Abandoned at the Service Station, I Watched His Taillights Fade Chapter 04

Abandoned at the Service Station, I Watched His Taillights Fade Chapter 04

At six p.m., a bonfire crackled on Sandy Cove Beach.

A large screen had been set up to show the senior class highlight reel.

I sat on a folding chair at the very edge of the crowd.

The ocean wind was fierce, snapping the screen back and forth.

Sophie stood by the projector, frantic and sweating.

“Why won’t it open? I tested the format in my room—it worked fine!”

Ethan walked over and took her flash drive, plugging it in and out a few times.

“The file’s corrupted. It won’t read.”

Jake called out from the crowd, impatient. “Show’s about to start. Soph, do you have a backup?”

Sophie looked like she was about to cry. “No, this is the only copy.”

Ethan frowned, thinking.

Then he suddenly turned toward me, sitting at the edge of the crowd.

“Nat, let me borrow your laptop.”

He strode over.

“You’ve got all the software on there. We’ll just plug it straight into the projector.”

I stared at his outstretched hand.

“You can’t use my laptop. It has application work I haven’t submitted yet.”

“Just ten minutes. Don’t be so stingy—Sophie’s desperate.”

He completely ignored my refusal, reached past me, and grabbed my laptop off the chair.

He was already walking back toward the projector.

A violent wave of unease surged through me.

I shot to my feet and ran after him. “Ethan, don’t touch my stuff!”

By the time I got to the screen, Ethan had already keyed in my password like it was nothing.

He plugged in the cable.

“I’m just looking for that backup file Sophie sent you.”

He gripped the mouse and started clicking wildly across my desktop.

“Ethan, stop!”

I lunged for the mouse.

But he had already clicked on a folder named Final_Version.

The next second, the image blasted onto the giant screen.

The entire beach went dead silent.

It wasn’t Sophie’s highlight reel.

It was my original design work—the pieces I had spent six months creating for my merit-based scholarship application.

Those intensely private, emotionally raw paintings were now exposed, raw and bare, for everyone to see.

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

“Whoa, these designs are incredible!”

“The lighting and composition are insane!”

Before I could even react, someone had already snapped photos and posted them in the class group chat.

My mind went completely blank.

The worst thing you can do with design work is publicly leak it before formal submission.

This directly impacted my scholarship application. I could even be flagged for plagiarism.

Ethan froze for a second.

He clearly hadn’t meant to open these files.

He glanced at my ashen face and casually clicked the window shut.

“Sorry, wrong folder.”

His tone was light, utterly unconcerned.

I was shaking. I ripped the cable out.

“Do you have any idea how much these pieces mean to me?”

My eyes were locked on him, burning.

“This was my application portfolio for Australia!”

The murmuring around us died.

Ethan’s expression darkened. He felt like I was making him lose face in front of everyone.

“They’re just a few drawings.” His voice was low, dripping with condescension. “I already told you I’d get you that admin position. You don’t need to go chasing this useless stuff.”

“If it’s really that big a deal, I’ll go talk to your advisor for you and find you another path.”

He stared at me, completely self-righteous. “You really have to embarrass Sophie over something this small?”

I looked at the man I had loved for four years.

His arrogance, his assumption that I would always fall in line—it had finally hit its peak.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream.

I just closed my laptop with terrifying calm.

“Ethan. We’re done.”

I turned and walked through the crowd, heading back toward The Driftwood Inn.

I pulled out my phone and opened the airline app.

I changed my ticket from next month to tomorrow morning.