Page 49 of Perfect on Paper

“Yes.”

“Thenwhat?”

I hesitated, because I couldn’t, I shouldn’t, this was a bad idea, but Brooke shook her head and threw her hands up. “Knew it.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Oh,that’sconvenient. Well, guess what, Darcy, if thereissomething I should know, then you’re being a crappy friend right now.”

How did I get myself out of this hole? I hadn’t even meant to dig myself into it. I just—I just didn’t want her to look at me like that. Ever again. “I’m sworn to secrecy, and you know what? It’s fine, it’s something that happened ages ago, it doesn’t affect anything now, and—”

Brooke stood up now, though. Turned to leave.

My hand shot out of its own accord. “Wait, wait—Brooke, she rigged the council elections.”

And the words were out in the world. And I couldn’t swallow them back inside.

Brooke froze in her tracks, then swung around, her face emotionless. “What?”

“You were supposed to win. She rigged it.”

Brooke processed this. Pursed her lips. She was handling this so well, I wondered if she already knew. Maybe Ray’s fears had come true, and she’d already found out through the rumor mill. Maybe she genuinely didn’t mind. Water under the bridge.

“How did you find out?” Brooke asked.

Well, funny story. A funny story I had no intention of sharing. “A few people were talking about it yesterday,” I said. “It might just be a rumor…”

“But you don’t think it is a rumor, do you? And you’ve only known since yesterday?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to hide it from you, but I wanted to wait and see if she told you herself first.”

“Well,” Brooke said. The sentence didn’t get finished, though. Suddenly, she was all but jogging inside. I got up with a scrape of my chair and chased her. Through the door. Through the living room. Past Callum and Alexei. Over to the kitchen archway. Over to Jaz. Over to Ray.

Everything inside me was wary, and freaking out, and my brain raced trying to find a way to erase all of this.

But it was too late for that, wasn’t it?

“Hey,” Brooke said over the music, in a voice that screamedrun, shit’s about to go down, retreat.“I heard a reallyinterestingstory. Apparently, I was meant to win the council race until you rigged it?”

All the color drained from Ray’s face. She just stared at Brooke, almost as though she hadn’t heard her. As blank as Brooke had looked a minute ago.

Now Brooke turned her attention to Jaz. “And not onlythat, I’malsoapparently one of the last to know. Didyouknow?”

Jaz looked helplessly at Ray. Ray didn’t—maybe couldn’t—react, though, so Jaz gave the meekest, sorriest nod I’d ever seen.

And Brooke laughed. Wildly, hysterically, bending over a little. Then she stabbed a finger toward Ray’s chest. “What did you do, steal the voting ballots? Incredible.Fuckyou.”

Ray recovered a little, but not enough. “I—I wanted to—I can fix this.”

“This,” Brooke said shrilly, “is not fixable! Iearnedthat position. I needed it for college, and you took it from me. And youlied about it.”

Ray looked at me, scanned my face for—for what? Triumph? Laughter? But I was getting no entertainment from this. This was not satisfying. I just felt sick.

Jaz placed a hand on Ray’s arm to comfort her, and Ray covered her mouth with a hand. “Brooke, I—”

“We’re going,” Brooke snapped to me.

We.

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