Love's Cruel Redemption (The Ghost Bird #12)(84)

Nathan sputtered for an answer that would sink into her thick skull. “Do you not see everything going on at the school? You go to lunch. You don’t see the police? Hear what’s going on?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me,” she said.

“It has everything to do with what you want,” he said. “Do you think for one second you’d just waltz out of school and no one would notice? Every option to get you out involves a principal’s approval, among other things.” He waved his hand outward. “The principal is gone, Danielle. Gone.”

She frowned. “Sang’s out. You got her out.”

“She’s still going to school. Only she’s taken all the tests and not complaining about it. She knows she has to stay in for now. And she’s doing far more work than you are for what she wants.”

Danielle threw up her hands again and waved them around. “Fine! It’s whatever. I’m trying to help you, after all. I don’t need to tell you about her real mom. Or help you with Erica...”

Nathan glared at her. “Help? What are you talking about? And I don’t even know if you know about Sang’s mom. How would you know anything? I can just ask Marie.” He pointed a finger at her. “And it’s really shitty the way you’re using Marie and Sang and their situation to get something out of it.”

She reeled her head back and then stopped. She turned, blew out a breath and then lowered her shoulders a bit, dipping her head. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He blinked rapidly at how her whole demeanor seemed to change. It reminded him that he was supposed to become friendly with them to get the answers they might have. Answers weren’t going to come if he was yelling at her. “Look, I just don’t understand how to help you. You wanted out of classes, we did that. The process to get you out of school, though, that’s on hold until we’re absolutely sure things can’t be questioned about your exit. It takes time, okay?” He paused. “And what did you mean about Erica?”

Danielle lifted her head, gazing at him with her big brown eyes. “I told Jessica you and I were hooking up.”

Nathan stopped himself before he could make a gagging noise. “What?”

“I asked her why you two were fighting in the yard. She said it was because you were trying to kiss Sang. So I helped you by letting her think over the last week I was coming over more, hanging out together with you.” She reached into her back pocket, pulling out her cell phone. “I put a pic up on Facebook of back in the day when we used to hang out together. She follows me.”

She turned her phone around, showing a picture of Nathan and Danielle at the pool in his back yard. It must have been at least five years ago, if not before then. He barely remembered taking the picture.

Nathan shook his head slowly. He pressed a palm to his forehead. “I don’t...understand...why you thought that would help.”

“Are you kidding?” she said and returned the phone to her pocket. “I saved your ass. Jessica was ready to tell the world about how she saved Sang from getting harassed, to tell other people to stick up for people like her. She was practically going to tell everyone about this. I stopped her. You didn’t deserve it. And now that you’re ‘dating’ me, and you’re back to friendly terms, she’s okay with keeping it a secret.” She pointed a finger at him. “So don’t tell me I’m not working for the benefit of all of us.”

God. Fuck. If Jessica thought he was going out with Danielle...Did Jessica end up telling this to Erica? Is that why Erica came to him the other day? She thought he was over Sang and safe to integrate back into the family?

Nathan turned away from her, heading to the couch and sitting on it. He buried his face into his palms. The worst part was, Danielle thought she was helping. And it was perpetuating the lie he and Kota had developed for Erica’s benefit.

Their lies were making it so much worse.

He felt Danielle sitting next to him on the couch. “I believe you about how difficult it is right now getting us out of school,” she said. “I hadn’t thought the principal being gone put this on hold. So...I’ll wait. But do I have to take those tests? Can’t we just bring a tablet to school or do something else?”

“You don’t have to take the tests,” Nathan said. “It’s your situation that makes this more difficult than them. You’re going to have to figure out what to tell your parents. We can put you in home school. That’s probably the easiest. You can take the classes online. You’ll graduate on time. It’s up to you if you want to take the SATs or apply to college. Or whatever you want to do.”

“I’ll handle it,” she said. “Then maybe I can talk to Marie. Maybe I can tell her to go ahead and let you all know what she knows.”

Nathan picked his head up. “You’d do that? I thought you knew?”

“I was just saying that to get you to do what I wanted,” she said. “But I was the one to tell her she should tell Sang the truth about her real mom, about what she knows. She didn’t even want to.”

A flicker of appreciation developed inside of him. Despite everything that was going on, was Danielle really trying to help them out? Even if it felt like a disaster, maybe it was helping. She was willing to lie about her own relationship status online to help save Sang and himself from that sort of attention.