Chapter 3

I sucked in a breath and quickly picked up my phone. The screen was completely black. The glass was shattered beyond repair.

“Did you do that on purpose?” I narrowed my eyes and looked up at Arielle.

She immediately pulled her hand back and shrank away. “I-I… was just trying to apologize…”

Dylan came rushing over and yanked her behind him.

“What the hell are you making a fuss about now? She came over to apologize to you, and you dropped your own phone. How dare you blame her? When did you become so damn nasty?”

He yelled at me furiously, and the other students gathered around us.

“She’s seriously getting worse. She dropped it herself, but she’s blaming someone else.”

“Maybe it's the same with this whole exam venue thing."

“Before Arielle even started organizing everything, our homeroom teacher had already posted the exam venue assignment list in the class group chat. She’s always so calculating. I bet she saw it, realized her exam venue was different from ours, and deliberately kept quiet so that she could blame Arielle today.”

“And they call her the Lane family’s precious little princess? What a joke.”

Arielle stood there with Dylan’s arm around her shoulders, her head bowed as she quietly sobbed.

My anger finally boiled over. I held up my completely shattered phone for everyone to see.

“If I’d simply dropped it, would it really have shattered this badly? You didn’t even stop to think. All of you just automatically take her side?”

Dylan was livid. “Tessa, that’s enough! Apologize to Arielle now. If she forgives you, we’ll leave it at that. Otherwise, don’t blame me for what happens next.”

I looked at the way he was standing up for Arielle and could not help letting out a soft chuckle. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Why should I apologize? And what exactly are you going to do if I don’t?”

He clenched his fists, but he had nothing to say.

With so many people watching, even if he thought he was in the right, was he seriously going to lay a finger on me?

Before either of us could back down, the bus driver leaned out of the window. “Are you guys getting on or not? If we don’t leave now, you’re all going to miss the exam!”

His words hit the crowd like a thunderclap, and everyone immediately panicked.

“We’re screwed if we’re late! The exam isn’t going to wait for us!”

“Tessa, you’re good at your studies! You can’t screw this up for the rest of us!”

The class president hurried over to break up the argument.

“Enough! If we keep wasting time, none of us are going to make it. Dylan, take Arielle and get on the bus. We’re going west. Tessa, take an Uber to the exam venue on the east. Go, now!”

Everyone scrambled onto the bus. I suddenly spoke up. “My phone is completely wrecked. How exactly am I supposed to call an Uber? Dylan, you…”

Before I could even finish, he looked down at me coldly. “Tessa, if you don’t apologize to Arielle, there’s no way I’m lending you my phone to get a ride.”

My heart sank, and I shoved my broken phone into my bag. He was not the only person with a phone. The exam was the only thing that mattered now. I would figure something else out.

However, Arielle started trembling. She said in a soft voice, “Tessa, I’ll pay for your phone, okay? Just please don’t make everyone late for the exam… I bought mine before my family went bankrupt. It’s old, but it still works. If you don’t like it, I can pay you back in instalments for the rest…”

Her eyes were red, as though it had taken every ounce of courage she had to say those words.

Dylan immediately exploded. “She’s already gone this far for you, and you’re still pressuring her?! Your allowance alone is enough to buy ten phones like that! Do you really need her to pay you back?”

I stared at him, completely dumbfounded. “I never even asked her to pay me anything. She offered on her own. How is that my fault?”

His expression darkened even further. Every word came through clenched teeth.

“Tessa, do you even have a conscience? After Arielle’s family went bankrupt, she couldn’t even afford her tutors anymore. And you’re still standing here, bullying her when you have more money than you know what to do with. You’re doing this on purpose just to humiliate her!”

He gritted his teeth before raising his voice.

“I've given you chance after chance, but you still keep targeting Arielle! I’m officially calling off our engagement. From this moment on, it’s over. I won’t change my mind no matter how you beg me!”

The students on and off the bus heard him, and whispers immediately spread through the crowd.

“Wait, seriously? Tessa and Dylan were engaged?”