Page 76 of A Stealthy Situation

“Nah. You already said that. A lot.”

“I know, but I’ll say it as many times as I need to.”

“The thing is you were right. You weren’t intentionally shitty toward me; it was just one big clusterfuck. Also, what you guys are doing …” He throws me a look. “Not the kind of thing you just confess to random strangers.”

“Exactly.”

He stops walking right at the edge of campus. “I can’t turn a blind eye to it. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

I swallow thickly because this is what I’d been expecting. The moment he makes me choose between him and him reporting me.

“We’ll stop,” I whisper. “I don’t care, whatever. No one was supposed to get hurt. Hell, no one was supposed to know at all.”

“I’m not sure that makes it better.”

“Probably not, but do you know how many twins do it?”

He laughs. “Not an argument that would hold up in court.”

He’s right, and it’s not an argument I want to be making at all. This whole situation is fucked-up, and I should easily be able to tell Em to stop taking my class, especially since he has no classes for me to take in return, but every time I think of statistics and numbers, I want to throw up.

Who knew that avoiding math since elementary school would mean you know shit all about it now?

He steps closer, turning me to face him. “Why’d you do it? You’re smart, Benny. You’re acing your classes. You’re going into fucking journalism, for fuck’s sake. Do you even need statistics?” His face falls. “Tell me this is the only class Emmett is taking for you?”

“It is,” I hurry to assure him, and then I start walking because I can’t look at him while I give up the details. “When we were younger, we met another set of twins at hockey camp. They were a few years older and had been switching places in school for basically ever. Em and I already liked to switch it up and prank people, but we hadn’t considered the school thing. The thing is … we tried it. We got away with it. It was all fun.” I bite my lip, not wanting to spill this next part in case it sounds like a cop-out, but we really did fuck ourselves over. “Problem with that is … it became a bit of a habit. We missed a ton of school when our parents died, and then home was a fucking mess with our older brothers at each other’s throats while they desperately tried to hold things together. It was too much. Em and I were kind of forgotten about. Not intentionally—there were just a lot of us, and our brothers were dealing with their own shit.” I kick at the loose gravel by the road. “I hate math, so he did my work. He hates English, so I did his. We already had so much other shit to deal with, it was our way of giving ourselves a chance to breathe. In high school, we decided to stop being shithead kids. We were scared about being caught and making things harder on our brothers if we were kicked out of school, and it seemed like the sort of thing we should do …”

Harrison fills in the silence. “But it was too late.”

My good mood at being with him crashes. It kills me that shitty choices when we were kids have messed us up this much. Em hates having to read; I don’t understand simple math. “Yeah.” My voice comes out all rough. “The thing is, I’m going into sports journalism. Statistics is something I have to know, but I grew up around hockey my whole life. I know that shit. I learned it all through doing, not through numbers. This class is a checkbox—it’s why Em’s taking it and not me.” My whole chest feels like it’s trying to close over at the thought of sitting through that class again, where the professor talks too fast and it feels like he’s speaking another language.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “That’s really rough, and you’re right. It puts you in a shitty position now.”

“Yeah, but that’s my problem, isn’t it?”

“Yep.” He reaches for me, and as soon as the warmth of his palm fills mine, I cling to it. All fluttery and excited in the gut while I’m still heavy with the knowledge of what I have to do. “But like I said, you’re smart. You can do this without Em. I’ll be there to help you, and I’m sure your brother will be too. You’ll be okay.”

I try to look confident, even though I’m not at all. He’s making it sound simple, like I can walk into class and study the work and it’ll be fine. He’s completely overlooking the way none of it will stick in my brain. How I don’t know basic measurements. Break out into a cold sweat whenever I have to pay for something with cash.

I smile his way. “Piece of cake.”

“Exactly.” He squeezes my hand. “It’ll be hard, but it will be worth it.”

I’ve never dreaded anything more. “And if I do it myself, you won’t rat us out?”

“I won’t. It crossed my mind a few times when I found out, but I understand why you did it. Sometimes you can get so caught up in something you don’t see what’s happening until you look at it from the outside. Now you know it isn’t okay, all you have to do is give it a good go, Benny. We’re halfway through the semester, you’ve already scored highly, and even if you have a couple of rocky scores, you’ll still get through.”

Except if I go from my usual high scores to a big fat zero, it’s going to wave a red flag in Professor Brook’s face. I’ll deal with that when I deal with it. If I deal with it. Because if Harrison and Em are there to help me, I’m going to work my ass off to learn as much as I can just to get me through the tests. After that, I can let all of it go, no problem.

Tests. Simple.

Oh, wow. There’s that urge to throw up again.

“I hate that I even have to say it, but please don’t make me regret this.”

I glance over and find him already looking at me. “What do you mean?”

“If you and Em switch again, I’ll know. If I keep quiet and find out you’re cheating again … it’ll kill me. I’ll feel like an idiot.”

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