thing I’ve ever seen,” Kayla said as she sat across from Lia with a croissant and an iced latte.
Worried that she’d let too much of herself show, Lia looked up and put on a bright smile. “What? And hi!”
“Hi.” Kayla nodded at her plate. “That’s a pumpkin muffin. I can smell it. You know they’re out of those now? You killed the last pumpkin muffin. Not ate—killed. Murdered. At the beginning of October. That’s just mean.”
Lia chuckled. “Sorry. Not hungry.”
Kayla huffed her lack of belief, but didn’t nag. Probably because Harriet came up then and cut off her chance for nagging.
“Hey, hi. Hi!” She dropped her book bag on a chair. “Sorry I’m late. I’ll be right back.” Snagging her wallet from her bag, she hurried to the line at the counter.
This coffee shop was never empty during any of its open hours, but it had filled to bursting while Lia was focused on murdering her muffin. And letting her coffee get cold. She flipped her phone over and checked the time. Oh—she’d been sitting here for almost half an hour.
Kayla nibbled at her croissant. “So what’s going on at lunchtime? Is it a boy?”
Lia felt Alex’s kiss all over her face, and his bodyguard eyes all over her back.
She called on all her dramatic training and smiled brightly again. “Let’s wait until Harrie gets back. Then I can tell you both at once.”
Kayla frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no. Not wrong at all. When Harrie gets here. How was your calc exam?”
“Good. I still think it should be a violation of the Geneva Conventions or something to give an exam two weeks before the midterm, but nobody cares what I think. But I did okay. Did you get your AmLit paper done?”
“Yep,” Lia answered, which was the truth. She’d finished the paper for reasons she couldn’t explain even to herself. Spite, maybe. Which would sort of be the definition of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, since she hadn’t turned it in, so all she’d done was waste several hours.
Harriet was back, with a large cup of hot cocoa. “Alex is over there. He follows you around like such a sad little puppy. He looks like one, too—an extremely hot, sad little puppy. You should just let him sit with us, and then he won’t be a stalker. I’ll take him if you don’t want him, Lia.”
No, not Lia, Leah. She was Leah Maddox to everybody at Brown. Leah Maddox, whose parents were normal and boring. She’d built up a backstory so she could talk with friends convincingly: Leah Maddox’s father was a mid-level executive at a boring company nobody cared about, and her mother stayed at home to raise the kids and take care of the house. In Leah Maddox’s life, Alex was a friend, not a bodyguard. Leah Maddox didn’t need a bodyguard. There was nothing dangerous, or interesting, about Leah Maddox’s family or life.
Lia had liked that, being somebody different, being freed from the burdens of her father’s name. Right up to this moment, she’d liked it.
Right up to this moment, when she’d understood the truth.
Harriet and Kayla were Leah Maddox’s best friends at Brown. But they didn’t know Lia Pagano at all.
“I dropped out,” she blurted.
Harriet and Kayla froze, their eyes huge.
“What?” Kayla asked.
“I dropped out. Just came from the registrar.”
“What?” Harriet asked. “Why?”
“There’s stuff going on at home. I’m needed there.”
Kayla shook her head slowly. “But … isn’t home like an hour away? Why do you need to drop out?”
“I just need to—and it’s done. I’m out.”
“Leah …” Harriet said. It wasn’t often she was speechless, but she was now.
But the one word she’d managed brought it all home with a flourish. The name she’d said sounded exactly like Lia’s actual name. Nothing but the spelling was different. But Lia had always made an effort to hear the spelling that wasn’t hers, so she would remember that she wasn’t herself here—so she’d sign the right name, type the right name on her papers, not forget the part she was playing.
She heard Harriet call out someone else’s name. Not hers. No one here knew her.
Except Alex, her bodyguard. The Pagano man.
Lia picked up her backpack. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know and say goodbye. I’m all dropped out, and I’m leaving. It was … good … being your friend. Thanks.”
As Harriet and Kayla gaped at her, Lia stood and walked away from the table.