“He's not my type.”

Mike kept checking his phone the entire time we talked. I knew—gut-level—he already had someone.

My mom's voice turned mocking：

“Then what is your type? You want me to set you up with a billionaire's son? Would that be good enough?”

My face went white in an instant. Insecurity and fear slammed into me at the same time, old and familiar and suffocating. My mind blanked. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to run.

But she couldn't see what was happening inside me, and what she said next was worse.

“Take a good look at yourself. Besides the Simmons name, what exactly do you have that anyone would like? I break my back trying to find you a match, and it turns out your standards are sky-high. This one's not good enough, that one's not to your liking.”

I bit down hard on the soft flesh of my tongue, fingers picking at each other without me realizing, forcing the tears back with everything I had.

“I just remembered I have something to take care of at school. I should head back.”

I left the mall and bought the fastest ticket back to campus I could get.

On the train, my dad called over a dozen times and sent a string of texts.

【Your mom runs that whole company by herself. It's not easy. Of course her temper's a little short.】

【You have to understand, no one in this world will ever love you more than your parents.】

……

My nose stung. I turned off my phone.

And to think I'd actually believed they missed me.

On the way home I'd even hated myself for being so petty, for picking a school so far away just to put distance between us.

Now I saw it clearly. Family smells sweet from far away. Get close, and it reeks.

When I got back to the dorm, only Ruby was there.

Then I remembered Jill and Bernice were locals; they'd be home by now.

I walked closer and found Ruby hunched over her phone, muttering curses under her breath.

She caught me in her peripheral vision, shot to her feet, eyes full of worry.

“Do you know a Delilah Perry?”

I shook my head, then nodded, confused.

Technically, I'd only met her last night.

But how did Ruby know about Delilah? Right—yesterday's mess between me and Delilah had blown up all over the campus forum. She must have seen it.

Her voice pitched high, almost cracking.

“She's telling everyone you stole her boyfriend!”

The words hit like thunder.

A ringing filled my ears, and the blood in my veins seemed to freeze, cold spreading from my hands to my feet.

Ruby shoved her phone screen in front of me.

Delilah had posted under her real name, publicly accusing Penelope Simmons from Financial Management Class 2, Class of '24, of being a homewrecker. The post had already been pushed onto the trending list.

It felt like someone had their hand around my throat. I couldn't breathe.

“Since when am I a homewrecker?”

My reaction was too raw to be faked.

Ruby let out a long breath, the tension leaving her shoulders.

She grabbed her things, fuming：

“I knew you'd never do something like that. Come on, I'll go with you to file a police report.”

The next second,

fists slammed against the dorm's metal door so hard the ceiling shook and dust sifted down from above.

“Get the hell out here, 201!”

“Real tough behind a screen, aren't you? Show your face or admit you're a coward!”

“Open this door now, or we're coming in whether you like it or not!”

……

I looked at Ruby, bewildered.

My eyes asked the question for me.

Her face had gone pale.

“Delilah and her friends were all over the internet trashing you, saying some eighty-year-old man was keeping you. I couldn't just sit there, so I hit back. I didn't think they'd actually show up.”

Something detonated in my chest—pure, white-hot rage.

Good. I'd been wondering how to find them, and here they were, coming straight to me.

I threw the dorm door open.

The narrow dorm hallway was crammed with gawkers, bodies pressed wall to wall.

Two girls and two guys in athletic jerseys—School of Physical Education printed across the front—cut through the crowd like they owned it.

They swung their fists in the air, snarling at the crowd to get back to their rooms.

Anyone who dared call the cops or pull out a phone to record, they said, would regret it.

I stepped out of the dorm just as they chased the last straggler back inside.

The moment the door to 201 opened, a girl with dyed red hair whipped out her phone and checked my face against Ruby's.

Then stopped in front of me.

She lowered the phone, revealing a bony face, and pinched her nose as her eyes crawled over me head to toe.

“I was wondering where that stank was coming from. Turns out it's the little slut some eighty-year-old man's paying to keep around.”

The three guys let out suggestive laughs.

The other girl leaned one hand against the guy in the number-three jersey, her eyes ice-cold.

“So you're Penelope Simmons?”

I frowned slightly, looking up at the girl in front of me. She had a full head on me in height and hair dyed every color of the rainbow.

I nodded.

At the same time, I was already guessing. This had to be Delilah Perry, the one who'd been coming after me.

Delilah's expression turned vicious.

Crack——

A slap exploded across my face so hard my ears rang.

The numbness bloomed into searing pain, and humiliated tears pooled in my eyes before I could stop them.

The hallway went dead silent for three seconds.

Then someone whistled：

“Get her, Delilah!”

Delilah's voice cut through again.

“So you're the dirty little skank who knew damn well he was taken and still went after my boyfriend, huh!”

Ruby rushed to steady me.

“Penny, are you okay?”

I swiped at my tears and shook my head.

Delilah sneered：

“Playing the helpless little victim, are we?”

She pulled out her phone, brought up a photo, and shoved the screen into my face.

“My boyfriend is Mike Matthews, Financial Management Class 3. Go ahead and tell me you don't know him.”

When I saw what was on the screen, my mind went blank.

It was a photo of me and Mike sitting together in a café.

The angle made it look intimate. Much more than it was.

Delilah seemed pleased with my reaction. She turned the phone around and flashed it at Ruby, the one who'd been defending me.

Ruby's face changed. Her eyes darted between me and the photo.

When she saw my complicated expression and the fact that I hadn't denied it, she quietly backed into the dorm.

The door slammed shut behind her.

The red-haired girl scoffed：

“At least your roommate has some sense. Knows you're in the wrong, so she's not sticking her neck out for you anymore.”

Delilah pocketed her phone and shoved me hard.

“I freakin' told you—you think you can do shit and nobody finds out? Why do you think I trashed your comforter? To smoke you out. And you fell for it just like that. I don't even know how you hid it this long.”

Each shove drove me backward until my spine hit the cold wall.

Staring into her bloodshot eyes, I felt my confidence drain away for no real reason.

I had gone on that blind date with Mike. But I was the innocent one here.

The one who was wrong was him, going on blind dates while he had a girlfriend.

I steadied myself and opened my mouth to explain：

“You've got the wrong person……”

Before I could finish, the red-haired girl seized a fistful of my hair and wrenched me in front of Delilah.

I cried out. The pain ripped through my scalp so violently that my vision went dark in flashes, and every ounce of resistance drained out of me.

Delilah smiled coldly and slapped me across the face, backhand and forehand, cursing with every blow：

“I knew you wouldn't own up to it.”

“How did your parents raise a piece of trash like you? Do they know you sell yourself for money?”

I lifted my face, swollen beyond recognition, and retched. Blood came up in a hot rush, a tooth tumbling out with it.

Humiliation, terror, helplessness, rage, all of it detonated at once.

I screamed through my tears, my voice tearing itself raw：

“I'm not a mistress! I only met Mike Matthews once!”

Delilah's patience snapped.

“Still not gonna talk unless I make you, huh?”

Her gaze cut over me like a blade, slow and deliberate, until it settled somewhere below my neck.

“You two. Strip her.”

The two guys froze for a second, then rubbed their hands together and moved toward me with ugly grins.

I curled in on myself, arms wrapped tight around my body, tears spinning in my eyes.

“Please don't. I'm begging you. I'm really not a mistress. Mike can back me up.”

The next second, the sound of fabric ripping echoed down the silent hallway.

Delilah pulled out her phone and aimed it at my face, her voice dripping with satisfaction she didn't even try to hide.

“Every other word out of your mouth is Mike this, Mike that, and you still want to pretend you only met him once? You slut. Let's see just how big your tits are, how fat your ass is!”