Chapter 2 She's Not a Bet

My phone started ringing almost immediately.

Fred's name flashed across the screen, but I made no move to answer. The call ended, only for him to try again. He finally gave up and started sending voice messages after I let his calls go to voicemail three times in a row.

"Lauren, can you stop being mad about this?

"Those are the rules. I lost, so you and Oliver are paired up as a couple for now. You just have to finish three challenges tomorrow night, and then it's over."

His third message irritated me even more.

"We're all going to the same university. Don't turn this into some huge deal and embarrass me in front of everyone."

I actually laughed when I heard that.

He treated me like an object he could hand over to one of his friends. Yet, I was the one embarrassing him? God, what a loser.

I went back to the group chat and opened the file containing the rules. Apparently, there were three so-called couple challenges waiting for Oliver and me tomorrow night.

We had to feed each other cake in front of everyone for the first challenge. The second required us to hold hands for a photo, which would then be posted in the main freshman group chat. Finally, Oliver had to carry me for a full 10 seconds for the final challenge.

The chat had already turned the last one into another joke.

"Who came up with the third challenge? Are you actually trying to kill Oliver?"

"'Oliver is 6' 2", but even he can't carry 200 pounds."

"He already lost the game. I guess losing half his life in the process won't make much difference."

Oliver hadn't responded once since the whole thing started.

His profile picture was nothing more than a black screen, and his account revealed nothing about him.

Still, something about the way everyone treated him caught my attention.

They had no problem insulting me as much as they wanted. However, I couldn't help but notice that none of their jokes ever crossed the line whenever they tagged Oliver. Nobody directly pressured him to answer, and nobody seemed willing to provoke him.

I was just about to leave the group when my best friend, Tessa Parker, suddenly video-called me.

Her furious face filled my screen the moment I slid the green accept button.

"Lauren, did Fred shove his brain up his butt? He lost his girlfriend to one of his buddies? What is this, some kind of human hot potato?"

I blinked at her. "How do you even know about it?"

"The screenshots of the entire farce are in our old high school group chat!"

Tessa paced back and forth on my screen, looking so angry that she could barely stay still.

"I already memorized the name of the guy who posted that picture of you. I'm going to gut him the second I see him. You can keep watch while I do it."

A peal of laughter escaped my lips before I could stop it.

The fact that I was still able to laugh didn't calm her down whatsoever. If anything, she looked even more upset on my behalf.

She asked, "So, what are you going to do now? Are you going to post a picture of yourself now and show them who's boss?"

I shook my head. "No."

Tessa stared at me. "Why the hell not?"

I walked over to my closet and looked through the dresses hanging inside. "What's the fun in showing them a picture?"

A photo wouldn't convince those firmly set against believing me. They might even accuse me of photoshopping it, stealing someone else's picture, or even using AI to generate it. They could easily find an excuse to slander me if they wanted to.

So, I didn't want to argue with them through a screen.

I wanted them to see me standing right in front of them.

More than that, I wanted to see their faces when they realized how wrong they had been.

Tessa understood exactly what I had planned. Her expression immediately changed into one of gleeful excitement, replacing some of the anger in her eyes. "You're actually going to go?"

"Of course, I am. I even put 3,000 on myself showing up."

"Then, you absolutely have to go!" She slammed a hand against her desk as she bellowed, "You're not just going to show up! You're going to walk in looking so damn good that you're going to blow them all out of the water."

Tessa leaned closer to the camera. "Fred put 10,000 on you chickening out, right? Take his money, and then make him regret even existing."

Someone knocked on my bedroom door before I could answer.

My mother walked in carrying a plate of cut fruit.

She was about to set it down when she noticed the dress spread across my bed. "Are you going to a party tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

She hesitated before looking at me carefully. "Are you finally meeting that boy you met online?"

I fell silent.

Fred had been one of the biggest reasons I wanted to lose weight for the past year.

I had survived on only a few leaves of lettuce a day on my worst days. Some nights, the hunger made my stomach cramp so badly that I had to curl up around a heating pad just to get enough relief to fall asleep.

That only stopped after a physical showed that my body was beginning to suffer.

A nutritionist made it clear that I couldn't keep starving myself if I wanted to lose weight without inevitably destroying my health.

So, I started doing things the proper way after that.

I controlled my sugar intake, ate balanced meals, and began strength training rather than simply trying to eat as little as possible.

The numbers on the scale fell slowly but surely.

I went from 200 pounds to 170, then I reached 130. Eventually, I saw 110 pounds staring up at me on the scale.

My mother had been there for all of it.

She had taken me shopping as I worked my way through seven different clothing sizes. She had also watched me step onto the scale more times than I could remember, sometimes with tears already filling my eyes before I could even bear to look at the number.

She knew exactly how much tomorrow had meant to me.

What she did not know was that the excitement I had carried for months had already disappeared.

My mother placed the fruit on the table beside me.

Before she left, she gently ran her hand over my hair. "Lauren, I don't care what anyone says. You'll always be my darling daughter regardless of whether you're thin or whether people think you're pretty."

My eyes began to burn even before the bedroom door closed behind her.

However, my phone buzzed before I could let my tears fall.

I looked down at the group chat.

Oliver had finally responded.

He had ignored every joke people had made about him and every message demanding that he join the conversation. He didn't defend himself or argue with anyone.

Instead, he posted one simple message.

"She's not a prize to be won."

The group chat went completely quiet.

A few seconds later, another notification appeared.

Oliver had tagged me. "Lauren, if you don't want to come tomorrow, don't."

Fred immediately replied, "Come on, Oliver. It's just a game. Don't take it so seriously."

Oliver ignored him.

I kept staring at the message, "She's not a prize to be won," on my screen.

There were more than a hundred people in that group. Yet, the one person who had supposedly "won" me was the only one who seemed to understand how ridiculous the whole thing was.

I couldn't resist tapping on Oliver's black profile picture.

There was still almost nothing there.

I had no idea why, but I was assailed with a strange feeling the longer I looked at that black profile.

Something about Oliver felt familiar.

I just couldn't put my finger on why.