Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 61 - Chapitre 70

I expected Luca's father to get angry.After everything that had happened between them, anger would have been easier. Luca knew how to argue with anger. He could push back against raised voices, defend himself when someone accused him of making a mistake and throw sarcasm at a conversation until he found enough room to breathe. Instead, his father stood in the doorway looking at the confirmation email on Luca's laptop without saying anything. The silence stretched long enough that Luca's hand moved away from the keyboard and settled against his thigh. I watched his fingers curl there. He had looked calmer pressing the submit button than he did waiting for his father's reaction.His father stepped into the room and read the screen more carefully. Sports Medicine Program. Application received. The words were impossible to misunderstand now. This wasn't Luca researching another future or keeping a brochure hidden inside a notebook. He had actually applied for one. His father asked when h

For the first time since Luca and I had started whatever complicated thing we were now calling a relationship, he was the one waiting for me. The academic programme swallowed my week almost immediately. There were additional reading packets, timed exercises, evening video sessions and preparation for a weekend event two states away. I started carrying so many papers that Luca stopped making fun of the weight of my bag and simply took it whenever he saw me. His own days were hardly empty. Rehabilitation had become more demanding as his return game approached, and every session seemed to come with another measurement his knee had to meet before he could be cleared. Still, when my practice ran late, Luca waited. When I cancelled lunch because an instructor added an extra session, he brought me food and left before I could apologise. He never made my schedule sound like something I was doing to him.That difference stayed with me when I left for the weekend event on Friday afternoon. Luca

By Wednesday, Luca and I had created a list of suspects, although I refused to call it that. Suspects sounded like we had proof. What we actually had was a collection of people who had been close enough to us at different times to know things that later reached Fiona or the gossip account. Luca's teammates knew about his injury, his father's pressure and parts of his recruitment schedule. Priya and a few people from my academic group knew about arguments I'd had with Luca. Our mothers knew more than either of us liked to admit because they'd been friends for years and talked constantly. Then there were people at the clinic, students who saw us after practice and friends who had been present for moments neither Luca nor I had considered private until somebody else repeated them.Luca hated the list almost immediately. Every new name seemed to make him more irritated, especially when one of his teammates appeared on it. Mason had been at Luca's house the night the photograph was taken.

The week after Luca's return game brought enough news for both of us to stop checking our phones every five minutes, although neither of us actually managed to stop. His performance had done what he needed it to do. The recruiters hadn't disappeared. One university remained interested enough to request updated medical reports and another follow-up meeting, but the university that had once discussed the strongest scholarship package reduced its projected offer because of the injury. The email was careful about it, full of language about recovery history and future performance, but the meaning was simple. They still wanted Luca. They were no longer willing to risk as much money on him. He read it twice at lunch, locked his phone and said there were other universities. The answer sounded reasonable. I also knew him well enough now to see the way his jaw tightened when he tried to make disappointment smaller than it was.There was good news too. His sports medicine application had officia

By Thursday, Westbrook had decided there were at least six different versions of me. In one, I had planned the fake relationship because I wanted popularity. In another, Luca had fallen for me first, and I had kept pretending because I enjoyed having him chase me. A third version claimed I had always loved him and manipulated the arrangement until he felt the same way. Someone else had decided the entire relationship was still fake, and the latest scandal was another performance designed to keep both of us relevant. I learned most of this without looking for it. People discussed my life in classrooms, at lockers and across lunch tables with the confidence of witnesses, even when they hadn't been present for a single moment they were describing.Truth didn't seem to matter once people found a version they liked better.The strangest part was hearing private memories reduced to entertainment. The photograph behind Luca's house became evidence that we'd secretly been together months earl