The first time Jessica Miller and Megan Flores destroyed my life, they pushed me from the roof of a thirty-six-story building. The second time, I opened my eyes in our high school library and heard the boy they had killed me for say, “Ryan, come on. We made a promise. The four of us stay together.”
Chapter 2
My mother knew something was wrong the moment I entered the kitchen. I set my laptop on the table, tried to explain calmly, and made it through maybe three sentences before the memory of falling thirty-six stories crashed into me.
I started shaking.
Mom wrapped both arms around me.
Dad listened without interrupting. By the time I finished, his face had gone pale with anger.
“He took your computer?”
“Yes.”
“And those girls held you while he changed your applications?”
“Yes.”
Dad picked up his phone.
Ethan’s family had struggled financially for years. My parents, through a community education program, had helped pay for his school supplies, meals, tutoring, and a modest monthly allowance. I had been the person who introduced him to Jessica and Megan because I thought he seemed hardworking and grateful.
That ended that night.
Dad contacted our school counselor, who reviewed the application records and confirmed that the changes had been made from the library during school hours. More important, the supposed three-change rule was only a system warning designed to discourage careless editing. Unauthorized selections could still be corrected before the deadline.
By midnight, my original choices were restored.
Ethan had no idea.
For the next two weeks, he sent me photographs almost every day. Jessica kissing his cheek at a diner. Megan hanging on his shoulder at a football game. The three of them posing beside a South Side brochure.
His messages were worse.
How does it feel to lose both girls?
Don’t worry. The one I don’t choose can still date you.
Can’t wait until you realize we’re roommates next year.
I never answered.
I saved everything.
Then my Harvard acceptance arrived.
Our neighborhood foundation had an old tradition of publicly recognizing local students admitted to elite universities. Because the foundation also awarded a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship, the acceptance packet was held for presentation at the annual ceremony.
The announcement in the neighborhood group chat said only that one graduating senior had been accepted to Harvard.
Within five minutes, Jessica’s mother thanked everyone for congratulating her daughter.
Megan’s mother responded almost immediately.
“Why would it be Jessica? Megan scored twenty points higher.”
By dinner, the two women were at war.
Mrs. Miller bragged about Jessica’s grades. Mrs. Flores posted Megan’s test scores. Neighbors started taking sides, praising both families and asking how they had raised such brilliant daughters.
Neither mother knew her daughter had thrown away every elite-school application to follow Ethan.
The next afternoon, almost the entire neighborhood crowded into the foundation courtyard.
Jessica and Megan arrived together.
Ethan walked between them.
When he saw me, he smiled like a man approaching someone he had already defeated.
“You’ve had time to cool down,” he said. “So here’s the deal. Apologize, and we’ll let everything go.”
I almost laughed.
“There’s more,” Jessica said. “Your family needs to start helping Ethan again.”
Ethan nodded solemnly. “My allowance should probably be a thousand a month now. College expenses are different.”
“My family isn’t giving you another cent.”
His mouth fell open.
Megan stepped toward me. “His parents can’t afford school.”
“That sounds like something Ethan should think about.”
Jessica’s face twisted. “You’re doing this because we chose him.”
“No. I’m doing this because he stole my laptop and tried to sabotage my college applications while you two held me down.”
Ethan shook his head sadly. “You’re still pretending you can get out of it.”
Then the foundation director walked onto the small stage holding a sealed envelope.
The courtyard quieted.
“We are delighted to recognize one of our own young people today,” she announced. “Please congratulate Ryan Jenkins on his admission to Harvard University.”
For three full seconds, nobody moved.
Then my mother screamed.
Dad grabbed me around the shoulders.
Applause erupted as I walked toward the stage.
Behind me, I heard Jessica whisper, “No.”
Ethan looked as if someone had struck him.
Mrs. Miller pushed through the crowd. “There’s been a mistake.”
Mrs. Flores was right behind her. “That acceptance belongs to Megan.”
The director blinked. “Ma’am, the letter has Mr. Jenkins’s name on it.”
That was when a delivery van pulled into the courtyard.
The driver stepped out carrying two large envelopes.
“Jessica Miller?”
Mrs. Miller rushed forward.
“Megan Flores?”
Mrs. Flores practically tore the second envelope from his hands.
Both women ripped them open.
Mrs. Miller read first.
Her expression changed so violently that the courtyard became silent again.
“South Side Community College?”
Mrs. Flores stared at her own letter.
“No,” she whispered. “Megan applied to Stanford. MIT. Duke.”
Her eyes snapped toward her daughter.
“Megan?”
Neither girl answered.
They both looked at Ethan.
He understood instantly.
“I told them not to do it,” he said.
Jessica’s head whipped around.
“What?”
Ethan raised both hands. “I told them they were too smart to follow me. They insisted.”
“You liar!” Megan shouted.
The entire neighborhood watched the friendship collapse in real time.
“You said if we loved you, we had to prove it,” Megan cried. “You said Ryan was coming too.”
Dad stepped forward. “What does my son have to do with this?”
Ethan pointed at me.
“He betrayed us! He was supposed to attend South Side too, but he secretly changed his applications.”
I walked to the microphone.
“Actually, Ethan changed mine.”
A murmur swept through the crowd.
I took out my phone.
“Two weeks ago, Ethan took my laptop in the school library. Jessica and Megan physically stopped me while he deleted my university selections and submitted South Side instead. My parents and counselor had the unauthorized submission reversed.”
“That’s a lie!” Ethan shouted.
“I have the access records.”
His face went white.
“And I have his messages.”
I read them aloud.
Not all of them.
I didn’t need to.
By the third message, people were staring at Ethan with open disgust.
Mrs. Miller slowly turned toward Jessica.
“You threw away your future for him?”
Jessica began crying. “Mom, he said Ryan was doing it too.”
Mrs. Flores glared at Ethan. “Our families helped you. We fed you. We gave you clothes.”
Ethan’s frightened expression vanished.
“They chose it!” he shouted. “How is it my fault they’re stupid?”
That ended whatever sympathy remained.
Mrs. Flores lunged at him. Ethan stumbled backward. Jessica screamed at Megan. Megan screamed at Ethan. Their mothers started blaming one another.
Dad put a hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, son.”
I folded my Harvard letter and slipped the scholarship check into my jacket.
As we walked away, the shouting continued behind us.
For one strange moment, it sounded like wind.
The same wind I had heard while falling from a rooftop.
Only this time, I wasn’t the one falling.
The consequences came quickly. Jessica’s and Megan’s parents called admissions offices, counselors, anyone who might reopen a door their daughters had willingly closed. Deadlines had passed, and the universities they once dreamed about had no obligation to rearrange their admissions process because two teenagers had made a terrible choice.
Their phones were confiscated. Their spending money disappeared. Both families told them that if South Side was what they wanted, they could work to help pay for it.
Ethan’s situation collapsed even faster.
My parents ended his sponsorship permanently. Once Jessica and Megan lost access to their parents’ money, the gifts they had been buying him disappeared too. At school, videos from the scholarship ceremony circulated, and his carefully constructed image as the humble scholarship kid was replaced by something far less flattering.
A week before I left for Massachusetts, Jessica and Megan cornered me outside the school gates.
“Ryan,” Jessica said. “Please.”
I kept walking.
Megan caught my sleeve. “Our parents won’t pay for anything. You have that scholarship. Your family has money.”
I looked at her hand until she let go.
“You helped someone try to ruin my future,” I said. “Now you want me to finance yours?”
“We were manipulated,” Jessica whispered.
“Then learn from it.”
“We’ve been friends since we were five!”
There was a time those words could have broken me.
Instead, I remembered a rooftop.
“I know.”
I walked away.
The next morning, I boarded a plane for Boston and never looked back.
