She Asked Us to Give Up SATs for a Million-Dollar Promise Chapter 09

She Asked Us to Give Up SATs for a Million-Dollar Promise Chapter 09

That evening, my parents and I talked about what had happened. Both of them shook their heads and sighed.

“Those four kids were truly foolish.”

“Exactly. How could they believe something like that?”

I only smiled without saying anything.

Now, hell had truly arrived.

The first ones to break down were their parents.

Stella’s family had already been poor and struggling.

When she first transferred to our school, our homeroom teacher had even organized a fundraiser for her.

Her father was seriously ill and needed more money for treatment.

Her mother was the only one bringing in any money, taking odd jobs just to help the family scrape by.

No one had expected that their usually obedient, introverted daughter would secretly max out every credit card in the house.

She had even blown through the lifetime savings her grandmother had set aside for retirement and funeral expenses.

Inside their old, cramped rental apartment, Stella’s mother’s suppressed fury finally erupted into a curse-filled breakdown.

“Stella, what have you done? You actually ran up tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Are you trying to destroy this entire family?”

Stella shook violently from head to toe, her face deathly pale.

“Mom, I… I didn’t mean to. I really thought the System would give me ten million dollars. I thought I would…”

Before she could finish, Mrs. Collins slapped her across the face.

Mrs. Collins’s sobs were shrill, filled with deep resentment.

“Get out. From now on, you are no daughter of mine!”

That night, Stella was thrown out of the house.

She even came to beg me, begging me to take her in.

I refused outright. “No.”

“Why? You’re the class president. Didn’t you say you would help me and look after me? We’re friends. Why are you leaving me to die?”

Stella screamed in disbelief.

In her mind, she was the weak one.

And weak people were supposed to be cherished and protected by everyone around them.

I looked at her steadily for a long time before finally speaking.

“You actually enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Every time Ethan and the others chose to ice me out and blame me for your sake, you enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

That was my answer.

Stella froze, tears still hanging on her cheeks.

For a moment, she didn’t even dare look at me.

I had mercilessly exposed the ugliest, most shameful thought she kept buried in her heart.

“But I… I did think of you as a friend. It’s just…”

At that point, Stella suddenly lifted her head. A flicker of panic and helplessness flashed in her eyes, but even more than that, there was entitlement.

“The three of them treated you like the center of their world for years. You had them all to yourself for so long. Wasn’t that enough? Why can’t I be the one they spoil for once?”

“You said you would look after me. Then why couldn’t you just let me have this?”

To be honest, when I heard those words, I wasn’t even angry.

I only said softly, “We are not friends anymore, Stella.”

Her eyes widened as she stared at me in shock.

Meanwhile, things were just as chaotic for the three boys I had grown up with.

Ethan’s parents were both working-class people who had scrimped and saved for more than a decade before they had barely managed to put down roots in the city.

All they wanted was for their only son to get into Harvard or MIT and change the family’s future.

But he had been foolish enough to give up the SATs and run up more than a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in loans across multiple online lending platforms.

Ethan’s mother was so furious she could barely stay on her feet. Mrs. Foster’s voice was hoarse.

“A hundred and twenty thousand dollars, Ethan. A hundred and twenty thousand dollars in loans! Where did you get the nerve to borrow that much money?”

“We worked ourselves to the bone to put you through school, and this is how you repay us? You even gave up the SATs. Ethan, you destroyed yourself with your own hands!”

Ethan couldn’t answer.

He didn’t know why he had done it either.

He had just… just chosen to believe Stella without thinking. He had just…

Ethan lowered his head and stared at the flood of debt-collection texts on his phone, along with the mocking messages from his classmates. His mind went completely blank.

The more arrogant he had been before, the more desperate and broken he was now.

As for Mason’s family, his explosive temper had come from his father.

After Mason’s father found out what he had done, he was so furious that he smashed every decoration in the house and beat Mason unconscious.

Mason was still in the hospital when Mr. Shaw announced to everyone that he was disowning his son.