Chapter 6

I didn't know who had spread the word, but soon everyone in my class knew that I was working part-time at a coffee shop, even Adrian.

Like Dorothy, he would order dozens of coffees at a time, with a note asking me to deliver them to the school's training room.

But he never made things difficult for me. He would just let me leave as soon as I delivered them. It seemed he asked for me because, unlike delivery men, I could enter the school, saving him the extra walk.

At first, the boys in the training room would tease him, suggesting I was Dorothy's classmate and wondering if Adrian had taken a liking to both of us, specifically asking for me.

Adrian, however, never even gave me a proper look or bothered to speak to me, and gradually, they just saw me as an errand girl.

The real trouble began during the final exams of the first semester of my senior year.

I was the last to leave the classroom at noon, cramming every minute until the bell rang.

I went to the restroom and encountered Dorothy trapped in a stall. She had started her period and asked me to fetch a sanitary pad from her backpack.

With no other classmates in the room and being Dorothy's deskmate, I felt obligated to help her in such an emergency.

When I searched her backpack as she instructed, I found nothing.

Even after a thorough second search, there was nothing.

Remembering I might have a spare pad in my own backpack, I went to fetch it for her.

It was just a small act of kindness, but it led to Dorothy falsely accusing me of stealing her money.

I never imagined Dorothy would set me up and escalate the situation to the point of forcing me to withdraw from school.

I cried as I explained the truth to the teachers, but they didn’t know whom to believe, as Dorothy had always been an outstanding student.

The security footage was too blurry to be clear but did show me rummaging around in her backpack as she claimed.

The principal asked to meet our parents.

Dorothy's parents came, but mine did not.

Her mother, as impeccably dressed and poised as when I first met her, demanded I apologize to Dorothy and admit my wrongdoing.

I was not wrong, so I refused to apologize.

She said, "Is this what your school teaches? If she graduated from school, would she steal and still argue so defiantly when caught? It really shows what kind of family she comes from. She is so shameful that even her parents didn’t bother to show up!"

I listened in silence, no longer defending myself.

The school denied my scholarship application and suggested I transfer.

Without the scholarship, I couldn’t afford the tuition, so I decided to take a year off from school.