Isabelle Croft had always been the queen of our campus, an ice princess enthroned, and I was the only one she ever let into her frozen kingdom. But then the new transfer, Caleb Ryder, arrived. He started engineering "chance" encounters, a constant, smirking presence in her orbit. Everyone whispered that the new flame could never outshine the lifelong friend, that Caleb’s little stunts were a waste of time. A story as old as time. They were wrong. It all shattered the night a man with a grudge against the Croft empire slipped past campus security and took Caleb hostage. In that moment, Isabelle’s composure finally broke. She didn't hesitate. She threw herself in front of Caleb, taking the knife that was meant for him. Even as she lay bleeding, her life fading, she just caressed Caleb’s face. “As long as you’re okay…” she whispered. I stood on the edge of the crowd, the world’s biggest fool, a punchline for a joke I never knew I was a part of. Later, in the sterile silence of the hospital room, Isabelle was a mess of tubes and monitors. She struggled to speak, her voice a dry rasp, but her words were for me. “I don’t want to owe him anything,” she said. “Leave him alone.” A hollow laugh escaped my lips. This twisted little drama of love and hate belonged to them now. I had no part to play. The moment that man chose Caleb as the perfect leverage against her, my own irrelevance became blindingly clear. Fine. I’m out. 1 I had just finalized the last of my paperwork to study abroad when Isabelle walked in. Her eyes fell on the passport and the crisp visa documents on the table, and a flicker of confusion crossed her face. “I thought we were doing this together.” It took me a beat to realize she was talking about the European trip we’d planned for the summer. A lifetime ago. This was not a tourist visa. I gathered the documents, my movements slow and deliberate, and shook my head. A practiced, placating smile touched her lips. “I didn’t forget, Leo,” she cooed. “It’s just… Caleb’s cast isn’t even off yet.” Caleb Ryder. When Isabelle had shoved him out of the way of the knife, he’d stumbled and fractured his tibia. “We’ll go as soon as he’s fully healed, okay? I promise.” “It doesn’t matter anymore, Isabelle. My plans have nothing to do with you.” The smile vanished. “Leo, I know you’re angry. But I told you, I just didn’t want to be indebted to him.” Her voice took on a sharper edge. “Besides, you waited months to do this, long after I was out of the hospital. You were obviously waiting for me. Don’t pretend this isn’t about us.” A dull ache pulsed in my chest. She thought I’d been waiting for her. The truth was, I’d submitted my applications the same night she’d taken that knife for him. The bureaucracy was slow, but she saw the delay as proof of her power over me, another reason to take my devotion for granted. I suppose I’d enabled it. For years, my love for her had been unconditional, a quiet, steady force she’d learned to treat as a natural resource. “I just didn’t want him to get hurt because of me,” she continued, her tone shifting from placating to the cool, detached logic she was known for. “It wasn’t about humiliating you.” “But you’re still sulking,” she said, the warmth gone completely. “You’ve been giving me the silent treatment for months. It makes things awkward for me and Caleb. I have to endure all the gossip and stares just to have a conversation with you.” She paused, her gaze unwavering. “I think you need a little reminder.” Her hand went to her phone. She stared right at me as she dialed, her voice perfectly calm. “Mr. Davison? I need you to terminate Leo’s father. Effective immediately.” My jaw went slack. My blood ran cold. She put the call on speaker. The hesitant voice of her father’s Senior VP came through the phone. “Ms. Croft, with all due respect, his father has been with us for nearly a decade. He’s a senior manager… and besides, I thought he and your son, Leo…” Isabelle cut him off, her voice like ice. “I said now, Mr. Davison. Right now.” Less than three minutes later, a text from my dad lit up my screen. Son, did you do something to upset Isabelle? A second later, the message was deleted. My fists clenched. My entire body hummed with a rage I couldn’t voice. Our family’s company went under ten years ago. Isabelle’s father had given my dad a position, a lifeline that kept us afloat. But before all that, before the bankruptcy, it was my father’s mentorship that had helped build the Croft empire in the first place. This wasn’t just business. This was a deliberate, cruel severing of ties, a middle finger to decades of shared history. I forced the words through my teeth. “Isabelle, have you even considered what our parents will think about this?” She was unmoved. “Why should I care? It’s not like you’ll starve. You can always come live with me. I’ll take care of you.” The condescension in her voice made my stomach turn. She knew. She knew how much I’d always hated the rumors that painted me as her follower, her glorified assistant. Ignoring my fury, she reached out, her fingers gently smoothing the crease between my brows. “Don’t be angry,” she murmured, her voice softening into a familiar, intimate whisper. “It makes you look ugly.” It was so casual, so disarmingly familiar, like a scene from a life before Caleb Ryder ever existed. A life where there were no cracks in our foundation, where she’d sketch out our future with a seriousness that belied a secret, childlike innocence—a side of her no one else ever saw. But someone else saw it now. I pulled my head back. Her hand froze in mid-air. A slow, chilling smile spread across her face, as if she’d just discovered a fascinating new game. “Leo,” she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush, “do you have any idea how much… when you’re angry like this…” She leaned closer. “You look just like Caleb.” 2 Screech. The sound of my chair scraping against the floor cut through the quiet cafe. I ignored the heads that turned in our direction, my gaze locked on her, cold and final. “Take care of yourself, Isabelle.” Without another word, I gathered my papers and walked out, leaving her sitting there. I didn’t look back, but I felt her eyes on me. A few seconds later, I heard her own chair move, and she stormed off in the opposite direction. Back at my apartment, an anonymous email was waiting for me. I opened it without surprise. Just as I’d expected, it was a message from my mysterious benefactor, offering a list of executive-level job openings for my father. This had been happening for months. When I first started the process of applying to schools abroad, this person had offered to handle everything. I’d refused, yet every step of the way—from transcripts to recommendations—had felt suspiciously smooth. They seemed to know everything about me, materializing with a solution every time I hit a snag. I’d tried to trace the source, but it was like chasing a ghost. As usual, I typed a polite refusal. A moment later, a formal invitation to the Croft family’s annual gala appeared in my inbox. A message from Isabelle's father. I decided to go. It was time to sever this last tie, cleanly and for good. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Caleb Ryder there, preening in a bespoke suit from Isabelle’s private designer label. Her favor had turned him into the evening’s mystery guest, the man everyone was whispering about. I kept my distance, but he sought me out, a smirk playing on his lips as he raised his glass. “Still giving Isabelle the cold shoulder? Take some friendly advice, man. Don’t overestimate your importance.” He leaned in, his voice dropping. “After all those years you spent playing the perfect gentleman, who do you think was the one to finally get her to let go?” He loosened his tie, tilting his neck to the side. A constellation of hickeys, new and old, dotted his skin. It was impossible to count how many times she’d been with him. I closed my eyes for a second, then turned to walk away. He threw an arm around my shoulder, stepping in front of me again, his voice a greasy whisper. “She’s a wildcat in bed, you know. All that ice just melts. I bet you never even got close, did you? Too busy being the good little boy.” He laughed. “Once she got a taste of a real man, she was begging me for more.” That was it. I snapped. My fist connected with his face in a single, satisfying crack. “Keep the details of your sordid little affair to yourself.” The commotion drew every eye in the room. Caleb staggered back, blood trickling from his nose, his moment of glory shattered. I took a step back, gave a brief, apologetic nod to Isabelle’s father across the room, and headed for the exit. I’d barely made it to the lobby when Isabelle caught up to me, her face a mask of fury. “Leo, you’ve gone too far! I want you to go back in there right now and apologize to Caleb in front of everyone!” My voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. “By telling him to stop broadcasting your private life to the entire world? Was I wrong?” I let my gaze drift down to her collarbone, where a faint red mark peeked out from the edge of her gown. Her eyes widened in surprise. “You knew?” She stared at me, a strange look of disbelief on her face. “Why aren’t you angry?” Of course. In her world, I was a fixed star, destined to revolve around her forever. My indifference was a disruption of the natural order. She couldn’t comprehend it. “Oh, I get it,” she said, a confident smirk returning to her lips. “This is your new strategy, isn’t it? Trying to get my attention by pretending you don’t care.” I took another step back, putting more space between us. Seeing this, she switched tactics instantly, her entire demeanor softening. She closed the distance between us, her movements slinking and playful as she draped her arms around my neck. “Oh, come on, Leo… don’t be like this…” The cluster of hickeys on her neck was right there, impossible to ignore, a vulgar tattoo against her pale skin. Her red lips, parted and glistening, moved as she spoke. A wave of nausea washed over me. I shoved her away, doubling over as my stomach churned, and vomited onto the pristine marble floor. Isabelle’s face flushed as if I’d slapped her. Her voice was sharp with rage and humiliation. “What the hell, Leo? Don’t you dare stand there and pretend you’re so pure! I know you’ve wanted me for years!” I wiped my mouth, the bitter taste of bile coating my tongue. I forced myself to look at her and managed to choke out a single word. “Filthy.” The color drained from her face. That one word stripped her of every last shred of dignity. Her eyes narrowed, filled with a cold, venomous promise. “Fine,” she hissed. “You remember what you did tonight, Leo. I’m going to make you regret it.” 3 She had tried to placate me, to charm her way back into my good graces, and I had thrown it all back in her face. Her patience had finally reached its limit. I didn't give much thought to how she planned to make me "regret it." I should have. The next day at the university, I walked into class and was hit by a wall of stench. My desk was overflowing with rotting garbage. Students nearby pinched their noses, shooting me looks of disgust. The whispers followed me. “Guess Leo’s not the golden boy anymore. Looks like Caleb is the real deal.” “Yeah, Isabelle would never do something like this to someone she actually cared about.” “I heard she told everyone not to help him. He’s going to be totally ostracized.” “Serves him right. He was always just her shadow anyway. It’s not like he has any other friends.” An involuntary tremor ran through me. She was using my own trauma against me. After my family went bankrupt, this was my life. The social ruin, the isolation, the constant, petty acts of cruelty from people who suddenly saw me as less than human. Back then, Isabelle had been my shield. She’d stood in front of me, a small, fierce protector against the world. And now… she was the one orchestrating the attack, using the very wounds she’d once healed as a weapon. Had she forgotten? Or did she simply not care anymore? I fought to steady my breathing, telling myself to stay calm. I was about to start clearing the mess when Caleb Ryder and a group of his cronies from the football team burst into the room. “Leo,” he said, a malicious grin spreading across his face. “Isabelle asked me to deliver a little gift.” I froze, a knot of dread tightening in my stomach. Without another word, Caleb nodded to his friends. Two of them, built like linemen, grabbed me. I struggled, landing a solid punch on one of them, but I was outnumbered and overpowered. Caleb leaned in close, holding up his phone. A live video was playing. The subject was my father. My pupils contracted. “What are you doing?!” I roared. On the screen, my dad was at the wheel of his car. The camera shook violently, and the car swerved, hitting a concrete barrier. Before he could even unbuckle his seatbelt, a burly man with menacing tattoos covering his arms yanked him out of the car. Caleb’s voice was a gleeful whisper in my ear. “I just mentioned to Isabelle that my jaw still hurt from your punch. She was more than happy to tell me exactly where your weak spots were.” Just then, Isabelle herself walked into the classroom. She saw me being restrained, but her only concern was for Caleb. “Feeling better now?” she asked him softly. Every muscle in my body strained, veins popping on my neck. “Isabelle!” I snarled, the name a curse. She finally looked at me, her expression cold as stone. “You hit my boyfriend at my family’s gala. That’s the same as hitting me. Humiliating me.” She shrugged. “Your father loses a leg. Caleb lost face. It seems like a fair trade.” Caleb, basking in her defense, smirked at me and spoke into his phone. “Do it.” “NO!” With a surge of pure adrenaline, I threw the two men off me and lunged for the phone. But I was too late. I saw it all. The man on the other end of the call lifted a heavy iron pipe and, without a moment’s hesitation, brought it down on my father’s leg. The sickening crack of bone and my father’s agonized scream hit me at the same time. My world tilted. I stumbled, nearly collapsing. Isabelle’s face paled slightly. She rushed forward to steady me, but her words were utterly devoid of compassion. “Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not like it happened to you.” It felt like a hand was crushing my heart. She knew. She knew my dad and I had been a team, just the two of us, since I was a kid. She knew how he’d worked himself to the bone to build a life for us, only to lose it all. She remembered how she’d been the one to comfort me, to fight for me, when everyone else had turned their backs. Back then, I thought we had a bond that could never be broken. How ironic. When the love died, it didn't just disappear. It twisted, metastasizing into a weapon she now aimed not just at me, but at the only family I had left. Something inside me snapped. I launched myself forward, kicking Caleb square in the chest and sending him sprawling. Before anyone could react, I brought my heel down hard on his uninjured leg. Not satisfied, I grabbed a broken chair leg from the corner and began bringing it down on his leg again, and again, and again. The room was filled with the sounds of my ragged breaths and the wet thud of wood against flesh. The other students were frozen, staring in horrified silence. “Leo, stop!” Isabelle, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and fury, threw herself in front of Caleb, shielding him with her body. The chair leg connected with her arm. She cried out in pain. A chilling cold washed over me. She was protecting him. Just like I had once protected her. Caleb pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. “Isabelle, why would you do that?!” But she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were locked on me. “Are we even now, Leo?” she asked, her voice strained. I gripped the makeshift club, my knuckles white. I couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. “If this makes you feel better,” she gasped, “then you have to promise to leave Caleb alone from now on.” I stared at her, incredulous. The man she was protecting had just ordered my father’s leg to be broken. His own injuries were superficial at best. And she was asking me to call it even? “Leo, I don’t want you to live with so much hatred in your heart. It will destroy you.” Caleb, clutching his leg, glared at me with pure venom. “The one who can’t let go of a grudge is him, Isabelle,” I bit out. “I was just returning the favor. You should be saying that to him!” Her face twisted in disbelief. “I already told you! Your father’s injury was payback for you hitting Caleb in public! That doesn’t give you the right to attack him like this!” A wild, humorless laugh escaped my lips. I was done talking. I shoved her aside, grabbed a whole chair this time, and brought it down towards Caleb. Today, he was going to learn what regret really felted like.
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