Page 44 of Wallflower

Dare stared at me a moment then walked forward and placed his phone in my hands. There was a video cued up. I pushed play, not knowing what to expect—but within seconds, I recognized exactly what it was.

"I like you Ty. I like you a lot. I think I may even love you."

My heart dropped, but I couldn't look away as my confession played out before my eyes. It looked like it had been recorded from behind Ty, so of course, you got an awesome shot of all my facial expressions. At the beginning, I looked nervous/lovestruck/determined, but my face froze in shock when he told me he wasn't moving, and then continued to fall as he gave one of the nicest rejections ever.

"Where did you get this?" I said.

"Someone posted it to the school website."

I winced.

"I'll give you one guess who," Dare added.

But I already knew who was responsible. It was well known that Whitney ran the DHS site behind the scenes. She was the head student moderator. Why the school admins thought it would be a good idea to give her that kind of power, I'd never understand. The video was filmed at an angle, as if the person holding the camera had come out of the girl's locker room and leaned around the corner to record. The only question was had Ingrid decided to do it on her own—or had someone asked her to? Zooming in on Whitney's face in the background, I could see her smirk toward the camera as if she'd known exactly where it would be.

"Ugh." I threw up my hands as the video ended then started replaying again. "Please make it stop."

Dare took the phone away.

"Gah, this is so humiliating." I groaned. "Whitney and Ingrid suck, but I can't believe they would do this to me."

"Really?" Dare asked. "Because I can."

Okay, he had a point. They didn't like me, took pleasure in my discomfort, but—

"But why hang onto it?" I said. "Why not just release the video our first week back? What made them do it now?"

Even as I asked the question, I realized the answer was standing not three feet away. Estelle had said Whitney stormed off after Dare kissed me—and that she'd had a crush on him since ninth grade.

"Good grief," I muttered.

"The video went up ten minutes into class. I got a notification," Dare said and shoved his hands into his pockets. "That's one of the reasons I pulled you in here. To save you from the walk of shame."

"Thank you, I—"

"But I gotta say, flower, I'm not too happy that you lied to me."

I looked up at him, momentarily distracted. "What do you mean?"

"Tyson."

"What about him?" I asked.

"Thought you said it wasn't to make some guy jealous," he said, and when I looked closer, I could tell Dare was pissed by the way his jaw clenched. "I wouldn't have agreed to be your fake boyfriend if I knew this was about my best friend."

"Wait a minute," I said, "I don't have feelings for Ty."

Dare gave me a look. "The evidence suggests otherwise."

I huffed. "Well, I don't like him anymore, okay? I really thought I did—which was why I said all that to him—but now I only see him as a friend. This isn't about making him jealous."

"I don't like being lied to."

"It's not a lie," I said. "My need for a fake boyfriend has absolutely nothing to do with anyone but my father and his misguided attempts to make me less pathetic. Which is obviously impossible. I'm a total lost cause."

"Hey," Dare said, his voice softer now. "You're not pathetic, Vi."

I was this close to crying. "Can you stop being mad at me for a second, and just focus on the train wreck that is my life right now?"

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