Replaced by a True Prince, Your Failure Means Nothing Chapter 04

Replaced by a True Prince, Your Failure Means Nothing Chapter 04

I forced myself to walk away, fingers shaking so bad I could barely pull up the college portal on my laptop.

It didn’t sink in until I stared dead at the name Haven Community College blaring across the screen.

He’d switched all my application to Haven Community College behind my back.

A dull ache throbbed through my grip on my phone.

He’d begged me for my login password the second my SAT scores dropped. And he knew exactly how hard I’d fought for those marks.

I’d always been the slow one when it came to schoolwork.

Stuff that clicked for them in two seconds would take me ages to wrap my head around. I’d break down from stress constantly back then.

Joren used to hate seeing me that messed up. Every single night we’d stay up venting over the phone, the next day he’d hop a flight across two cities just to show up out of nowhere.

He’d surprise me every time. After we’d hang out and take my mind off studying, he’d ruffle my hair softly.

“It doesn’t matter what score you end up with, alright?”

“Just remember I’m always right behind you.”

The day before SAT testing, he’d skipped his whole class just to squeeze through the crowd at the campus gate and cheer me on.

“Wynne, I’ll be waiting for you at HSU!”

Now everything just felt ridiculous.

A couple dumb lines from Maren, and he’d tried to ruin my entire future like it was nothing.

I swallowed down the boiling rage bubbling in my chest, pulled up the application page again, and switched my main school to Vallis University—the farthest campus from HSU possible.

I didn’t let myself exhale fully until the submission window slammed shut for good.

I booked the earliest flight home right after and headed out.

When I walked through the front door, my mom stared at me in shock.

“Why’re you back already? Didn’t you go explore HSU with Joren and Maren?”

I hesitated for a beat before answering flatly. “Mom, I’m not going to HSU anymore. I applied to Vallis University instead.”

She froze up for a second, didn’t push me to explain anything. I headed straight to my bedroom.

The whole room was covered in little trinkets from the two of them.

On my desk sat the handwritten good-luck notes Joren and Maren had given me before the test. On my nightstand rested a framed photo of the three of us messing around down at Maplewood creek shore.

I stared at the picture for a minute, then swept every last thing straight into the trash bin.

After that, they ghosted me completely, like they were punishing me for pushing back. The only updates I got were nonstop posts blowing up the HSU campus confession page.

One day they’d win first place at the debate tournament together.

The next, they’d show up hand-in-hand as the campus’s official it-couple for school events.

I scrolled through a few posts then deleted the page entirely.

Shortly before dorm move-in week, a plane ticket popped up in my texts from Joren.

Joren:[Got you a plane ticket. Come out to Haven City early to get used to the area.]

Joren: [We’ll show you around town. Doesn’t matter if you’re not at HSU.]

He and Maren waited for hours at the airport, no sign of me anywhere. Fed up and totally thrown off, he wound up calling my mom.

“Auntie, has Wynne flown out to school yet?”

My mom hummed quietly on the line. Dread edged into Joren’s tone.

“I’ve been waiting here for hours, I haven’t seen her at all.”

My mom paused for a couple seconds, confused.

“Why’re you waiting for Wynne? She never went to Haven City.”

“Her school’s in Vallis City, she left a few days ago already.”