided, tapping his finger lightly on the desk, a new rhythm replacing the frantic hammering of my heart. “He’ll make a school-wide announcement and turn it into a PSA on responsible social media use. That’s not what we need. We need someone who’ll be discreet.”“Mrs. Albright,” I suggested immediately. “Our guidance counselor. She’s all about confidentiality, and she has to deal with this kind of stuff all the time. She’ll know the official steps without blowing it up into a drama.”Todd straightened up, a look of respect in his bright blue eyes. “That’s smart, Rory. See? Together, we’re actually a functional team.” He leaned down and pressed a quick, firm kiss to my temple. “Okay. We’ll go to her first thing Monday morning. We need to gather everything now so we’re prepared.”We spent the next ha

The school day stretched before us, a gauntlet of forced normalcy. Every chime of the class-change bell was a jolt to my system. Todd and I moved through the halls like ghosts, present in body but our minds locked in a silent, frantic conference. We had agreed to act as if nothing was wrong, but the strain was a live wire between us.In Calculus, I caught Jessica Miller staring at me from two rows over. Her eyes darted away a second too quickly. Is she looking because she knows something? Or because I’m acting like a paranoid freak? The doubt was the poison, and it was working perfectly.Lunch was a tactical operation. We bypassed our usual table, a noisy hub near the window, and claimed a small, isolated one tucked behind a pillar. The relative quiet was a relief, but it also felt like we were painting a target on our backs for anyone who cared to look.“Anything?” I asked, picking at my sandwich.Todd shook his head, his phone on the table beside his tray. “No word from Albright. I’

The cursor blinked in the password field on the MailZorp login page, a silent, taunting metronome. We had the username, but that was all. The password was a fortress wall.“We’re not hackers,” Todd said, his voice tight with a frustrated energy. He paced the length of my room, a caged animal. “We can’t brute-force it. So what do we do with this?”“We think like they do,” I replied, my eyes fixed on the string k8s-jm2. “This isn't random. It's a clue they didn't mean to give us, but the construction of it… it's intentional. They're proud of it."“k8s… could be ‘Kates’,” Todd repeated, running a hand through his hair. “But there’s no ‘Kate’ in our year. And ‘jm2’… John Miller? Jason M.?”“Jessica Miller,” I said again, the theory feeling flimsier each time. “But you’re right, it doesn’t fit. She’s more of a blunt instrument.”A new thought, cold and unwelcome, slithered into my mind. “What if it’s not a ‘who’ but a ‘what’? What if it’s a reference? k8s… ‘kates’… ‘Kates’.”Todd stopped

(RORY’S POV)The front door clicked shut, but the echo of Martha O’Connor’s words seemed to hang in the air, a poisonous mist. My entire body trembled, not with the soul-deep shudders of heartbreak, but with the volatile, vibrating energy of pure fury.Rosalie held me, her hand rubbing slow circles on my back. “That woman,” she muttered, her voice low and dangerous. “The nerve. The absolute nerd.”A wet, shaky laugh escaped me, muffled against her shoulder. Leave it to Rosalie to find the perfect, absurd word to cut the tension. I pulled back, wiping my cheeks with the heels of my hands. The tears were already drying, scorched away by the heat of my anger.“She looked at me like I was trash,” I whispered, the image of Martha’s disdainful once-over burned onto my retina. “Like I was a stain on her perfect son’s life.”“She’s a snob who’s been listening to a professional manipulator,” Rosalie said firmly, her hands on my shoulders. “You stood up to her, Rory. I’ve never been prouder. Yo