Chapter 3

Mason's voice drifted through the line.

"Mason."

Pretending to be completely in the dark, I asked softly,

"I called you earlier and you hung up, and when I tried again your phone was off. Maybe I was a little impulsive today. I'm sorry, you don't have to take it seriously. Are you... done with your business over there?"

Clutching the phone, I waited desperately for his answer. As long as he gave me an explanation, any plausible reason at all, I would force myself to believe him.

Yet after an agonizing silence, Mason finally spoke.

"Uh, Mandy, my battery died. I just plugged it in... uh..."

He stammered awkwardly, sounding completely unnatural.

"Mason, hurry up! The dolphin show is about to start!"

A girl's clear, bright voice echoed distinctly into my ear, instantly shattering the very last thread of hope I held onto.

"Mandy, I've got to run, something else came up. Talk later, bye."

The call was ruthlessly cut off once again. Staring at the darkened screen, my heart plunged into an icy abyss.

I forced a weak smile at Chloe to ease her worried gaze, telling her I was fine and that she didn't need to stress over me.

The moment she stepped out, I couldn't hold back anymore. I wrapped myself tightly in the blanket, curled into a ball, and broke down sobbing.

A wave of overwhelming grievance rushed over me. I couldn't understand—if he didn't like me, or if he already had someone else, he could have just turned me down cleanly. Why did he have to humiliate me like this?

I cried until exhaustion took over, eventually drifting into sleep. By the time I woke up, the sky outside had already turned dark.

Massaging my throbbing temples, I dragged myself up from the bed.

The second I looked up, I caught the panicked, uneasy looks my roommates were exchanging.

Sensing that something was terribly wrong, I asked them what happened.

The girls glanced back and forth at one another before pointing at a phone. "Mandy, you... you should check the pinned post on the campus forum. It's about you..."

A post? About me?

Dread coiled in my stomach. I quickly grabbed my phone and opened the campus board.

The top pinned post had been uploaded only two hours ago, but the likes had already surpassed ten thousand.

I clicked on it. It was a video of me confessing to Mason this morning.

The video was undeniably taken secretly.

Because I was naturally introverted and hated large crowds, I had handled all the decorations myself without inviting anyone else.

The angle clearly showed it was taken from a hidden vantage point, yet the footage was shockingly clear.

Beneath the video, the original poster had added a loaded, insidious caption:

"Accidentally stumbled upon the computer science department's golden boy, Mason, getting confessed to today. The girl is Mandy from Business Management, who grew up as his childhood friend. But looks like Mason turned her down in the end. Makes sense, considering word on the street is Mason already has a girlfriend—a cute sophomore from his department..."

Beneath those words were endless, vicious comments. I scrolled through them line by line, each one cutting deeper than the last.