"Kiss her! Kiss her!"

In the video, Alvin was actually smiling.

The way he looked at Freya—soft, indulgent, warm in a way he had never once looked at me.

Not in three years, at least.

The video ended with Freya rising on tiptoe toward him, then cut to black.

Freya's social feed refreshed.

The new post: a screenshot of her guaranteed admission acceptance letter, next to a photo of her and Alvin together at KTV.

The caption read: High school's over. A new beginning. Got my school, got my love.

Comments from mutual friends piled up underneath:

"I'm SO jealous! Your boyfriend's hot AND a genius!"

She'd replied with a blushing emoji.

"Bet SOMEONE's seeing this and absolutely losing it rn "

"The tomboy! ^^ Girl above is calling you out!"

I closed my phone and lay back on the bed.

The ceiling was very white. The light stung my eyes.

I thought about everything I'd put in for that guaranteed admission spot.

Cutting my waist-length hair short. Drilling practice problems until three in the morning. Never taking a single weekend off. Filling notebook after notebook with revision notes.

I'd been so close to reaching that slot.

So close to going to the same university as him.

He never knew that every single first choice on my college applications was the school he wanted.

He'd said he wanted to go north. Wanted to see snow.

So I put every application toward the north.

And now?

I sat up, reopened my phone, and logged into the college application portal.

One by one, I changed every first choice.

All of them to the south.

He hated the heat. Said he didn't like the south.

But I liked places where spring came warm and flowers bloomed.

The south would be good.

The farther from him, the better.

I hit submit. The screen read: Changes saved successfully.

Then I turned off my phone and drank the bowl of porridge. It had gone cold.

The porridge was bland. No sugar.

He knew I liked things sweet.

But he never thought to add it—just like he knew I was waiting, and never came.

The next day I went back to school to pick up my file.

The moment I stepped through the gate, every pair of eyes turned toward me with contempt.

"Someone went straight from the college entrance exams to a hotel room with some older guy. Tsk tsk tsk."

"Who? Who?"

"The tomboy! There's video proof!"

I stopped walking. Not far ahead, Freya was surrounded by a cluster of classmates.

She was holding up her phone. A video was playing on the screen.

A hotel corridor. Me in wet clothes, swiping a keycard to open a door.

"Getting knocked up by some old guy at her age…"

Freya said it with a smile, her tone dripping with implication.

Whispers rippled through the crowd, eyes full of malice and appraisal.

I walked over and stood in front of her.

"Delete that video. Now."

"Why would I?"

She tilted her head, all innocence. "You're the one who went to a hotel. What's it got to do with me?"

"You're making things up and you know it!"

"Am I?"

She turned to Alvin beside her. "Al, tell me. Didn't she go to a hotel?"

Alvin was standing right there, file folder in hand.

He looked at the video on the phone screen. Then at me.

"Alvin."

My voice was shaking. "Tell her why I went to that hotel."

He knew everything about last night.

Even if he didn't like me, after all those years, he would at least say one fair word for me.

Right?

Then he looked me in the eye and said it.

"If you didn't do anything, then you've got nothing to worry about."

When I heard that, I thought I'd misheard.

"What did you say?"

"You know what happened. Just ignore it."

He looked away, his tone light and dismissive.

"You're clean, so act like it. Don't bother with her."

I'd cried until midnight in that hotel room because of his messages.

He'd brought me medicine. I thought that meant he still cared, at least a little.

Turns out that little bit of caring wasn't even worth one sentence spoken aloud.

My voice rose sharply:

"Alvin! You're protecting her to this extent? She's spreading a slut-shaming rumor about me, and you tell me I've got nothing to worry about? She stole my guaranteed admission spot, and you tell me not to bother?!"

Alvin cut me off, his voice louder than mine.

"Then what do you want?! You didn't show up for the test! Freya did! She won the award! She got guaranteed admission! You can throw all the fits you want—none of that changes!"

I stood frozen, tears falling silently.

The corridor was quiet enough to hear the wind.

I turned to leave, and Freya suddenly grabbed the red cord around my neck.

"Wait, what's that you're wearing around your—"

The cord snapped.

The jade pendant slipped from my collar, flew outward, and dropped from the fifth floor.

I watched it arc through the air and land in the flower bed below.

That was the only thing my mother ever left me.

She'd said this pendant would protect me for life.

It had cracked once before, and I'd cried for three days and three nights. Alvin was the one who'd gone to every jade shop in the city until he found someone who could piece it back together.

When he fastened it around my neck again with his own hands, he'd said:

"If it ever breaks again, I'll find you something even better."

My whole body was shaking. I shoved Freya hard.

She lost her balance and stumbled backward.

Alvin reached out and caught her.

He held Freya in his arms, looked up at me, his eyes cold as ice.

"Letitia, enough!"

"Do you have to go around snapping at everyone like a stray dog?"

I looked at Freya, safe and smug in his arms, that satisfied little smile at the corner of her mouth.

I said nothing. Turned and ran downstairs.

It was pouring outside.

I tore through the flower bed like I'd lost my mind. My nails broke against the dirt, mud jammed under the skin, and the pain shot straight up my arms.

Laughter drifted down from above.

"Look at her down there. Doesn't she look like a dog?"

"More like a pig, I'd say. A wild boar splashing around! Hahahaha."

Their voices threaded through the rain, each word a needle in my back.

The jade pendant had shattered into three pieces, lying in the muddy water.

I picked them up and closed my fist around them.

The shards cut into my palm, blood running out and washing away in the rain.

I knelt there in the downpour and finally cried out loud.

After that, I never went back to school.

My applications were already changed. My file was already picked up.

Alvin sent message after message.

[Letitia, stop throwing a tantrum. Freya didn't mean any harm.]

[The jade pendant broke. I'll find someone to fix it.]

[My parents want to have a meal with you. Come over to our place?]

[I got the lucky jade charm back.]

[Letitia!]

One after another. I didn't reply to a single one.

The day the admission results came out, he ran to the foot of my building.

He leaned on the doorbell. No one answered.

He called me. No one picked up.

He texted:

[Lettie, let me take you to see the campus. Get a feel for it early. Didn't you say you wanted to see Mirror Lake?]

[Lettie, we had a promise, didn't we?]

Mirror Lake.

We'd promised to go there together.

He'd said that there, he would have flowers and love waiting, and he would tell me how he felt.

A neighbor, one of the older women from our floor, saw him standing there and sighed.

"Alvie, Lettie went traveling."

"She did so well on her exams. She's going to South Coast University."

His hand started shaking around the phone.

The case—she'd given it to him. Two little figures printed on the back, holding hands in the snow. The colors had worn away to almost nothing. He'd never once replaced it.

"South Coast—she went to *South Coast*?!"