Chapter3

It was eight-fifty in the morning. Inside the lecture hall, a steaming caramel macchiato and a light gray Hermès Birkin bag sat squarely on the front-row desk by the window.

For three entire semesters, that seat had been mine. Now, Vivian sat there, tilting her head and chatting merrily with the guy next to her.

The guy's smile was sickeningly fawning.

I stood frozen in the aisle, unsure whether to advance or retreat. Hearing my footsteps, Vivian turned her head over her shoulder.

"Seat's taken," she said airily.

The surrounding students, who had been noisy just a moment ago, suddenly fell silent. Several pairs of eyes fixed on me, eager for a show. Without a single word, I turned around and walked toward the furthest corner of the very last row in the classroom.

At nine o'clock sharp, Asher pushed open the door and stepped onto the podium.

As he flipped open his notes, his gaze swept over the window seat in the front row out of habit. Then, his eyes landed flawlessly on me in the back row.

It lasted for only half a second.

He withdrew his gaze and turned on the microphone.

"Today, we're covering chapter three: Risk Hedging."

His voice was impeccably steady. Over the next forty-five minutes, he answered three of Vivian's questions—questions so flawed even I could hear the holes in them—yet he offered her frequent nods of approval.

Right before class ended, Asher assigned the midterm case study.

"Groups of four, pick your own partners. Rosters are due next Monday."

The moment he finished speaking, the classroom erupted into a chaotic scramble.

I turned to Sarah, the girl sitting in the row ahead of me—the same Sarah whose paper I had stayed up all night editing just last week.

"Sarah, should we group up?" I started to say.

Sarah didn't even look back. She grabbed the books off her desk and shoved them into her bag. "Sorry, Elara. Our group is full."

A few students whispering nearby took one look at me walking over and immediately scattered in tacit agreement.

"How does she even have the nerve to show her face here?" a guy muttered, lowering his voice.

"Right? The anonymous forum has over three hundred replies already. Completely shameless."

My steps faltered.

Leaning against the corridor wall, I pulled out my phone and opened the university's anonymous forum.

The top pinned post, highlighted in red, had a blindingly harsh title: [Does our fully-funded straight-A darling even know what it means to be a homewrecker?]

I unlocked the screen, my fingertips trembling slightly.

"She acts all high and mighty on ordinary days, but now that the actual fiancée has transferred here to mark her territory, she's still clinging to Professor Vance."

"Rumor has it she even begged him for a backdoor referral to a Wall Street investment bank, and the professor shot her down cold. Lmao, she really thinks she's somebody."

"How does someone like that deserve the department's top scholarship?"

There were no photos, but every single word pierced through me. In this circle, Asher was the elite professor cloaked in absolute authority and a flawless halo, while I was just a broke student who could only afford tuition through his charity. I slammed the phone screen off and took a deep breath.

Seven o'clock in the evening.

I returned alone to my cramped single dorm room. Right at the door, a massive cardboard box sat perfectly centered on the welcome mat. Its seams were sealed tight with packing tape bearing the logo of his luxury condo's property management.

I sliced open the tape.

The moment the box opened, a familiar scent of cedarwood mixed with the dusty smell of cardboard washed over me.

Nestled on top was that dark gray cashmere sweater. It was the same one he had wrapped tightly around me in the dead of winter last year, pulling me into his arms when I was shivering with fever. Beneath it lay my pink electric toothbrush, the mouthwash I had bought, the sticky notes detailing how to take his stomach medication, and a small potted succulent I had been keeping alive for over half a year.

At the very bottom quietly lay a poetry book, its edges already yellowed.

It was the book he had walked over and handed to me two years ago when I first enrolled, sitting outside the library in a daze because I was too broke to afford the original textbooks. The title page even bore a line written in his fountain pen handwriting.

[To Elara: May you always be brave.]

Now, this book—the symbol of his initial "kindness"—was packed into this cardboard box along with every trace proving I had ever existed, thoroughly evicted from his territory.

A crisp white card fluttered down onto the cover.

[It isn't appropriate to keep these at my place anymore.]

"Isn't appropriate."

I stared at those few words. My eyes felt intensely dry, and I did not reach out to touch the book of poetry. I turned around, pulled a heavy-duty trash bag from behind the door, grabbed the edges of the box, and yanked it upward.

Along with the cedar-scented sweater, along with that poetry book, everything was dumped unceremoniously into the trash bag. It went into the dark, just like my utterly ridiculous devotion over the past eighteen months.

Gripping the trash bag, I walked over to the garbage bin at the end of the hallway.

Clang—

The heavy metal hatch sounded. I walked back to my room without looking back.

I picked up my phone, opened that familiar message thread, and typed out a few words.

[Did you see the posts on the forum?]

Seconds later, Asher's reply popped up.

[The innocent have nothing to prove. Don't respond, it's better for everyone.]

Better for everyone.

Looking at those words, I couldn't help but let out a laugh.

So even at a time like this, his first thought was still damage control—to preserve his flawless halo as a professor, to ensure his newly transferred heiress fiancée didn't feel the slightest twinge of displeasure. That was merely the "price" I was forced to bear. He actually had the nerve to use that condescending, charitable tone to order me into silence.

I placed my phone face down on the desk.

For the past eighteen months, no matter how late it got, I had always said "good night" to him before going to sleep. Now, I completely ceased all responses to him.

I flipped open my laptop. In the center of the screen appeared the search query I had just navigated to via the search engine:

[Out-of-state transfer / Credit evaluation process / Top out-of-state universities]

Tonight was the first night in eighteen months that I did not say good night to him.