Chapter 155

“John, are you OK?” Sabrina asked you, looking at you like you had three heads.

“No, seriously. Think about it,” you said. “Sure, we’re writing LSATs. But this isn’t accredited. Garrison didn’t tell us any rules. For the last month, he hasn’t cared one bit about how we divided work, as long as the work got done, because this isn’t school. We’re working in the real world. So we can just ... work together.”

Gemma opened her mouth and then closed it, looking thoughtful and cocking her head a bit. Sabrina blinked rapidly, then shrugged. “Fuck it,” she said and lowered the cardboard divider that Garrison had set up. “I fucking hate tests anyways.”

“Alright, I’m in,” Gemma nodded.

So you wrote your practice LSATs together.

And it was actually ... fun?

Studying and preparing for the LSAT had been a stressful addition to your third year of university. You’d had a full course load, and all that extra studying on top of things. Writing the test was even more stressful than applying to University to begin with. But writing it with Gemma and Sabrina made it fly by. One of you generally had the answer on the tip of your tongue, and for the more complicated questions you were able to quickly work it out between the three of you.

You not only finished the test, but you finished it early.

When the door opened and Garrison stuck his head in after three hours, he found the three of you sitting around the desk, chatting and laughing. Your tests were stacked neatly, along with the pencils and the dividers. Gemma, wearing a pair of nice slacks instead of a skirt, even had her feet up on the desk though she lowered them when the door opened.

“Things went well then?” Garrison asked.

“Absolutely,” you said. The three of you had agreed that since you had come up with the reasoning for working together, you were going to be the one to explain it. “We finished the whole thing. Even checked it twice.”

“We?” he asked pointedly.

This was the moment you had to own your shit. You were maybe 85% sure that this was ‘a Test’ and not just writing a test. Everything you knew about Garrison told you he shouldn’t care about trying to enforce school rules or anything like that.

“Of course,” you said. “You gave us a task, and we completed it. Together. To the best of our abilities.”

“Hmm,” he nodded. “Alright. Give me whoever’s copy is neatest, and head back upstairs. Work as usual for the rest of the day.”

“Yes, sir,” you all said and gave him Sabrina’s copy since she had the nicest handwriting.

Once you were all in the elevator, with Garrison having stayed behind on the first floor, you let out nervous exhalations and laughs.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” Gemma said. “It feels like we got away with cheating, but it wasn’t.”