Part 4 — Three years later he rejected me publicly, and I kissed the most dangerous boy — Adrian stopped smiling for the first time

Gael’s phone was still lying on the table. The message was glowing on the screen and was visible more clearly than the room’s only lamp.

“If you save Alma, I will reveal your own secret too.”

Dr. Meredith immediately called the university lawyer.

“The commission meeting will no longer be tomorrow morning,” she said. “Adrian has already moved it to tonight.”

“That is impossible,” I said.

“According to the rules, if the complaint concerns safety, it is possible.”

Gael lowered his head.

“This is my case. You should not go there.”

“For three years I let someone else decide where I should be instead of me. Now do not do this too.”

He looked at me. For the first time, there was neither irony nor confidence in his eyes.

Only exhaustion.

“Alma, if he uses my past, everyone will think that he is right.”

“Then let us tell everyone the truth.”

That night we left the library at four in the morning. A fine rain was falling outside. Gael did not want to get into the car until he was sure that I would get home.

“I’ll go myself.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you accompanying me?”

“Because I want to. Not because it is necessary.”

That difference struck my heart more than any beautiful words.

In the morning, the commission room was full of students. The story had spread throughout the campus. Some wrote that Gael had forced a girl to take his side. Some believed that I simply wanted revenge on Adrian.

Adrian was sitting at the table. Two lawyers stood in front of him.

Gael’s lawyer, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is your representative?” the chair asked.

Gael looked toward the door.

“I no longer have one.”

“What does that mean?”

“He called me in the morning and said that he would no longer take the case. He said there was too much to lose.”

The corner of Adrian’s lip moved.

Under the table, I took Gael’s hand.

His fingers were cold.

“Then I will speak,” I said.

First we presented the recording. Adrian’s voice sounded in the room.

“Alma depends on me. If she wins, she will win without me. That will not happen.”

Adrian could not bear hearing his own words. His face first turned red, then gray. Someone in the hall quietly exhaled.

“The recording was obtained illegally,” his lawyer said.

Dr. Meredith opened the second folder.

“Then here are the server history, the camera recording, and the file author’s data.”

Adrian’s account appeared on the screen. My paper had been opened on his computer, then renamed and uploaded under his name.

Adrian shook his head.

“I was helping Alma.”

“Is deleting the author’s name help?” I asked.

He fell silent.

“You told me I was a little sister,” I continued. “But you considered my work your property.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“No. You were fighting my independence.”

The chair stopped the recording and looked at Adrian.

“An additional investigation will begin. Your academic status is suspended until a decision is made.”

Adrian grabbed the chair.

“Walker planned all of this.”

Gael turned to him for the first time.

“I only opened the door. You entered yourself.”

Then his old case was considered. The fight recording that everyone had seen fully showed that Gael had been protecting a teammate who was being harassed by an assistant coach. The university had published only the last minutes. Dr. Meredith now presented the full video.

Gael was given a warning, but the grounds for expulsion were canceled.

After the hearing, Adrian was standing alone in the corridor.

“Alma, listen to me for at least one minute.”

“I listened to you for three whole years.”

“I did not want to lose you.”

“Nor did you want to choose me.”

For the first time I saw in his eyes not love, but fear — the fear of a person who had realized that another person’s life no longer belonged to him.

“Come back,” he said. “I will fix everything.”

“You do not want to fix things; you want me to return. I know the difference now.”

I left.

In a few weeks, the university made a final decision on Adrian’s case. His academic status was canceled, he was deprived of participation in the competition, and my research was officially returned to my name. Dr. Meredith apologized to me. Clara told me that what she liked most was how I no longer looked around every room searching for Adrian.

Gael did not celebrate the victory in court. Nor did he talk about Adrian’s destruction. He only told me:

“What will you choose now?”

I rented a small room in the old part of the city. In the mornings I worked in the university laboratory, and in the evenings I taught children how to draw maps of the city. My first certificate of my own hung on the wall.

Gael continued training. Once a week we met in a small café. He always put a mint candy on the table, and I protested this because its smell reminded me of that strange night.

“Are you still afraid of me?” he asked me once.

“No.”

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I still cannot believe that I once thought of you as if you were a rumor.”

He smiled.

“And I cannot believe that you gave me your first kiss only because you wanted to make another boy angry.”

“That was my worst decision.”

“No,” he told me. “The best decision for a bad reason.”

Three months later, the first snow came. We were decorating a small Christmas tree in Clara’s apartment when Adrian’s message appeared on my phone.

“You met me only once. Now I understand everything.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Earlier, such a message would have ruined my whole day. Now I watched the snowflakes from the window and calmly deleted it.

Gael asked me:

“Shouldn’t you answer?”

“I already answered.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

He nodded.

It was my first peaceful refusal.

That evening I sorted through my old bag and found in the small mirror pocket the wet wipe with which I had wiped my red lipstick from Gael’s cheek that night. The packet had dried out, but a small red stain was still visible on it.

Gael picked up the wipe.

“You still keep this?”

“No. I simply forgot to throw it away.”

“Sometimes that is enough too.”

I stood by the window. Outside, the streetlamps drew warm circles on the snow. I no longer wanted to prove Adrian’s love. I no longer wanted to be good, convenient, or enough for anyone.

Gael stopped beside me.

“Alma?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you kissing me now?”

I smiled, and this time I did not do it for anyone to see, to make anyone angry, or to save myself.

“Because I chose you.”

The wet wipe placed in the bag’s pocket still showed the red stain.

But that night, for the first time, I no longer remembered from whom I had wanted to escape.