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Wick turned to his sister. “What the fuck are you talking about? What plan? And why in God’s name would you ever think you had to do this and ruin my life?”
“No.” Izzy shook her head insistently. “It won’t ruin you, I promise. The readers adore you two. In fact, if the plan works, it’ll probably make heroes out of you.”
“By revealing my worst, most private flaws to the world?” he asked incredulously.
“No,” Izzy cried again, gripping his knees hard enough to shake them. “Just listen to me. Please.”
But before she could explain anything, the front door blew open and Wick’s best friend rushed inside.
“You guys,” Cannon hollered, holding up his phone. “You have got to get a load of this shit; you’ll never believe it.”
He faltered when he saw Izzy kneeling in front of Wick. With a questioning squint, he glanced between them before he shook his head, dismissing it, and went on. “Someone wrote our fucking story and published it in the University Gazette. Check it out. Web, someone must know your real middle name is Henry because that’s what you’re called in the story. Haven, you’re Avery, probably because it sounds similar, I guess. Nicholl is Reuben for some weird reason. I’m Rush, because I’m a rusher on the football team, and…why are you all looking at me as if you already know about this?”
Izzy shuffled to her feet, watching him peculiarly. “How did you figure it out already, that’s what I’m curious about?”
He sent her an affronted glance. “Because I’m not stupid, that’s why. Who else would the characters be?”
She shook her head. “I just… I guess I never saw you as an avid fictional article reader, is
all.”
He snorted. “I’m not. But it’s all over social media, slaughtering Nicholl’s reputation. I guess the readers who were big fans absolutely hated his character. So now that they know who he is in real life, they’re calling him out in droves. New stories are popping up every few minutes about something awful he did to them. Some girl’s even accused him of sexually assaulting her.”
“Whoa,” I said, beginning to feel a little sick to my stomach.
I’d probably been dating him when that had happened. How awful.
As if realizing I might be making a new trip to the bathroom to empty my stomach, Wick caught my elbow and sent me a concerned look.
I concentrated on breathing through my nose. The nausea passed, and I nodded to him, letting him know I was going to be okay.
Meanwhile, Izzy cried, “Are you serious?” Her fingers shook as she fumbled to drag her phone from her pocket and break into it. “It’s working already? My plan is actually freaking working? Oh my God, this is so… I can’t believe it.”
When she logged in to her social media account, her eyes immediately went wide.
Cannon glanced toward us as he pointed at her. “What the fuck is she talking about?”
“Holy shit!” Covering her mouth with her hand, Izzy shook her head and muffled out an excited scream. “They’re shredding him apart. This is perfect.” She looked up at us, her eyes sparkling with happy tears. “He won’t recover from this. He’ll become the school’s pariah.” Fisting her hands in the air, she looked up at the ceiling and called, “Thank you, God!”
“Wait…” I said, beginning to understand. “You wrote ‘Hopeless Henry’ just to hurt Topher?”
“Wait. You wrote ‘Hopeless Henry’?” Cannon shouted, his jaw dropping.
Izzy glanced at him. Then me. Very seriously, she answered, “That motherfucker hurt my brother. I couldn’t just allow that. And Wick’s heart is too pure to really go after him for what he’d done. The rest of the world isn’t so kind, though. I was counting on that and used it.”
“Oh, snap,” Cannon cried, gaping at Izzy before turning to Wick and me. “Looks like little sister got the ultimate revenge.”
Wick and I exchanged amazed glances. Cannon was right. Izzy had indeed just gotten Topher back for everything he’d done to us.
We might’ve decided that making a concerted effort to hurt him was no longer important to us, but now that he was hurt...
“I think I can handle this kind of revenge,” Wick murmured, his eyebrows arched high in shock and question as he glanced at me to make sure I was okay with it too.
I nodded dumbly. “Yeah. Definitely.”
Realizing we both agreed, we turned back to Izzy in unison.
She cringed. “I knew you two wouldn’t like being exposed, but I thought the ends would justify the means. It was more important to expose him than to keep your identities concealed.” Then she shrugged. “It’ll take a little more time for the public to figure out your identities, anyway, so that’s a small plus.”
