I smile, but I can feel the sadness tears trying to surface behind my eyes. “Drew lied to me about his parents getting divorced. Apparently he’s known for a while that they aren’t splitting up, but he’s been holding it over me to convince me to spend more time with him.”

“I’m sorry, Noah,” Devin says. “That’s awful.”

Yeah, it is, and it’s kind of nice to hear em say that because it tells me I’m not just overreacting about the whole thing. But I also hate the feeling that Devin’s pitying me, like I need to explain to em that I’m fine and it’s not a big deal.

Before I can ruin the moment, Devin says, “I don’t want to overstep here, but why were you dating him in the first place if he needed an excuse to get you to spend time with him?”

“It’s not like I didn’t hang out with Drew before he told me about his parents getting divorced. I’ve been enraptured with him since the moment we met. Hell, I’m the one who instigated everything, who steered us through the perfect relationship steps so everything could would work out for us.”

And maybe I wouldn’t have spent as much time with him over the past two weeks if I’d known, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t into him. I tried so hard to make Drew my world. It’s not my fault he got insecure anyway.

Though I guess Drew was right about one thing—our whole relationship was grounded in the Diary. It was why we’d started going out, and even while we were together, it was the thing I cared most about, the reason I kept steering us onward when we probably should’ve pulled over a long time ago. And the truth is, most of the time I’d spent with Drew over the past few weeks, I would’ve preferred to have spent with Devin.

But Drew was always so upset about everything that was happening with his parents, and I worried that if I didn’t make him happy, he’d break up with me and that would sabotage the Diary.

And now I’m sitting in Devin’s room, and Drew’s parents aren’t getting divorced, and I don’t know what’s going to come of the Diary, but I do know that my relationship with Drew isn’t going to change any of it. Even if this is just the Release stage—even if I just have to wait for Drew to make his grand, sweeping gesture to pull me back—it won’t save the Diary.

Which means the only thing keeping me loyal to Drew is Drew.

And I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason.