Word on campus was that the golden boy of the pre-law program had a very strict moral code. Whenever a girl confessed her feelings and gave him a gift, he would reject her flat out. But to keep his conscience clear, he would always pay her back for whatever the gift cost. As a broke college student surviving on instant noodles, desperation bred a wicked idea in my head. Clutching a cheap beaded bracelet I bought off a street vendor for two bucks, I blocked his path and put on my most soulful gaze. "I have a massive crush on you. Do you want to go out with me? Oh, and I bought you this bracelet!" The golden boy looked at me. "No. How much was the bracelet? I'll transfer you the money." Me: "Seven hundred and eighty dollars. And fifty cents." The golden boy: "?" 1 While I was staring miserably at the glaring deficit on my tuition bill, my roommate was hanging off her loft bed, eagerly spilling the latest campus gossip. "Did you guys hear? Weston from the law school rejected another girl yesterday." "Oh, I heard about that! She gave him an engraved fountain pen. He rejected her, pulled out his phone, and Venmoed her a hundred bucks on the spot. He said he doesn't accept gifts, but he pays for what he's given. The guy has principles." I shot up from my mattress like a rocket. "Wait, seriously? He reimburses the original price of the confession gifts?" "Yup. It's his golden rule. He doesn't take advantage of anyone. A rejection is a rejection, but he refuses to owe anyone a favor." I thought about the pathetic twenty-seven dollars sitting in my bank account. Then I glanced back at the four-digit nightmare on my tuition portal. Poverty really does awaken the criminal mastermind in you. A brilliant, flawless scheme instantly formed in my brain. Over the next two days, I memorized Weston's class schedule and the routes he usually walked on campus. Then, I stopped by a local flea market stall just off campus to pick out a bracelet. "How much for this string of beads?" "Fifty." "Are you out of your mind? I'll give you two bucks." "Deal." "..." "Don't worry, sweetheart," the vendor grinned. "This bracelet is blessed for romance. Whoever you give it to will definitely fall in love with you!" I didn't care about the romance. I just needed it to bless my tuition fund. Everything was set. At four-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon, right outside the law building, I perfectly ambushed Weston just as he walked out of his seminar. He looked even better in person than he did in the rumors. Dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark slacks, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, he looked like he was walking around with his own personal spotlight. I swallowed hard, took a massive step forward, and planted myself right in his way. I shoved the bracelet toward him. "Weston, I have a massive crush on you. Do you want to go out with me? This is a bracelet I bought just for you!" Weston stopped in his tracks. He didn't even blink. "No." My heart leaped into my throat. I was just waiting for those magic words. "How much was the gift? I'll transfer you the money." Bingo. Without batting an eyelash, I recited the exact number I had calculated beforehand. "Seven hundred and eighty dollars. And fifty cents." Weston stared at the flimsy string of beads that looked like it was going to snap if the wind blew too hard. A look of pure disbelief crossed his face. "This thing is nearly eight hundred bucks? Maybe I'm just out of touch, but is this some new form of daylight robbery?" My cheeks burned, but I bit the bullet and spouted absolute nonsense with a straight face. "I took this bracelet to a spiritual guru to get it specially blessed. He said our auras are perfectly aligned, and this will ward off toxic relationships for three years. You get what you pay for." A low chuckle escaped his lips. His eyes rippled with amusement, bright and clear like sunlight hitting the water. The corner of his mouth curved up. He was so ridiculously handsome that my conscience almost woke up and forced me to confess the scam. But my sheer poverty kept me completely blind to guilt. "You're an interesting one." He tilted his chin. "Show me your Venmo QR code." My eyes lit up like fireworks. I whipped out my phone, pulled up the code, and shoved the screen toward him. I moved so fast, terrified he might change his mind. A soft chime rang out from my phone. You have received eight hundred dollars. My internal organs practically threw a parade. "You... you sent twenty dollars too much!" I tried my best to keep my face neutral. "Keep the change. I hate typing decimals." He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked past me without a second glance. I spun around and yelled at his retreating back, my voice dripping with the most genuine gratitude I had ever felt in my life. "Thank you, boss! May you graduate with a 4.0! May you drown in scholarship offers! May all your toxic exes stay away! May you win every bet you ever make!" His footsteps paused for a fraction of a second. He didn't turn around, just lazily raised a hand in acknowledgment. "Enough." He left me with the view of a very cool, very generous back. I stood there clutching my phone, almost crying tears of joy. 2 Looking at my bank balance, which now perfectly covered my tuition with a few bucks to spare, I let out a long, heavy sigh of relief. But that peace only lasted about twelve hours. A text from my mom completely shattered my reality. She transferred me forty bucks. Attached was a message. Be careful with your spending this month. Your sister needs a new laptop for school, so money is a bit tight. I stared at the forty dollars in total silence. Last month she gave me four hundred. This month, it was slashed to ten percent. How was I supposed to survive a whole month on forty bucks? The wicked ideas started bubbling up again. I had already done it once. What was stopping me from doing it again? Dying of embarrassment was temporary. Dying of starvation was permanent. This time, I was going to be way more prepared. I stayed up for three hours reading a thread called Ten Thousand Lines to Melt a Guy's Heart. I filled half a notebook with cheesy romantic lines and memorized them until I could recite them backward. The next day after class, I clutched my textbook and sprinted toward the law building, terrified I'd miss him. But the second I actually saw him, my brain turned to absolute mush. I spotted him standing outside the building talking to his buddy. I quickly smoothed down my shirt, took a deep breath, and marched over. I shoved a cheap, goofy capybara plush keychain right into his face and opened my mouth. "Weston, you are the light of my bank account... wait, no! You are the light of my life!" The moment the words left my mouth, my entire body went rigid. It was over. I completely fumbled the script. The air went dead silent for two agonizing seconds. He raised an eyebrow, his eyes swimming with pure mockery. "The light of your bank account?" My face burned hot enough to fry an egg. I scrambled to fix it, my words tumbling out in a panicked rush. "No, no! I meant, you are like a light, illuminating my life... my life, not my bank account!" The more I panicked, the worse it got. The romantic lines I had spent all night memorizing violently collided in my head. "My love for you is like a freight train... completely off the rails! It's like... like the pizza at the dining hall, cheap but full of substance... wait, no!" His friend totally lost it. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, laughing so hard he practically collapsed onto the pavement. "I'm dying! Weston, where did you find this comedian?" Even Weston's lips twitched upward into a genuine smile. I wanted the concrete to open up and swallow me whole. I dropped my head, my voice shrinking down to a pathetic whisper. "Sorry... I just got a little nervous..." This was humiliating. Weston tapped the capybara keychain I was still holding up in the air. "Did your spiritual guru bless this one too? How much?" "No, no guru this time. It's just a hundred and fifty..." He took the goofy little capybara from my hand, turning it over in his fingers. He glanced from the plushie to my face. "This little thing kind of looks like you." He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a few times. A second later, the beautiful notification chime rang out. Two hundred dollars. I looked up at him, my eyes wide and confused. "The extra..." He raised an eyebrow, a teasing glint in his dark eyes. "...is the admission fee for that comedy routine." I clutched my phone, staring at the fresh two hundred bucks in my account. Suddenly, the humiliation completely evaporated. If embarrassing myself paid this well, I would happily do it every day of the week. His friend threw an arm around Weston's shoulder and grinned at me. "Hey, freshman! We've got a basketball game tomorrow at three. Make sure you come cheer for our boy! Don't forget to bring him some water!" I gave an awkward laugh, but after his friend practically demanded I show up, I finally nodded. 3 The next day, I arrived at the campus basketball courts right on time. It was packed. I had to stand all the way in the back, clutching a bottle of ice-cold sports drink, feeling a weird knot of anxiety in my stomach. The second Weston stepped onto the court, the screaming from the bleachers almost blew the roof off. He was wearing a royal blue and white jersey. His dark hair was slightly damp, sweeping just above his brow bone. During warm-ups, his shirt lifted just enough to expose a sliver of a lean, heavily muscled waist. I couldn't look away. I literally counted eight distinct abs. I silently concluded that looking at him was basically a meal in itself. The whistle blew. When Weston was focused, he was ridiculously attractive. His movements were fluid and lethal. Dribbling, crossing over, jumping, shooting. He sank three-pointers effortlessly, one after another. Every time the ball swished through the net, the crowd absolutely lost their minds. The energy was contagious. Before I knew it, I was screaming his name with the rest of them. This guy was literally paying for my survival. He was my greatest benefactor. By the end of the first half, I was shouting with so much passion that my throat felt like sandpaper. The halftime buzzer echoed through the gym. I clutched the icy bottle to my chest and carefully squeezed my way through the packed crowd toward the benches, terrified the drink would get warm before I could hand it to him. Just as I broke through to the front row, a heavy hand clamped down on my arm. It was a guy in a stained muscle shirt. He looked like absolute trash. His eyes slowly dragged up and down my body, a greasy, uncomfortable smirk plastered on his face. "Well, well. Pushing your way to the front, sweetie? You here throwing yourself at Weston too?" I frowned, trying to yank my arm back, but his grip was like a vice. "Let go of me." "Don't be in such a rush." Two of his equally gross friends stepped up, boxing me in from both sides. "Stop dreaming, little girl. Weston's standards are sky-high. He's not gonna look twice at a thing like you. Why don't you hang out with our boy Trent instead? He knows how to treat a girl right." The buddies snickered. "Skin looks so soft," Trent sneered, his hand reaching out toward my face. "I wonder if the rest of you is just as..." He never finished that sentence. A long, heavily veined arm shot out from my blind spot. A large hand clamped down over Trent's wrist, violently twisting it backward. A sickening pop sounded, followed by a blood-curdling scream. Trent was yanked halfway around by sheer brutal force. Before he could even regain his balance, a heavy sneaker slammed into the back of his knee, forcing him to instantly drop to the floor in agony. The entire section of the bleachers went dead silent. I looked up and crashed straight into a pair of icy, lethal eyes. Weston. He had just stepped off the court. He hadn't even grabbed a towel yet. Sweat trailed down his sharp jawline, and the muscles in his forearms were tight and completely flushed with adrenaline. "What did you just say? Repeat it." His voice was like shattered glass. A raw, terrifying violence burned in his eyes, making him look like a completely different person from the aloof golden boy I knew. All the color drained from Trent's face. "Weston, hey man, I... I was just joking..." "Watch your fucking mouth." Weston released his wrist and gave him a casual shove. Trent collapsed onto his backside, scrambling away like a rat. Weston shifted his gaze to the two friends, whose faces were now sickly pale. His tone was as casual as discussing the weather. "If I ever see any of you near her again, a kicked knee will be the least of your problems." "Apologize to her." Trent clenched his jaw, staying silent. Weston took a slow half-step forward. "I'm sorry!" Trent screamed, his voice completely cracking in terror. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I was being a piece of shit! It'll never happen again!" The two buddies tripped over their words trying to apologize, looking more pathetic by the second. "Get lost." The guys nodded frantically, hauled Trent to his feet, and shoved their way blindly through the crowd to escape. Weston didn't even watch them leave. He slowly turned his head and looked down at me. The terrifying, murderous look in his eyes faded, replaced by something dark and unreadable. "You. Are you okay?" I stood completely frozen, my fingers gripping the plastic bottle so hard it crinkled. I still hadn't fully processed the chaos. Weston reached over, grabbed a clean towel from the bench, and slowly wiped down his fingers, acting as if he had just touched something deeply contaminated. "Why are you just standing there? Give me the water." I snapped out of it, hurriedly handing him the bottle. "Thank you. For helping me." "It's still ice cold. Drink it slowly so you don't hurt your throat." He paused right as he unscrewed the cap. He lowered his eyes to look at me, a lazy, amused smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. "You're surprisingly attentive." I didn't think anything of it. I just nodded sincerely. "Of course I am." You're literally funding my college degree. You are my god. I watched his profile as he tilted his head back to drink, his Adam's apple bobbing sharply with every swallow. My ears suddenly felt uncomfortably hot. I quickly snapped my gaze to the floor. Weston let out a soft laugh. He pulled his phone from his gym bag and tapped the screen. The beautiful, angelic notification sound chimed from my pocket. You have received three hundred dollars. My eyes went wide. I stared at him in shock. "Why... why did you send me money? The water was a gift. It was free!" He leaned down. He got so close that there was barely an inch of space between our faces. He blinked slowly. "You screamed your lungs out for a whole half. Consider it hazard pay. Don't let those garbage guys ruin your mood. Go buy yourself a massive dinner tonight." He was too close. My entire field of vision was just him. My heart completely lost its rhythm, thumping wildly against my ribs. I could only manage a dumb, mechanical nod. The referee blew the whistle. The second half was starting. Weston pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, gave me one last, lingering look, and jogged back out onto the hardwood. 4 Because of Weston, my quality of life skyrocketed. I used to sneak into the dining hall and only order plain rice and the free egg drop soup. Now, I was ordering a meat entrée, a side of vegetables, and occasionally treating myself to a giant fried chicken leg. I was sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, happily destroying my chicken leg. "Wow. Eating good these days, huh?" A plastic tray slammed down onto the table directly across from me. I looked up. The chicken leg froze halfway to my mouth. It was Blake. He was the notorious nightmare of our major. He came from a filthy rich family, looked decent enough, but had a completely rotten personality. His favorite hobby was making my life a living hell. On the first day of freshman year, he threw my textbook in the trash. Since then, it escalated to pouring glue on my chair and stealing my homework, just to watch me panic. Whenever I saw him, my fight-or-flight response kicked in, leaning heavily toward flight. He slouched into the chair, lazily stabbing a piece of braised pork with his fork, glaring at me out of the corner of his eye. "You look pretty cozy lately. Eating fried chicken? What, did you hit the lottery?" I lowered my eyes, completely ignoring him, and pulled my tray closer to my chest. "Don't play deaf." He slammed his fork against the edge of my tray, making a sharp, annoying clatter. "Everyone on campus is talking about you. Running to the law building every single day, chasing after Weston like a desperate groupie... is there something wrong with your brain?" A few students at the surrounding tables turned their heads to look at us. I gripped my chopsticks. "That is none of your business." "How is it none of my business?" He threw his fork onto the table, leaning aggressively over the center, his voice loud and venomous. "Do you even know who Weston is? He's the top of his class. His family owns one of the biggest law firms in the state. And you? You're a charity case who sneaks around for free soup. Do you honestly think you two live in the same universe?" Every single word felt like a rusty nail, hammering into the reality of the gap between us. A reality I had been trying very hard to ignore. I didn't say a word. He paused, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across his face. "Besides, do you really think he's rejecting you just because you're a nobody? Let me spell it out for you. He already has the girl of his dreams." "The only reason Weston hasn't dated anyone is because he's waiting for her. He is never going to look at you. You running up to him confessing over and over again... you're just embarrassing yourself. Can you stop being so pathetic?" I didn't hear a single word he said after that. Only one sentence echoed violently in my head: He already has the girl of his dreams. My chest suddenly felt incredibly tight. But... If I looked at it from another angle, didn't that mean my confessions would never, ever be accepted? Which meant... I could just keep confessing and keep collecting that sweet rejection money with absolutely zero risk of him saying yes? The heavy guilt weighing on my conscience evaporated instantly. I remembered the cafeteria had just introduced a new sweet and sour rib dish. I kinda wanted to try it... Thinking about my future meals, the corners of my mouth couldn't help but curve up into a bright smile. "What the hell are you smiling at?" Blake's voice cracked. He looked like he was choking on his own spit. "I just told you he's hopelessly in love with someone else, and you're sitting there smiling?" I snapped back to reality. I looked at him dead in the eye, my tone completely light and airy. "Nothing. I think it's great he has someone he loves. I'm happy for him." "...What?" "It just proves I have excellent taste. A guy who is that loyal and devoted is rare." I looked back down and shoved a massive bite of rice into my mouth, my cheeks puffing out as I mumbled through the food. "It's romantic. I wish them a lifetime of happiness." Blake sat there completely paralyzed. It was like someone had hit his mute button. "You..." He opened his mouth, his face turning a chaotic mix of purple and pale white. It was like he had thrown his hardest punch into a brick wall, and the impact had rebounded right back into his own face. He violently shoved his chair back. The metal legs screeched against the tile floor. "You're completely delusional! Let's see how long you keep acting like a clown!" He hadn't taken a single bite of his braised pork. He spun around and stormed out of the cafeteria, his footsteps heavy and furious. I looked at his abandoned tray, whispering a tiny complaint. "What a waste of good food." Then, I took another massive bite of my chicken leg. Honestly, the cafeteria chefs were really stepping their game up.
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