The Game Where I Lost My Last Finger And Him Chapter 04

The Game Where I Lost My Last Finger And Him Chapter 04

[Just kiss already! Just kiss already!]

In the video, Ethan really was smiling.

The way he looked at Chloe was soft, almost indulgent.

He had never looked at me that way.

At least, not in the past three years.

The video ended right as Chloe rose onto her toes and leaned closer to him.

Then Chloe updated her Instagram.

The photos were a screenshot of her direct-admission letter and a picture of her and Ethan at karaoke.

The caption read: [High school is over. New school. New start. Someone to love.]

Underneath were comments from mutual friends.

[I’m so jealous. Your boyfriend is hot and smart!]

Chloe replied with a shy emoji.

[Someone must be punching walls right now.]

[Tomboy, she’s talking about you.]

I turned off my phone and lay back on the bed.

The ceiling was too white, and the light above me was painfully bright.

I thought about all the effort I had poured into that direct-admission spot over the years.

I had cut off my waist-length hair, stayed up doing practice questions until three in the morning, given up every weekend, and filled more than a dozen notebooks with study notes.

I had been so close to reaching that spot.

So close to going to the same university as him.

He did not know that when I finalized my college list, every school at the top was one he wanted to attend.

He had said he wanted to go north and see snow.

So I had chosen only northern schools.

But now?

I sat up, unlocked my phone again, and logged into the college application portal.

One by one, I changed every top-choice school to somewhere in the South.

Ethan hated heat and had always said he didn’t like the South.

But I liked warm places where flowers bloomed in spring.

The South was good.

The farther away from him, the better.

I hit submit, and the screen displayed: [Changes saved successfully.]

Then I turned off my phone and ate the porridge, which had already gone cold.

It tasted bland.

There was no sugar in it.

He knew I liked things sweet, but he hadn’t added a note.

Just like he knew I had been waiting for him, but he had never come.

The next day, I went back to school to pick up my records.

The moment I walked through the gate, everyone looked at me with open contempt.

“Someone checked into a hotel with an older man the second the SAT was over. Gross.”

“Who? Who are you talking about?”

“That tomboy. There’s video proof.”

I stopped walking and saw Chloe nearby, surrounded by a group of classmates.

She was holding up her phone, playing a video.

In the hotel hallway, I was soaked from head to toe as I used my key card to open the door.

“At her age, getting knocked up by some older guy already…”

Chloe’s voice was sweet, every word dripping with implication.

Everyone around her began whispering, their eyes full of malice and judgment.

I walked over and stopped in front of her.

“Delete the video.”

“Why should I?”

She tilted her head, all wide-eyed innocence.

“You were the one who went to a hotel. What does that have to do with me?”

“What gives you the right to spread rumors about me?”

“Did I spread a rumor?”

She turned to Ethan beside her.

“Ethan, tell her. She did go to a hotel, didn’t she?”

Ethan stood there with my records folder in his hand.

His gaze moved from the video on her phone to me.

“Ethan.”

My voice shook.

“Tell her why I went to that hotel.”

He knew everything that had happened the night before.

Even if he did not like me, after all the years between us, he would at least say one fair word for me.

Right?

Then he met my eyes and said, “If you’re innocent, it’ll speak for itself.”

For a second, I thought I had heard him wrong.

“What did you say?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, did you? Then what are you afraid of?”