Chapter 5
Grace didn't even bother to recover properly. She rushed out of the hospital and headed straight back to campus.
When she saw Colin, she asked, "What's going on?"
Colin also looked anxious. "I listed the majority value matching model you developed in the project achievements. I clearly stated it wasn't applied yet, and could be integrated into the team.
"But just now, I got an email saying a local company is already using it, and the credited developer isn't you."
Grace stared at the email, completely lost. "How could this happen? I built this model from scratch, and I never told anyone about it. Which company stole my work?"
Colin handed her the market data. "It's Stellar Genesis. The credited developer is Riley. Grace, are you sure you never told anyone about it?"
That question suddenly made everything click for Grace.
Grace had always been super careful about keeping her work private. She never let anyone see her data.
But there was one person she always let her guard down around, and that was Brandon.
They often studied together and even shared their laptops.
Brandon knew her laptop password. It would've been a breeze for him to take whatever he wanted.
Grace stormed over to Brandon, angrily clutching the data in her hands. "It was you. You gave my achievement model to Riley."
Brandon didn't seem surprised at all.
He tried to reassure Grace. "Grace, calm down. You're both going to join Stellar Genesis sooner or later, and you'll both be making contributions to the company. Who presents the model isn't a big deal."
"Not a big deal?" Grace snapped, her eyes burning with rage.
If this whole thing didn't get cleared up, her shot at studying abroad could be completely destroyed.
"If it's really not a big deal, then why did you hand it over to Riley?" she pressed. "I spent six months busting my ass on this. It's mine, not hers."
Brandon cut her off, "Seriously, Grace, do you have no mercy at all? This is a tiny piece of all your achievements. If Riley has it, she won't have to start from scratch at Stellar Genesis or struggle like she is now.
"Riley only switched to our major last year. She doesn't have the background to pull off something like this. You're the class president. Isn't it your job to help her out?"
Grace scoffed, her anger barely contained. "Help? Taking something without asking is stealing. You and Riley are nothing but thieves."
Brandon snapped back, his voice sharp, "Why do you have to be so nasty? It's one project. If you want, I'll pay you for it."
He grabbed a wad of cash from his drawer and threw it right over Grace's head. "Is 3 thousand enough? No? How about 6 thousand, 10 thousand? Hell, I'll give you 300 thousand if you want."
The bills rained down, some sticking to Grace's face, and the humiliation wrapped around her heart like a venomous snake.
Brandon's twisted expression faded from her sight.
When the last bill hit the floor, Brandon met Grace's unfamiliar gaze, and his anger cooled. "Grace, just this once, okay? If you can compromise, I promise that after Riley joins the company, I won't have anything to do with her ever again.
"You're my girlfriend, and you're going to marry me. The company will be ours in the future, so why do you care so much about this?"
Grace felt her heart turn cold.
She asked Brandon one last time, "So, you're really going to help her and keep this a secret, no matter what?"
Brandon nodded. "You're classmates now, and you'll probably be colleagues in the future. If you fall out with each other, it won't help anyone."
Grace swiped the bills off her shoulder, letting them drop to the floor without a word. "Fine."
When Brandon was seventeen, he was honest, kind, and had an aura of goodness about him.
At twenty-two, he'd become fake, selfish, and rotten through and through.
Grace turned with a cold, rigid motion and walked out, without saying a single word.
When Brandon watched Grace leave, he felt a sudden surge of frustration.
He was convinced Grace would cave, and he believed everything was firmly within his grasp.
Yet an indescribable, elusive feeling lingered, like a rope cinching around his heart. It squeezed so hard that he felt like he was suffocating.
He parted his lips, but in the end, no words came out.
'Forget it,' Brandon thought to himself. 'It's one favor I owe Grace. I'll make it up to her someday.'
*****
Two days before graduation, a major scandal broke out on campus.
Riley, a struggling student from the computer science department, stole a classmate's research to land a job.
The news didn't just spread within the school. It blew up online, with the company name and project details trending all over the city.
Stellar Genesis, the company that used the stolen work without verifying the creator, was now deeply embroiled in public controversy.
Riley blew up again right before graduation.
She became the most hated person in the entire computer science department.
The day the news broke, Brandon caught up with Grace outside the dorm building. "This is your handiwork, isn't it? Didn't you promise you'd drop it? Riley's already down and out. Why are you hell-bent on destroying her?"
Grace had been completely worn out lately. Before the verdict was out, she rebuilt the program from scratch.
For several days, she barely slept, working around the clock to create a superior version based on the original model.
At the same time, she published the source code and shared the entire development process online.
In the end, her work was picked up by a foreign university, so her plans to study abroad weren't affected at all.
After everything she'd been through, Grace thought she could finally catch a break.
But now, Brandon came at her with questions.
Grace let out a cold laugh. "So, am I the one to blame here? Riley stole my work, and I'm supposed to suck it up? I don't even get a chance to speak up for myself?"
Brandon pointed at Grace's face, his hand trembling with fury. "Grace, I really thought you'd changed, but you haven't at all. You're still that petty, jealous shrew, so possessive that you'd ruin any woman who gets close to me.
"Fine, that's perfect. I'll make sure you don't get what you want."
He wasted no time reaching out to Stellar Genesis's PR team, putting out a statement showing full support for Riley. Not only did he refuse to revoke her job offer, but he even bumped her up to manager.
He stared at Grace, his tone cold and merciless. "Grace, you've really let me down. So I'm going to make sure you learn your lesson. The graduation wedding photoshoot we agreed on? Forget it.
"The position Stellar Genesis promised you? That's off the table.
"Since you can't stand seeing Riley succeed, you'll be sent to the toughest, most exhausting department, the back office. You'll start at the very bottom."
Fuming, Brandon whipped out his phone and dialed. "Hey, take the wedding dress and formal wear we ordered. Tear them up, and burn them. I don't want them anymore. And cancel the photography service, too."
The clerk was about to explain that the lady who came with him had already canceled the order, but Brandon cut him off. "No more talk. I said I don't want them, so that's final."
After everything he'd done, Brandon gave Grace a deep, lingering look. "I'm really angry this time. I'll be waiting for you to beg me."
They made a promise to take graduation wedding photos together when they first started dating.
If they were still together by graduation, they'd have their wedding pictures taken right on campus, at the height of their youth, to use for their future marriage.
Grace designed the wedding dress herself, pouring her heart into every detail. She revised the design more than a hundred times.
It wasn't until six months ago that she finally commissioned a shop to custom-make the dress.
Brandon finished speaking and turned away, believing that by crushing the dream Grace had cherished for so long, he was delivering the cruelest punishment possible.
What Brandon didn't realize was that Grace had already canceled the wedding photoshoot and dress order a month ago.
She packed up her things and left campus a day ahead of schedule.
She left all her messy feelings, including love, hate, resentment, and heartbreak, behind at school.
The plane lifted off, shooting straight into the clouds.
Out the airplane window, the sky was still that endless blue.
Grace knew all the chaos of the past was best left behind. A whole new future was waiting for her.