After Rebirth My Class Beauty Led Cheating and I Stayed Silent Chapter 03

After Rebirth My Class Beauty Led Cheating and I Stayed Silent Chapter 03

The last self-study period before the SAT.

No one was studying.

The room buzzed with that strange, feverish tension that came from excitement and nerves tangling together.

Sienna sat near the podium with her laptop open, confirming the last technical details with someone through an encrypted chat window.

I sat in the back row with a physics notebook so worn the corners had gone soft.

Brielle glanced back at me, leaned toward Macy, and whispered something that made both of them laugh.

I heard it.

“Tessa’s really something,” Brielle muttered. “The whole class is getting ready for tomorrow, and she’s still over there acting like some perfect little genius.”

Macy giggled. “She is a genius. She doesn’t need what we need.”

Brielle curled her lip. “You really think she’s that virtuous? That she won’t rat us out? I still think she’s got something up her sleeve.”

Without even looking up, Sienna said, “If she was going to report us, she would’ve done it already. It’s been a day and a half. Relax. She won’t. And even if she tried, everyone in this room would know it was her. She’d end up worse off than I would.”

She said it for Brielle.

She also said it for herself.

It was one more layer of insurance, one more attempt to lock me down under the pressure of the whole class into a threat.

What she didn’t know was that I no longer needed locking down.

At the end of the day, Mr. Hollis came in to offer some final words of advice.

“Bring your admission ticket, your photo ID, and your pencil pouch tomorrow. Get there at least thirty minutes early. Don’t be late. Stay calm and perform the way you always do.”

His eyes swept over the room.

A few people lowered their heads guiltily. A few others stared straight at the board, pretending nothing was wrong.

His gaze paused on Sienna for a fraction of a second, then moved on.

He didn’t linger.

He didn’t know.

In my last life, he knew because I told him.

He moved fast, issuing a write-up and keeping the whole thing contained inside the school.

What Sienna hated wasn’t the rule itself.

It was that I had put the problem in the hands of someone with the power to stop it.

This time, Mr. Hollis knew nothing.

So the school wouldn’t be handling it internally.

This time it would spill straight outside.

To investigators.

To the law.

When the final bell rang, the whole class walked out together for once.

Sienna moved at the center of the pack like a star, and everyone else orbited around her.

Grant walked beside her, hands in his pockets, leaning toward her as he talked, looking as relaxed as if tomorrow were a field trip instead of the SAT.

I fell in at the very back.

Delaney Brooks slipped up beside me. She’d transferred less than a year ago, never got close to anyone, and had no overlap with Sienna’s crowd.

Sienna hadn’t given her a device. Not because she disliked her. Delaney’s testing room was in another building, outside the signal range.

“Tessa,” Delaney said quietly, “don’t you think this whole thing…”

I turned my head and looked at her.

She bit her lower lip and swallowed the rest.

“Think what?”

“Nothing.” She forced an unnatural smile. “I’m just nervous, I guess.”

I watched her for two seconds.

In the fading light, her eyes shone with a hesitant glimmer, caught between wanting to speak and wondering if she should.

[She was testing me.]

[What she really wanted to ask was: Why aren’t you stopping them?]

I looked away and toward the crowd ahead of us.

“Nerves are normal,” I said. “Just focus on your own test.”

Delaney didn’t say another word.

The cicadas screamed from the sycamore trees by the school entrance.

At the intersection, we dispersed, heading home.

By eight that night, the class group chat had been buzzing all evening.

Sienna was in there making the final arrangements.

Tomorrow morning at seven, everyone meet at the front gate.

I’ll hand out the devices there. Don’t test them at home. If your parents see one, it’ll be impossible to explain.

Got it got it got it…

Good luck tomorrow!

Sienna’s the best!

Our class is going to smash the school’s college acceptance records!

The messages came in by the hundreds, one long stretch of celebration.

I turned my phone facedown on the desk.

Under the glow of my desk lamp, I finished my last full-length practice test.

My pen landed in the answer box for the final math question.

Out of 150, I estimated my score at 147.

It was enough.

I didn’t need outside help. I didn’t need a device. I didn’t need anyone feeding me anything.

I turned off the light.

Lying in the dark, I stared at the ceiling.

Tomorrow would be the second time I walked into that testing center.

In my last life, I walked in carrying the hatred of my entire class.

They hated me for meddling, hated me for ruining Sienna’s future, and hated me for causing the entire plan to fail.

What would I carry in with me this time?

Nothing.

I was just a normal student.

Quietly, properly, filling out her own answer sheet.

As for everyone else, a gust of wind brushed the window, and the June night felt hot enough to suffocate.

I closed my eyes.

My heartbeat stayed steady. My breathing stayed slow and even.

Compared to dying once already, what was the SAT?