Regan put a hand on her hip and looked at me. “I like her.”
Then Edge and Tarak walked in carrying the heavier boxes.
Lily turned.
Her mouth fell open.
Edge wore a black T-shirt, dark jeans, boots, and a face that made strangers reconsider their tone. Tarak was right behind him, arms loaded with my books, expression carved from stone and warning labels.
Lily slowly pushed her glasses higher on her nose.
“Dude,” she whispered to me. “Your parents are famous actors.”
Regan made a sound.
Edge looked at me.
Tarak looked at the ceiling like he was asking for patience from a God he did not fully trust.
Lily nodded like she had uncovered a conspiracy. “Okay. So crime actors.”
“No,” I said. “No actors.”
“Then why do they look like they’re about to star in a prestige cable drama about murder and emotional damage?”
Regan laughed so hard she dropped the towels.
That was how Lily became my best friend.
Not slowly. Not cautiously. Not with the careful distance I had learned to keep between myself and people who might eventually turn on me.
She just happened.
Like weather.
Like fate wearing prescription glasses and carrying emergency snacks.
By October, we were inseparable.
We were both in nursing, though Lily had come into it with a much cleaner reason than I had. She wanted to work in pediatriccare because she had a baby cousin born early who spent months in the NICU. I wanted nursing because hands knew how to heal even when hearts didn’t. Because the healer on the res had taught me herbs, poultices, teas, prayers, old remedies, and things science would probably roll its eyes at but still couldn’t fully explain. Because I had seen too much blood and fear not to want to be useful when someone needed help.
Lily studied like a maniac.
So did I.
That was one of the reasons people liked us and hated us at the same time. We were fun enough to get invited places, serious enough to leave early, and ruthless enough to ruin a curve without apologizing.
I became popular by accident.
That was the strangest thing.
No one here knew the full story. Not really. There were whispers if people dug deep enough, because the internet never buried anything completely, but JD and the lawyers had done enough damage control that what people found was confusing, incomplete, and surrounded by legal warnings. Most people just knew I was the girl with the motorcycle family, the good grades, the turquoise ring, and the kind of face that made people assume I was more confident than I felt.
Lily never let anyone talk badly about me.
Not that many people tried.
But when someone did, Lily would blink those giant eyes behind her thick glasses and say something devastating in the softest voice imaginable.
