Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
I’d been doing that a lot lately and never seemed to learn from it.
Tori and Kyle were still working together when we got upstairs. They had their heads bent over a laptop, discussing a passage on the screen.
Jayden walked over and placed a hand on both their shoulders. “Guys, it’s Friday afternoon. It’s bad enough when Lucas spends the whole evening studying. I didn’t expect it from you two.”
Kyle straightened up and grinned. “Times change, bro.”
“We’re almost done,” Tori added.
“Good.” Jayden squeezed her shoulder and let go, sitting in a chair opposite them. “Because I’m thinking pizza tonight. Any requests?”
“Pepperoni,” Kyle said, his attention back on the screen.
“Tori?” Jayden asked.
“Anything but pepperoni,” she said with a grin, elbowing Kyle in the side.
“Okay, one with pepperoni, one without. Lucas?”
“I’m good with anything.”
“Where should we get it from?” Tori asked.
“Enzo’s. Tell you what—you order it, and I’ll go pick it up.”
“Deal,” she said, pulling out her phone.
It chimed before she could do anything else. She swiped open the screen, read for a moment, and then frowned.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“They want me to come to a meeting on Monday at the English Department. With my advisor and Professor Abrams.” She looked worried. “Do you think they’re mad that I insisted on taking the Adolescent Development course?”
“If they had any brains, they’d be glad you’re doing what’s best for your career,” Kyle said.
Then his phone chimed as well. He thumbed it open, his attention still on Tori—but then he looked at the screen, and his face turned pale.
“I’m supposed to go to that meeting too,” he said slowly.
Tori looked utterly confused. “Why?”
Kyle didn’t say anything. His mouth was a thin line.
Tori put her hand on his arm. “Did they say why?”
Finally, he nodded. “Yes. Because I got an F on my second paper.”
“What?” Tori said. “No, that can’t be. It was really good.”
Jayden agreed. “Yeah, the part I read was well done, man.”
Kyle was still staring at his screen. “They changed my grade on the first one to an F, too.”
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Tori was still perplexed. “What? How can they do that?”
Kyle set down his phone, pressing his hand on the table so firmly that his knuckles turned white.
“They think I cheated.”
37
TORI
“It’s going to be fine,” I said to Kyle as we waited outside the English Department conference room.
I stood up, absent-mindedly starting to pace, but Kyle tugged on my hand until I sat down again. “It’ll be fine,” I repeated.
“So you’ve said.”
He looked remarkably calm, for someone accused of cheating. And—though this should’ve been the last thing on my mind—remarkably good. He had on black jeans, a tight blue gray henley shirt that brought out the color of his eyes, and for the first time in my memory, his varsity baseball jacket.
It looked good on him—very good. Which wasn’t the point. His looks weren’t on trial, just his integrity. And possibly mine. Because anyway you sliced it, if the department truly thought he cheated, then they had to either think I was in on it or incompetent. Neither were pleasant thoughts.
But the worst thought was how hard Kyle had worked. How he’d really tried, especially with his last paper. And now they wanted to fail them.
As if reading my mind, he patted my arm. “Your grade should be fine. They can’t hold you accountable if your student cheated.”
“You didn’t cheat,” I said firmly. “And it seemed like they didn’t have an issue with failing me if my tutoring student failed.”
His jaw clenched, and he looked away.
“You didn’t cheat, Kyle,” I said again. “That’s the important thing. That’s all that matters.”
He shook his head slowly, clearly not believing me. “To be honest, Tori, they probably would have accused me of cheating even if AI that can write papers in seconds didn’t exist. I don’t know how we’re going to prove otherwise.”
We’d been through this before. That was the only thing I’d been able to learn before his meeting, that they thought he used AI to write his papers, which was ridiculous. And I hadn’t even learned that from my advisor, who hadn’t answered any of my messages. That info had come from Professor Abrams, my Comp 102 teacher.
I patted my journal, and the prints-outs in it. “I’ve got a record of every tutoring session and what we covered in each one. I’ve got the dates of all the drafts you wrote. Every study group you attended.”
His hand had moved to my thigh, but he kept it still, like an afterthought. Needless to say, that wasn’t how he usually approached touching me. But then he gave a ghost of a smile. “I hope you didn’t provide full details of everything we did during the study group sessions.”
For his sake, I returned his smile. “I was vague on a few parts of it.”