Home / He Changed My Application. I Changed My Life. / Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

All Chapters of He Changed My Application. I Changed My Life.: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

8 Chapters

Chapter 1

I sat in front of my computer, staring at the words on the screen until the application deadline passed and the portal officially closed. Only then did I finally relax.I had once willingly given up the chance to attend a better university for Noah, but this time, no one would be able to change my decision.In one month, Noah and I would go our separate ways for good.The next second, my phone screen lit up with a message from him.“Claire, we’ll be starting college together soon! You must be just as excited as I am!”I stared at his message and felt a pang of bitterness.Noah had been my neighbor since the day I was born, and he was also the only child around who was close to my age. We had grown up together, and ever since I was little, I had followed him everywhere, always wanting him to be the first person I shared anything good with.Once, when I secretly slipped another fortune cookie into his hand, Noah stared at me with wide eyes and promised with complete seriousness, “Claire,

Chapter 2

Early the next morning, Noah rang my doorbell.When I opened the door, I realized Isabella had come with him.Before I even had the chance to refuse, Noah had already walked inside as naturally as he had countless times over the years.He held something out and pushed it into my hands.“Here. This is Isabella’s favorite cake. She was nice enough to bring you some to try, so don’t turn her down.”I had no choice but to take the small box. When I looked down, I saw that the cake had been cut into uneven pieces, with frosting smeared everywhere and all kinds of nuts mixed inside. I couldn’t even tell how long it had been sitting around.I said calmly, “I’m allergic to nuts. You forgot.”Noah’s expression stiffened. He stood there in awkward silence, looking as though he wanted to say something several times but couldn’t find the words.Isabella was the one who spoke first. Covering her mouth, she exclaimed, “Oh my God, Claire, I really didn’t know. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just wanted

Chapter 3

Three days later, Noah threw a party at his house and invited everyone in our class.His parents were away on vacation, so the entire house had become a playground for a group of recent high school graduates like us.I hadn’t planned on going, but Noah dragged me over early to help set everything up before the party started. Isabella had arrived early as well.Halfway through the preparations, Noah took Isabella upstairs to get something, leaving me downstairs to set up the computer for the screen display.As soon as he was gone, I quickly pulled up the IP address and compared it with the one I had saved in the screenshots from the application portal.It was an exact match.I immediately saved the evidence, and by the time Noah and Isabella came back downstairs, I had already put everything away and returned to what I had been doing as though nothing had happened.The party started soon after.I sat alone in a corner, watching everyone else celebrate in the living room.At some point,

Chapter 4

From that day on, Noah kept sending me messages.“Claire, is this really necessary? You’re not seriously mad over something like this, are you?”“You know you’ve always been biased against Isabella, and you scare her every time you’re around her. This was the best way to protect her.”“It’s only a few years. It’s not like we’ll never see each other again. You can’t live without me anyway.”“If you really don’t want to go there, you can always apply again next year. But honestly, if you didn’t even notice that someone had changed your application, isn’t that because you weren’t paying enough attention yourself? You can’t keep blaming everyone else.”Notifications kept flashing across my screen, some trying to persuade me and others blaming me, but I never replied to a single one.Instead, I spent my time clearing out my room and packed everything Noah had given me over the years into a cardboard box.When I was seven, he gave me a box of chocolates. I had savored every piece and even wa

Chapter 5

The message had come from Leslie, a girl I was fairly close to.The moment she sent it, Isabella immediately replied.“How is that possible?”“Claire asked you to lie for her, didn’t she? Is she hiding somewhere crying right now?”“Too bad crying won’t change anything. She’s still going to end up at some tiny school no one wants to attend!”The malice in her messages was so obvious that I could almost hear her mocking laughter through the screen.Leslie answered, “Didn’t any of you see the acceptance list our teacher posted?”The group chat fell silent again as everyone finally realized that while they had been busy talking among themselves, our teacher had been posting one college acceptance after another in the main class chat.The latest announcement had my name on it.“Congratulations to Claire on her admission to the medical program at Stanford!”The message was soon pushed upward by more acceptance announcements, but by then, everyone had already seen it.They returned to our sma

Chapter 6

When my parents learned that I had been accepted into the medical program at Stanford, they hugged me in delighted surprise.“When you told us you wanted to attend the state university, we respected your decision, but I always knew my daughter deserved a better school!”“I’m just glad you chose Stanford in the end, although it does mean you and Noah will have to be apart for a while.”I hesitated for a moment before deciding to tell them everything that had happened over the past few days. Our families were still neighbors, after all, and there was no way we could simply pretend none of it had happened.By the time I finished, the warmth and excitement that had filled the room were gone. My father’s expression had darkened, while my mother was so angry that her lips were trembling.“You trusted him that much, and he tried to use that trust to ruin your future! How could he possibly treat something like this as a harmless little joke?”She was so furious that she nearly jumped to her fe

Chapter 7

“High School Graduate Pays to Falsify Stanford Admission Record!”The bold black headline filled my screen, and the moment I saw it, an uneasy feeling settled over me.According to the post, someone who lacked the grades to get into a top university had paid to alter her admission record and steal a place that should have gone to another student. It went on to accuse her of framing her classmates and maliciously claiming that someone else had tampered with her college application.My name never appeared anywhere in the post, but at the very end was a photograph of me that Noah had taken the day before my eighteenth birthday.Less than three hours after the post went up, it had already received more than a million views. The story had spread far beyond the students and teachers at our school and had even been picked up by local news outlets.The comment section was filled with insults, and every vicious remark was directed at the girl in the photograph.While I was still reading through

Chapter 8

By the time Noah and Isabella were released, I had already packed my bags, bought my plane ticket, and made plans to leave for California ahead of schedule.The day before my departure, the two of them showed up at my house again.Noah looked noticeably thinner, while Isabella seemed just as exhausted, her once glossy blond hair now dry and dull.“Claire, I’m sorry,” Noah said quietly, his voice so hoarse that for a moment I thought I had imagined it.“What did you say?” I asked, staring at him in confusion.He took a deep breath before reluctantly repeating himself. “I said I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have changed your application. We were wrong.”I was still wondering whether I had heard him correctly when he paused and raised his voice.“So can you delete that video and make a post saying we never meant any harm?”“No.”My expression hardened as I started to close the door, but Noah immediately stepped forward and held it open.“Claire, this was such a small thing! Did you really have t

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