Tai's rise through the Bronson High food chain was the kind of phenomenon that people whispered about in the halls, like the sudden appearance of a comet. She went from being "that transfer with the funny accent" to a source of mild fascination, then, overnight, to a kind of legend. Even the teachers started treating her with the wary respect reserved for kids who might end up in the alumni newsletter. Her mural—an explosion of color and fever-dream faces that stretched across a formerly neglected foyer wall—was only the beginning. She became a guest on the school's morning announcement show; she started getting tagged in memes and inside jokes that, until recently, had orbited only Cher and Dionne. She was invited to sit at the senior table. She was even, at least once, sighted talking to the prom king in a supply closet, though what actually happened in there became the stuff of a hundred contradictory rumors.
Cher watched all this with the kind of suppressed horror usually reserved for slow-motion car crashes. It wasn't that she begrudged Tai the attention—she'd wanted her to fit in, to be happy—but she couldn't ignore the fact that her own stock was dropping in direct proportion. For years, Cher had been the axis around which her small universe spun. Now, people were comparing her to Tai and finding her wanting: less original, less dramatic, less fun. Even Dionne had fallen under Tai's spell, relaying gossip with a giddy reverence that made Cher feel, for the first time in her life, genuinely old.
In AP English, Tai started correcting the teacher, gently at first, then with a kind of reckless confidence. She cited obscure Russian authors and let the class copy her notes. In gym, she led a mutiny against the "Co-Ed Line Dancing" unit and convinced the coach to let them play dodgeball instead. She had a way of making rebellion look like community service. Cher marvelled, then fumed, then panicked.
One afternoon, while Tai was surrounded by a circle of admirers dissecting the latest mural, Cher tried to steer the conversation back to herself by bringing up her father's latest case—a juicy securities scandal that had made the front page. But Tai barely looked up, too busy sketching a caricature of the principal with devil horns. "That's wild, Cher," she said, not unkindly, "but can you imagine if the principal actually had to pose for the yearbook like this?" The group howled. Cher felt the conversation slip from her grasp, watched it recede like a wave she'd once known how to ride.
That night, she lay in bed replaying the scene, trying to pinpoint the moment she'd lost control. She decided it was the day Tai dyed her hair a violent shade of magenta and wore it to school in two high pigtails. The look was unflattering, almost clownish, but Tai wore it with such conviction that by third period, half a dozen girls had shown up with streaks of pink in their own hair. Cher had always suspected popularity was a kind of mass hallucination. Now she had proof.
The real tipping point came at Amber's house party—the kind of event Cher used to host with her eyes closed, but now attended as a guest, her invitation scrawled in a last-minute group text. She arrived late, unsure if this was a power move or the first symptom of social leprosy. Tai was already there, holding court in the kitchen, perched on the counter next to Josh. It was a tableau that made Cher's breath pause: Josh, laughing, with his head thrown back, Tai's hand resting lightly on his arm.
She tried to insert herself into the conversation, but Tai barely missed a beat, waving her over with a "Hey, Cher!" that sounded both warm and slightly patronizing. For a while, Cher hovered at the edge of the group, hoping for an opening. When none came, she retreated to the patio, where the smokers clustered and the air was thick with the scent of weed and eucalyptus.
She found Dionne there, locked in an argument with Murray about the ethics of standardized testing. "You okay?" Dionne asked, eyes sharp enough to see through Cher's carefully maintained mask.
"Super," Cher said, too brightly. "Just enjoying the night air. Did you see Tai in there? She's like Beyoncé and Banksy had a love child."
Dionne grinned. "You made her, babe. She just took it to the next level."
Cher nodded, but the compliment stung. She was starting to understand the old cliché about Frankenstein and his monster.
By the time she re-entered the party, Tai and Josh had vanished. She wandered through the house, pretending to look for a bathroom, but really searching for them. She found them in the den, sitting close together on the ugly plaid sofa, deep in a conversation that looked, from a distance, like something much more intimate.
Cher hovered in the doorway, uncertain whether to interrupt or retreat. Before she could decide, Tai looked up, eyes shining. "Cher! We were just talking about you."
Josh smiled, his expression open and unguarded. "Tai says you basically taught her everything she knows about life in 'the wilds of LA.'"
Cher tried to laugh, but it came out brittle. "Well, you know me. Always giving back to the community."
Tai patted the cushion beside her. "Come sit!"
Cher obeyed, awkwardly perching on the edge. The silence stretched. She felt the heat of their attention and, for the first time, didn't know what to do with it.
Finally, Tai broke the spell. "So, I'm just going to say this, because I promised myself I would. I like Josh. Like, a lot. And I think he likes me, too. I know that's probably weird because you guys are, like, family-adjacent, but…" She shrugged. "I wanted to be honest."
Cher felt the room tilt, the air sucked out like a vacuum. She glanced at Josh, who looked both apologetic and hopeful. "I didn't know how to… I mean, I never wanted to make things weird," he said. "But I really like her, Cher."
Cher opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her mind was a tangle of conflicting scripts: jealousy, protectiveness, hurt, relief. She'd spent so long assuming she was in charge of everyone's happiness that she'd never stopped to ask if she was actually happy herself.
She stood up abruptly, smoothing her skirt as if that could iron out the tension. "That's great," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm really… happy for you guys."
Tai's face fell. "Cher, please don't be mad—"
"I'm not!" Cher said, a little too loud. "Seriously. I mean, who am I, right? I'm not your mom. You should do whatever makes you happy. Both of you."
She walked out before she could see their reactions. Outside, the night was colder than she remembered, and her hands shook as she fumbled for her phone. She texted Dionne a single word—"Leaving"—and started the long walk home, heels clicking on the empty sidewalk, each step echoing the hollowness in her chest.
For the rest of the weekend, Cher replayed the scene in her head, searching for some angle where she came out with her dignity intact. But all she saw was how much she'd lost: not just Josh, not just the spotlight, but the sense of herself as indispensable. She spent Sunday in her room, ignoring calls, watching the sun move across the wall like the slowest clock in the world.
Monday morning, she woke up with puffy eyes and a headache that felt cosmic. She'd planned to fake a stomach bug and stay home, but something stubborn made her get dressed and go anyway. At school, Tai found her by the lockers, looking nervous for the first time since the mural went up.
"Hey," Tai said, voice small. "Are we okay?"
Cher studied her, really looked at her—the too-bright hair, the nervous shuffle, the hope behind the bravado. "Yeah," she said, surprising herself. "We're okay. Just… give me a minute to catch up, okay?"
Tai nodded, relief flooding her face. "You're the best, Cher. For real."
They hugged, tentative but real. For the first time, Cher didn't feel like she was faking it.
Later, waiting for her dad outside the courthouse, Cher stared at her reflection in the glass doors, trying to recognize herself. She realized she'd been so busy managing everyone else's lives that she'd lost track of her own script. Maybe the version of herself she'd been playing all these years wasn't even who she wanted to be.
The thought was terrifying, but also—maybe—a little bit hopeful.
That was the moment she realized she was in love with Josh. Not the idea of him, not the role he played in her carefully constructed world, but the actual, infuriating, human him. She had no idea what to do about it, but for once, she wasn't afraid to admit it.
Chapter 21
The realization that she was, in fact, in love with Josh hit Cher like a fever. Not the pleasant, rom-com montage kind of love, but an ugly, inconvenient, soul-exposing thing that left her raw and a little bit furious with herself. She'd always assumed she ran on a higher-octane blend of affection: the curated, aspirational crushes, the platonic soulmate stuff, the kind that made her look good by association. This was different. This was not about the optics—hell, she could barely stand to look at herself in the mirror these days. The more she tried to catalogue the symptoms, the less sense it made.
She spent the next week dragging herself through the motions of high school with the same cheerful autopilot as always, but inside her head, everything was scrambled. She started keeping a notebook, not for homework but for all the ways she wanted to say something real to someone—to Josh, to Tai, to herself. The entries were cryptic and embarrassing, but she couldn't stop. On Tuesday, she wrote: "You can't be the sun and the planet at the same time." On Wednesday: "How do you apologize for being a cliché?" By Friday, she'd filled ten pages and still had no idea how to fix anything.
At lunch, she watched Josh and Tai together, acutely aware of all the micro-moments that passed between them: the way Josh would nudge Tai's elbow when he thought she was underselling herself, the way Tai started using his weird idioms in casual conversation, the way they shared these silent, private jokes. Cher tried to insulate herself against jealousy by making fun of them with Dionne, but it felt hollow. She wasn't just losing a crush; she was losing her own carefully constructed personality, piece by piece.
One night, she caught herself scrolling through Josh's old texts—back when he was just her ex-stepbrother, annoying but safe—and realized she missed that version of their relationship. The version without so much subtext, where she could tell him anything and he'd try to make it make sense. She thought about reaching out, but every draft sounded either desperate or patronizing, so she deleted them all.
Around this time, her father noticed something was off. "You're quiet lately," he said, peering over his newspaper.
"I'm fine," Cher lied, turning over in her mind the idea that maybe her entire personality was built on a series of polite lies. She wondered if that was the problem—if she'd been acting so long she wasn't sure where the script ended and the real Cher began.
The answer, she decided, was to do something she couldn't fake. Something so out of character that it might shock her system back into authenticity. Which is how she found herself at six o'clock on a Saturday morning, standing in front of a strip-mall food bank, shivering in a borrowed hoodie. She'd signed up as a volunteer after reading a blurb in the school e-newsletter, and now she was here, surrounded by people who had never heard of Bronson High's social hierarchy and didn't care what anyone was wearing.
The work was humbling in every possible way. She sorted bruised vegetables, packed dented cans, and smiled awkwardly at the regulars, most of whom regarded her with a kind of bemused suspicion. There was a moment, halfway through the shift, when a little kid pointed at her painted nails and asked if she was a princess. The mother scolded him, embarrassed, but Cher just laughed. "I wish," she said, and for some reason, it didn't feel like a lie this time.
Back at home, she scrubbed her hands raw and tried to process the experience. She didn't feel like a better person; that would have been too easy. But she did feel, for the first time in a long time, like herself. A mess, maybe, but an honest one.
The next day, word got around. Not because Cher told anyone—she'd actually planned to keep it a secret—but because the food bank director turned out to be Murray's great-aunt, and the grapevine did its work. Dionne called her a "secret do-gooder" and demanded details. "I didn't know you were into, like, actual charity," she said, equal parts delighted and confused.
Cher shrugged, embarrassed. "I just wanted to see if I could do something that wasn't for show."
What she didn't say, but what echoed in her head, was that she wanted to become someone who deserved the people she loved. Even if no one noticed. Even if it hurt.
On Monday, waiting by the lockers, Josh approached her. He looked nervous—more nervous than she'd ever seen him. "Hey," he said, running a hand through his hair. "I heard about your food bank thing. That's… really cool of you."
Cher tried to play it off, but she felt herself flush. "Oh, that? It was nothing. I just wanted to try it out."
"No, seriously," Josh said, and this time his voice was different. "I always thought you were, you know, impressive, but this is next-level." He smiled, and it wasn't the old, teasing smile; it was something else. "Makes me want to try it too, honestly."
She wanted to say something meaningful, to tell him that he'd always been the reason she tried in the first place. Instead, she just smiled back, small and real, and let the moment hang there. It was enough.
22. Charity Work / Disaster Relief Cher volunteers for a disaster relief effort to prove she is more than just surface-level. Josh sees her genuine kindness.
Cher signed up for the disaster relief shift the way she did everything: with the conviction that the optics would be excellent and the lingering suspicion that she'd fail at the only thing that really mattered. Her application had been a late-night, insomnia-fueled impulse, submitted among a flurry of nervous texts to Dionne ("Can you die from humility??") and ignored calls from her dad, who was in trial prep mode and didn't notice her existential unraveling.
The disaster, when it struck, was terrifyingly real and close to home. A freak winter storm had flooded half the valley and turned the high school gym into an emergency shelter. At the volunteer orientation, Cher found herself surrounded by people who wore utility vests without irony and seemed to know at-a-glance which folding tables would best serve as triage. She hovered in the corner, feeling less like Audrey Hepburn and more like a prop in a PSA, until Josh arrived, a box of bottled water in each arm and an easy grin on his face.
"Thought you'd be here," he said, nodding at her borrowed sneakers. "Those are almost functional."
It was the first time he'd talked to her in person since The Talk. His words stung and soothed at the same time. Cher tried to find her footing, but her old banter was gone, replaced by something raw and uncertain.
They worked side by side for hours, taping makeshift signs, sorting donated clothes, and handing out food to families whose entire lives now fit inside reusable grocery bags. The stories they heard were as varied as the people themselves: a retired nurse who'd lost her cat and her insulin in the same night, a pair of twin boys who kept up a running commentary on everyone's shoes, a single mom who asked if Cher was "old enough to be doing this." Each encounter chipped away at the idea that Cher was too shallow for this kind of work. In their exhaustion, she and Josh found a strange, silent rhythm, high-fiving after every small victory—finding diapers in the right size, calming a panicked toddler, rigging up a dying phone with a charger of mysterious provenance.
Around midnight, the shelter's overhead lights flickered out, plunging the gym into a soft, battery-lit gloom. Cher felt the weight of the day settle into her bones. She watched Josh as he knelt to retie a child's shoelaces, the care and focus in his expression so sincere that it made her heart seize up. For a second, she hated herself for ever thinking she could orchestrate someone else's happiness, when she barely understood her own.
Later, after the last evacuee had drifted into an uneasy sleep, Cher and Josh sat on the bleachers, sharing a half-thawed burrito and the kind of quiet that only comes after total exhaustion. "You're really good at this," Josh said, voice low. "Like, actually good. Not just in a 'smiling for the cameras' way."
Cher almost laughed, except she wanted to cry. "I thought I was supposed to be the selfish one," she said.
Josh looked at her, and there was nothing teasing in his eyes. "You can be both, you know. It doesn't have to be all or nothing."
For the first time, she believed him.
The next morning, Cher found Tai in the shelter's rec room, surrounded by bored kids and a cloud of construction paper scraps. Tai had volunteered too, and somehow turned a disaster zone into a pop-up summer camp. They hadn't spoken since the mural incident, but now, in the harsh light of calamity, their old drama seemed impossibly small.
"I'm sorry," Cher blurted out, startling them both. "I was trying so hard not to lose you, I forgot to actually be your friend."
Tai looked up, glue stick in hand, and smiled in that open, forgiving way only Tai could. "I missed you, Cher."
They hugged, their reconciliation sealed by the confetti of a hundred paper snowflakes. "You know," Cher said, wiping her nose, "Travis keeps asking about you. If you're into him, you should go for it."
Tai rolled her eyes, but her blush said everything. "Only if you promise not to meddle."
"Deal." Cher laughed, feeling lighter than she had in months.
23. Reconciliation with TaiCher and Tai met up at the disaster relief site a few days later, this time on purpose. They fell into step together as if the last several months of weirdness, confessionals, and unspoken accusations had been erased overnight. But Cher, changed by the shelter's fluorescent chill and the slap-in-the-face clarity of real service, saw Tai with new eyes. She didn't want to repeat old patterns—so instead of clinging too hard or pushing too much, she asked Tai how she was, and actually listened to the answer.
Tai's family had been hit hard by the storm, and she'd taken on the role of emotional first responder at home. She was tired, but she lit up when Cher asked about her sketchbook; in the evenings, Tai had been making comics about the relief effort, turning the chaos into something gently heroic and wry. Cher made a note to suggest Tai enter them in the school newspaper, but stopped herself—no unsolicited "encouragement," no life-fixing. She just let her friend talk.
Later that week, they snuck into the empty gym together to restock the snack station. Tai brought up Travis Birkenstock for the first time in ages. "He's been volunteering at the animal shelter," she said, stuffing single-serve chips into a bin. "He's, like, a dog whisperer now. It's adorable."
Cher tried not to smirk. "So, are you going to do something about it this time, or just doodle his name on your math homework?"
Tai looked at her sideways. "Like you're one to talk. When's the last time you made a move? On anyone, ever?"
Cher opened her mouth, then shut it. The old Cher would have pivoted, deflected, joked. Now the words felt different. "Honestly? I think I got so scared of looking stupid or desperate that I forgot how to just… like someone. Out loud."
Tai dropped a bag of gummy worms into the box and shrugged. "Maybe it's not about being loud. Maybe it's just about being—" she paused, searching for the right word, "not scared of being happy."
The two of them sat on the gym floor, backs against the vending machine, letting that thought settle. There, in the silence, Tai reached over and squeezed Cher's hand. "I'm glad we're okay again. I missed you."
Cher squeezed back, promising herself she wouldn't let petty drama or pride get between them again. She told Tai that Travis clearly liked her, and that she should absolutely give things a shot, because he'd be an idiot not to notice how amazing she was. Tai actually blushed, and for once, Cher was content to let the conversation be about someone else.
The night before the wedding, Cher and Josh found themselves in the kitchen, making a last-minute centerpiece for Mr. Hall and Miss Geist's reception. Josh was chopping fruit, Cher was wrestling with floral foam, and the late spring air hummed with the anticipation of new beginnings.
"You think Tai and Travis will show up together?" Josh asked.
"I hope so," Cher said, arranging a spray of daisies just so. "They both deserve to be happy. If anyone can pull off a meet-cute at a teacher's wedding, it's them."
Josh grinned, then turned serious. "You know, you're allowed to be happy, too."
She met his gaze, surprised by the warmth in it. "I'm working on it," she said, and realized she meant it.
The day of the wedding dawned impossibly bright. Cher wore a pale yellow dress that made her feel like a grown-up version of herself: no longer the orchestrator of other people's love lives, but a participant in her own. She watched Tai and Travis share a slow, shy dance, and felt something close to joy at the sight.
When it was time for the bouquet toss, Cher lined up with the rest, laughing at the spectacle of it all. The flowers arced high and landed—miraculously—in her arms, petals scattering everywhere.
Josh was waiting for her at the edge of the dance floor. "Coincidence?" he said, quirking an eyebrow.
"Probably not," she admitted, looking around at the people who had become her accidental family. She felt the urge to say thank you, or I missed you, or something equally embarrassing. Instead, she just leaned in and kissed him, right there in front of everyone, her cheeks burning and her heart light.
For the first time, it felt like the beginning of something real.
24. Mr. Hall and Miss Geist's Wedding
The wedding took place at the Beverly Hills Botanical Gardens, which was less a garden and more a fever dream of peonies, wisteria, and ingeniously disguised WiFi routers. Cher could not imagine a more perfect setting—not for a teacher wedding, not for any kind of wedding, and certainly not for the accidental coming-out party of her new, somewhat improved self. There were fairy lights, actual fairies (okay, drama kids in tulle wings), and a string quartet playing a surprisingly emotional rendition of "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac. It was the sort of event that made every other wedding in history look like a rehearsal dinner.
Cher arrived with Josh, who was freshly shaven and wearing what he called his "good" blazer. They blended into the crowd of teachers and family members, and for a moment Cher felt like a supporting character in her own life. But as the procession started, with Miss Geist gliding down the aisle in vintage Chanel and Mr. Hall looking so uncharacteristically moved that he choked up during the vows, Cher realized all the best moments were happening on the sidelines. She watched Tai doodle the ceremony in her sketchbook, Dionne snap photos with actual film for "aesthetic reasons," and Travis—in a three-piece suit borrowed from his uncle—offer tissues to anyone within arm's reach, including himself.
When the officiant said, "You may now kiss the bride," the entire audience erupted in spontaneous applause. Mr. Hall and Miss Geist, formerly the most awkward teachers on campus, were suddenly the most romantic couple Cher had ever seen. She squeezed Josh's hand, surprising both of them, and he squeezed back. It should have felt staged or corny, but Cher found herself caught up in the sincerity of the moment. Maybe it was the pollen. Maybe it was the fact nobody was filming her for once. She actually cried a little.
At the reception, the dance floor was a whiplash of generational collisions. The teachers slow-danced with the practiced caution of people who'd once been chaperones at prom. Tai and Travis attempted to swing dance, failed spectacularly, and laughed so hard they had to sit down. Cher tried to fade into the background, but Josh kept pulling her back into the center, spinning her with shocking competence for a guy who claimed to have two left feet. Under the haze of the evening, Cher noticed something: she wasn't orchestrating anything, for once. She was just…there. Not the director, not the fixer, not even the accidental matchmaker. Just a girl in a yellow dress, risking genuine happiness because it suddenly seemed possible.
Then came the bouquet toss. Miss Geist, blushing with newlywed bravado, hurled the flowers over her head with enough force to clear two rows of outstretched hands. For a split second, the bouquet seemed destined for Dionne, who was already mid-victory leap. But fate (or perhaps a slight miscalculation in aerodynamics) sent the flowers flying straight into Cher's arms. The impact startled her into a fit of giggles, and she looked up to see half the room watching her—Dionne, Tai, even the drama kids, who were now speculating wildly about who would be next to marry.
Josh was waiting for her by the punch bowl, his expression somewhere between impressed and amused. "Did you plan that?" he teased.
Cher shook her head, clutching the bouquet to her chest. "Not this time," she said. "I think I'm just lucky."
Josh took a step closer. "You know what they say about catching the bouquet, right?"
She rolled her eyes, but her heart was pounding in a way that felt suspiciously like hope. "If it means I get to see you make that face again, I'm fine with superstition."
He leaned in, closing the gap between them, and kissed her softly—no audience, no performance, just the two of them, tangled up in the smell of peonies and possibility. For the first time, Cher thought, she wasn't chasing someone else's version of perfect. She was building her own.
In the hush of the freshly married Hall-Geist ballroom, after the requisite conga line and a brief, well-intentioned attempt at a hora, Cher found herself standing with Josh beneath the flicker of rented candelabras. The music, now in its slow-dance segment, had thinned the herd of relatives to a handful of besotted pairs. When Josh reached for her hand, there was no grandiose gesture—just a simple, steady squeeze, like he'd always been holding it in some cosmic sense, waiting for her to join him in the present.
In the hush of the freshly married Hall-Geist ballroom, after the requisite conga line and a brief, well-intentioned attempt at a hora, Cher found herself standing with Josh beneath the flicker of rented candelabras. The music, now in its slow-dance segment, had thinned the herd of relatives to a handful of besotted pairs. When Josh reached for her hand, there was no grandiose gesture—just a simple, steady squeeze, like he'd always been holding it in some cosmic sense, waiting for her to join him in the present.
They stepped onto the parquet, surrounded by the gentle blur of tulle, distant laughter, and the slightly medicinal scent of rented chair covers. Cher's head fit perfectly into the crook of Josh's neck, which surprised her, because she'd never considered the logistics of height before. She'd spent the better part of her life manipulating the social geometry of any room, but here, in the near-silence, every calculation fell away. They swayed without rhythm, not bothering with the music's actual beat, and Cher realized she had no idea how to dance but didn't care in the slightest.
"I'm really glad you're here," Josh whispered, as if worried the sincerity might embarrass them both. His hand was warm at her waist; his other, still holding hers, squeezed again, softer this time.
Cher hesitated, then admitted, "So am I. I mean, it's not like I planned any of this to happen, you know?" She tried to sound casual, but her voice had the brittle edge of someone afraid the moment would evaporate if labeled too directly.
Josh grinned, eyes crinkling. "I know. That's what makes it work."
They veered into a slow spin, drifting past a table where Dionne and Murray, locked in a mock-serious dispute over centerpiece theft, conducted their own private opera. Ms. Geist, her veil askew, dabbed at happy tears while Mr. Hall, for the first time Cher could remember, looked entirely at ease. Maybe even happy. Cher catalogued it all, storing each imperfect detail the way the best lawyer files evidence—never sure what you'll need later, but certain everything means something.
The song ended, and so they wandered out to the courtyard, where the city's sodium lights turned the world gold and blue and shadow. Josh stopped her by the fountain, the same one she'd passed a thousand times but never really seen. He looked at her, and the air stretched taut with the possibilities they'd both sidestepped for so long.
"So," he said. "What now?"
It was the simplest question in the world, and yet it spun out like an entire semester's reading assignment—subtext, implications, and the greater essay of their futures. Cher thought of her father, tirelessly strategizing her happiness; of Dionne, her peerless friend; of Tai, who'd forgiven her for the makeover and the meddling and the mess. She thought of herself, too, and how she was still learning to see her own corners instead of smoothing them for everyone else.
Cher reached up and brushed a lock of hair from Josh's brow, her fingers lingering. "I don't know," she said. "But this is a pretty good start."
They kissed then—an unhurried, unpracticed, perfectly real kiss that felt like a comma instead of a period. There would be more skirmishes, more negotiations, more moments where she tripped over her own good intentions. But for now, she was exactly where she needed to be.
From the periphery of her consciousness, Cher heard the clatter of glasses, the distant whoop of a wedding DJ, the tentative steps of adulthood echoing in the night. She remembered a line from one of her father's opening statements: "The most compelling evidence is sometimes the thing you never thought to look for." She was finally starting to believe it.
And if you want to know what happened next—well, you can probably guess.