Chapter 3

I was afraid of her and didn't dare get close.

Once, I was passing by the garden of a villa behind the orphanage when suddenly an unleashed aggressive dog appeared from nowhere.

It roared like a wild beast behind me and started chasing me as its prey.

Cold sweat poured from my head to my toes. I ran desperately, but my heart ached more and more, my steps grew heavier, and the sound of the dog's panting got closer and closer.

I could already imagine it tearing into me.

At the critical moment, the sound of the dog opening its bloody maw was followed by a heavy, solid thud.

I stopped and looked back. It was Isabelle, holding a steel pipe left over from the warehouse renovations. She had smashed a large dent in the dog's head.

The dean came running the next second, snatched the steel pipe from Isabelle, and scolded, "Are you trying to get yourself killed? Do you even know whose dog this is?"

The dog owner arrived upon hearing the noise, cursed us as worthless brats born to be abandoned, and demanded the dean pay a large sum for their injured dog.

The dean shot us a sharp glare before bowing and scraping apologies to the dog owner.

I, timid and submissive, also apologized. Isabelle shot me a look, turned, and left.

After that, I was no longer afraid of Isabelle.

I started following her, always feeling that as long as I was near her, I felt very safe.

But Isabelle detested me.

She warned me time and again not to get close to her.

I always followed her silently from corners she couldn't see, imagining countless times in my heart that even if she couldn't see me, she would definitely appear when I was in danger.

We attended the same university.

We were both reclusive, with no friends.

I was a nobody, so it didn't matter much.

But Isabelle had conflicts with people several times; almost the entire college knew her and spoke ill of her.

I watched her walk to the cafeteria alone, go to the library alone, and a strange feeling suddenly rose in my heart.

It was only much later that I realized I had developed feelings for her.

I wanted to become her companion, someone who could stand by her side.

But then, she fell in love. With Amir.

I heard with my own ears how Amir and his friends mocked her. "This one has earned the scorn of the whole college, looks tough to deal with, but actually, she's just desperate for love. Easiest to handle.

"Don't believe me? Give me a week, I'll have her wrapped around my finger, you'll see."

Amir bought Isabelle flowers a few times, gave her gifts, took her to the cinema—a place she'd never been, accompanied her to amusement parks she'd never experienced.

And Isabelle's heart was filled.

Perhaps a parched heart, cracked for too long, finds even a tiny drop of moisture to be a sweet spring.

I tried to warn Isabelle, telling her it was all just Amir's game.

That time, she slapped me across the face.

"Don't use your vile thoughts to slander Amir's love for me.

"When those people were bullying me, it was Amir who stepped in and shielded me from the filth they threw at me. You, like a rat in the sewer, what do you do besides peeping at me from the shadows?

"You haven't changed a bit since we were kids. Weak! Pathetic!"

She wasn't wrong at all. After that, I kept my mouth shut.

I watched from the shadows as Isabelle gave Amir her unreserved smiles and love.

I was drowning myself; how could I stop others from falling into the whirlpool of love?

Isabelle had been eating takeout at home for a long time.

All along, while she worked at the hospital, leaving early and returning late, I had cooked every meal at home.

She never once said it was good; she just ate like a robot completing a task to avoid starvation.

She opened the fridge in the kitchen. The vegetables I had placed inside had wilted; only a row of eggs remained uneaten.

Anger, from who knows where, surged in her. She slammed the fridge door shut hard, picked up her phone, and started ordering takeout.

Then, sitting on the living room sofa, she unconsciously called Amir.