In the video, Ellie was smiling.
The way she looked at Neal—doting. Soft.
She had never once looked at me that way.
Not in three years, at least.
The video ended with Neal rising on his toes, leaning toward Ellie's face, and then it cut off.
Neal's social media feed had a new post.
A screenshot of his early admission recommendation letter next to a photo of him and Ellie at the karaoke lounge.
The caption read: High school's over. New beginnings. Got the school, got the girl.
Mutual friends had already piled into the comments.
"So jealous! Your girlfriend's gorgeous AND top of the class!"
He'd replied with a blushing emoji.
"Bet SOMEONE's gonna see this and cry so hard he grows a pair of tits lmao"
"Sissy boy, the girls upstairs are talking about YOU!"
I turned off my phone and lay back on the bed.
The ceiling was very white. The light stung my eyes.
I thought about all the years I'd spent chasing that early admission recommendation.
Practice tests until three in the morning. Every weekend given up. More than a dozen notebooks filled with revision notes.
I'd been so close to getting that spot.
So close to going to the same university as her.
She didn't know that when I'd picked my preferences, every single first choice was a school she wanted to attend.
She'd said she wanted to go north. Wanted to see snow.
So I'd put every preference down as a northern school.
And now?
I sat up, turned my phone back on, and logged into the college entrance exam application portal.
One by one, I changed every first choice.
All to the south.
She hated the heat. Said she didn't like the south.
But I liked places where spring came warm and full of flowers.
The south sounded good.
The farther from her, the better.
I hit submit. The screen read: Changes saved successfully.
Then I turned off my phone and drank the bowl of porridge that had gone cold.
It tasted thin. No sugar.
She knew I liked things sweet.
But she hadn't bothered to ask.
The same way she knew I was waiting for her, and never came.
The next day, I went back to school to pick up my records file.
The second I walked through the gate, every pair of eyes on me carried contempt.
"Somebody got a room with some older woman the minute exams were done. Tsk, tsk, tsk."
"Wait, who?"
"The sissy! There's video and everything!"
I stopped walking. Not far ahead, Neal stood at the center of a crowd.
He was holding up his phone, playing a video.
A hotel corridor. Me in soaked clothes, swiping a key card to open a door.
"So young, and already getting wrecked by some cougar…"
Neal grinned, letting the silence do the rest.
Whispers rippled through the crowd, eyes picking me apart.
I walked up and stood in front of him.
"Delete the video."
"Why would I?"
He tilted his head, smiling like he had no idea what the problem was. "You went to the hotel yourself. What's that got to do with me?"
"What gives you the right to spread lies?"
"Am I lying?"
He glanced over at Ellie. "Ellie, tell us. Did he go to a hotel or not?"
Ellie stood off to the side, a records envelope in her hands.
She looked at the video on the phone screen, then at me.
"Ellie."
My voice wouldn't stop shaking. "Tell them. Tell them why I was at that hotel."
She knew everything about last night.
Even if she didn't have feelings for me—all those years had to count for something. She'd at least speak up for me.
Right?
She looked me in the eye and said four words.
"If you're innocent, prove it."
When I heard that, I thought I must have misheard.
"What did you say?"
"You didn't do anything, so what's there to be scared of?"
She looked away, voice flat as nothing,
