I saw the new transfer student slip a box of extra-thin condoms into my childhood best friend's pocket. She saw me looking and covered her mouth in mock surprise. "Oh, don't get the wrong idea, sweetie. These aren't for me and your man." Leo chimed in, his voice already laced with annoyance. "We ran out of the rubber membranes for the lab experiment. These are just a substitute. Don't overthink it." He thought I was going to throw a fit, like I always did. But I just looked down and went back to my textbook. Leo didn't know that the day I saw him sharing an ice cream cone with her, I had already decided to transfer to a school abroad. As far as I was concerned, he was already out of the picture. 1 "We're just using them for an experiment, Hailey. Stop being so irrational." I hadn't even said a word, but Leo was already on the defensive, rubbing his temples like he was bracing for a fight. Honestly, I hadn't even been paying attention to them. I only looked up because they were being loud and I was trying to do a listening exercise for my French class. I rewound the audio and put my headphones back on. Leo seemed taken aback by my silence. The new girl, Chloe, nudged him. "Looks like your little girlfriend has a new strategy. She knows being pushy doesn't work, so now she's playing hard to get. You'd better go comfort her before she gives you the silent treatment for real." "Comfort her?" Leo scoffed. "She's not my wife. You go comfort her if you want." "Ouch. Careful, or she might actually stop talking to you for good." I felt his eyes on me, but I didn't look up. "I'd pray for it," he said, his voice cold. Chloe just giggled. "You're so mean to her." The classroom started to fill up, and their voices faded into the general buzz. I finished my French exercise just as my family's butler called. "Miss, all the arrangements have been made. You'll be leaving in seven days. I've also sent the information regarding Mr. Leo to your mother." "Okay," I said, my eyes drifting to where Leo and Chloe were whispering together. She slipped her hand under the collar of his shirt, and he didn't pull away. I looked away, my voice flat. "After my mother has reviewed it, please inform her that I am breaking off my engagement to Leo, and that all joint projects with his family's company are to be terminated." 2 When I came out of the principal's office, having confirmed that the donation my family had promised for a new computer lab would still go through even after I left, he was practically bowing to me. As I turned the corner, I ran into Leo and Chloe. "Leo, your little fiancée was just in the principal's office," Chloe said, her voice dripping with fake concern. "You don't think she was telling on us, do you?" She put on a pathetic, frightened face and reached for my hand. "Please, don't get the wrong idea. We really were just using those for a science experiment. We didn't break any rules." I pulled my hand away, a wave of disgust washing over me. "I don't know you. Please call me by my name, Hailey." Chloe's eyes welled up with tears. "I... I was just trying to be friendly. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to get close to someone like you. Please, Hailey, don't tell the principal. I'll stay away from Leo from now on, I promise!" Leo stepped in front of her, his expression a mixture of anger and frustration. "Hailey, this is a school. Stop acting like a spoiled princess." He glared at me. "You're going to go back in there and tell the principal that you were just joking, that Chloe and I are just friends." "It's okay, Leo," Chloe said, peeking out from behind him. "Everyone knows you and Hailey are inseparable. It was my fault for even thinking I could be friends with you." She turned to leave, her shoulders slumped in defeat. Leo grabbed her arm, his eyes locked on mine. "You know, Hailey, you're really disgusting. I'm a person, too. Why do I have to be tied to you all the time? I can't even have my own friends! Did you buy me or something?" They went on like this, a perfectly rehearsed scene. When they finally paused for breath, I looked at Leo, at the undisguised loathing in his eyes, and said softly, "Didn't I?" 3 I've always had trouble connecting with people. Besides my parents, I've never been close to anyone. When I was five, I was kidnapped by one of my father's business rivals. I managed to escape, but they almost caught me again. Leo, who was just a little boy himself, stood in front of me, protecting me, and got two of his ribs broken for his trouble. In his hospital room, I, the girl who had never shown any interest in other children, told my parents I wanted to be friends with him. They were stunned. It was the first time I had ever expressed a desire for a friend. After a thorough background check, they agreed. And Leo's parents... their eyes lit up with a greedy, triumphant light. My mother came from an old, established New York family. My father was the head of a massive Hong Kong conglomerate. For their son to befriend me, to be connected to my family... it was the opportunity of a lifetime. From then on, they were always at our house, always encouraging us to spend time together, always hinting at a future between us. My mother, worried about my social isolation, asked me if I would be okay with being with just Leo. I didn't really have strong feelings about it, but seeing the concern in her eyes, I just nodded. I didn't want to be a burden to them. So, the next time Leo's mother brought up what a perfect couple we were, my mother made a verbal promise of engagement. That one, informal promise was enough to catapult Leo's family into the upper echelons of New York society. His parents were ecstatic. They pushed Leo to be with me constantly, to keep me happy, to make sure I never changed my mind. But as Leo got older, he started to resent it. The boy who had once patiently read to me, who had always known how to make me smile, was replaced by a sullen, resentful teenager. He hated it when people called us a couple. And then Chloe arrived. The first time I saw her, she was sitting at my desk, rummaging through my things. "Leo, is your deskmate really a girl? All her stuff is so ugly. She has the worst taste." Leo was leaning against my desk, a lazy smile on his face. "She's not like you, all pink and girly." "I am not girly!" Chloe pouted, and in her dramatic protest, she knocked my water bottle to the floor, where it shattered. When he saw me standing there, his smile vanished. "Chloe's new here. She didn't mean it. Just let it go." I just looked at Chloe. "That was an eight hundred dollar water bottle. You have three days to pay me back." She gasped. "Eight hundred dollars for a water bottle? Who do you think you are, a princess?" Someone behind her whispered, "She kind of is. Her family donated the new science wing." Chloe's face went from pale to beet red. "It was an accident! Why should I have to pay for it?" She tugged on Leo's sleeve. "She's just a rich snob." "Hailey, come on," Leo said, his voice full of a weary frustration. "It was an accident. And it's not like eight hundred dollars is a lot of money to you. Just drop it. Don't be so aggressive." "Fine," I said. "You pay for it. Eight hundred dollars. Venmo me now." His face darkened. "Are you serious? Over eight hundred dollars?" "Yes," I said. "My family's money didn't grow on trees." The whole class was watching. Mortified, he pulled out his phone and sent me the money. Then he started packing up his books. "Chloe, you said you needed help with calculus, right? I'll be your new deskmate." He said it to her, but he was looking at me, waiting for me to object, to beg him to stay. I just stepped aside to give him room to move his things. He glared at me, then slammed his books down on the desk next to Chloe. In that moment, I knew I had to talk to my parents. I was fine on my own. I had their love. I didn't need any friends. 4 The principal was on his way out when he saw us standing in the hallway. "Leo," he said with a smile, "are you leaving early today, too?" Leo looked at me, confused. "Too? Where are you going?" "A math competition," I said, my voice flat. The principal looked surprised for a second, then he seemed to understand. He just wished me luck and left. Back in class, our teacher was announcing the winners of the "Most Improved" scholarship. It was a scholarship my family had established to help students who were struggling but showing progress. As the teacher was talking, I heard Chloe whisper to Leo, "Thanks for all your help. As soon as I get the scholarship money, I'm taking you out to dinner." "No problem," he said with a smirk. But then the teacher called out a different name: "And the winner of the Most Improved scholarship is... Tiffany Liu!" Chloe shot up from her seat. "What? It should be me!" The teacher frowned. "If you have a problem, you can see me after class. Don't disrupt the lesson." As soon as the bell rang, Chloe chased after the teacher. She came back a few minutes later and collapsed onto her desk, sobbing. "Just because you're rich, you think you can do whatever you want!" Everyone gathered around her, asking what the teacher had said. She stood up and marched over to my desk. "I know this scholarship is from your family, Hailey. But you can't just abuse your power like that. Just because I'm friends with Leo, you're jealous, so you took my name off the list? How could you be so cruel?" The whole class was stunned, their eyes now on me. I looked up from my book. "Did the teacher tell you that?" Chloe's eyes darted away. "Do you think I'm lying? Everyone knows Leo can't stand you anymore. You have that stupid engagement, so of course you hate me. You don't know what it's like to be poor. I really need that money. Please, I'll give you back your precious Leo, just give me the scholarship." Leo, who had just come back into the room, saw Chloe crying in front of me and his face hardened. "Hailey, if you have a problem with me, take it up with me. Don't bully a girl." *A girl?* I felt a new level of disgust. "First of all, your 'little girl' is a year older than us. She's repeating a grade. Second..." I looked at Chloe and held up my phone, which was recording. "Everything you just said is slander. I could sue you for it." Chloe went pale and hid behind Leo. "Fine. I can't fight you. I'll just let Tiffany have the scholarship. It's a good lesson for me. The world is a cruel place." Leo's eyes filled with a pained sympathy for her. "Hailey, Chloe improved her score by a hundred points. Don't take your anger at me out on her. We're not your pawns!" Just then, Tiffany, a quiet, introverted girl who rarely spoke, stood up from her desk in the corner. She was trembling, her eyes red. She walked over to us, her voice shaking but firm. "Hailey didn't abuse her power. I deserved that scholarship. My parents are dead, and my grandmother is paralyzed. We live on a small disability check. When Hailey found out, she was the one who convinced her family's foundation to create this scholarship." "But even though it was created for me, my grades were so bad, I never qualified. Until this semester. I improved my score by 109 points, and my class rank went up by 305 places. I worked hard for this. I deserve this. And Hailey... Hailey doesn't deserve to be slandered like this!" By the time she finished, she was crying. 5 The classroom was silent. Then, a few whispers. "Hailey can be a little cold, but she's never been a bully." "Yeah, she's never looked down on anyone." "And that scholarship is a lot of money. Her family is really generous." "Tiffany really did improve a lot. She deserved it." The tide of opinion had turned. Chloe's face was a mixture of white and red. She couldn't take it anymore and ran out of the room, sobbing. Leo just looked at me, his expression complicated. "Even if you didn't rig it, did you have to embarrass her like that? We're all classmates." I finally looked up at him, a flicker of real anger in my eyes. "Leo, you have some nerve." I had never spoken to him like that before. He was my only friend, and as long as he didn't cross a line, I was willing to keep him around, if only to appease my parents. He was stunned, then a flush of shame and anger spread across his face. "You're being irrational," he spat, and stormed out of the room. Chloe didn't come back for the rest of the day. And for the first time ever, Leo skipped class. My mother, being in a different time zone, hadn't yet been informed of the broken engagement. That night, I was reading in bed when I got a text from an unknown number. It was a picture of several opened condom wrappers. The text underneath read: **"You stole my scholarship, so I stole your man. You really thought we were just using them for an experiment? Idiot."** Even though I had expected it, seeing the proof still made my stomach turn. I didn't reply. I just screenshotted the picture and the text and sent it to my butler. **"Include this with the announcement of the broken engagement."
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