You'll need to suspend your disbelief for the last few chapters although 15/16 are massive improvements and seem to be going back the right way.
Only in the sense that Amanda hasn't done anything to act any more like an absolute idiot with no interest in the truth. But she's barely in ch 15, but it has it's own problems. Slow, composed mostly of filler, all to get to a reveal that we all knew already. The story has done nothing but present the main character as a down on his luck guy just trying to make the best of life, so it pretty obvious that he didn't steal the money. A real twist would have been if he had stolen the money but that also wouldn't have actually fitted with the character.
Like, it would have made so much more sense for Amanda to be upset over the MC dating/fucking other girls while apparently with her, and at least that would have made our previous choices have consequences. It seems like that still might happen with the dialogue from the threesome, but at this point it feels a little tacked on.
Fortunately it looks like the game is giving us a choice so that shot the game back up in my eyes. I refuse to give that bitch a happy ending, she doesn't deserve it.
Except not really. The game is giving you a choice, but the narrative spends so much time setting up the MC and Amanda that it feels like the wrong choice not to pursue her. Obviously everyone has preferences, but this is like if a romcom spent two hours setting up two characters only to pair them up with someone else at the end. It feels like a lot of the build up has been wasted. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from going after Kathy or Heidi, but if I'm following this from a story perspective, it feels like I should pick Amanda, which is frustrating because as you said, she's done nothing to deserve it.
