Chapter 1

I gave up my dream offer to Cambridge just so I could follow my heavily bullied childhood sweetheart to Princeton.

Yet, the day before we were supposed to submit our applications, I overheard him and his teammates laughing heartily:  

"Man, you deserve an Oscar," one of them snickered. "You actually got the Vanderbilt heiress to drop Cambridge just by playing the victim?"

"To cause a rift with my family for me, and to serve as my shield against adversity—what a foolish heiress, impossible to shake off," Carter sneered to his friends.

"Once I drag her to Princeton, I can finally date Lily without her getting in the way."  

I didn't storm in.

I quietly shredded my Princeton forms and submitted my Cambridge acceptance.

Carter seemed to have forgotten one crucial detail: without my family's money, he wasn't a tragic prince. He was just a stray dog.

.......

Exactly a month ago, Carter had told me about being bullied for the first time.

He had stood outside my apartment building, battered and bruised, claiming his teammates had locked him in the bathrooms and beat him.

Trembling with heartache, I had practically marched off to tear them apart right then and there.

But he caught my hand, his eyes as fragile as a wounded deer's. "Bella, don't. You're the Vanderbilt heir. They wouldn't dare touch you, but they'll just take it out on me ten times worse."

Since then, it had been one incident after another. Locked in the equipment room, violently beaten, his locker stuffed with trash.

Every single time, I threw myself onto the front lines to protect him.

Last week, when that bucket of paint rained down from the shelves, I threw my own body over his without a second thought.

He had leaned against my shoulder then, his voice remarkably weak: "Bella, I can't go to Cambridge. My stepbrother and the guys will just turn it into my next hell."

Looking at the boy I had grown up with, seeing the helpless flicker in his eyes, I made my decision without a shred of hesitation: I would throw away my dream offer from Cambridge to follow him to Princeton.

For that, I got into a massive, explosive fight with my family. They couldn't comprehend why I was willing to sacrifice a dream I'd held since childhood just for Carter, yet I blindly defended my choice.

"Still, she's completely devoted to you," Bryce's voice echoed again. "Aren't you terrified she'll find out the truth and dump your ass?"

"Dump me?" Carter's voice drifted out through the heavy door, pulling me back to the present.

"She went to war with her family over Princeton, practically cutting ties with them. Do you honestly think she'd ever let me go?"

"Besides," Carter added, his voice oozing with smug satisfaction, "last week by her family's pool, she was practically begging to give up her virginity to me. I was the one who played the good guy and told her to wait. As desperate and cheap as she is, there's no way she's leaving me."

Those words were like ice-forged blades, carving into my chest one agonizing syllable at a time.

I had offered him my purest, most fiercely guarded devotion, and he treated it as a trophy. As a cheap punchline to degrade me.

"Then why not just break up with her?" Bryce asked, sounding visibly confused. "Why go to all this trouble?"

"Isabella is way too stubborn," Carter explained, impatience bleeding into his tone. "If I just dump her, she'll definitely make a messy scene, and she might even cut off the funding for my tuition."

"Honestly, it's mostly because Lily gets so anxious and insecure just being around her. Lily just transferred here on a scholarship; she needs to feel safe. So, for Lily's sake, I'll just have to tolerate Bella dragging herself to Princeton for a while."

Lily Smith.

The scholarship student who had transferred here exactly a month ago, always hiding safely behind Carter's back like a startled little rabbit.

And Carter, perfectly launched his "bullied victim" persona that exact same month.

"Tossing aside a top-tier billionaire heiress for the innocent new flower. You're a legend, Carter!" his teammates jeered.

"I mean, Lily actually makes a guy want to protect her. Not like Isabella. She's so damn cold, always acting like the untouchable heiress, walking around like we all owe her money."

Amidst the mocking laughter, Carter didn't argue. He didn't tell them to shut up.

He just silently agreed.

He was actually enjoying it.

Standing there, listening to the filth spilling from that room, my heart sank into an absolute abyss. Rage, humiliation, and a suffocating grief churned violently inside me.

I wanted to kick the door wide open.

I wanted to ask him: When you watched me get covered in paint for you, did you feel even a shred of guilt? When I went to war against my family for you, did your heart soften, even for a second? What did our dozen years together mean to you?

But at the absolute tipping point, my mother's voice elegantly cut through the chaos in my mind, cool and flawlessly composed:

"Isabella, know when to fold. You can't polish a turd."

I pulled out my phone and dialed my older brother's number.

"Brother, I'll submit my Cambridge application."

My brother's barely contained shock and joy echoed through the receiver. "Bella? God, you finally woke up! This is incredible. Don't worry about a thing over there—a very good friend of mine is heading to Cambridge too. He'll look out for you."

The moment I hung up, my phone vibrated in my palm.

It was a text from Carter: [Bella, where are you? Let's fill out the Princeton applications together. Meet me at our usual spot. Love you.]

I stared at the text.

Yes, I absolutely had an application to fill out.

But it wasn't for Princeton.