She'd sneak into the classroom when he wasn't around and slip on his uniform jacket, drink from his water bottle, then come parade in front of me to brag that they'd had an indirect kiss.

She'd even tried to tear Alden and me apart, hiring people to spread filthy rumors that I was tangled up with some street thugs.

Every time, sure, Alden would put on a cold face and warn her off. But which of those times did he ever truly stop her?

Every line Louisa crossed, every provocation she aimed at me,

he'd brush aside with a weightless little "Then I won't talk to you anymore,"

and somehow that was supposed to sound like a threat?

I pushed open the door to the private room of the graduation dinner,

and the moment everyone saw Alden and me walk in shoulder to shoulder, they broke into one collective cheer.

"Finally! Alden! Grace! Kiss already!"

Three years of pent-up energy let loose all at once.

Even our homeroom teacher laughed and shook his head.

"All right, all right, leave the two of them alone."

Through the laughter, someone suddenly spotted Louisa hovering behind us,

and their expression curdled instantly. They curled their lip in contempt.

"I knew Louisa would shamelessly tag along no matter what."

"Honestly, I give up. No shame at all. What's the point of fawning over him like that? They've already gone public."

"Alden and Grace are headed to the same Ivy as a couple. With her grades, what's she looking at, some second-tier state school?"

The room erupted in laughter,

and Louisa went white in a heartbeat, her eyes snapping to Alden on instinct.

Alden frowned and spoke up, almost reflexively.

"Enough. Don't say things like that."

"Don't drag Louisa and me together in front of Grace."

There was even a thread of displeasure in his voice when he said it.

But I saw it clearly.

The flicker of reluctance in his eyes when he looked at Louisa.

At the table, Alden orbited me nearly the entire meal.

Wiping my hands for me, placing food on my plate.

The girls beside us were green with envy.

"Alden's just too sweet to her…"

Right. Alden had always been everyone's idea of the perfect boyfriend.

He'd remember my period and have a cup of brown-sugar ginger tea waiting for me.

And once, because I said I was feeling down, he'd skipped evening study hall and driven all over the city through the night just to find me a cake.

Who could have imagined that a man like that, in my last life,

could watch me, pregnant, collapse in the smoke and get crushed into pulp under a falling beam.

…

A few rounds of drinks in, one of the guys got hammered.

He looked over at Louisa, bleary-eyed, and suddenly laughed.

"Hey, no, seriously, Louisa, the stuff you used to do chasing Alden was actually wild."

"I even heard that when the classroom was empty and Alden was asleep at his desk, you snuck a kiss on his lips."

"And that you cornered Alden in the equipment room, pulled your uniform zipper down to your chest, and asked if he'd go out with you."

"Best part was senior year, that one party. You got wasted and crawled right into Alden's lap, said you'd do anything if he'd just like you back."

The whole table burst out laughing.

Louisa bit down hard on her lip, her face ghost-pale,

but Max Lambert, riding the liquor, kept going with the crude talk.

"Alden's not into you, so why not give me a look? You're so pretty, I've wanted you for a long time."

"You like fawning over people, don't you? Fawn over me. I wouldn't say no."

And with that, his hand actually slid right onto Louisa's thigh.

"Get off me!"

Louisa's eyes flooded red in an instant, and she turned to Alden, tears welling.

But Alden acted as if he saw nothing at all.

Head down, he kept peeling shrimp for me, focused.

The light in Louisa's eyes guttered out. She shoved Max away hard.

"Don't touch me!"

Max stumbled into the corner of the table, and the wine splashed across the hem of my dress.

Alden's face changed in a flash. He was on his feet almost before the words registered.

A fist slammed into his face.

"You son of a bitch, you wanna die?!"

Max Lambert went down hard.

Alden looked like a man possessed, breath ragged, throwing punch after punch.

Everyone panicked. They shoved me forward to stop him.

I grabbed his arm. Alden threw me off. "Get off me!"

I crashed into the corner of the table, and the kettle of boiling water tipped over the back of my hand. The pain ripped a gasp out of me.

"Stop it!" Louisa choked on a sob and wrapped herself around him. "I don't want to drag you down with me!"

Alden froze for a second, then pushed her away, his face blank and cold.

"This has nothing to do with you. I did it for Grace."

The restaurant manager rushed in with the officers and hauled them both out.

Before he left, Alden gently smoothed a hand over my hair.

"Grace, don't come after me. I don't want you seeing any of this. Go home and wait for me."

Eyes red, Louisa stumbled out after him.

The private room fell dead silent. Someone murmured under their breath.

"Was Alden really losing it for Grace's sake? Because it kind of felt like it was for Louisa…"

I stared at the table, expressionless. At that full bowl of peeled shrimp.

I have a severe seafood allergy. Severe enough to kill me.

Alden knew that. And he hadn't noticed at all.

The same way he hadn't noticed the back of my hand, scalded red and raw.

Because his mind, from start to finish,

was on Louisa.

I lifted my head slowly. Through the glass of the private room,

I caught the scene at the restaurant entrance.

Louisa's strap was torn off, and she was crying, shaking, a wreck.

Alden stood there in silence, head bowed, tearing off his own jacket and draping it over her with the gentlest hands.

The next second she threw herself into his arms, and his arms closed around her.

Stroking her hair, over and over.

I stood up and left.

In the cab to the hospital, my phone chimed without stopping.

Louisa's post had a new update.

The post was blowing up, the comments multiplying.

"That's not pursuit, that's harassment! I checked the rest of this poster's page about her 'dream guy,' and she's just a clingy mistress. Her dream guy already has a girlfriend. She's exhausting."

"Why didn't you change his application to a top state university nearby? Why did you have to switch it to a vocational school? Are you trying to ruin him on purpose?"

Louisa replied earnestly underneath.

"He's too brilliant. I was scared that at a good college he'd meet other, better girls, and then he wouldn't choose me anymore."

"Only when he falls, when he sinks down to a vocational school where nobody fights over him, will he understand that I'm the only one who won't look down on him, the only one who'll stay by his side for life."

A few people with twisted morals cheered her on.

"True love conquers all. These days you have to claw your way to the top. We support you, OP!"

Louisa liked the comments backing her up, then fired back at the ones cursing her out.

"He doesn't actually love his girlfriend. He's just trapped by the fact that her parents once saved his life."

"It's not harassment, it's mutual! Just now someone made a dirty joke about me, and he came down on that guy with everything he had. His girlfriend got hurt and he didn't even care."

"And this wasn't the first time. Before the SATs, some thugs from the trade school were harassing me, and I called him for help. He dropped his girlfriend on the spot to come save me."

"After he taught those thugs a lesson, they went to the school for revenge and roughed up his girlfriend. She called him for help over and over. He didn't pick up a single time. All because I said I was hurt, and he was frantic to get me to the hospital to check on me."

"The truth is I wasn't hurt at all. I'm the one who sent those thugs to the school to settle the score with his girlfriend. I just wanted to see who he'd really choose. Me, or her."

"And after that, his girlfriend got beaten bloody by those thugs, and it cost her the SATs. But he still never blamed me. Doesn't that prove I matter more to him?"

I dug my nails into my palm, my body shaking and refusing to stop.

Every night, Alden and I studied at school until nine.

When we finished, he'd ride me home on his bike, all the way to my door.

A month before, Alden had been walking me through a problem when his phone suddenly rang.

One glance and his face changed. He tossed out a single line:

"Let me step out and take a call. Wait here for me."

I waited for him at the school, all the way to ten. He never came back, and his phone wouldn't connect.

The building had long emptied out when those thugs kicked the door open and stormed in.

As they pinned me to the floor, their mouths kept up a filthy, leering taunt:

"Damn, knew that little bitch was right, you really were waiting up here! Can't touch them, but I sure as hell can deal with you!"

They tore at my clothes, grinning like animals. I screamed, sobbed, fought with everything I had,

and they slapped me across the face more than a dozen times until my eardrums bled.

If a patrolling security guard hadn't heard the noise and called the police to save me, I might have been finished that night.

Alden rushed to the hospital and held me, his eyes red. He said:

"I'm sorry. My mom suddenly took ill, so I ran home. I never thought those thugs would... I'm sorry... Grace..."

"Thank God you're okay. Otherwise I'd never have forgiven myself, not for the rest of my life!"

Alden and Aunt Camila James had only ever had each other. I knew how much she meant to him.

So I just told myself it was bad luck, a senseless disaster that had landed on me.

My eardrums were permanently damaged. The SAT listening section, once my strongest subject, fell apart in my hands.

When the test ended, I crouched at the school gate, crying so hard I could barely stand.

Three full years I'd fought for the elite university, only to lose at the final moment to an accident like this.

In front of every parent and reporter there, Alden made his promise, word by word:

"Don't be scared! If you retake the year, I'll retake it with you!"

"And if you don't want to retake it, whatever school you go to, I'll go there with you!"

When Aunt Camila found out, she landed in the hospital from sheer rage, forcing him to cut me off, refusing to let me drag down his future.

But Alden said, firm and unshaken:

"Mom, I'm sorry. But I choose Grace."

Aunt Camila wept and raged, came to my door and threw herself down screaming, forcing me to break it off with Alden.

She even hung a banner under my apartment and cursed me out for being shameless, for seducing her son!

It didn't stop until I talked Alden out of doing anything rash for my sake.

I was genuinely curious. Alden had merely floated an idea, and Aunt Camila could make a scene like that.

So if Alden truly got dragged off to vocational school by Louisa, how far would Aunt Camila go then?

Alden's beating of that boy blew up after all.

The male classmate was badly hurt, and his parents went straight to the police.

I was getting my burn treated at the hospital when Aunt Camila's calls came flooding in.

The second I picked up, hysterical sobbing tore through the line:

"Alden is about to be a student at the elite university! Do you have any idea a record like this will ruin his whole life?!"

"Why didn't you stop him?! Why did you have to make him fight someone over you?!"

"You jinx, you killed your own parents, and now you're ruining my son! You little slut! I'll make you pay for hurting my son!"

Aunt Camila had lost it completely. She came to my home, splashed gasoline, and tried to light it to burn me alive,