Chapter 3 This isn't Real....Right?

We turned the corner and kept walking until the sound of the hallway faded behind us. Knox moved at the pace of someone who had decided where he was going and did not need to rush about getting there. I moved at the pace of someone whose hands had stopped shaking approximately forty seconds ago and was still processing that.

He stopped near the east stairs, where the foot traffic was thin. Leaned against the wall. Crossed his arms. Looked at me with the expression of a person who had expected this conversation and was not dreading it.

"Talk," I said.

"You're welcome," he said.

"That's not talking, that's Knox, you told half the campus we're together. You realize that, right? In front of everyone. On video. Videos that are currently being forwarded to people we don't even know."

"Yes."

"Mason is going to hear about this before lunch."

"He already has. Check your phone."

I checked my phone. Three texts from Mason. Two missed calls.

I put it away. "This is insane."

"It's a solution," Knox said. He was still very calm, which was somehow more aggravating than if he had been defensive about it. "Sienna wants to humiliate you. She wants Mason to find out about the story in the worst possible way, in a context where you have no control and no ground to stand on. We just took that away from her."

"By lying to everyone."

"By making her look like the bitter ex trying to stir up drama." He tilted his head. "Which, to be clear, she is. We're just giving people a frame for it."

I pressed my back against the opposite wall and looked at him. Knox Ryder, who I had known since Mason first joined the team, who I had spent two years being quietly annoyed by his confidence, his easy way of occupying space, the way he called me Step-sis in that particular tone that managed to be teasing and somehow also not unkind. I had never once thought of him as someone who would do anything for me.

"You said you've been watching her treat me like a moving target," I said. "How long?"

Something shifted in his expression. Barely perceptible. "Long enough."

"That's not an answer."

"Since the beginning of the semester. I saw her in the library two days after she arrived on campus, going through your bag while you were at the printer. I didn't know what she was looking for. Now I do."

The quiet settled between us for a moment.

"You could have told me," I said.

"Would you have believed me? Or would you have decided I was messing with you?"

I did not answer that, because we both knew the answer.

"Here's what I'm proposing," he said. "We make this look real. Not elaborate — real. Family dinners, campus appearances, the occasional coffee. Nothing you can't handle. Sienna spends the next few weeks watching us and looking for cracks and not finding any, and eventually she runs out of angles and backs off. Or she overplays her hand and everyone sees her for what she is."

"And if Mason figures out it's not real?"

"Then we deal with that when it happens." He paused. "But I've known Mason for two years. He sees what's in front of him. We put something in front of him."

He said it the way he said most things like it was simple arithmetic, like the equation obviously balanced.

I thought about Sienna in my room with my laptop under her arm. I thought about the hallway, the phones, the sound of my own words read back at volume in front of strangers.

"What do you get out of this?" I asked.

Knox looked at me for a moment. Not the quick, assessing look he usually gave something steadier. Something that felt like it was weighing whether to say the true thing.

"I've watched Mason treat you like background noise for three years," he said finally. "It makes me angry in a way I can't entirely explain. Consider this a controlled outlet."

It was not the whole answer. I was almost certain it was not the whole answer. But it was more honesty than I expected, and it landed somewhere under my ribs and stayed there.

"There are rules," I said.

"Name them."

"This is public only. Nothing real. No—" I stopped. "No actual feelings."

"Agreed." He said it without hesitation, which should have been reassuring.

The bell rang. Students began moving through the corridor behind us.

"You've got English," Knox said. "I'll walk you."

"You don't need to—"

"Girlfriend," he said, simply, and fell into step beside me.

He walked the way he always walked like the hallway had decided to make room for him rather than the other way around. A girl from my floor spotted us and did a slow, visible double-take. Knox did not look at her. His shoulder was close enough to mine that they brushed with every step.

Outside the English building he stopped and turned. His eyes moved across my face in that careful, quiet way checking something, though I could not tell you what.

"First real test is tonight," he said. "Family dinner. I'll come at seven."

"I didn't invite you."

"You're about to." He reached out and tucked a piece of my hair back behind my ear slow, casual, like he had done it a hundred times. Two girls passing behind him clocked it immediately. "Text Mason that you want to explain in person. He'll agree. He's fair like that."

He let his hand drop. Stepped back.

"Seven o'clock," he said. "Don't overthink it."

He turned and walked toward the athletic center, unhurried, hands back in his pockets. I stood outside the English building for a moment longer than I needed to.

The rules we had just agreed to felt, already, like something I was going to have trouble keeping.