Loved as Her, Hated as Me

Thea's POV

"A single banquet, and Atherton Academy's two great campus beauties under one roof — no easy feat."

"Shame that one's here to be admired, and the other's here to wait tables."

"Ha ha ha ha ha…"

In the opulent banquet hall, the mockery never let up.

Without turning around, I knew who they meant.

Atherton's so-called "poor beauty" was here to serve drinks.

Funny, really — I don't even remember when I ever entered a vote like that.

But that never stopped anyone from comparing the two of us.

Merry was adored. She didn't need to introduce herself. Everyone knew who she was.

A young lady. A princess.

And me?

A student on the poverty-aid program. A poor girl.

So whenever people sang Merry's praises, they always tacked on a dig at me.

But right now I had no energy for any of it — because a short while ago, my body had started to feel very strange.

At first I thought I was coming down with something. But my steadily heating skin and my limp, boneless limbs told me this was probably far from simple.

I looked down at my palm. It was sweating.

Sweating.

Not normal.

I'd had only one glass of juice tonight. Could something be wrong with it?

I scanned the ballroom.

Lights, champagne, people weaving through. Everyone looked just as usual.

And yet I couldn't shake the feeling that something had its eyes on me. I hoped I was imagining it.

Maybe I should go to a hospital.

But if I walked out, I'd surely lose this job… and my mother's illness could never survive me being that reckless.

I hesitated a long while, then opened my contacts and found my boyfriend Reese's number.

"Hello? Reese, I'm at the Atherton banquet… I'm not feeling well, could you—"

"I'm busy right now. Deal with it yourself."

The line went dead. I stood there blankly for a long moment before I came back to myself.

He sounded furious. What was going on?

Busy?

I'd never doubted him before. But this time, a strange unease lodged itself in my chest.

Then I turned around, and I saw him.

Reese stood at the far end of the corridor, and beside him was a pretty girl — Merry.

Merry's shoulders trembled faintly, as if she were crying. Reese had an arm around her, comforting her softly, with a tenderness I had never seen from him.

So this was his "busy" — busy soothing another woman.

Fragments of their conversation drifted into my ears.

"Merry, you know I only see her as a stand-in for Melvin. How could I be serious about her?"

"I'm just playing around."

Melvin — Merry's older sister — was the school's storied goddess: beautiful, gifted, proud. What she was better known for was her tangled love affairs with several conglomerate heirs at the academy. Rumor had it they'd grown up together, the boys guarding her since childhood, handling everything in her place. In the end, Melvin abandoned them all to study abroad for the sake of her own future.

By that account, you could well call Melvin their white moonlight — the one they loved but could never have. What a weight that title carries.

Someone had once said I looked like her. I'd never given it a thought.

It suddenly came back to me, the first time Reese and I met. He was a famous rich kid at school — handsome, generous, a playboy everyone knew. He swept away a thorny problem for me as easily as if he'd descended from the heavens, utterly unbothered by my poverty-aid status, and doted on me in every way. I took it for a beautiful chance meeting. Turns out the truth was simply that I resemble Melvin…

I had no time to grieve, because in that brief span my clothes had been soaked through with sweat, my white blouse gone transparent, my whole body burning.

I was even starting to sway on my feet. The gazes around me seemed to press in from every side, leaving me uneasy.

I had to get out of here. But when I doubled back, I found a crowd gathered at the door of the rest lounge.

"Are we sure this is okay?"

"What's not okay about it?! You took the money, now you won't do the job?!"

"Or what — you don't like Thea?"

"She's been drugged. How often does a chance like this come along?"

"You're right…"

Listening to them, my eyes went wide. Someone had drugged me, and they were trying to…

In an instant, a chill spread through me.

Who? A scene flashed through my mind — at the start of the banquet, Merry had come to the rest lounge to express her concern for me.

Could it be her?

I backed up two steps, ready to run, but they spotted me.

"Grab her!"

To keep myself from being exposed to everyone like this, I could only bolt for the elevator, trying to flee the banquet.

Because of the drug, my movements were terribly slow, and in the end they forced their way into the elevator with me. I clutched my phone tight.

"I've already called the police. If any of you dares to touch me, they'll throw you in jail."

They exchanged glances. Then one of the boys seized my wrist.

"You dare?"

"Everyone here today is your classmate, Thea. You don't dare call the police. You dare let them see you like this?"

They lunged to snatch my phone. In the struggle I dialed Reese's number with my last hope — one ring, two, three… the call was rejected, and the phone was knocked from my hand.

The elevator was climbing toward the top floor. I had no idea when I'd pressed that button.

"Ding."

Good news: the doors slid open.

Bad news: this was the forbidden top floor. They clearly hesitated, and I seized the moment to snatch up my phone, sprint out of the elevator, and run for room A01.

The top-floor suites were rarely occupied because of the price — especially A01. Even more so tonight, with Atherton's elite academy holding its banquet here; outsiders couldn't get in at all.

And it just so happened I had a key card, for housekeeping.

I swiped the door open, slipped in, and locked it behind me. I let out a long breath. Free.

If I hadn't been so panicked, I would have noticed something off about the room. I felt too awful. I stumbled into the bathroom — didn't even bother to undress — and soaked myself in cold water. For a moment, I finally found relief. But only a moment…

Seizing that sliver of clarity, through the blur of the water I typed a few words on my phone.

"Reese, let's break up."

After sending it, I quickly deleted every way to reach him.

Staring at the blank screen, I suddenly found it almost laughable.

I knew everything that happened tonight had been arranged deliberately. The usual petty cruelties no longer satisfied their appetite; they needed to hurt me worse to find it entertaining.

They'd even called Reese away at a moment like this.

They simply wanted to watch me ruined.

Because I'm on the poverty-aid program, they can trample me however they please?

Tap.

A soft sound came from outside the bathroom, cutting off my thoughts.

My head snapped up.

The bathroom door had been opened. In the dim light, a dark figure stood quietly in the doorway.

"Who's there?"

My heart clenched at once. He took a step forward.

I gripped the edge of the tub and struggled to stand, meaning to find something to defend myself with — but I'd forgotten I was barely dressed. Rising like this was walking straight into the tiger's mouth.

"I should be the one asking."

A man's voice rose slowly — low, magnetic, faintly hoarse.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my room?"

So someone actually lived in this room.

I froze.

"I only came to clean the room." I fought down my panting and forced myself to stay calm.

"Clean the room dressed like that?"

In the dim light, that face gradually came into focus.