Page 71 of Loved

"Thank you,” she said. But she still seemed tense.

"If that isn't what's bothering you, what is it?"

"It's nothing important."

Anything that had upset her was important to me. But I could wait for her to tell me. I ran my fingers through her hair and looked around the dorm. "Why did you comehere?" If she was upset, she could have come…home. To me.

"I don't know. It's cozy."

Which meantourapartment was not cozy. I swallowed hard. But we could fix that. Together. "Okay." I tilted her head up to look into her eyes and pushed a strand of hair out of her face.Tell me what’s going on. Let me in.

"I'm sorry. Your apartment is so big and it's always cold. And it was farther away and I was crying."

"Why were you crying?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Penny, no more secrets. Just tell me."

She put her hand under her head to prop herself up. "It's harder than I thought it would be. I don't know if I can do it, James."

I could hear Dr. Clark’s voice in the back of my head. Telling me to tell her that I didn’t want to be in this town anymore. That I wanted to go back to New York. And maybe Penny might want that too. But this didn’t feel like the best moment. Not until I knew why she was having a change of heart. "Tell me what happened today."

"It wasn't just one thing. It was everything. It was awful."

"Tell me." I put my hand on her cheek. "Please tell me."

"On my way to class I got a text from Professor Nolan telling me not to come to class. And that the investigation went south or something. He said Mr. Vespelli would be calling me with details."

"Well, it's good he told you not to come. I'm sure everyone had a lot of questions. You didn't need to be there for that."

"Yeah. And I ran into Tyler. He took me to breakfast."

Tyler fucking Stevens.He was like a gnat that I couldn’t swat away. What the hell was that kid’s problem?

I must have made a face, because Penny said, "Stop. As friends. He was being nice. He knew I was upset."

"Okay. I'm glad that he was there for you.” I really fucking wasn’t, but what else could I say? “You could have come home though. I want to be the one that's there for you." I never wanted her to feel the need to run to someone else. Especially Tyler.

"You are that person. That's why I asked you to come."

After talking to Tyler. I clenched my jaw. I needed to drop this. She was with me now, that’s all that mattered. I pushed another strand of hair out of her face. Penny couldn’t help who she ran into on campus.

"And at breakfast I talked to Mr. Vespelli. He told me that there were now three girls who accused you of..."

"I know. I talked to him too. Penny, if that's why you're upset, we've talked about this. You know me. You know how I feel about you."

"It did upset me. How could it not upset me? But I know it isn't true. And it was more upsetting that Mr. Vespelli was just going to give up the investigation. I don't understand why they don't want to find the truth. They're going to put it in the paper, James. They're going to tell everyone, and then people will think it's true even though it's not."

"Penny, I want them to stop the investigation. It's fine. It'll make the news vans go away."

"But those girls lied. Clearly they just wanted to get As. Mr. Vespelli even said that they all had bad grades in your classes. It's ridiculous."

Yeah.It was a sham of an investigation. But I’d already resigned. I already looked guilty. And I didn’t care whatanyone said about me. "It's fine. The sooner it's over, the sooner things will go back to normal. Isn't that what you want?"

"I'm not sure anything will ever go back to normal."

I sighed. "I know. I told you to take the rest of the semester off. You can switch schools, Penny. You can pick up where you left off somewhere new in the spring. It's okay. We can go wherever you want." I stared at her. That’s what I wanted. To go somewhere and have a fresh start. I’d put it out there.

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