He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly novel Chapter 165

Chapter 165

(Daisy’s POV)

“Lillian?”

The name left my mouth quietly, but it seemed to echo through the room anyway,

I was conflicted, still I stared at DeLuca, waiting for him to take it back. Waiting for him to suddenly admit that he was reaching or that he didn’t really believe it himself. Instead, he simply stood there holding the letter, watching me with that frustratingly steady expression of his.

“No,” I said finally, shaking my head. “No. I don’t believe that.”

His gaze didn’t leave mine.

“You don’t.”

“I don’t.”

The answer came easier this time.

Because now that I was actually thinking about it, all I could see were memories.

Lillian dragging me out of my room when I’d been too stressed to leave for school. Lillian showing up with food when she knew I had forgotten to eat. Lillian talking endlessly about things I didn’t understand and somehow making me laugh anyway. The countless nights we had spent in this apartment sharing stories, complaining about classes, and existing in our own strange version of friendship despite living completely different lives.

We weren’t alike.

Not even close.

Lillian lived loudly.

I lived quietly.

Lillian walked into rooms and somehow became a part of them.

I usually try to find the nearest corner and disappear.

But somehow, despite all of that, we had become friends.

Real friends.

And none of that felt fake.

None of it.

“She wouldn’t do something like this.” I said to myself and said it with confidence now.

Not because I was trying to convince DeLuca.

Rus breuse I-believed it.

“She wouldn’t.

For a moment, DeLuca simply looked me. Then he sighed.

“I think you see the possibility.”

My brows pulled together.

“No.”

“I think you do,” he continued calmly. “I think you just don’t want to acknowledge it.”

I stared at him.

“Because she’s my friend?”

“Because you trust her.”

The answer came immediately.

“And because of that, every piece of evidence is fighting against what you already want to believe.”

I folded my arms.

“That isn’t fair to say.”

“It isn’t unfair either.”

The words irritated me because they sounded reasonable.

“I understand why you’re conflicted,” he continued. “If someone accused a person of the few people they genuinely trusted, they’d react the same way.”

“I am reacting the same way?”

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