Page 71 of All the way home

Lucas is nodding. “Yeah, it was a no-brainer. We didn’t really want to stay in Toronto, and it was the only city all three of us were accepted in that we actually liked.”

Rena fights the urge to bristle. This, of course had been a point of contention for a long time. Lucas had been entirely unwilling to admit that they wouldn’t last through long distance, but Rena had known he’d been thinking it, because it was obvious. She’d thought it would feel good, when he finally said it. Instead it had hurt like a splinter of glass to the heart, and then when she’d told Kieran, he’d rolled his eyes and asked what she was expecting.

And of course in the end, it had meant leaving Oscar and Siobhan behind. There’s no even way to split a group of three. And so they’d split, unevenly. Oscar and Siobhan had stayed in Ontario—at the same school, no less—and Rena had moved to Calgary even though leaving them had felt like swallowing knives.

Gesturing between Rena and Kieran, Zach says, “Must be nice to be close by, considering you guys are so tight.”

He doesn’t mean it to hurt—he can’t mean it to hurt, unless Kieran’s lost his mind and told him everything—but Zach’s words sting. The distance between her and Kieran feels like a chemical burn. But it’s nice to hear that whatever Kieran’s told Zach, it’s given the impression that they’re still close.

The statement itself is confusing, though.

“It’s not that close,” Rena tells him. “We usually only see each other on the weekends.”

Zach narrows his eyes. “The dorms can’t be that far apart.”

“It’s nearly forty minutes by bus,” she tells him.

“Wait. What?”

Kieran tosses Zach an uneasy glance.

Rena glances at Kieran for cues, but he’s not looking at her.

“Between the MRU dorms and the U of C dorms, it’s a forty-minute trip,” she says slowly.

Perplexingly, Zach seems distraught by this revelation. He turns to Kieran. “So . . . you don’t go to MRU.”

Kieran shakes his head, staring down at the ground.

Clearly processing, he clarifies, “Then you—wait. You go to . . . my school?”

Rena can’t help asking, “You told him you go to MRU?”

“No, I didn’t,” Kieran objects, shaking his head. He flashes Rena a wide-eyed, pleading look, but whatever he’s trying to communicate is lost on her. “You said you’d seen Rena’s MRU hoodie, and I confirmed that. I never said I went to MRU.”

And just like that, Rena understands.

Stunned, Zach blinks, mouth hanging open.

Here it is. The moment Rena’s been waiting for, and evidently, Kieran’s been waiting for it too, if the pinch in his forehead and the way his head drops an inch is anything to go by.

Voice low, Zach says, “That’s convenient.”

“It wasn’t a lie!” Kieran objects. “I never said that I went to MRU, and I didn’t say I didn’t go to U of C either.”

Zach takes a deep breath. “You let me think we didn’t go to the same school . . . on purpose. Why?”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Kieran says. “I—you looked nervous.”

“So it was on purpose. You let me think I didn’t have to worry.”

Kieran blinks. Slowly, he asks, “Worry about what?”

“You’re a stranger!”

“Not anymore,” Kieran points out.

“But you were. I’ve been way more open than I would have if—if—but we go to the same school, and I might, like, see you again.”