Chapter 1

"Stop talking nonsense, Kayla Phillips," Oliver Barton said, looking at me impatiently.

"Your grades have always been horrible. You won't even be able to get into a vocational college even if you insisted on going to one in Haven City.

"Did you seriously think that it would be easy for anyone to get into a good college in Haven City? Viv and I have been working extremely hard for years before we could get good enough results to go to a slightly better college there."

I looked at Oliver quietly. Then, I asked, "So, everything you said about retaking the year with me in the past was all just a lie, wasn't it?"

He was dumbstruck for a moment. He just rubbed his nose awkwardly and averted his gaze from my eyes.

A long while later, he finally changed the subject. "I know that I let you down, Kay. But yes, I lied to you, and so did Viv. We lied about slacking off when we were really working our asses off the entire time. We'd even already planned out our life together in the future.

"But it was all for your sake!"

I stared at him incredulously.

He continued speaking in a feigned magnanimous tone, "We wanted to bring you along to the private tutoring sessions, but we just didn't have the time to take care of you. That's why we thought of teaching you everything only after we both got into college.

"At least, you'd probably be able to get into a good community college then."

I felt like I just heard the worst joke of the century.

"You don't even have the patience to explain a single thing in class to me now, Oliver Barton. All you do is throw your notes in my face and tell me to figure it out on my own. So, why should I even believe you?"

"That's because… That's because I was too busy preparing for the mocks! Of course I wouldn't have any patience or energy left for you! Did I not explain things to you when I still had energy? We're all friends here!"

His explanation was useless.

I'd tried to keep up my act and make it seem real by asking him and my best friend, Vivian Andrade, about something once. It was only that one time, and he'd just glared at me and chided, "Don't disturb Viv when she's studying!"

I even had to make sure that I picked a question that I knew he knew when I asked him to explain it to me. If I picked something he didn't know, he would yell at me in return and scold me for being stupid.

"What's the point of explaining something like this to you anyway? You don't have to care about something as difficult as this! Just leave it blank and skip to the next one!"

Yet, the question had been a very basic one that anyone should have already known.

As for Vivian, Oliver's attitude toward her was completely different. He would spend the entire afternoon poring over a question that she didn't understand and later asked him about. If not, he would rush home to ask his tutor to explain things to him so he could explain it back to her the next day.

Even if Vivian chided him for doing that, he'd just shrug it off without thinking much about it.

But when it came to me, Oliver pretended as though I didn't deserve to take up even 30 seconds of their time. In fact, he thought he owned my time too, always ordering me around to save seats for them at the library, buy them breakfast in the morning, do him printing favors, or organize their notes on their behalf.

Every time, he would tell me that I should just do them because "we were all friends".

When Oliver saw that I seemed out of it, he deliberately raised his voice and pretended to be magnanimous again, saying, "You've never been good at studying. I was just worried you would get extremely jealous about my excellent results and jeopardize our friendship.

"After all, you'll never be able to catch up to me even if you tried your best for the rest of your life."

I laughed coldly.

Me? Jealous of him?

When their grades improved drastically in our freshman year of high school, I'd been so genuinely happy for them that I even offered to treat them to lunch on my dime. I was even happier for them than when my grades improved instead.

However, when I put in some effort in the next exam during that same year and improved my grades so well that I became the top scorer of my grade, both Oliver and Vivian ignored me for the rest of the day after finding out about it.

They deliberately dismissed me, avoided me, and even refused to sit at the same table with me during lunch.

When I bumped into them at the library later that evening, Oliver finally spoke to me and asked to borrow my paper. I thought he wanted to see how I worked out my answers, so I lent it to him, waiting eagerly to explain anything he asked me.

But I soon realized that he was only double-checking to see if the teacher had made any mistakes in grading my paper.

He yelled at me and demanded that I explain myself for getting better grades than him or Vivian. I got so shocked I could only fib and stammer that I just happened to guess all the right answers.

It wasn't until I said that that they were finally relieved.

Ever since then, I'd made sure to keep my real abilities under wraps and make sure that I never got better grades than either of them, thinking foolishly that it would help preserve our friendship.

I asked Oliver in return, "Me, jealous of you? What about the time when you went to great lengths to find problems with the grading of my test back then and even reported it to the teachers, saying I had a ton of errors? Are you sure that's jealousy on my part?"

Oliver stammered, "I… That's just because I was too serious back then!"