Page 81 of Didn't See That Coming

I don’t bother waiting around to hear more of his bluster. With one last smirk at him, I turn on my heel and march out of the school with my friends beside me.

We stop outside the school gates, pause, and give one another the biggest WTF look ever. There’s a pregnant moment of shocked silence, then one of us giggles, and that does it. We all start laughing, and even as I laugh, tears flood my eyes and my entire body feels like it’s caught fire.

“Did we really just do that?” Eleanor Roosevelt shouts.

“You guys—” I have to pause because I’m so choked up. “I can’t believe you guys did all that for me.”

“That’s a bit much,” Peishan mutters. “It wasn’t just for you. I was also standing up to the many years of sexism I’ve had to suffer through in this hellhole.”

“Right.” I laugh, wiping my eyes.

“What now?” Sarah Jessica says.

“Well, we did just quit school,” Zoelle says. “So I guess we go home?”

“No way! I’m on an adrenaline high,” Eleanor Roosevelt says. “If I go home right now, I’m only going to be a menace. We need to go to a cake shop to celebrate!”

I grin. “I know just the place.” What better way to giveXingfa the middle finger than to go to Cake Ho in our uniforms?

Phones are whipped out and drivers are called. Liam clears his throat and says, “Hey, can we talk for a sec?”

My entire body turns into one giant heartbeat. Somehow, I manage to say, “Um, yeah, of course.”

As we walk away from the group, Eleanor Roosevelt stage-whispers, “Get it, Ci Kiki!”

I’m going to need to have a word with this kid later.

We go under the shade of a large beringin tree. There’s an awkward pause, then everything comes out of me in a torrent. “Liam, I am so, so sorry. When I created the Dudebro profile, I didn’t foresee making an actual friend in the game. I mean, all I had known until I switched to playing as a guy was abuse,so I really wasn’t in there to make friends. Until you. I didn’t mean to deceive you like that, Liam. I wanted to tell you the truth so many times. I was dying to tell you the truth about me, but as time went by and we revealed more about ourselves to each other, it just got harder and harder. And I told myself that maybe it was better this way, because we weren’t ever going to meet in real life anyway.”

Liam snorts. “True…”

“But then I moved to Xingfa and I found out that Sourdawg was a student there too, because the universe is a giant asshole.”

That gets a laugh out of him, and I laugh too, through the tears in my eyes, because really, how out of this world can our situation be? “I tried using the Lil’ Aunties service to find out who Sourdawg was. And meanwhile, you and I were becoming friends in real life. Liam, I liked the version of you online. Youwere one of my closest friends. But I didn’t expect to fall for the version of you in person.”

The laughter dries up. Liam stares at me, his mouth parted slightly. I’m burning with embarrassment and my mind is screaming,WTF why did you say that whyyy,but I keep going. “You’re even better in person. You stood up for me in class, you make me laugh, you make me…you make me feel like myself.” I have to pause, because saying the words out loud is a revelation to me as well. And at the end of the day, aside from his hotness and his charm, the thing that made me fall for Liam was how, when I was buried in a sea of mockery and contempt, he was the one who reminded me of who I was. The one who reached into the darkness and pulled me out.

When I speak again, my voice is heavy and thick with tears. All my life, I’ve embraced a sassy attitude, especially toward guys, never letting anyone see the cracks in my defenses. But I don’t want that chasm between me and Liam. I want to be completely honest with him. “I—what I didn’t expect was to fall in love with you.” There. The full, naked truth. My heart before him, completely exposed, offered up to him. He could break it if he wanted to, and I would let him.

Something warm and firm envelops my right hand. I look down to see Liam’s hand around mine. He gives it a small squeeze, and when I look up, he’s smiling at me with such tenderness that a lump forms in my throat.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he murmurs. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I had no idea what you had to go through as a girl onWarfront Heroes.I—I don’t know, when I found out you were Dudebro, I didn’t even pause toconsider why you’d done it. I just assumed you did it as a joke. I should’ve known better. And you know what? There was a part of me that thought:She’s Dudebro? That’s…kind of the best damn thing. It makes so much sense.When I was seated next to you, I don’t know how to describe it, but…” He takes a deep breath and brings my hand up to his chest. “That first day I saw you in class, the moment I saw your face…I felt like I’d come home.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Against my palm, I feel the steady beat of Liam’s heart. I know that he is saying the complete and honest truth too. No more walls between us. Every card on the table.

“I fell in love with you at first sight, Kiki,” Liam says. “I only agreed to participate in that ridiculous matchmaking scheme because I wanted to spend more time with you.”

“What? No, but—” My head spins, everything swirling inside it—hope and disbelief and the everythingness of it all.

“And the whole time, I thought:There’s no way she’s intome.”

A shocked laugh burbles out of me. “But!” I don’t even know what to say next.

“I love you too, Kiki Siregar.”

It’s as though my veins are rushing with some magical, sparkling cider. I feel a sense of weightlessness. I swear my feet leave the ground and hover above it. I look into Liam’s eyes, and there’s no guile in them, no laughter, just the core of him, exposed and vulnerable. I meet his honesty with my own, letting him in, letting all my carefully constructed walls crumble. Nothing left standing between us but the truth, ourtruth. I take a step forward, pressing the length of my body up against his, and we’re so close to each other that the rest of the world falls away. Our lips meet in a soft, sweet crush, his hands warm on my back, and I wrap my arms around his neck and let myself fall, fall, fall into him.

EPILOGUE

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