"I swear I didn't write that!" I defended myself early that morning in the principal's office. "Even if I did, I wouldn't be stupid enough to sign my name after talking smack about half of the senior class."

Obviously, I didn't get much sleep last night. Between the article being released and my phone blowing up, there wasn't a lot of room to fit sleep time into my schedule.

"But you're on the school paper, are you not?" He questioned me calmly.

"I am, but I only take pictures for the paper. I don't write anything, Principal Garcia. I'm a horrible writer, it's a miracle for me to be making a B+ in English right now."

The door burst open and in came Natalie with a notebook. It looked strangely like my notebook, the one I kept in the workroom for when we write drafts. I hardly ever used it though because I only take pictures.

"Principal Garcia, I'm so sorry to barge in like this but I wanted to show you proof that it couldn't have been Rowena that wrote that exposé. She's a really horrible writer."

"Exactly!" I assured. I didn't even care that she had insulted me in the process.

She stepped forward and opened the notebook to the one and only draft I had in there. I didn't even remember what it was. Natalie stuck it on the principal's desk and we waited for him to read it.

Principal Garcia fit his glasses on his nose and looked down at the notebook. "If I were a jellyfish in the sea, would you search all the jellyfish just to find me?" He recited from the page.

"Hey," I whined to Natalie. "That it literally my best work!"

"Babe, I know and I'm very proud of you for it, but now is so not the time," She whispered to me.

"Your best work, huh?" Principal Garcia scrunched his note at the writing. Clearly, he wasn't a fan of my poetic genius.

"It is clear by the state of her writing that she couldn't have written that exposé. I don't let Rowena write anything for the paper. Plus, she was with me all night when this paper was released. Whoever wrote and posted this paper had to have broken into the school last night to prepare it."

"Can your parents verify that you two were together last night?"

"Yes, you can call my mom. She was there last night. Adam, Cyrus, and Declan were there too you can ask them."

Principal Gomez rubbed the stubble on his chin while he thought. "Well, I guess I can agree Rowena couldn't have written it. However, we checked the school cameras already. Nobody came or went from this school after staff left for the day except for the janitors."

They avoided the cameras, I thought to myself. Everyone knows how to avoid the school cameras.

"Well ladies," Principal Garcia says, "there's nothing else you two can do for me right now. I'll look into this situation and I'll keep you guys close if I have any questions. Rowena, I'd keep your head down for the next couple of days. You let me know if there's anything you can't handle."

I nodded my head at him in response and he released us to go to our classes. Adam, Cyrus, and Declan were all waiting for us outside the office.

I took a deep breath in anticipation of what was waiting outside these office doors. People had to have been pissed about what was written in the expose I had supposedly written.

Fuck. My. Life...

A hand was held open in front of me. I looked up to see Declan waiting for me to take it. He nodded his head towards the door our friends had just walked through. "Don't even worry about this, Row. We have your back. I got you."

I make an attempt to smile but my nerves take over anyway. I take his hand in mine and he rolls his thumb over my knuckles. That movement alone had managed to take some stress away.

"I got you," He says again quietly and leads us out the doors.

———————-

So far, today was shit.

Not Declan though, Declan was perfect. But he couldn't protect me from everything that happened in my day. Knowing I had his support and the same from my friends was a great cushion to fall back on though. I would be okay, no matter how shit this day was.

They talked about me so obviously in the halls. If they weren't talking, they were staring.

Any questions I got were shut down with my same repetitive response, I did not write that exposé . That became a whole different topic of gossip altogether, was Rowena lying or not? I had grown ridiculously fucking done with it halfway through the day.

There was a girl at lunch who wouldn't stop talking about me as if I wasn't there. I dropped all my shit at her table and acted like I was going to swing a punch on her. Seeing her flinch was satisfying enough though. She didn't talk after that.

I peek over at Duncan from his chair beside me. I was in physics now and he had been silent ever since he stepped into the classroom. I had no idea what he was thinking. Did he hate me? Or did he know I didn't write that paper? He probably hated me either way...

"You're staring," He said after a long moment. Damn, I really was staring.

I blink out of it and go back to my work. Then my eyes drift back over to him. He lets out a huff and finally looks at me.

"What?"

"I didn't write it you know. I had no idea about you or your fake relationship." He didn't say anything so I kept going. "It does make so much sense now though."

"Rowena, I don't care if you wrote it or not."

"Because you hate me either way?" I asked, attempting to confirm my earlier thought.

"No, because I do not give a fuck what anybody thinks about me. You wrote it? Cool. You didn't? It doesn't make a difference to me." He goes back to writing on his worksheet and then shrugs his shoulders with a new thought. "I'm still gay either way."

"Hm," I hum in approval. We go quiet for a while... until I think about it again. "Here's what I don't get-"

"Jesus," He complains. I ignore him.

"If you don't care about people knowing your gay, then what was the point of Brooke?"

He considers me for a second. "For Nico," He admits. "He wasn't ready to come out. Brooke had been all over me for a while now and when he found out he said she would make a perfect cover until he was ready, so I used her."

"You used her?"

"Well yeah, it's not like she was in love with me or something. She wouldn't take no for an answer and I knew she was already seeing someone behind my back so it really didn't matter anyway. She was obviously using me too. I just didn't know it was Jeremey and he didn't know I was gay so... pretty fucked up scenario, huh?"

"You didn't tell your best friend that you're gay?" I asked.

"It never came up," He replied with another shrug as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. What a weird duo those two made...

"Listen, I'm only talking to you because you're a friend of Nico's. Don't go publishing this shit in next week's paper, alright?"

"Asshole, it wasn't me." He didn't say anything back to me, just went back to his work. Then it occurred to me that he might have just teased me. The thought made me smile.

Duncan noticed. "What are you smiling about?" He mumbled.

"I said that you hated me earlier and you denied it." I smiled more. I only got an eye roll in response. "We're like besties now, Duncan."

"Shut up."

A/N: to be continued bc unfortunately for Row, this day is not over yet.

Fortunate for you guys tho bc that means another update is coming very soon :)

Thanks for reading ❤️