Page 145 of Love Sick

“Dude.” Kai’s voice is jubilant. “This is crazy.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Dr. Chen was at their wedding! He showed me the picture. Been dating in secret forthree years.”

I rub my forehead. “Whose wedding? What are you talking about?”

“Alesha married Steven Langston.”

For five full seconds, I can only blink. Steven Langston is the director of GME. Steven Langston is a douche.

“She—what?”

“Julian.Aleshais the girl who was screwing someone from GME.”

Coldness unfurls deep in my gut.

“This whole time!” Kai adds in my silence.

All those rumors. All Grace’s problems. Her insecurity. Her pain. The source wasAlesha?

“Julian?”

“Alesha screwed someone to get into the program, then married him?”

Kai laughs. “No. Apparently they were dating before, and Langston stepped back from resident selection our year to remain unbiased.”

A silence follows. Kai clears his throat.

“And yet there were still rumors,” I say. “But not about Alesha.”

The buoyancy disappears from Kai’s voice. “Yeah, true.”

We fall into silence again.

My hand covers my eyes. “Alesha knew she was the source of that original story this whole time and never said anything.”

“I—” Kai clears his throat. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Why would she let that happen to Grace?” My voice sharpens despite an attempt to remain neutral. She could have set the record straight from the very beginning. She could have stopped it.

“Uh. I don’t know,” Kai says. “Maybe she was protecting him. Langston. Maybe he would have gotten in trouble if people found out.”

I drop my hand, and my gaze strays at once to the uterus on the ceiling. She protected her boyfriend and threw her best friend to the wolves? “This is fucked up.”

Kai grunts. “It kind of is.”

My throat is thick. “I have to go.”

“Yeah.” Kai sighs. “Listen, man. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not the one who should be sorry.”

When I hang up, I relive the last two years with new eyes. Alesha had defended Grace from the beginning, had never believed the rumors. I’d thought it was some girl-code thing, but no. She’d known it was all fake and let the rumors spread, anyway. Over and over she watched Grace stumble and fall, stuck in muck that didn’t belong to her.

Grace’s reputation is in tatters because of Alesha. I lost the love of my life because of her.

Alesha let us crumble for a rumor she could have quashed with the truth.

---