Before the College Application Deadline My Boyfriend Unplugged My Mouse Chapter 04

Before the College Application Deadline My Boyfriend Unplugged My Mouse Chapter 04

That night, Nolan called me more than thirty times.

I did not answer once.

Hailey also sent message after message.

Hailey: [Natalie, I know I was wrong.]

Hailey: [I never meant to ruin your application.]

Hailey: [And I wasn’t trying to take Nolan from you.]

Hailey: [Please don’t leave me too, okay?]

I stared at the last message for a long time.

Please don’t leave me.

She made it sound as though she were the one being abandoned.

At one in the morning, Nolan sent me two messages.

Nolan: [I’m outside your house.]

Nolan: [If you don’t come down, I’ll wait until you’re ready.]

I pulled back the curtains.

He was standing beneath a streetlight with a bag of roasted chestnuts in his hand.

He used to buy them for me after our late study sessions in winter. When they were too hot for me, he would peel them and place them in my palm.

Back then, he remembered that I never wanted cold foam on my drinks.

He remembered that cold drinks made my cramps worse on the first day of my period.

He remembered that I chewed on pen caps whenever I was nervous.

But today, he had forgotten all of it.

Or maybe he had not forgotten.

Maybe he had simply given all that care to someone else first.

I let the curtain fall and turned off my phone.

Early the next morning, my mother pushed open my bedroom door.

“Natalie, get up and eat something.”

I sat up, my eyes painfully swollen from crying.

She placed a stack of papers beside me.

“Didn’t Bayview University invite you to interview for its Global Journalism program?”

“You thought San Francisco was too far away, so you never pursued it. I called last night. There’s still time to send the remaining materials.”

I froze in surprise.

“But the tuition is so expensive.”

My father walked in carrying a bowl of oatmeal.

“Your mom and I can still afford to put you through college.”

My eyes began to burn again.

My mother stroked my hair.

“Missing out on Southridge State doesn’t mean your life is over.”

“Natalie, there is more than one road forward.”

I nodded.

That morning, I began completing the remaining application materials.

That afternoon, the college counselor suddenly called me.

“Natalie, come back to school tomorrow.”

My chest tightened.

“Did they find a way to let me submit my application?”

She was silent for two seconds.

“No.”

“We pulled the security footage from the computer lab.”

When I arrived at school, Nolan and Hailey were already there.

Hailey stood in the corner of the office, her eyes swollen nearly shut from crying.

Nolan rose the moment he saw me.

“Natalie.”

I ignored him.

The college counselor turned her computer monitor toward me.

“Yesterday, I wanted to see whether I could document what happened and request an exception on your behalf, so I asked the IT coordinator to pull the security footage.”