Chapter 1

Everyone at Oakridge High had noticed that Claire Walsh, the notoriously boy-crazy airhead, had been acting a bit off lately.

Before, she was all looks and no brains, spending every single day chasing after Floyd Sterling.

While others were studying in the morning, she made breakfast for Floyd; while others were paying attention in class, she folded paper cranes for him; while others pounded through practice exam problems, she penned him love letters.

But recently, she hadn't shown up outside Floyd's AP Honors classroom for days on end. Instead, she spent every waking moment holed up in the library, the first to arrive and the last to leave.

On the day the matriculation exams finally ended, Claire bumped head-on into Floyd. Startled, she turned to walk away, only for the tall, lean boy to step right into her path, blocking her way.

"Claire," Floyd said, the golden light of the setting sun filtering over his cold, handsome features. "Are you dodging me?"

Claire's fingers tightened around the textbooks clutched against her chest.

...

She had first met Floyd back during the fall semester of her sophomore year.

Word had spread across campus that a drop-dead gorgeous genius had transferred to their school. Floyd Sterling was an untouchable heartthrob who had famously turned down even the prettiest girls at his old school.

Intrigued, Claire had excitedly rushed over to the Honors classroom. The moment she looked up and saw him standing by the window, he took her breath away.

From that day on, she began her relentless pursuit of Floyd. She ambushed him on his way to school, cheered loudly from the sidelines whenever he played basketball, and sang love songs under his dorm window to confess her feelings.

Claire had a loud, vibrant personality, and her public courting made waves across the entire school. But like all her previous crushes, it was more about the thrill of the chase than genuine affection.

She was simply determined to win him over. That was until one winter afternoon, when she stood under his dorm building in a skirt, stomping out the shape of a giant heart in the snow.

Floyd happened to be walking back to the dorms with a few classmates. She ran up to him, beaming with joy. "Floyd, look! I made a heart for you in the snow. Isn't it pretty?"

Floyd's gaze, however, fell onto her legs, which were turning purple from the biting cold. In the next second, he crouched down, unwrapped his scarf, and wrapped it carefully around her freezing legs.

"Don't wear skirts in weather like this," he said mildly. "It's bad for your knees."

The soothing warmth of his scarf seeped into her numb skin. His gesture was polite and restrained; he hadn't touched her directly.

Claire stood frozen on the spot, watching snow flurries dust his long eyelashes, when it suddenly struck her that she had genuinely fallen for him.

She had made up her mind to follow Floyd to the same university. But right before the matriculation exams, she accidentally overheard an admissions officer from Plimford Unversity offering Floyd early acceptance based on his national math competition results.

Floyd had replied calmly, "I'll accept, but on one condition: you have to admit my classmate, Shirley Walsh, as well."

Claire froze instantly, watching in shock as the admissions officer left. A few of Floyd's friends slung their arms around his shoulders.

"Man, who would have thought that you like Shirley? Claire has been chasing you for so long, and you never explicitly turned her down. We thought you had feelings for her."

"If it's Shirley you're into, why not just go out with her instead of keeping Claire on the hook?"

...

Their teasing didn't faze Floyd in the slightest.

"I didn't want to distract Shirley before finals," he said blandly. "As for Claire, she's just a decoy to keep the teachers from suspecting anything between Shirley and me."

Standing near the doorway, Claire went pale in an instant.

Everyone said Floyd was cold and distant, yet he had always treated her differently. He would coldly warn her to stop bothering him, yet he had wrapped his scarf around her freezing legs.

He would turn down the handmade Valentine's chocolates she stayed up all night making, yet he had uniquely kept her handwritten card.

It was precisely these faint slivers of hope that had dragged her deeper and deeper into love. But in truth, she was nothing more than a shield to hide his secret romance with Shirley?

Claire cried through the night. When dawn broke the next morning, she vowed to herself that she would never love Floyd again.

From then on, she stopped pestering him. What she never expected was that the very boy who had once ice-coldly warned her to stay away would be the one cornering her today.

Her fingers curled tightly against her books. She lowered her head and murmured, "I wasn't. I was just studying for the matriculation exams."

Staring at her averted gaze, Floyd suddenly remembered how her sparkling eyes used to lock onto him every time they met.

Now, those eyes that used to be practically glued to him were staring fixedly at the floor, showing no sign of looking up. An inexplicable spike of irritation flared in Floyd's chest.

"Studying for the matriculation exams?" he scoffed. "With grades like yours, what difference does studying even make?"

Claire stiffened. By the time she looked up, Floyd was already walking away.

Her clenched hands finally relaxed, revealing her newly calculated score sheet tucked against her chest: a near-perfect 1580.

A score that, in any given year, would be a good one.

...

Everyone at Oakridge High believed Claire was an airhead who relied entirely on her looks, but no one knew it was all a carefully constructed façade.

For all the years of high school, she had calculated her test scores with precision, keeping her grades hovering strictly along the bare passing line.

But today, with the final exams over, she was done pretending. Sure enough, when test results came out a month later, she received a call early in the morning from the Plimford Unversity admissions office, eagerly inviting her to join their freshman class.

She offered a polite apology. "I'm so sorry, but I've already accepted an offer from PSL. They promised me a full scholarship as long as my test scores ranked in the top ten statewide."

Since Pellmoor Sciences & Lettres was one of the premier universities in the world, the admissions officer expressed disappointment but warmly offered congratulations and blessings nonetheless.

Right around the same time, Claire received a confirmation email from PSL verifying her matriculation exam scores.

True to their word, they booked her flight ticket for three days later so she could head over early to adjust to campus life.

Just as Claire hit Reply, she was called to the principal's office.

The school administration had just gotten word of her scores, and the entire faculty was in utter disbelief, some even suspecting her of cheating.

It was only after Claire sat down and aced an even harder test right in front of them that she looked up and spoke under their stunned gazes.

"Ladies and gentlemen, do you know what rusty needles taste like? I do," she said calmly. "In eighth grade, my mother passed away. Shortly after, my father brought Shirley home, and that was when I discovered I had a half-sister the same age as me.

"When Shirley's mother moved in with us, during her second month, I scored 50 points higher than Shirley on our final exams. In response, she snuck 50 sewing needles into my food."

Claire looked up, her voice trembling slightly. "The needles pierced my esophagus, and it took an emergency overnight surgery to extract every single one. From that day on, I told myself I would only score high on one final exam—the matriculation exams."

From that moment, she began intentionally throwing her test scores, learning to wear heavy makeup, dressing up flashily, and playing the part of a boy-crazy bimbo chasing after handsome guys every day.

Only by acting like an incompetent loser could she get a warm meal at home, and only then would her stepmother fake sympathy when her father lashed out at her.

"She didn't mean it, honey."

Deeply moved and heartbroken, the teachers listened in silence. Her homeroom teacher patted her shoulder gently and said, "You're a good kid. Once you go off to college, you'll finally be free."

Claire's eyelashes fluttered. Yes, now that she had aced her exams and was about to head overseas, it was all finally coming to an end.

...

Claire walked back to her classroom, but the moment she stepped through the door, she noticed her classmates staring at her with strange, complicated expressions.

Even more unexpectedly, Floyd was standing in her classroom as well. Stepping straight up to her, he demanded in a cold voice, "Claire, did the Plimford Unversity admissions officers call you?"