“Why would she do that? She’s your friend.”
Noah’s brows shoot up. “No, she isn’t. She’s Kaito’s girlfriend.”
“She stayed over at your house.”
He considers it. “That shows how much she doesn’t care about others. Or maybe she cares more about hurting you.”
I suppress the urge to sigh and turn in my seat to find Tiana. I flinch when I see she’s sitting behind us, with Alison and Sana on either side of her. They’re not paying attention to us, instead, they're scrolling through their phones hidden behind textbooks.
“They’re right behind us,” I murmur to Noah. “We have to be careful that we don’t talk too loudly.”
He glances back before nodding.
“So what are we going to do? Wait for this to settle?” I ask.
“I reckon that’s the best idea,” he says. “It won’t take long. People want something to talk about.”
“I hate it. People looking at me and giving me attention and all those … looks … I feel horrible.”
“It sucks,” Noah agrees. “We could …”
I wait for him to finish his sentence, but he only taps his pen faster.
“Could what?”
When he glances at me, his eyes look uncertain. “Don’t worry. It’s not a good idea.”
“Noah. Tell me.” I hate it when people start a sentence and don’t finish it. The thought of the unknown drives me insane.
He sighs. “A potential backup plan, if everything goes to chaos is that … we could … shit, this is such a bad idea …”
I stare at him so he’ll continue.
“We … could … pretend to break up.”
Oh.
Noah runs a hand through his hair. “I know, it doesn’t make sense because we already denied we were dating. But people still think we do, so if we broke up, people would leave us alone … I know it’s a stupid idea, let’s forget it.”
“What would this pretend breakup entail?” I ask, voice controlled.
He shrugs. “We’d stop talking to each other at school. Stop sitting together in class. No aggression, obviously. It’d be like we drifted away.”
“We’d go back to the way it was before we became friends.”
“Yeah.”
My smile is so strained that it hurts. “Is that what you want to do?”
It would make sense if Noah wanted to distance himself from me. I’m contagious — Ruby hates me. Oliver will hate me too, after hearing the rumours. As for Noah … now I’m wondering why we became friends. Because of our stupid Jealousy Pact? If we didn’t have that, would we hang out? He’s friendly to me … but he’s friendly to everyone. He’s been nice and helpful … but he’s like that to everyone.
“God, no, Eve. That’s not what I want. This is all hypothetical,” Noah answers. “I’m such an idiot, coming up with the Jealousy Pact. If I didn’t, none of this would have ever happened.”
“It’s not all bad.”
“What’s one good thing that’s come of this?”
“I introduced you to the perfection that is Jane Austen. You introduced me to all those movies.”
