Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ethan Carter was truly the campus heartthrob—good-looking, top of his class, and with a great personality.

Everyone said I'd hit the jackpot by landing such an amazing boyfriend.

I just smiled and said nothing.

I waited for him outside his classroom after class.

It was the last class on Friday. While he was inside, the hallway was filled with other couples waiting for their partners, and a few female students huddled together chatting.

"Which one is Ethan Carter?"

I glanced over and saw a girl with loose hair asking a short-haired girl next to her, her voice loud enough for others to hear.

The short-haired girl pointed him out.

"That's Ethan Carter? He's so handsome—how come I've never seen him before?"

"Oh, he's always in the classroom or the library."

"Does he have a girlfriend?"

"Haven't you heard? It's Elena Bennett, from the Economics department." With that, the short-haired girl stole a glance in my direction.

I heard my name and knew she'd seen me. I met her gaze, and for a moment, there was awkward silence.

The short-haired girl quickly dragged the other girl away.

Even as they walked off, I could still hear their voices clearly.

Someone whispered, "She's just average-looking. How did Ethan Carter end up with her?"

"Who knows? I heard they've been together since high school."

I watched their backs and shrugged. I'd heard comments like this more than once.

Ethan and I had been together since our second year of high school, and now we were sophomores in college—four years total. I couldn't blame people for saying those things. Ethan was genuinely handsome; he'd had countless admirers since high school. As for me, I wasn't bad-looking—back in high school, I was among the more attractive girls in my class. But college was different; there were so many beautiful people here that I just blended into the crowd.

I sighed, pulled my hands out of my pockets, and peeked into the classroom. Ethan was sitting in the middle rows, pen in hand, bent over his desk calculating formulas.

Next to him sat a girl.

They were sitting quite close, and the soft glow of the setting sun fell right on their faces—like the main characters in a novel.

And me? I felt like an irrelevant third wheel.

Class ended, but they still didn't leave.

I walked into the quiet classroom. Ethan looked up when he saw me, but only for a split second before he bowed his head again to keep discussing something with the girl.

Their voices were low, almost like they were whispering. Besides, I couldn't understand physics—those complicated problems were way over my head anyway.

Since standing around didn't help, I found a random seat and sat down, watching them over my shoulder.

Ethan kept his eyes down, leaning forward to work on the problem, completely unaffected by my arrival.

The evening glow wrapped around the remaining sunlight, and layers of orange-scaled clouds filled the sky.

As I watched him and that girl, a big red "X" seemed to mark itself in my heart.

I could tell—the girl liked Ethan too.