Chapter 3

I stood frozen.

"I'm heading to the hospital later to check on Edwina," Caleb said as he pulled out his phone. A few taps, and he blocked me on everything. "Wise up. Don't come looking for me again."

Now I finally understood.

Caleb never cared about me in the past or Edwina now. What he really cared about was the Sutton family heiress, and the benefits his family would gain by him being close to the Sutton family.

From that day on, I buried myself in my studies like a woman possessed.

I was going to pull myself out of the fire, again and again, no matter how many times it took.

Life is tormenting; only self-salvation brings deliverance.

For a long while, Aiden was the only one who would sit with me during lunch.

I told him, "Honestly, I don't mind eating alone. You should probably stay away from me. Otherwise, they'll start avoiding you too."

"Avoid me?" Aiden scoffed. "Lions walk alone. Only sheep stick to herds." Then he added, "People with rich inner lives are never truly alone."

To be honest, ever since Aiden, the little tyrant, started hanging around me, almost no one dared to mess with me anymore.

It wasn't just lunch either. I'd go to the library, and he'd follow me in. Sometimes he gamed on his laptop, other times he'd just chill watching shows.

As for his homework? Every time I wrapped up my own revision, he'd casually scribble a few answers onto his worksheet—just the multiple choice and fill-in-the-blanks. He always left the longer questions blank. On a good day, he might bother to write out a couple of formulas.

But slowly, I started noticing something was off.

The questions he did do were all basic calculus—integrals and stuff. His messy scribbles? Every solution was somehow correct. Always. But he only did calculus. Never any other topic.

One day, I slipped an advanced high school Math Olympiad paper into his backpack. He pulled it out, clueless, and did only the calculus section. Got everything right.

I was completely blown away.

Perhaps Aiden was a secret math genius.

So I downloaded some University-level calculus problems and printed them out. He worked through them like nothing, still getting them all correct—aside from sometimes not bothering to write the final answer. But the logic? Flawless.

I held up his worksheets. "Are you pretending to be bad at math on purpose?"

"Huh?" Aiden shook his head in genuine confusion. "Nah, I just think these calculus problems are kinda easy. I never really studied it. I honestly can't understand the other topics."

Aiden skipped class so often that by senior year, he sometimes couldn't even tell the math teacher from the literature teacher. Honestly, he didn't seem to be lying about it.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "There's still time to sign up for the Math Olympiad. Let me enter you. If you win, you might be able to get recommended into university."

"Nah." Aiden brushed it off. "It's boring. Would just cut into my game time."

I said, "You're just squandering your god-given talent. What a waste!"

"Whatever."

"Aiden, your math talent is on another level—even Caleb, that straight-A math whiz who aces every test, can't compare to you."

"Natalie, do you think I'm better than Caleb?" Aiden asked.

I responded, "Duh!"

Aiden asked again, "Which university are you aiming for?"

"Eden University."

"Eden University? Does our school have direct admission quotas?" he asked.

"Yup."

"Alright, I'm in," Aiden said, his face lighting up with a triumphant grin I couldn't quite decipher.

At least he agreed to sign up for the Math Olympiad.

After signing up, Aiden joined the other candidates for the intensive training program, leaving us with significantly less time together.

Whether it was at Edwina's behest or my classmates just trying to curry favor with her, the malice against me flared up again.

Sometimes it was a cockroach—thumb-sized—shoved into my desk.

Sometimes, I'd find a vulgar note secretly stuck to my back.

Then one day, I got a beautifully wrapped gift box.

I lifted the lid—inside was a blood-soaked, dead cat.

Bile rose in my throat as I doubled over.

My face turned white as a sheet. I stumbled into the bathroom and threw up until I was heaving.

Outside the bathroom, I could just make out the hushed whispers of a few classmates.

"Did we go too far?"

"What's there to fear? She's just a maid's daughter. She's no longer part of the Sutton family anymore."

"Her maid mom is always following Edwina around like a servant. Her real mom and adopted family don't even bother with her. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"Guess she brought this upon herself."

My retching stopped short.

Yeah, people really did put blood over everything.

My former parents? The second they found out Edwina was biologically theirs, they slapped me across the face without hesitation—all to defend her.

But my birth mom, the maid? Ever since the identity switch, not once has she come to see me. Not a call, not a glance. It was like I never even existed.

Something about this just didn't add up.

I splashed water on my face, then stepped out of the bathroom. My gaze swept across the students loitering outside and landed on the one in front: a girl with purple streaks in her hair, chewing gum like she owned the place.

The purple-haired girl was Edwina's lackey. During the month Edwina was hospitalized for slitting her wrists, she would race to the hospital every day after school, practically groveling at her feet.

"Was that gift box from you?" I asked, my voice deceptively calm.

"Yeah. So what?" the purple-haired girl shot back, her attitude on full display.

"Did you torture that cat?"

The purple-haired girl rolled her eyes at me and spat her gum right onto my sneakers.

I grabbed her by the collar and yanked her into the bathroom. With a sharp kick, I slammed open a stall door and shoved the purple-haired girl's head straight into the trash can inside.

Dead silence.

None of the other girls moved. No one expected it—not from me, the girl they thought was all sweetness and silence, the one who kept her head down no matter how many times she got picked on. And now? I had this girl screaming, kicking, and trying to fight me off—full meltdown mode.

The others finally reacted. Some ran off to get a teacher. Some tried to come inside and break it up.

I grabbed a mop handle from the corner. Bracing it against my left knee, I exerted force.

Crack.

The thumb-thick mop handle snapped cleanly in two.

Everyone froze. None dared move against me.

"Don't mess with me," I said calmly. Then, casually, I wiped the gum off my shoe with the hem of the purple-haired girl's shirt. "I'm not someone you want to screw with."

As I walked past them, I noticed one girl's leg trembling.

I turned the corner by the stairwell, checked that no one followed me, and collapsed straight to my knees. Clutching them tightly, I bit my lip so hard it almost bled. Tears welled up and spilled over uncontrollably.

It hurt. God, it hurt so much.

My knee and hands were definitely going to be swollen for days. But this time, I was sure no one would dare come looking for trouble again. After all, bullies would only target those weaker than them.

Back in the classroom, I called the police to report animal cruelty, providing the recording of my conversation with the purple-haired girl as evidence.

Barely had the purple-haired girl finished scrubbing her hair clean when the police hauled her away the moment she stepped back into the classroom.