I didn’t have many classmates close to me, and after Arden came, people around us began to say Calliope, and he was the right pair, even though the girl who liked someone was Calliope liking me.

“School beauty with school prince, why is Rayne squeezing in?”

“Who knows, maybe a frog dreaming of a swan.”

Back then, I truly saw Arden as a buddy. I even asked if I really wasn’t worthy of Calliope.

But Arden only curved his lips and said, “How could that be? Though you really aren’t bright like others, Calliope doesn’t mind.”

“Oh, and she wants you to go to the amusement park this weekend. She’s too timid to say it, so she asked me instead. Don’t skip it.”

Even though what we shared was an unspoken love, that would have been our first day out like that.

That day after class, I left ahead of time. Even under heavy rain, I still went far to a mall to pick a present for her.

I chose a bottle of perfume.

The salesgirl asked whether it was for my girlfriend. I couldn’t stop the small smile and nodded.

Girlfriend

It was the first time someone called her that.

When amusement-park day came, I dressed up a bit. While standing at the gate, I wondered if I was doing too much.

But I waited until dark, and she still didn’t come.

My texts sank like pebbles into deep water.

My heart collapsed. I only feared she had met trouble.

It was too dim, and on the road back, I slipped and fell into dirty mud.

My neat white shirt became smeared with dirt. The scent I bought for her flew from my hand, too.

When I hurried to her place and pushed open the door, I saw Arden lying on her bed while she mixed cold-medicine tea for him.

The second she saw me, Calliope’s lovely face tightened in anger.

“Why did you show up only now? Where were you? I searched for you the whole day.”

“You didn’t know Arden got soaked yesterday and passed out with a fever early this morning? If I weren’t next door, who can say what danger it could have caused?”

No reason for missing our date, only blame thrown onto me.

In all the years I knew her, it was the first time she shouted at me like that.

Arden then lowered his face and spoke, “Rayne, I think something must have held you back, but you shouldn’t have taken my umbrella during such heavy rain.”

“My place had no cold pills. My mom and dad were not home. I sent you message after message, but you blocked me. Luckily, I fainted at Calliope’s house. If not, I really don’t know what might have happened.”

His tone sounded even more pitiful. “I just moved here, and I always treated you as my closest friend. Why treat me like that…”

Hearing this, Calliope’s anger rose.

I stood frozen right there. So in his story, I was the selfish one again.

After a long while, I finally opened my mouth and held out the present toward Calliope.

“I didn’t… I only…”

But she didn’t even glance at me. She simply passed the cup to Arden instead.

I became like a stranger standing in that room.

After some time, I walked out of her house. From that moment, we entered our first silent fight.

When classes resumed, I quietly switched my seat, no longer beside Arden.

The looks classmates gave me turned even more unusual.

Arden told others I picked on him because of Calliope, making himself seem like the wronged one.

Anywhere I appeared, the room swarmed with low voices about me.

“See? I told you he isn’t good enough for the class beauty. Yet he still kept hanging around.”

“Only the school hunk still bothers hanging around him. If that were me, I’d have gotten tired long ago. Yet he acts like he’s above everyone. What is he putting on a show for?”

In a blink, I turned into a pest everyone wanted to step on, even though I never did anything wrong.

Even Calliope stopped giving me the smallest look.

At that age, barely grown, how could I handle that shame?

In the end, I couldn’t hold myself anymore. After studying one evening, I went to speak with Calliope.

She was still marking Arden’s wrong answers on his papers. When she noticed I had come, a light shock flashed across her eyes.

We walked back together, and I told her everything on my mind, asking why she treated me like that.

But when I mentioned that Arden purposely tricked me into going to the amusement park and set me up with the umbrella, Calliope’s face tightened.

She quickly cut off my words, saying, “I don’t get why you’re always so against Arden. He isn’t the person you think he is.”

“Since knowing Arden, I found you to be so jealous. He treats you nicely, yet you point fingers at him again and again, just because he is better than you?”

“Do you even know how high his fever was that day? Even after you left, he kept blaming himself, wondering if he said something wrong.”

I froze.

I never thought that after all our years together, Calliope wouldn’t even believe me a little.

“Rayne, this is the first time you made me feel so sickened. Are you so average that you can’t stand someone more capable?”

I couldn’t accept that those sentences came from her.

Maybe she sensed she spoke too harshly, because she stretched her hand out to pull my sleeve.

“Sorry… that wasn’t what I meant.”

But I already had no hope left.

I ran back home as fast as I could and shut myself in my room for the entire day.

After that, I no longer talked to her.

I drowned myself in schoolwork, wanting only to escape this place as soon as I could.

I still kept in mind how, when we first entered high school, I once told Calliope that I would for sure study at the same University as her.

But now, I only wanted to get as far away from her as life allowed.

During the whole second half of senior year, we didn’t exchange even a single sentence.

After the college entrance exam, Calliope came to see me.

She stood at my door carrying a bunch of jasmine blooms.

“Rayne, I spoke too harshly before. Can you let it go?”

“I still don’t want us apart. I’m giving you jasmine, don’t leave me, Rayne.’”

She swore that she would never let anyone hurt me again, that I would always come first in her heart. And in the end, I softened.

We planned to head to the same city.

While filling out the application, we sat shoulder to shoulder.

We both chose schools in the capital.

She picked Hanford University, and I picked an art institute.

I thought maybe we could keep living happily like before. But I was wrong.

I forgot to logout my account on her computer.

When I didn’t get into any college, I learned that my options had changed.

All my backup choices were swapped for Universities far beyond my score.

I slipped through the system, accepted nowhere.

And the only one who could have done this, with reason and chance, was Arden.

Because he also filled his form at Calliope’s home, and he could reach her computer.

I went mad. I went to him and struck him across the face right before Calliope.

Holding his collar, I shouted, “Why?! Why ruin someone else’s future?!”

Seeing me like that, Calliope tugged my sleeve and said, “Rayne, why are you acting crazy again?”

Clearly, not long ago, she claimed she would never hurt me again, that she would put me first in everything.

But she forgot that all my applications were filled when I was beside her. Why would I destroy my own future?

I pointed at Arden and cursed like someone who lost control, yet Calliope said I was insane.

In the end, she left with Arden, leaving only me falling apart in place.

In one day, my future, my partner, everything was gone.

Later, I heard that on the same day, Arden told Calliope he liked her.

The next morning, what I got was not her apology, but a voice clip sent by Arden.

In the recording, Arden said, “Calliope, I really wouldn’t do something like that. Do you trust me?”

And Calliope answered without a pause, “I know.”

Then came the sound of Arden confessing. And Calliope did not reject him.

She once clearly told me she would trust me fully, never hurt me for someone else again.

But why, when I reached the turning point of my life, did she toss me aside once more?

That recording became the last load that broke me.

I threw my phone away at once and let out a broken scream.

Many days later, I finally made up my mind to move on.

Even if others harmed me, I still had to keep living.

I wanted to repeat the year and begin again.

I never thought of quitting on myself.

But I never saw it coming. Something happened to my mom.

After I failed my application, my parents never smiled again.

My mom, nervous day after day, ran around trying to win fairness for me.

But after getting another refusal, in a haze, she was struck by a speeding car.

When I got to the hospital, she was already unconscious.

The doctor said the chance of her waking up again was extremely low.

My world sank into darkness one more time.

What hurt me most was that during all this, Calliope never came to visit my mom.

Even though she was the daughter, my parents cared for her like their own.

In the deepest pain, I cut my wrist.

I thought maybe this way, I could end my painful and lost life.

But fate didn’t give me that escape.

I didn’t die as I expected. I slept for a long stretch, and when I opened my eyes, I saw my dad’s worried face.

Though I was only unconscious for one day, he looked like he had grown ten years older in one night.

I understood then that I needed to grow up.

After that day, I erased all contacts with Calliope and Arden.

Calliope got into Hanford University, and even though Arden’s grades were lower, he still went to a college in Palmer.

She really reached the place she wished for, only with another person beside her.

Because my mom’s treatment costs too much, I didn’t want my home to carry more weight.

So I chose not to repeat senior year. Instead, I picked up the paintbrush I was skilled with.

Life was rough in the beginning, but later, it slowly got better.

While clearing my drawings today, I noticed that five years had gone by.

Just then, I got a call.

It was the buyer who bought my artwork last week.

When I picked up, a voice I knew too well came through.

On the line, Calliope said, “Hi, I came to take the painting. I’m already at the door.”