Chapter 69

hapter 69

Bella

I stared at the screen of my laptop in the campus library, heart pounding as I refreshed the student portal one more time And there it was my grades updated. The failing mark in Darrell’s class had flipped to a solid Passed Scholarship safe No more panic emails from financial aid. No more late-night spirals about dropping out.

let out a long, shaky breath and leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes for a second. Relief washed over me like col water-sharp, almost painful. Darrell had actually done it. He’d submitted the “correction form, claimed it was a grading error on his end, and the department had bought it. They’d even sent him a mild reprimand email (I saw the thread in e system logs somehow). He took the hit so I didn’t have to.

But the money in my account; the extra bundles he’d pressed into my hand, still felt like it was burning a hole through everything. Every time I thought about Mom using it for her treatments, gratitude tangled with share. I’d bought me for her. I’d bought my future. And I’d paid for it with pieces of myself.

Lara still hadn’t come home. No reply to my texts, no answer to my calls. Every message sat there delivered but unread the little blue ticks mocking me. I kept telling myself she was just busy; maybe her phone died, maybe she was crashing at someone’s place. But Jones’s words kept echoing: Gina and Lara are best friends. She knew long before me If that was true why hadn’t Lara warned me? Why had she pushed me toward Darrell in the first place?

I tried not to think about it too hard. I couldn’t afford to fall apart yet.