Chapter 3

The summons came in the form of a sterile, official email. "Meeting with Dean Thompson. Regarding a violation of the Student Code of Conduct." My hands were shaking so badly I had to set my phone down. They weren' t even investigating. They had already passed judgment.

Dean Thompson' s office was intimidating, all dark wood and leather-bound books. He didn' t look at me when I came in. He just gestured to the chair opposite his massive desk.

He was a man I had respected, a man who had personally congratulated me when I won the freshmen art prize. Now, he looked at me with profound disappointment.

"Chloe," he started, his voice heavy. "I' ve seen the video. I' ve read the forum posts. I' ve read Mr. Peterson' s statement."

He steepled his fingers, his gaze finally meeting mine. It was cold, clinical. "Westview University prides itself on the character of its students. This... behavior... is not what we expect from someone who represents our Arts program."

"Dean Thompson, it' s not what it looks like," I pleaded, my voice cracking. "He' s lying. I didn' t know he was recording. He shared it, not me."

"Mr. Peterson claims you sent the video to his friends to make him look bad," the Dean said flatly, as if reading from a script. "He says you' ve been obsessed with him and he was afraid of what you might do. His story is corroborated by several of his teammates."

"They' re all lying for him!" My voice rose, a note of hysteria creeping in. "He' s the one who set me up!"

The Dean held up a hand. "Frankly, Chloe, your version of events seems... less plausible. What is plausible is that this incident has brought a great deal of shame upon the university.

And upon you." He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "The Alistair Foundation has withdrawn its offer for your summer internship."

The air left my lungs. The Alistair internship was everything. It was a prestigious, paid position at one of the top galleries in New York. It was my future.

"No," I whispered. "Please, you can' t let them do that."

"My hands are tied," he said, his tone final. "They don' t want to be associated with this kind of... scandal."

My mind flashed back, an unwanted, painful slideshow of my history with Ryan.

We had grown up in the same town. I remembered him in middle school, all clumsy limbs and a goofy grin, before he became the chiseled campus king. He' d defended me from a bully once on the playground.

In high school, he' d told me I was the only person he could really talk to. He' d promised that once we got to college, things would be different, that he' d be ready for something real. He' d said he was just waiting for the right time. For me.

All of it. Every smile, every whispered secret, every promise. It was all a lie. A long, elaborate game to get what he wanted.

The boy on the playground was gone, replaced by a calculating sociopath. The sweet memories were now just evidence of my own gullibility.

The hope I' d harbored for years had been a fantasy, and the reality was this cold, sterile office where my future was being dismantled piece by piece because of his lies.

I left the Dean' s office in a daze. The world felt muffled, distant. I was walking across the main quad when I heard my name.

"Chloe."

It was Ryan. He was standing by the old oak tree where we' d once sat and talked for hours about our dreams. He looked... remorseful. It was another one of his masks, another performance.

"I' m so sorry about the internship," he said, his voice soft and low. "I never wanted this to happen."

I just stared at him, my stomach twisting with a toxic mix of hatred and disgust.

"Don' t talk to me," I said, my voice flat.

"Please, just listen," he stepped closer, reaching for my arm. I flinched away. "I know things are a mess right now. But it doesn' t have to be this way. I was stupid. I was trying to look cool for my friends. It was a mistake."

He was trying to justify recording me, sharing me, humiliating me. He was blaming it on peer pressure. The selfishness of it was breathtaking.

"You ruined my life for a joke," I said, the words feeling like acid in my mouth.

"No, I can fix this!" he insisted. "We can fix this. Just... tell everyone it was a misunderstanding. That we' re together. If we' re a couple, the whole thing just goes away. It becomes a love story.

I' ll talk to the Dean, I' ll call the Alistair Foundation. I' ll tell them we' re serious. We can still have that future we talked about, Chloe. You and me."

I looked at him then, really looked at him. The boy I had put on a pedestal for years was gone. In his place was something rotten.

He wasn't apologizing for what he did; he was trying to manage the fallout. He wasn' t offering love; he was offering a public relations strategy. He wanted to use me again, this time to clean up the mess he made.

The image of him that I had cherished in my heart for so long, the one that was pure and good, shattered into a million pieces. It didn't just crack; it disintegrated, turning to dust and revealing the ugly, putrid thing that had been hiding underneath all along.

I didn' t say another word. I just turned my back on him and walked away, leaving him standing under the oak tree with his poisonous, empty promises.