**ADDIE'S POV**
The rest of the friend group thought that it was a great idea for all of us to go to the ball together. It would be best for us all in the end. With me being a professor now, as well as a student, I was trying to be more mindful of the things that I did with the others.
I am not going to say that I didn't want to hang out with them at all, because that wasn't it at all. The truth of the matter was that I wanted to see them, talk to them, and be like we used to, but I couldn't because Nithi didn't want people to accuse me of favoritism or anything like that.
If people started to say that the good grades that Hollis, Sassy, Harper, Irina, and all the others were getting were only because they were my friends, it could cause a lot of problems for us. The rumors could follow us all for a very long time. I could handle it, but I didn't want to put them through that at all.