Page 108 of Perfect on Paper

“Too little too late?” I asked.

“Oh, completely. By that point I’d started realizing he was kind of shitty as a boyfriend, you know, like he wanted to talk about himself all the time, but if the conversation came to me I might as well have been talking to a Magic 8 Ball. ‘Yeah, nope, maybe, hmm, wow that’s craaaaazyyy,’” she said in a flat-toned, robotic voice.

“I’m proud of you!”

“Thanks. You helped a lot. I was losing it by the time I wrote to you, I was about five minutes away from bursting in on him in class and demanding an explanation. But, um, I wanted to ask. With the locker broken, no one seems to know how to send you a letter anymore?”

BrookeandRay were listening in now, leaning forward blatantly.

“They can’t.” I shrugged. “The school said I can’t run a business on campus.”

“Okay, so, do you have a Patreon or a Ko-fi or something?”

Come again? I gave a short laugh. “I don’t think people really want my advice anymore.”

Hadley looked taken aback. “Um,yeah, they do.”

“Come on, I was a pariah after…”

I didn’t need to spell it out. Hadley shook her head impatiently to cut me off. “People were pissed off that their letters got leaked. But that’s got nothing to do with you giving bad advice. Like, my friend Erica said you helped her with her boyfriend, too, and they’re in agreatplace now. And if it’s all online it’s safer anyway, as long as you use a VPN, right?”

I hesitated, totally caught off guard. I mean, right… maybe… I guess? I hadn’t thought about it?

Hadley bounced on the spot. “I mean, I’d use it. Hey, the relay’s about to start; I gotta get back to Mom and Dad. Good luck, though.”

“Thank you,” I said, watching her as she hurried back to her seat a few rows back.

Brooke, Ray, and I exchanged glances.

“That’s interesting,” Ray said.

Yeah. It really was.

After the final relay race—which we won by a heart-poundingly close margin—Brooke and Ray headed back to Brooke’s place, and Brougham announced, rather concerningly, that he was close to death from starvation. We made a pit stop at Subway on the way to my dad’s, and Brougham begged to stay and eat there quickly, because he was morelikely than not to pass out at the wheel on the four-minute remaining drive.

As he took a dramatic mouthful—or, more accurately, throatful—of his loaded footlong, I crossed my legs at the ankles. “So, I had a girl from school come and chat today. Hadley something?”

Brougham had the sense to swallow before replying, although there was a startling moment when I wasn’t sure if he could fit that much food down his throat in one hit. “Oh, Hadley Rohan? With the blond hair? She was in a class with me.”

“Yeah, her. She said I should consider giving advice online.”

Brougham paused with his sandwich halfway to his mouth, then lowered it. “What do you reckon?”

“I don’t know. Do you think people would use it?”

“Yeah,”he said without hesitation. “You’re amazing.”

But something had been niggling at me. The multiple times that Brougham had pointed out I’d probably messed up my advice. Even though he’d insisted it was fine, a part of it still didn’t feel fine. I felt phony.

But bringing that up again felt like compliment-fishing, even though that’s not what I was looking for. “I keep thinking about all the things Mom said when I got caught with the locker,” I said instead. “Like, I’d need insurance or legal advice, and I’d need to keep her involved. And it’d need to be public posts only, with disclaimers. Stuff like that.”

Brougham considered it, squinting in thought. “Do you think she’d have a problem with you doing it?”

“Not really. Not as long as I’m not lying.”

“Then don’t lie. Simple. You don’t have to rely on just yourself anymore.”

The gentleman madeth a good point. These days, Mom and I talked regularly enough that I felt she’d be reasonable if I came to her with this. There was noneedto hide it. I rocked from side to side as a hesitant sort of excitement shot through my chest. “I think I kinda wanna do it.”

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