All Chapters of His Name Was Never Mine: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

August didn’t expect anything from the morning just his usual schedule and a dull headache from sleeping in his old bed again, the one that never quite felt right after everything.He barely noticed the way people looked at him anymore. Whispers had become background noise. He’d learned to ignore the students who stared too long, or the professors who suddenly knew his name. The story had gotten around the stolen identity,the confused romance, the unspoken trauma. People loved a twisted tragedy they didn’t understand.But when he stepped into the literature building, it wasn’t just whispering. It was silence.August stopped in the hallway, his spine stiffening.There were flyers pinned all across the notice board dozens of them, all printed on thick paper with bold letters. Some torn halfway down. Some circled in red ink.At the top of each was a headline in all caps:WHO IS ASH WOLFE?“The boy who pretended to be August Hale is he mentally stable?”“Should we trust someone like this

The university’s disciplinary hearing was set for Monday morning.Rumors flew like birds before a storm. Some said Ash had already been suspended. Others said Ellis had a recording of Ash admitting everything. Some even whispered that August had been manipulated, that he was Ash’s next victim.August ignored them all.Mostly.He held Ash’s hand under the table during late-night study sessions. They didn’t talk about what came next, because neither of them knew. But when their fingers touched, it was enough. Just for now.That Sunday night, everything changed.It started with a knock.Three sharp taps at August’s dorm door.Chris was asleep, headphones on. August answered, expecting a student rep or maybe even Ash.It was Sebastian.His hair slicked back. Shirt pressed. Eyes cold.He stepped inside without asking.August froze. “What are you doing here?”Sebastian’s smile was wolfish. “You’ve been busy playing the hero. I admire that. It’s cute.”August’s fingers curled into fists. “Ge

The calm lasted exactly thirty-six hours.Long enough for August to start hoping the storm might’ve passed. That maybe, somehow, by speaking up, he had disarmed Sebastian’s hold.But Sebastian Wolfe didn’t disappear quietly.It began with a headline.“Top Literature Student Accused of Fabricating Abuse Allegations Against Former Classmate.”August stared at his phone, his fingers numb. The article included his name. A distorted timeline. Select screenshots. It painted Sebastian as a misunderstood prodigy and August as a jealous nobody trying to sabotage him out of spite.By noon, the university was trending on Twitter.By three, August’s department emailed him a notice of disciplinary review.“I can fix this,” Ash said, pacing their shared dorm space. “I’ll talk to Ellis, to anyone. I can testify”“No,” August said softly. “This is what he wants. For you to panic. For me to spiral.”Ash stopped moving. “He can’t get away with this.”“He won’t.” August stood, jaw tight. “But we can’t

The train ride to Eldridge Hill was quiet eerily so. August sat by the window, clutching the envelope Ash had slipped into his coat the night before. Inside was a single address: Willow Creek Orphanage, the place August had no memory of calling home.He hadn’t asked Ash to come. Part of him wanted to face it alone, and part of him didn’t trust Ash not to meet Sebastian halfway.The landscape outside blurred into gray hills and rust-colored fields, the distant shapes of old farms leaning against the horizon like forgotten stories. August’s reflection wavered in the glass half himself, half ghost.When he stepped off the train, the air hit different. It smelled like pine and rain soaked concrete. Willow Creek was a shell of itself now. Boarded windows.Paint peeling. Silence pressing against the bones of the place.Sebastian was already there, sitting on the porch steps like he’d never left.He looked up slowly. “You came.”August didn’t move. “I wanted answers. And to tell you, this e

August didn’t sleep that night.The images from Sebastian’s file spun endlessly in his mind fragments of someone who had tried so hard to wear August’s skin that he’d forgotten how to live in his own. There was no neat bow to tie it all together. No final line that made it all make sense.But maybe that was the point.In the early hours, just as dawn started to bleed into the sky, August opened his laptop and began to write. Not a report. Not an article. Not even a blog post. It was a letter.To himself.He didn’t hold back. He wrote about fear, about loss, about being stripped of a name and having to claw his way back to it. He wrote about Ash his constant and Chris, and even Daniel. He wrote about pain and how it changed shape, and about how sometimes, the people who hurt you the most are the ones who once saw you most clearly.He wrote until the sun lit up the floor.Later that day, he published the letter.He didn’t name Sebastian. Didn’t rehash the drama. He just told the truth