Chapter 3

That duty roster went around the whole freshman group chat.

Someone had lined up my photo next to the four of them.

【Monday, Hugh. Tuesday, Bernard. Wednesday, Horace. Thursday, Bob.】

【Weekends off. Even a master of time management needs a break.】

Underneath, nothing but laughter.

The nastiest comment got pushed to the very top.

【A whole dorm taking turns dating her. Who knows if they're taking turns with more.】

I reported one, and a new picture popped up.

On my way to the counselor's office, two guys came at me head-on.

One of them asked, loud enough on purpose,

"Jessica, can I book Fridays?"

The other laughed so hard he could barely stand.

I gripped my papers and walked past them.

The voices behind me got louder.

"What's the act for. You sounded pretty into it in that video."

I pushed open the office door.

The counselor had already seen the video.

"Did you bring the original records?"

I handed over my phone.

"From start to finish, I only ever added one account. Hugh's."

She scrolled back for a long time.

Every message came from the same person.

No Horace.

No Bernard.

And definitely no Bob.

The counselor frowned.

"Then why do all four phones have records?"

"They were logged into Hugh's account."

"Do you have proof?"

I opened my mouth.

I didn't.

All I could prove right now was that four phones had, in fact, been logged into that one account.

As for who set it up, Hugh and the others could just say it was me.

The counselor saved the material.

"The school will contact the account holder."

"But they submitted a statement saying this was a welcome video the whole group planned together."

"And you did agree to record your daily life as a couple."

"I never agreed to show my face," I said quickly. "And I sure as hell never agreed to them spreading lies about me."

"I know."

She pushed a cup of water toward me.

"That's why it has to be verified."

"The freshman assembly is the day after tomorrow. Until this is sorted out, we're giving the speech slot to the backup student."

My fingers went stiff.

I'd rewritten that speech more than a dozen times.

When my high school teacher heard about it, she'd called just to congratulate me.

Now, before I'd even sat through my first college class, I was already the joke of the whole campus.

I'd barely stepped out of the office when my phone rang.

My mom's voice was shaking.

"Jessica, is what they're saying online true?"

My throat tightened.

"No. I only ever dated one person. Hugh."

"Then what's this about four phones?"

Even my mom asked the same question.

I leaned against the wall.

"They used one account and took turns tricking me."

The other end went quiet for a long time.

My dad still hadn't said a word.

My mom lowered her voice.

"Someone at your dad's work sent him the video."

"He just got into a fight with a guy over it."

I heard my dad in the background.

"Tell her to come home."

"Classes haven't started yet. Come back and lie low for a few days."

I bit down on my lip.

"I didn't do anything wrong. Why should I hide?"

My dad didn't say anything else.

The call ended.

The campus gossip page put out a second video.

This time there were no images.

Just my voice.

"Hugh, Bernard, Horace, Bob……"

Two seconds' pause, then another line,

"I like all of them."

The two lines ran together smoothly.

But the first one was me asking Hugh who was coming to the dorm's group dinner.

The second was him telling me to pick one gift out of four acceptance presents.

What I actually said was,

"Anything you give me, I'll like."

Bob had cut out everything in between.

The video title read,

【Jessica Henson admits it herself: I like all four of them.】

The comment section completely blew up.

【Caught red-handed and still won't drop the act.】

【Do her parents know she plays around like this at school?】

【And someone like this gets to be freshman representative?】

My DMs kept popping up.

Some people asked my price.

Some sent photos.

One asked me straight out,

【How many can you fit in a night?】

Jemima grabbed my phone and shut off the messages for me.

"Stop looking."

I sat in the chair, my hands shaking without stop.

She picked up the chat logs I'd printed out.

After a while, she suddenly asked,

"Jessica, did you ever notice that Hugh's typing habits change every other day?"

I looked up.

On Mondays, he liked to use periods.

On Tuesdays, he never used any punctuation.

On Wednesdays, he always called me Jess.

On Thursdays, he'd write grandma when he meant grandmother.

Those days lined up exactly with the roster.

I thought of the digital relationship scrapbook Hugh had given me.

He'd said he wanted to save every single day, from the day we met to the day we finally met in person.

The link was still in the chat logs.

I opened it again.

The main content had already been deleted.

But the version history was still there.

I scrolled back.

The deleted spreadsheets appeared one by one.

The earliest one was called,

【Summer Online Romance Project Handoff Sheet.】

The first row read,

【June 10, Bernard.】

【Task: Keep her company while she waits for her acceptance results. Get her dependent on the account.】