Chapter 2

Neither of the two people in the dorm room moved.

One didn't dare; the other was in too much pain to move.

When Chubby got back from his morning run and saw a crowd gathered at the dorm entrance, he had a bad feeling.

He quickly pulled out his keys and opened the door.

Now the whole scene inside the room was in plain view for everyone.

Boris forced a strained smile.

"Felix, I just want you to keep your focus on your studies. There's really no need to blow up at me like this."

He said nothing at all about how any of it had started.

Chubby came in and hugged me.

I pointed at his phone, my voice loud enough for the whole floor to hear.

"What gives you the right to sell my medicine? Who said you could?"

"Do you know that's the medicine that keeps me alive? Is a human life worth only five hundred dollars in your eyes?!"

I dry-heaved, sick to my stomach.

The way the people around us looked at him changed.

"This girl's medicine got sold?"

"What kind of snake of a roommate is that? How could anyone do something so heartless?"

"If my life-saving medicine got sold, I'd be even crazier than him."

Listening to the muttering around him, Boris went pale.

He steadied himself.

"Everyone, don't get the wrong idea. Felix is emotionally unstable. He doesn't even know what he's saying."

"I saw him sleeping in class every morning, so as class president I just wanted to look out for him."

The muttering around us died down a little.

I want to die.

I couldn't hear, I couldn't see, and dully my gaze settled on the railing across from me.

We were on the second floor here, not like the fourth or fifth where there wasn't even an open spot to catch a breeze.

I couldn't think it all through—my body was faster than my mind, and before anyone could react I already had one foot up over it.

The air went silent for a second.

Then it exploded.

"Stop him!"

"Call the teacher, hurry!"

My body was rigid, and I'd only gotten one leg over before someone pulled me back down.

Boris walked up to me, his face dark, and let loose on me.

"What are you doing? Putting on a show for everyone? I asked you a couple of things about your studies, and you have to act like you're going to kill yourself?"

"Is this any way to treat your parents?"

He was rattled.

He knew things had blown up, and he wanted to pin all of it on me.

But he did get one thing right.

I couldn't die.

If I died, what would happen to my parents? Would I make them bury their own child?

"I want to die."

"No, I can't die. I have to live."

The expressions of the people around him shifted.

"He really does seem to be in a lot of pain."

Tears running down my face, I forced out a smile.

I looked at Boris.

"Please, give me back my medicine. My parents scrimped and saved out of their own mouths to buy that for me."

Drained, I sank down flat on the ground, as if bowing low to him.

Chubby quickly helped me up and couldn't stop himself from shouting at Boris.

"Haven't you done enough? I figured, since you were his roommate, at least you'd give the medicine back to Felix—but you actually sold it? Are you even human?!"

Countless ways to die flashed through my mind, and I forced them back down.

Now that I'd been given a second life, I couldn't fall here.

I borrowed Chubby's phone and called my mom.

"Mom..."

"My medicine got sold."

There was silence on the other end of the phone before my mom's voice came through.

"Felix, is there anyone around you?"

I handed the phone to Chubby.

He took it.

"Okay, ma'am, I'll keep an eye on him."

After the call ended, Chubby gripped me even tighter.

"Felix, your mom's on her way."

The academic advisor came hurrying over, and that was exactly what he heard.

His face went ashen.

Once the parents knew, it wouldn't be easy to resolve this internally.

If he handled this badly, his Outstanding Teacher award at the end of the year would be gone.