When She Sabotaged Me, She Ruined Herself

Chapter 4

Grace shifted her tone. She reached out and took my hand.

That hand, the one that used to feel so warm, touched my skin now like a piece of cold iron.

"Leo, stop this. If things blow up, it's not going to look good on you either. Just listen to me and let it go. You're usually so generous about everything. Why can't you get past this one thing? Is it Hugo? Are you bothered by him? I've known him since we were kids. I only think of him as a brother. Don't target him over this. His emotions are unstable. For my sake, if nothing else, just cut him some slack."

She said all this with such a natural tone, carrying that built-in certainty she'd always had, like it was simply her birthright.

My stomach turned. I threw her hand off and stepped back.

"Do you take yourself a little too seriously? Do you actually believe the whole world spins the way you want it to?"

She let out a scoff.

"And it doesn't?"

I didn't want to say another word. I turned to leave. She grabbed me again.

Her voice softened a little, but the posture was still from way up high.

"Alright, enough. It's not the end of the world. Are you really going to keep dragging this out forever? I'll stay here and go straight into the graduate program. You'll leave a year late at most. We can still be together. That's not so bad, is it? Once I finish my master's and land a job at a major company, I'm not going to just forget about you. A guy with no parents to fall back on, what better path do you have without me?"

I laughed.

I peeled her fingers off one by one. My voice came out like ice.

"Who told you I have no parents?"

She froze.

"Does someone need to tell me that? You never mention your family. What other reason could there possibly be?"

I pulled up the family photo on my phone and held it right under her nose.

"Grace, you are laughably stupid."

I turned and walked.

Behind me, Grace's voice came through clenched teeth.

"Fine. Make a huge deal out of nothing. A single recommendation letter and you've got everyone at each other's throats. What exactly are you trying to get out of this? Who are you fooling with some fake photo? Leo, go ahead and keep up the act. I'll be right here waiting for you to crawl back on your knees and beg."

I didn't turn around. I raised my hand and gave her the middle finger.

The whole walk back to the dorms, people kept pointing and whispering.

I hadn't even reached my door when I saw the hallway. My bedding was dumped all over the floor. My suitcase had been turned inside out and tossed upside down in the corner.

Lewis, the dorm head, leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, looking at me like I was the punchline of a joke.

"Well, well. You've actually got the nerve to show your face here. Gather round, everyone, don't miss this. Right here, we've got the guy who falsified his materials and then framed a depressed person for deleting his recommendation letter."

A roommate I could usually exchange a few words with handed me his phone.

"Leo, there are posts about you all over the alumni network right now. You need to look at this."

The post's cover image was a screenshot of my profile during the questioning at the International Student Services office. The title was in bold red: "GPA Fraud, Ghostwritten Recommendation Letter."

Inside was a clip of edited audio. It had gone up right after things fell apart between Grace and me.

I didn't need to check. I knew exactly who was behind it.

The crowd in the hallway kept growing.

"That's him, huh. Always walking around like he's something. Turns out he's pulling this kind of crap behind the scenes."

"Absolutely disgusting. Someone like this should be kicked out of school."