Hate floats together with love

--- *HATE FLOATS TOGETHER WITH LOVE* *PART 1: THE REVENGE* *CHAPTER 1: EXPELLED* [FINAL] The chandeliers in High-chain High school’s disciplinary hall cost more than my father’s salary for ten years. I counted them while they read my sentence. Seven. One for every semester I’d wasted loving Ethan Sterling. “Chloe Banks, the board finds you guilty of defamation and harassment against Mr. Ethan Sterling and Ms. Victoria Lane. You are hereby expelled, effective immediately.” Dean Morrison didn’t look at me. No one did. They looked at _him_. Ethan stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, hands in pockets, bored. Like I was a parking ticket he had to deal with before his merger meeting. His girlfriend, Victoria Lane, dabbed her eyes with a silk handkerchief. The same one I’d seen her use to wipe champagne off Ethan’s mouth at the Sterling Gala last month. Three years. That’s how long I simped. Three years of tutoring him for free, writing his MBA essays, laughing at jokes that weren’t funny, and bringing him coffee I couldn’t afford because he “left his card in the car.” Three years of believing if I was useful enough, quiet enough, _smart_ enough, he’d see me. He saw me today. Just long enough to erase me. “Anything to say for yourself, Miss Banks?” Dean Morrison asked. I should have begged. Cried. Said it was all a misunderstanding. That the photos I sent Victoria — the ones of Ethan kissing a bottle girl at Marquee Club in Vegas — were fake. They weren’t. But saying that would mean admitting I’d followed him. That I’d waited outside his hotel for two nights. That I was, in his words, “obsessed.” So I said nothing. Ethan finally turned from the window. His eyes were the same color as the money that owned this city. Cold. Gray. Empty. “You should have stayed in your lane, Chloe.” His voice was soft. Like he was doing me a favor. “Girls like you don’t end up with men like me. You end up… here.” _Girls like you._ Scholarship kid from Ohio. Glasses until he said he liked contacts. The girl who learned to make his mom’s pot roast because his mother said a wife should know. The girl who graduated top of Computer Science but bottom of his list. I picked up my bag. Canvas, fraying at the strap. Victoria’s bag was Birkin. She’d left it on the table. Inside, I could see the edge of my file — my academic record, my scholarship revocation, my life. Stamped with red. “Your driver is waiting, Mr. Sterling,” the secretary told Ethan. He didn’t say goodbye. He just walked out, Victoria on his arm. She didn’t look back either. Why would she? The trash was being taken out. Dean Morrison cleared his throat. “Security will escort you off campus. Do not return.” Security. Two men bigger than my future. One of them had the decency to look embarrassed. I walked out of High-chain University with $200 in my checking account, no degree, and a name that was now a joke in High-chain City. Outside, the rain had started. Of course it had. The sky in High-chain only cried for billionaire weddings and poor people’s funerals. I didn’t run. I didn’t have anywhere to run to. My dorm access was already deactivated. My roommate had texted me: _sorry but can u come get ur stuff asap?? my new roomie moves in tonight_. I stood under the statue of Richard Sterling Sr. — the man who built this city with his brother — and let the rain turn my admission letter into pulp in my hands. Ethan’s family owned 20% of High-chain. His grandfather built this school. His father owned the bank that denied my mom’s loan for chemo. Girls like me don’t end up with men like him. Fine. Girls like me will end _men like him_. I took my phone out. Deleted every photo of Ethan. Every text. Every voice note where he said “thanks, you’re a lifesaver” and I thought it meant “I like you.” Then I opened a new note. Typed two words: _Justin Sterling._ Ethan’s younger brother. The shy one. The one who coded instead of clubbing. The one who owned 30% of the family trust because their father felt guilty for ignoring him. I didn’t know what I was going to do yet. But I knew three things: 1. Ethan used money to bury me. 2. Money could dig him up. 3. Justin was the shovel. The security guard coughed. “Miss? You have to leave.” I looked up at Richard Sterling Sr.’s bronze face. Rain ran down it like tears. Fake ones. “Yeah,” I told the guard. “I’m leaving.” And I wouldn’t come back until I owned the damn place. ---