“Okay” Logan grinned. He shuffled his bottom for a more comfortable position. He stretched his arms forward with the palms of his hands facing the same direction.

Spreading his hands apart, he said, “I had this elaborate plan.”

“Plan?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

Logan pressed a finger to his lips. The spotlight shined on him and this moment belonged to him. He didn’t welcome interruptions.

Alex pinched her thumb and index finger together. Then, she drew a line over her lips, zipping them close.

“Okay, here it goes” Logan continued, “Bask in the genius that is Logan Parker.”

Alex rolled her eyes.

“It was a dark and stormy night.”

No, it wasn’t, Alex replied in her head.

“I found my father in his office at the house. The door was open but barging in was never an option so I knocked three times. He said...” Logan cleared his throat, “‘Come in.’”

Alex had the urge to facepalm. Logan’s voice brought her back to the days they practiced for their English presentation. Why? Because he just made a terrible impersonation of his father.

Then, Logan lowered his voice, adding drama and mystery to his story, “I stepped inside and asked my father, the one and only principal of Woodlands Academy—the top of the campus food chain—if he saw the brown envelope I left for him in the Principal’s Office.

“His hands paused from typing on his laptop and his head snapped upwards to look at me. He asked me what envelope was I talking about. You see, my dear Alex, my father is a neat freak. Before he leaves that office of his in school, he’d recheck everything and make sure he had put all that he needed in his briefcase.

“That meant my words sounded like alarming news in his mind. So I told him… ‘Uh, a member of the Parent-Teacher Association had asked me for a favor. She needed to go really, really bad to the bathroom. Your office was all the way to the other side of the school from where we were and she had this envelope full of agreements the association made. Like the good boy I was, I offered to take it to your office. Told her you were my father so she could trust me.’ That’s what I told him word per word.”

Alex scrunched her eyebrows. Just how truthful was this story? She hadn’t had the chance to have a proper conversation with Principal Parker but he seemed like someone who wouldn’t tolerate Logan’s ridiculous speech.

Logan remained oblivious to her reactions. He stared off into space as if he could see the entire scene unfold in front of him.

“Of course, my father denied that he saw the envelope. That’s when I started to panic because the woman told me my father should have it signed by Monday morning. She’ll drop by to get them at 7am. Dad, on the other hand, felt relaxed and unworried about it. He said I probably went to his office after he left. I told him it had been during break so if he didn’t see it, it may be lost.

“At this point, I had him panicking a bit. I calmed him down by saying I’d go to the school and look for it. It probably just fell off. Of course, dad rejected the idea since it was late. I told him I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t do something and I’m sure he’d feel the same. I knew I was right. Soon, he nodded and handed me the keys to the Principal’s Office.”

“You… were gone the whole night to look for this envelope?” Alex asked. That shouldn’t have taken long, right? What happened?

Logan snorted, “Of course not. The envelope was in my backpack.”

“What?”

“I told you this was an elaborate plan. What I needed for my goal was the keys to the Principal’s office and a time where the staff room doesn’t have a lot of people.”

“But… why?”

“To check around the Principal office, of course.”

“Again, why?”

“I seem to recall someone’s real school records got mixed up with the club portfolios.”

Something got stuck in Alex’s throat. All this time she feared Logan had something more important to attend to. It turned out he had been gone because of her.

“Well, I could have timed it better” Logan told her, scratching the back of his head. When Alex didn’t say anything, he suddenly felt sheepish, “But when that lady gave that envelope, I knew I might not get another chance like that. I thought it would be quick but would you believe me when I say, someone locked me in that office because I took too long? I couldn’t call dad because my bag was in the car. He’d be suspicious if I was in that office without it. He’d raise questions so I could only wait.”

“Why didn’t you call someone else?”

“By the time I thought of that, I realized my phone was also in the car.”

Silence once again filled the air around them. What did a person really do in this situation? Alex thought. She debated between thanking Logan and scolding him. Maybe she should do both? Would it sound insincere if she added the scolding?

“Anyway, I didn’t really get to check everything despite being stuck in there all night. Don’t get me wrong. I did my best but some places had locks and I didn’t know how to do that bobby pin thing. I’m sorry it turned out to be a fruitless mission. I didn’t want to tell because I felt ashamed—and stupid because I got myself locked up.”

Alex had to smile. Logan actually admitted to being stupid.

“I’d say thank you for your stupidity but that doesn’t sound like a good thing” she teased.

Logan rolled his eyes, “Oh, boo-hoo. I feel so offended. Isn’t it your turn to confess, Alex?”

Alex sighed. Here goes nothing, she thought to herself.

She started fiddling with her hands, “So I went to the party. Everything was okay. Like I usually do, I avoided people then, Max came up to me… and, apparently, the booze mixed with his brain. Ever since the English presentation, he wondered if I was gay. In his head, he thought I was hiding in the closet while leading Lauren on.”

“He thinks Lauren has a thing for you?” Logan asked.

Alex nodded in confirmation, “And that I was fooling her by not coming out. Instead of telling it right away, he wanted more proof and sort of, uh… insisted that I should get a girl. To bed.”

“What?” Logan hissed.

“I think he just wanted to know if I was interested in girls…”

“Alex, that’s no excuse!”

Alex peeked at Logan from the corner of her eye. His nostrils flared up and his face hardened like marble. The light in his eyes earlier had faded away. He looked exactly like he did the night before when Jae told him about the trouble he got into.

“It didn’t happen” Alex explained, “Lauren helped me stop him.”

“He could have exposed you!”

Alex crossed her arms, “You think I’d let that happen, Logan? Don’t you remember the things I went through just to keep my secret from you?”

He snorted in reply, “Yeah, that went well, didn’t it?”

“I don’t want to fight. Yes, he could have exposed me but it didn’t happen. If I rely on ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could have been’, I’ll end up stuck. No one will ever know for sure what would have happened if Lauren wasn’t there. For all everyone knows, Max might have passed out on the spot.”

“So you’ll just forgive him?”

“Of course not” Alex scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest “But that doesn’t mean I won’t give him a second chance.”

“A second chance?” Logan raised an eyebrow skeptically, “And how will that happen?”