“Oh, thanks.” She smiled and bounced a few times, testing it. My giant chair made her look thinner than she already was. Her feet were crossed at the ankles. It made me smile.
“What’s up? Did you have questions about the paper?”
Her shoulders lifted. “No. Three thousand words on Ferrante’s use of stream of consciousness and how it contributes to the portrayal of the protagonist's mental state,” she recited word for word. The girl was sharp. I’m not shallow. I wasn’t in love with her simply for her looks.
Her lips twisted. “I was hoping you could help me with something else I’m writing though?”
I nodded, even though the whole reason I’d stepped aside as her advisor was to remove this kind of low-key torture from my life. “Sure. I’d be happy to.”
She gave me a tentative smile before leaning down and pulling her laptop out of her bag. She flipped it open but all I could see was her pale blue computer case. Her eyes turned solemn, as they often did. I’d wondered a thousand times over the years why they could go so serious at any second. It niggled at me and I wished I could let it die. But I swear there was some sadness she didn’t talk about. I could feel it every now and then.
“Let me pull it up.” She tipped the screen towards her a touch. Her hands were shaking.
What was that about?
Tally was the poster child for She Doesn’t Know She’s Pretty. Her beauty was obvious, but there was a humility to her that made me check myself. Made me want to bow down to show my respect. Her writing though? That’s where she was self-assured. Most of the time, on the verge of cocky.
Right now, she looked anything but. If she didn’t ease upon her bottom lip, she would chew a hole through it. That would be a tragedy indeed. Her knees bounced under her laptop and I clasped my hands together to keep from reaching out to calm them.
Once she found what she was searching for, she sat up straight and looked at me. “Okay. Anna says you’re going to be cool about this. So I’m trusting that she knows what she’s talking about.” She shook out her hands like she couldn’t hold in the nerves. “Here’s the thing…” She paused like she was making sure she had my full attention. “Remember on your birthday when everyone was arguing about Spy vs Sigh?”
“Yes.” I felt a scowl creep over my face and a tightness overtake my stomach. That was my normal reaction whenever anyone brought up my book. But also, I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling. “Yeah. Of Course.”
She jammed her hands under her thighs. “Well, remember how upset Christy got because Javen still hasn’t done the hippity dippity?”
I snorted. “My mom started a trend with that word.” I shook my head. “And Javenstillhasn’t done the hippity dippity.”
She giggled. “No. They haven’t.” Her face faded, completely serious now. She blew her breath out in an O. “And the reason they haven’t is because one of the authors can’t make herself writethescene.”
I stared at her, replaying her words. She said ‘one of the authors’ and referenced them in the feminine tense. It almost sounded like… “Wait. Are you saying that you know one of the authors ofSpy vs Sigh?”
Her shoulders dropped but her lips teased at a smile. “No, Ash.” She turned her laptop to face me, pride in her expression. “Iamone of the authors.”
If I were a crash test dummy, her words were a brick wall.
My gaze shifted from her face to the computer screen and there in front of me was her Incognito homepage with the handle Austentacious119 in the upper right-hand corner. It looked exactly like my Incognito home screen, only with her name. She was watching me expectantly and I tightened every muscle in my body trying not to react before I knew what my reaction should be.
My mind was racing a million miles an hour. The first thought was that this was a prank. She thought it would be fun to trick me for a few minutes, see my reaction, and then say “Psych!” Everyone knew Austentacious119 was Leggolas1012’s collab partner and vice versa. Our handles weren’t hidden, just our true identities. It would be easy enough to do. But Tally wasn’t a game player. She detested drama. We might pick at each other and give each other the literary smackdown from time to time, but pranks? Not a single time.
So then my mind went to possibility number two. She was pretending to be Austen to get the glory. Kind of like Cinderella’s sisters trying to fit the glass slipper. But, again, Tally didn’t do things like that. She never tried to take more than she deserved and sometimes not even that. I couldn’t imagine her ever being happy capitalizing off someone else’s fame.
Another possibility: she’d found out that I was one of the authors and she was trying to pull it out of me. But if that were true, why not ask me straight out? Tally called my bluff anytime she got the chance. She prided herself in keeping me humble. If she suspected, she’d call me on it.
But looking at her right now—her big brown eyes so vulnerable and asking me not to laugh at her confession—I had to believe what she’d just told me.
And if it was true…
The rape confession that Austen had shared with me meant…
No.
I couldn’t believe that.
Someone had raped Tally?MyTally?
My mind took a backward leap to the first time I’d met her all those years ago. She’d been pregnant, and she’d had the wide-eyed expression of someone who was constantly waiting for somebody to come lunging out of the bushes, or from under the cupboards.
No, no, no.
