I was mad. I shouldn’t have to try to not let it bother me. They should be figuring out the truth. I was sick of everyone spreading rumors about James. No wonder he was so closed off. Everyone was awful to him. “I don’t want you to stop the investigation. I want you to find the truth. You can’t publish this in the paper yet. I’m telling you that it isn’t true.”
“Penny, I’m sorry. I just want this to go away as fast as possible. The university needs it to go away.”
“You’re rewarding students for lying. They should be getting in trouble, not rewarded.”
“I need to call James. Have a good day, Penny.” The line went dead.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I tossed my phone down on the table.
I could feel Tyler’s eyes on me. I didn’t know what to say to him. James was going to freak out when Mr. Vespelli called him. I couldn’t believe the university was going to stop the investigation. If they weren’t going to find the truth, what was the point of starting the investigation in the first place?
“So… what’s up?” Tyler eventually asked.
I took a huge bite of my bagel to stall. I didn’t want to have this conversation with Tyler. Clearly he thought that James was a bad guy. And I didn’t want to hear anyone else tell me that. “Good news,” I said. “You got an A.”
“What?”
“Everyone in James’ classes gets an A.”
“Really?”
“Mhm. You’re welcome.”
Tyler laughed. “Thanks. But I’m pretty sure I could have gotten an A without you sleeping with our professor.”
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that. So I just laughed awkwardly. “Maybe.”
Tyler shrugged. “So if we all get As, why do you seem so upset? It’s kind of awesome.”
“I don’t get an A. I’m getting an incomplete.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I did. I slept with my professor. And apparently I didn’t cooperate in their investigation or something. I don’t know. Those detectives were assholes. It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t really care.” I took another huge bite of my bagel. Cream cheese seemed to make me feel better.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I mumbled with my mouth full.
“Penny, you know you can talk to me. That’s what friends are for.”
I shook my head. “It’s so stupid. All of this is so stupid.”
Tyler just stared at me.
“I know he didn’t do those things. He told me he didn’t. I trust him. So I’m not sure why I feel so… so…” I put my face in my hands. Three. Three girls? James had slept with Isabella when he said he needed space. I thought he had broken up with me. But he told me he had never broken up with me when he finally started talking to me again. So if he hadn’t broken up with me, that meant he knowingly cheated on me with her during our break. It had been in the back of my head, bothering me. James said he did it because he was trying to get over me. Which made sense. But maybe that wasn’t the only thing he did to try to get over me. Maybe there were more girls. Maybe there were exactly three more girls. I didn’t want to think that. I didn’t want to think that it was possible. But wasn’t it?
“Penny.” Tyler put his hand on my arm. “Please just talk to me. I hate seeing you upset.”
I lifted my face out of my hands. “What if they aren’t lying, Tyler? What if he… what if he did the things they said he did?” I felt guilty as soon as I said it. It was fine to think those things. But I shouldn’t have said them out loud. And especially not to Tyler.
Tyler kept his hand on my arm. “Then I’ll kick his ass.”
I laughed and moved my arm slightly to remove his hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. Clearly those girls just wanted As. They weren’t doing well in his classes. They’re just dumb so they did another dumb thing.”
“Girls can do pretty dumb things.”
“Yeah.” I knew he was talking about me. But I wasn’t making a mistake by being with James. Tyler was amazing. And he’d be an amazing boyfriend for someone else. I looked up at him. “What did you say in your last speech? You never told me.”
Tyler smiled. “It wasn’t a great speech. I was really worried about you.”
“Yes, I’m very dramatic.”
He laughed. “I chose to major in economics because a major in business seemed like a logical choice. A safe choice. And I added on a second major of finance because it was easy to get both at the same time.” He shifted in his seat. “I was upset after you stormed out of class. I kind of lost my cool during my speech too.”
“You did?” I couldn’t picture him doing that. He always seemed so calm and confident when he did his speeches.
“Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck with his hand. “You didn’t see Professor Hunter’s reaction after you left. But I was sitting right behind him. It all started to come together. I think I already realized what was going on between you two before I even saw your phone. I was really pissed. So I said I chose the majors I did so that I could eventually be rich. And have any girl I wanted fall in love with me.”
“That wasn’t why I fell in love with James.”
Tyler laughed. “Yeah, I know you’re not a gold digger, Penny. Like I said, I just snapped during my speech. I didn’t understand. Hell, I still don’t understand.” He scratched the back of his neck again.
“So what do you really want to do after you graduate? That didn’t exactly answer the question you skipped.”
“I just want to be happy.”
I was the one that was making him unhappy. “Do you think we can ever just be friends, Tyler? Really?”
“We are friends. We were always friends.”
“I don’t want to be the reason that you’re unhappy.”