The Class Reject: A Martyr in Maelstrom (Book III)

71 | T-minus 7 Days

Spending two months pretending to be oblivious to reality wasn't as hard as it should have been.

Miren usually didn't eat breakfast in the cafeteria, but it felt like an essential part of her new act. Calm, collected individuals ate breakfast. They enjoyed the simpler things in life like Greek yogurt and poached eggs. They savored the fresh papaya and dragonfruit that were offered on Tropical Tuesdays.

Calm, collected individuals did not muse about whether or not to investigate leads that could only produce catastrophic conclusions. But because she was an overachiever in every way imaginable, she had already gotten the answers she needed. And said answers were burning a hole in her pocket in the shape of a hard drive.

"You look remarkably unfazed today," Levi told her, before placing his tray next to her. It had more meat. He took a seat before popping a slice of turkey bacon in his mouth. "I would kill to have your focus."

"Said the boy with a full ride to Yale," she said with an eye roll, as Levi beamed obnoxiously. "Don't you have a student council meeting you're late for?"

"Everyone knows that the VP is just a glorified tie breaker," he said with his mouth full of food, before washing it down with orange juice. "Besides, the last prom committee meeting isn't for a few more days."

"Good to know."

"So what are you going to do now that you have 'confirmation'?" Levi then said, not even bothering to look over his shoulder. Maybe it was wrong to be talking so candidly, yet vaguely, in public, but there was something incredibly unsuspecting about a mess hall filled with boys. And Jeno was off being Mr. Gates musical prodigy, so it wasn't like he'd be interrupting them anytime soon. Not to mention, it was hard to hear much of anything around them - and there probably wasn't anything worth knowing anyway.

There hadn't been a scandal since Penelope and Olive were suspended indefinitely until the investigation concluded. Rumor had it that Olive had switched schools. And that Penelope was now only a day student - no lead in the spring musical for her.

Mired slathered some butter on her toast, doing her best to embody the easy, breezy covergirl she had no business pretending to be. "Although words cannot express how grateful I am that you got an admission from Edsel, I'm sure you can understand that I'm between a rock and a hard place."

"It's been a month," he told her matter-of-factly. "It wasn't easy getting Edsel to come clean about your hit order without threatening to go public with you and Jeno's video for collateral." Levi wrinkled his nose. "Do you know how expensive sound activated voice recorders are? Plus you're lucky he didn't search me."

"Why didn't he search you?" She hated asking for more details - it was hard enough knowing she carried the atom bomb necessary to release a Hiroshima on this school.

Levi shrugged. "Mutually assured destruction. I think he thinks that if I were to go forward with what he told me then that would invalidate his recommendation letter for my scholarship or something. Which is not entirely bull, but he thinks I'm too much of a nerd to risk that."

"And why would you risk that?" Miren's eyes found Levi's light brown ones. She had no right looking as harsh as she did, but it was hard to trust someone she was lying to.

"Because his toxic homophobia almost got you killed." He shook his head. "I never took Jeno to be...you know, especially not with you, but Dr. Edsel has had a target on your back since day one. It's fucked up. You should be able to live in your truth. And I'll do whatever I can to assure that. It's the least I can do for the two of you."