Chapter 4

I'd voiced my frustration before, about how hurt I'd felt.

Lisa always had the same explanation.

"Freddy's parents specifically asked me to look out for him; he's basically like a little brother to me. Adam, can you just be a little more understanding about this?"

Eventually she stopped bothering to explain at all. She'd handle whatever Freddy needed first, as a matter of habit, then get around to smoothing things over with me afterward, almost as an afterthought.

And somehow, every single time, I talked myself into accepting that twisted set of priorities.

Until the day it rained.

It was the deadline for forming project teams for a major assignment in our major, the kind that could make or break a semester.

Lisa and I had agreed weeks earlier that we'd team up, and we needed to finalize and submit before the cutoff.

But that afternoon, I couldn't reach her no matter what I tried. Her phone went straight to voicemail. She never answered a single message.

Terrified something had happened to her, I went out into a pouring rainstorm and checked practically every place she might have been: her classrooms, the library, the gym, her usual coffee shop, all of it.

Cold rain soaked through my clothes while my mind spiraled between panic and fear, like I'd lost my grip on reason completely.

In the end, I missed the deadline because I couldn't find my teammate. The strong team I'd been hoping to join didn't wait for me either, not once I'd gone dark.

That night, my stomach gave out completely. I curled up in bed in agony.

The next day, I dragged myself to the campus health center alone for an IV drip.

Sitting in that cold plastic chair, watching the fluid drip into my vein one drop at a time, my head spinning and my whole body drained of strength, I opened Instagram without even thinking about it.

And that's when I saw a post Freddy had just put up. A selfie of him looking a little worn out but grinning ear to ear, with Lisa in the background handing him a snack, her expression patient and tender.

The caption read: [Bombed the exam, but hey, at least I've got my personal comfort angel.]

So that was it. The reason her phone had died, the reason she'd gone dark, was that Freddy had bombed an exam and fallen apart, and she'd rushed off to comfort him.

Staring at that picture of the two of them so happy together, feeling the cold needle taped to the back of my hand and the cramps twisting through my stomach, it was like my heart had been dropped straight into the dead of winter.

I didn't even have the energy left to feel disappointed anymore.

So Freddy's feelings mattered more to her than my project, my health, and how frantic I'd been. All of it.

Once I recovered, I finally saw everything clearly.

I had to start putting my own life first.

…

A few weeks later, I was tucked into a quiet corner of the library going through some research when a soft notification chimed from my inbox.

The subject line clearly showed Monarch University's name, followed by "Congratulations!"

I opened it. The official offer sat there waiting for me.

My heart jumped, and a steady, grounded kind of excitement spread through my chest.

I'd finally gotten my hands on a future that was actually mine.

I started going through the checklist of documents I'd need for my visa, mentally mapping out a timeline for each step.

That's when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught two familiar figures walking into the library's study area. It was Lisa and Freddy.

They didn't seem to notice me. They sat down not far away.

Freddy casually slid a thick stack of papers over to Lisa, pointing at something on the page with the look of someone helplessly asking for help.

Lisa took it, leaned in, and explained something to him under her breath, though her eyes kept drifting toward me every so often like it was nothing.

She was waiting for me to react the way I used to, to get jealous the moment Freddy got close to her.