Before the College Application Deadline My Boyfriend Unplugged My Mouse Chapter 03

Before the College Application Deadline My Boyfriend Unplugged My Mouse Chapter 03

I took out my phone and opened the group chat the three of us shared.

On the screen was a screenshot Hailey had posted half an hour earlier.

Hailey: [Finally submitted! But now I suddenly want to switch majors again. I’m so torn.]

The timestamp showed that she had sent it two minutes before rushing into the computer lab.

I held the phone in front of her.

“Hailey, the application portal didn’t freeze on you.”

“You had already submitted it.”

Nolan went still.

Hailey’s face turned deathly pale.

“I was just afraid it hadn’t gone through properly.”

“So you came running in, crying, with only ten minutes left?”

Her tears fell even faster.

“I really was scared. My parents don’t help me with anything, and I had no one to review it for me.”

“Natalie, your grades are amazing, and your parents understand this stuff. You could never understand what it’s like for me.”

Nolan fell completely silent.

I looked at him.

“Do you think that too?”

His throat worked.

“Natalie, you know what her home life is like. She has always felt like she has no one to rely on.”

I nodded.

“So that means I’m obligated to sacrifice my future for her?”

His expression tightened.

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

He had no answer.

I put my phone away.

“Nolan, we’re done.”

Hailey’s head snapped up.

Nolan stared at me blankly, as though he could not understand the words.

“What did you say?”

“I said we’re done.”

He immediately grabbed my wrist.

“No.”

I looked down at his hand.

“Let go.”

His eyes reddened, and his voice began to shake.

“Natalie, don’t joke about something like this. I know I screwed up today. I’ll make it up to you. Wherever you end up, I’ll go with you.”

I looked at him.

“Didn’t you just make sure she could end up at the same college as you?”

Hailey hurriedly cut in.

“I can change my school choices! I really can!”

The college counselor cut her off coldly.

“Once an application has been submitted, it goes to admissions. Who taught you to treat college applications like a game?”

Hailey’s sob caught in her throat.

Nolan still refused to release me.

“Natalie, you can’t act like this one mistake means I’m dead to you.”

I pried his fingers from my wrist one by one.

“I’m not sentencing you to anything.”

“I just don’t want to waste any more of my life on you.”

My father’s car was parked in the shade outside the school.

The moment he saw my face, he got out.

“What happened?”

I climbed into the passenger seat, my fingers still trembling. The moment the door closed, the last of my composure gave way.

“Dad, my college application never went through.”

His grip tightened sharply around the steering wheel.

“What?”

I told him everything.

He did not scold me once during the drive home.

Only when we pulled into our neighborhood did he ask hoarsely, “Nolan took your mouse away from you?”

I nodded.

My father sat in silence for several seconds before slamming his fist against the steering wheel.

The horn blared through the car.

“What gave him the right?”

When we got home, my mother was simmering soup in the kitchen.

After hearing what had happened, she turned off the stove and sat beside me.

She did not ask why I had not taken the mouse back from him. She did not say I had been careless.

She simply pulled me into her arms.

“Natalie, don’t cry.”

I had not been crying before.

The moment she hugged me, my tears began to fall.

“Mom, I told him.”

“I know.”

“I told him I hadn’t submitted mine yet.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“But he didn’t hear me.”

My mother gently patted my back, her voice soft.

“It wasn’t that he didn’t hear you.”

“He just thought you were the one who could wait.”

My entire body went rigid.

At that moment, I finally understood why it hurt so much.

It was not that Nolan did not love me.

He did.

But in his mind, I would always be the sensible one, the strong one, the one who would never leave.

That was why he felt safe putting me last.