When She Sabotaged Me, She Ruined Herself

Chapter 2

Freshman year, a professor had it in for me and gave me a grade that barely scraped by at the end of the semester.

She grabbed a stack of appeal documents and spent an entire afternoon running between the admin building and the lecture halls. When she came back, her hair was plastered to her face, her uniform soaked clear to the knees. The first thing she said was, "Nobody gets to push you around."

Now here she was, for Hugo, the guy she grew up with, the guy who couldn't go a week without talking about ending it all, personally torching my future and shoving it into the fire.

'It is laughable. Absolutely goddamn laughable.'

I never said a single word in the group chat.

A few of the usual loudmouths bombarded me in DMs, demanding to know what the hell my problem was.

Every person in that group was Grace and Hugo's friend.

Hugo, with everyone soothing him, slowly lifted his head. His eyes stayed lowered, his voice still soft.

"Leo's definitely never talking to me again. Grace has been so busy keeping me company she hasn't had any time for him, and now with this whole thing today, there's no way he's going to forgive me."

Grace ruffled his hair. "Keeping you company is exactly what I should be doing. He just gets sulky like that. Give him a few days, and he'll get over himself. So he skips a year. It's not like he can never go. I don't know who he thinks he's putting on a show for."

The messages kept piling up.

A: [Freeze him out. Don't feed the attitude.]

B: [Does he actually think he's Grace's fiancé? Take a good look in the mirror, buddy.]

C: [A guy with no parents, what's he got to be so arrogant about?]

My finger hovered over the screen for a long time.

Grace told them I was an orphan.

I picked up my phone and called her.

"Grace, do you actually understand what happens if that recommendation letter doesn't go in?"

There was a pause on the other end. Her voice came back impatient. "I know. So what do you want to do about it? Push him until he kills himself?"

I let the breath I'd been holding in my chest out slowly.

"So your position right now is, even if my future goes completely down the drain, Hugo doesn't have to take a single hit. Is that correct?"

Hugo's livestream was still running. Every word I said came through into the group.

Grace laughed, breezy and dismissive, like she was watching something pathetic scurry around at her feet.

"You're comparing a future to a human life? Leo, this is exactly what's wrong with you. You're selfish. You'll claw your way up and step right over anyone dead or alive. Hugo has depression. Do you have any idea how much strength it takes him just to open his eyes and get out of bed every single day? Next to a human life, nobody's future means a damn thing."

I laughed too. "Does that include yours?"

A beat of silence on the other end. Then her answer came, no hesitation.

"Yes. If trading my future meant Hugo could actually live, I wouldn't hesitate. And besides, it's just deferring for a year. You're being dramatic."

Hugo's eyes went red as he looked at Grace.

The group completely erupted. The screen scrolled nonstop with people singing her praises.

That was what they called class. That was what they called standing by someone. A real leading woman.

'A real leading woman? Fine. Let's see if she's got the guts to back it up.'

The next morning, I was woken up by a call from the International Student Services office.

Someone had filed a formal report accusing me of falsifying my application materials. Tampered GPA transcript. And the recommendation letter was supposedly ghostwritten by an agency, which I then destroyed myself and pinned on someone else.

Inside the ISS reception room, my academic advisor, Crawford, sat with his legs crossed, launching straight into the verdict.

"Leo, you've always seemed like the quiet, decent type. Turns out you've been running quite the operation behind the scenes."

The center director, Wallace Thornton, kept his tone relatively even. "Someone has reported you for falsified materials, a questionable GPA, and a ghostwritten recommendation letter. What do you have to say?"