Chapter 31
Tavi
The airport’s deserted at this hour of the night, which is a good thing.
Fewer people to see my tears.
“I told everyone it was a severe grade-two sprain,” I say to Samantha as I hand her my crutches. “Just be unpleasant.”
My heart is in my toes. I feel like the world’s biggest jackass. And I’m on the verge of the bad kind of crying. It’s only been three hours since I kissed Dylan goodbye, and already, I feel like he’s completely gone.
“I can, like,totesdo that,” my doppelgänger replies with an easy nod, sounding just like me.
“Phoebe will be harder to fool this time, but if she gets suspicious, just start crying and say you’re giving up on life because you’re never getting out of Tickled Pink and your dreams will never come true.”
“Easy.”
“Carter will just think you’re still weird. Gigi and I have been sniping at each other, so feel free to be catty, but not so much that I’d get extra soul duty. Volunteer at the cat shelter or something with Bridget. She’ll love that, and you can sit down the whole time, but definitelywear sunglasses anytime you’re with her and make a show of being in pain if she acts suspicious.”
“So just like last time, but with a horrid injury.”
“Yes. And if Dylan Wright stops by—”
“Hello, cutie.” She grins at me.
It’s eerie how similar our grins are. She has to wear a prosthetic nose, colored contacts, and a wig to fully complete the look, but otherwise, we could be twins.
Swear to God, some days I wonder if my father had an affair with my mother’s doppelgänger.
Samantha’s been filling in for me on my various socials for years—usually just in pictures if I’m double-booked for shootings or for random other reasons, but occasionally in a video where all I have to do is sound like a flake—and she spent three days earlier this summer acting like me at the school itself.
Phoebe got suspicious.
No one else did.
“Avoid Dylan at all costs,” I tell her. “We—we’ve been sleeping together, and I ... I like him.”
I finish on a whisper.
“Aw, Tavi, he seems so nice. That’s awesome.”
I don’t tell her not to sleep with him.
That part is understood. “It’s not awesome. It’s—look, just avoid. No stepping in front of garbage trucks this time.”
She grimaces. “Not my best moment.”
“Made it easier for me to avoid him until I couldn’t, though. Appreciated that. Just—if he stops by, cry and tell him you’re on your period and you want to be left alone tothink about things.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Men should really not be afraid of periods.”
“I’m tired. It’s what I’ve got.”
“Is Niles still cooking?”
It’s my turn to grimace.
She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “I’m going to start requiring hazard pay.”
