I automatically started picking at my hand before realizing my fingers were icy cold.
The chill spread from my heart through every inch of my body.
I bent forward slowly, as if I could press the pain out of my chest, but it didn’t work.
The anguish was everywhere.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I clutched the recorder and sobbed.
When I returned home from the hospital, Adrian arrived almost at the same time.
Seeing me unharmed, he seemed relieved.
“Layla, about what happened at the hospital—”
“No need to explain. I don’t want to hear it.”
His brow furrowed for a second, then smoothed.
He took out a red velvet jewelry box, revealing a ruby necklace.
“I saw this on the way home and thought you’d like it.”
I stared at it without reaching for it.
When my guaranteed graduate school admission was revoked, my roommates fully believed the rumors.
They poured red paint all over my bed and scrawled “slut” and “STD” across it.
Even after I cleaned it, new insults would appear.
In the end, I moved into a single dorm room, only to find “public property” and “community bike” spray-painted on the door.
Since then, I’ve hated red.
Adrian knew that.
I took the necklace and tossed it into the trash.