Chapter 3

The next day, I went to the lab.

Before I left the country I'd left a logbook in my locker, packed with experiment data and records of every failure, and the formulas Margery had corrected for me.

When I pushed the door open, Margery was leaning over a test tube in Graham's hand.

"The temperature's too low. Try again."

"How are you still this hopeless, Graham?"

Patient, gentle, every word of it.

I walked to the locker and pulled the door open.

Empty.

"Looking for this?"

Graham picked the logbook up off the table.

"Give it back."

He flipped through a couple of pages, all innocence. "I started late, there was a lot I couldn't keep up with, so Margery let me use this."

The data was circled all over in red pen, and several pages had been torn clean in half.

"What gives you the right to touch my data?"

I reached for it.

Graham stepped back, right into Margery's arms.

She steadied him by the shoulders and frowned.

"You scared him. You're going abroad anyway, you won't need it. Don't be so petty."

I looked at her. "You give my things to someone else, and you don't even need my say-so?"

"Margery, do you actually think that as long as it's Graham who wants it, I'm supposed to hand it over to him?"

I watched her, my chest tight.

She said nothing.

The silence was answer enough.

I took the logbook back and tore it out page by page.

Those first six months in the lab I couldn't do anything, chasing after her every day with this notebook, asking one question after another.

She called me hopeless to my face, but every time she took it and reworked it start to finish.

Now, though, there was no point keeping it.

Margery's face changed. "What are you doing?"

"They're mine. I get to decide whether they stay or go."

I tore the last page in two and dropped it in the trash.

Graham's eyes went red on the spot.

"Margery, did I do something wrong?"

"This has nothing to do with you." She looked at me, her voice turning fully cold.

"When did you not kneel and beg me not to leave? You never said one word back then. What's the act now?"

I stood frozen, forced the tears back down, turned, and walked out.

That night a post floated to the top of the campus forum.

The Story of a Guy at Our School Who Threw Himself at a Girl for Five Years and Never Got Made Official

The post named no one, but it spelled out my major and my year clearly.

The poster spared no venom:

【This guy's been throwing himself at her since high school, followed her to apply to the same school, and still thought he was the real boyfriend.】

The comments were nothing but ridicule.

【Five years and still not made official. Suggest finding someone else to grovel to.】

【The girl's got it rough too, stuck being harassed by someone like this.】

Soon one of Margery's friends replied underneath with a dog-face emoji.

【Those who know, know.】

Margery didn't reply. But she liked that comment.

I stared at the screen, my fingers ice-cold.

Then I traced the account that posted it. It was Graham.

I put up a screenshot. A second later, the post was deleted.

I posted again. Deleted again.

I took my phone and found Margery.

"Did you delete my post? On what grounds?"

"He's about to prep for his grad school exams. Your post would hurt his reputation and his interviews."

"Besides, I've already deleted the post he made. In a few days no one will remember."

"And my reputation? People talking about me, cornering me in the bathroom, sticking notes on my dorm door, none of that matters?"

Something flickered across her face, then quickly settled back into cold.

"No one's actually hurting you. Don't blow this up into something ugly."

Margery turned and walked off with Graham, murmuring to soothe him.

"Don't be scared. I'm here."

That line, she had never once said to me.

Not when everyone was pointing and cursing at me. Not when I lost my father, lost my home, lost her.

She never said it.

I stood there, and it hit me all at once.

It wasn't that I'd never won.

It was that not once had Margery stood on my side.