Just last night, she was so eager, so passionate, as if she wanted to burn our love into eternity.
Why end it now?
I forced myself to calm down and started digging into the situation through my own channels.
That was how I ended up here—at her engagement.
On stage, I could see it clearly: Evelyn Carter wasn’t happy. She was being forced into this.
“Give me a kiss!” Someone in the crowd jeered.
The greasy little man tried to grab Evelyn’s hand. She flinched back instinctively.
His fleshy lips quivered as he spat, “You forgot what you promised me already?”
Her face drained of color, but she stepped forward anyway. She must have been threatened.
Without hesitation, I shoved through the crowd and shouted:
“Evelyn, if something’s wrong, tell me! Don’t put yourself through this!”
Every gaze in the hall snapped at me.
When Evelyn saw me, a flicker of joy lit her eyes—then vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by icy resolve.
“Who the hell is this kid?” Marco Ramirez barked.
“You dare call my fiancée by her first name so intimately?”
I opened my mouth to reveal my identity, but Evelyn cut me off.
Her brows knit tightly, her voice sharp as knives:
“He’s just a lapdog. Throw him out. Don’t waste your attention on him.”
A lapdog?
The word cut deeper than a knife. Around me, I felt the mocking eyes of the crowd, full of contempt.
So that’s what they thought of me? Evelyn Carter’s obedient little pet?
But I wasn’t one.
Evelyn and I met during a student club activity in my sophomore year. I’d just finished a grueling basketball game, was starving, and stole a pack of chips from my roommate. He cursed me out and told me to call him “godfather” if I wanted to eat his food.
I didn’t even take the joke seriously, but he actually did it, humiliating himself in front of everyone.
That was when Evelyn stepped forward, sharp and fearless, telling me not to bully people just because they were broke—and not to steal food either.
She had that “big sister” vibe, always trying to play fair.
So I leaned into it, pretended to be a pitiful poor boy, pestering her every day until she finally softened. Before long, we were together, and the whole school whispered that I was her kept man.
The rumor stung. I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed, so I told her the truth—that my family wasn’t poor at all. But she just shrugged, as if it didn’t matter.