"Do not apologize to me," Tony said, brows darting up in warning. "This isn't your fault. There is no fault to assign here. And you need to stop apologizing every time the world turns."

His mouth tilted to the side.

"Like I said, I'm working on it. But you can't cut class every time trouble comes sniffing around, or you'll be cutting all of the classes. I put myself out there. I invite this. I have my reasons, but I can't take ... you blaming yourself, on top of ten years of being Peppered. And you've got too much going for you upstairs to end up the GED kid because you were never in class."