“Food's a little dirty, but you can still pick through it. You and your mom probably eat the Mortons' leftovers all the time anyway, right?”

“A broke nobody like you thinking he deserves Willow? Her and Clyde are the real deal!”

I said nothing. Tossed my jacket, bought a cup of instant noodles, and headed back to the dorm.

The second I walked in, I saw it. Every color of paint, splashed across my bedding.

Patrick and our other roommate were out. Only Steve Perry was there.

I looked at his darting eyes and didn't say a word. Just gathered the sheets and comforter into my arms and carried them to the washroom.

My mother had sewn this bedding by hand, stitch by stitch. I wasn't throwing it away.

It took hours to scrub the paint out. When I finally got back, the door was deadbolted from the inside.

I stood there a moment, then knocked softly.

“Steve. Can you let me in?”

His voice came through the door, strained and helpless.

“Toby, please don't make this harder for me.”

“Clyde's uncle knows the boss at the company that hired me. One word from Clyde and I lose everything. Can you just not be selfish about this?”

My hand froze against the door, then dropped to my side.

I didn't understand. Yes, I had feelings for Willow.

But I'd never hurt anyone. Why was I the one being punished?

My phone rang. Willow.

“Getting bold, aren't you, Little Toby? You didn't even know I got a new phone? Add my new account already.”

“I'm in Switzerland with Clyde, skiing. The food here is terrible. When I get back you'd better cook me something good. If you behave, maybe I'll bring you along next time so you can see the world.”

“Hello? Why aren't you talking? Gone mute again?”

Her thesis defense for business management was already over. No wonder she had time to kill.

Any other day I would've asked what she wanted to eat. But right now I was just so tired.

“Willow, there's something I need to tell you……”

She cut me off before I could finish, her voice sharp with alarm.

“Don't tell me you're pulling some last-day-of-college stunt where you confess your feelings and then threaten to freeze yourself to death if I say no?”

“Please. Just don't. Think about who you are and who I am. If I'm picking someone, obviously it's going to be someone like Clyde.”

“I've got you on speaker right now, by the way. My friends are all listening. Don't make yourself a stain on my life.”

Then she seemed to remember something.

“Oh, right. Clyde wants to train at Morton Group for a while after graduation, but that position's full. So you should go be a janitor first. I mean, you already help your mom clean all the time at home anyway.”

“Once he moves back to his family's company, you can have the spot. Gotta go, looks like Clyde took a fall on the slopes. Bye.”

My chest felt packed with cotton—thick, bitter, suffocating.

I pressed my hands over my face and laughed at myself, and the tears leaked out between my fingers.

So that's what I was. A stain on her life.

No matter how hard I tried, to Willow I'd never be anything more than the housekeeper's kid.

Curfew had passed. I sat in the freezing corridor, locked out and locked in.

Just like all those years living under the Mortons' roof.

The next morning, I packed my things and went back to the Morton residence.

My mother startled when she saw me：

“Toby, I thought you said you weren't coming home until after your defense on Tuesday?”

I didn't want her to worry. I just smiled.

“Couple days won't make a difference. I missed you.”

Then I collapsed.

When I opened my eyes again, I learned I'd spiked a fever. A hundred and two.

My mother stroked my face, hurting for me.

“The bedding you brought home was soaking wet. My boy. Someone hurt you, didn't they?”

“Was it because of……Miss Morton?”

I didn't answer. I just buried my face against her waist, my voice muffled：

“Mom, I got a job. Once my thesis defense is done, can we move to the capital?”

“I don't want to stay here anymore.”

No one knows a son like his mother. She understood everything without me having to say it.

She rubbed my back the way she used to when I was little, all that quiet, boundless love in her hand.

“Okay. I'll give Mrs. Morton my resignation tomorrow.”

I passed my thesis defense without a hitch.

But before Willow even made it home, Clyde's call came through.

“Toby, I heard about everything you've been going through lately.”

“I'm sorry my relationship with Willow dragged you into all this. I'd like to apologize in person, if that's all right?”

I didn't bother calling out the act.

“No need.”

“Oh. Well, you've got a roommate named Patrick Finch, right? You two are pretty close?”

“Then I guess I'll just have my uncle fire his father. I hear his mom's paralyzed and his grandma's bedridden too. Right when the family needs money the most. Real shame.”

My grip locked around the phone. I hadn't expected him to stoop this low.

The second I stepped into the private room at the club, a slap cracked across my face.

Clyde's friends on the sofa burst out laughing.

Clyde shook out his hand, eyes dripping with contempt.

“Toby, you're even more pathetic than I thought. You'd rather take a janitor's job than stop clinging to Willow.”

“Since you clearly can't figure it out on your own, I'll make sure you see reality for what it is.”

Willow's voice cut in from behind me.

“What's going on here?”

She saw the handprint on my face and her expression went cold.

“Who the hell hit him? Step up. Now.”

Clyde grabbed her arm, eyes rimmed red.

“Willow, I just wanted to get everyone together for a pre-graduation dinner. Toby's practically family to you, so I invited him too.”

“But he stole my diamond watch—worth three hundred grand—and won't even admit it. Everyone just wanted to help me get some justice.”

And just like that, he pulled the bracelet out of my bag.

Willow looked at me with open disappointment.

“Toby, why can you never stop embarrassing yourself?”

“If you needed money, you could've told me. Do you have any idea how much this humiliates……the Morton family?”

She hadn't checked a single fact. Hadn't asked a single question. Pure instinct told her I was guilty, and that was enough. The sting went straight through me.

“Willow, is that what I am to you? The kind of person who'd do anything for money because he's poor?”

“Yeah, I'm poor. But I've got two hands, two legs, and a brain. I don't steal.”

It was the first time I'd ever raised my voice at her. Willow froze.

Clyde put on a magnanimous face:

“Toby, for Willow's sake, all you have to do is get on your knees and say sorry. Then we'll drop the whole thing.”

“Otherwise, I'll have to call the police. Graduation ceremony's tomorrow. You don't want to get expelled tonight, do you?”

“Someone with your background, without even a diploma? You'd have nothing left.”

And Willow turned her face away. She didn't stop him.

In that moment, I finally understood what Clyde was really showing me.

Not how much Willow loved him.

But the wall of class prejudice between her and me, one I was never going to climb over.

Something in me went cold and still. I should have let go a long time ago.

In the standoff, a waiter suddenly walked in carrying a phone.

“Mr. Fox, a guest asked me to deliver this to you.”

It was a video.

Clear footage of me walking past the restroom near the private rooms, and a man deliberately bumping into me.

In that split second, the man had dropped the bracelet into my bag.

And that man was one of Clyde's friends, currently sitting on the sofa watching the show.

Every trace of color drained from Willow's face. She clenched her teeth.

“Explain!”

The man's expression twisted with embarrassment, his words coming out in broken stammers.

Clyde's face shifted. He slapped his own forehead.

“Ah, my fault. I pushed a few too many drinks on the guy. My watch got dirty, so I asked him to go rinse it off for me.”

“He was already out of it. Probably just slipped and dropped it in by accident. Whole thing's a misunderstanding.”

Willow looked at me, something complicated moving behind her eyes.

“Toby, I……”

I didn't acknowledge her. I walked straight out.

That night, Willow knocked on my door holding a cake, scratching her chin like she didn't quite know what to do with herself.

“Okay, I did jump to the wrong conclusion today.”

“But whose fault is that? You're so hopeless at defending yourself. You don't explain anything, you just yell.”

When I didn't take the cake, she shoved it into my hands with an impatient huff.

“There. This heiress has personally lowered herself to apologize to you, so don't you dare be ungrateful.”

“Tomorrow morning we'll go to graduation together. I have a present for you. Then I'm taking you skiing in Switzerland. Just us this time, nobody else.”

I lowered my eyes and answered quietly.

“Okay.”

Only then did Willow pat my head, satisfied.

“That's more like it. See you in the morning.”

Since the incident in high school, this was the first time she'd offered to go to campus with me.

But I didn't need it anymore.

The next day, Willow waited and waited. I never came out.

She finally lost patience and went upstairs, only to find my door hanging open and the room completely empty.

Mrs. Morton passed by, looking puzzled.

“Why are you still here? You're going to be late for the graduation ceremony.”

Unease surged through Willow. She asked before she could stop herself.

“Mom, where's Little Toby?”

Mrs. Morton widened her eyes in surprise.

“Toby didn't tell you?”

“He found a job out of town and needed to get there early to settle in. He and his mother left in the middle of the night.”