Page 85 of Colton

Sophia takes in a deep breath. “Great! It only took you thirty minutes to understand where I’m going with this!”

“Stop yelling,” Grace winces. “Although I do think you’re right — shocker, I know — I don’t think Lila would appreciate an intervention. Besides, what would we say? Who are we to demand she stop crushing on him? It’s harmless.”

“It’s not healthy. All she does is spend time at church, and before either of you say it’s because she’s religious, until Silas came, she never spent this much time there.”

“Sophia has a point,” I sigh, pushing Grace off my bed and lying down. She protests, but ends up staying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. “Instead of an intervention, which she could see as a potential attack on her, how about one of us talks to her?”

“Oh,” Sophia says, as if it never occurred before this. “Right. Grace, you do it.”

“What?” She whines. “Why me?”

“You’re her dormmate, and you two spend most of your time together. It’s only natural it’s you.”

“You’re putting a lot of trust into my ability not to fuck this up,” Grace huffs. “The ability that barely exists, by the way.”

“If you fuck up, I’ll fuck your face up,” Sophia threatens, and Grace rolls her eyes.

“Alright,” I clap my hands, grabbing attention to myself. “This is getting ridiculous. Just ask her about it, and then try to be as supportive as possible. How hard could that possibly be?”

“Fine, fine,” Grace caves, and I smile in triumph.

However, this isn’t the only thing they wanted to discuss with me. The next day, they grilled me about my clothes, and although I managed to avoid telling them, neither stopped pestering me.

Eventually, I figured it out.

Sophia knows about Colton and me.

Grace acted clueless, as if it was her first time hearing about it, and her acting was very convincing. It was the kind of conversation I didn’t want to have in our dorms, too skeptical about Sinners and Saints having bugs all around, especially considering their target’s been Sophia as of late.

So, I took them out for a walk and explained everything.

“Just,” Sophia starts talking, turning to look at me. “Be careful. If he hurts you, it’ll be very, very difficult for you to bounce back.”

A small frown tugs at my lips. “What makes you say that?”

“I know you,” Sophia says, and Grace nods in agreement. “You’re so in love with him, and if he is the greatest love of your life, putting the pieces back together will be next to impossible. Just be careful, and use your brain.”

She pokes my temple, a small smile on her lips. Given what Sophia’s been doing lately, I know none of this is coming from a place of judgment. It’s all from worry, and I can’t describe how much it means to me.

It’s as if weight’s been lifted off my shoulders now that it’s out in the open, at least, in our circle. I do not doubt that Grace will tell Lila, and she will pout and stomp that she wasn’t around to hear it firsthand.

“Thank you,” I say. “Hey, did you know that he’s the fucking mayor of Saint Valley?”

Sophia blinks. “Yes. Have you been living under a rock?”

I groan. “So, it’s just me who’s clueless?”

“Pretty much,” Grace hums. “Don’t worry, we love you anyway.”

◆◆◆

The week stretches on, and the website is full of news about Sophia and Soren. From credible sources — their words, not mine — to people snapping random pictures of the two on campus, the two are the main topic.

Everywhere I go, all I can hear is people speculating whether or not it’s a relationship or pure hatred. At this point, I can’t tell, either. It would be too weird for two people who loathed each other so much their entire lives to be in a relationship, and the mere thought of Soren being actually chosen by Sophia makes me shudder. She’d torture him for the rest of his life, and I feel a sense of pity.

“Hey,” Grace catches up with me as I walk toward class. I slow down, and she sighs.

“You look weird,” I notice. “What’s up?”