The Game Where I Lost My Last Finger And Him Chapter 02

The Game Where I Lost My Last Finger And Him Chapter 02

When I walked over, he immediately wiped the smile from his face and said coldly, “What do you want?”

I thought he was only acting cool in front of our classmates.

He changed my contact name from “Audy” to “Audrey Bennett” and deleted our photos from Instagram.

I thought he was afraid someone from school would see them.

Now that I thought about it, he had only been afraid Chloe would see them and get upset.

So he had destroyed my chance at direct-admission with his own hands.

And he had used the one thing I trusted most.

The food he had cooked himself.

That gentle voice telling me, “Eat a little more.”

The boy I had grown up with, the boy who once said he would marry me, had personally sent me to the emergency room for another girl.

My eyes burned from how hard I was holding back my tears.

My eyes found Ethan, and I forced the words out with everything I had.

“Is it true?”

He sat beside Chloe, his expression unchanged.

“Does it matter? The result won’t change.”

His voice was flat, without the slightest ripple of emotion.

My question sank like a stone dropped into deep water, leaving not even a splash.

Because he did not care.

He did not care about the eighteen years we had spent growing up together.

He did not care about the future we might have had.

It felt as if a hand had closed around my throat, and bitterness kept rising in my chest.

I bit the inside of my lower lip, using that small sting of pain to hold myself together.

Then I stood up and rushed out of the private room while the laughter and shouting blurred behind me.

“Audrey! Don’t leave. Aren’t you going to congratulate your childhood sweetheart on getting a girlfriend?”

“She’s not crying, is she?”

“Let her cry. Ethan doesn’t even like her. Why is she putting on a show?”

I stood by the road for a long time.

The night wind dried the tears on my face.

Then my phone buzzed.

It was a message from Ethan.

[Where did you go? Come back. Stop embarrassing yourself.]

That single line pulled me back to our kindergarten graduation, when we were seven.

I had cried at the ceremony, and when the other kids laughed at me, he immediately stepped forward and snapped, “If she wants to cry, she can cry. What does it have to do with any of you?”

Back then, he had been all the courage I had.

Now, he was telling me not to embarrass myself.

Another message came in.

[I lost a dare just now. Come back. I’ll explain everything.]

A dare.

I gripped my phone so hard my palm began to sweat.

A cab pulled up in front of me, and the driver honked twice.

“You getting in or not?”

I did not move.

Memories from all those years surged through my mind.

When we were ten, I had a fever, and he climbed the fence to bring me medicine, only to get chased three blocks by my dog.

When we were twelve, I bombed a test, and he tore up his own award certificate, saying, “This thing doesn’t matter. Next time, I’ll help you get the top score.”

When we were fifteen, someone bullied me, and he charged at them without hesitation. He ended up getting three stitches near his eye, but he still smiled at me and said, “It doesn’t hurt.”

Had he changed?

Or had he never changed at all, and I had simply never made things clear?

Had I been lying to myself this whole time?

“You getting in or not?” the driver called again.

I gritted my teeth, turned around, and ran back.

Still holding on to that last bit of hope, I pushed open the door to the private room.

A bucket of cold water came crashing down over my head.

Ice water streamed down my hair, blurred my vision, and soaked through my clothes.

I stood there trembling from head to toe.

The room burst into shrill laughter.

“Oh my God, Audrey actually came back!”

“Chloe, you’re a genius. How did you know this tomboy would really come back?”

“A bet is a bet. Ethan, hand over your good-luck pendant!!”

Chloe leaned against Ethan, laughing so hard she could barely stand.

“I told you she’d come back.”

Then she crooked a finger at Ethan.