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

On the giant screen of the running hall, first my face appeared, then Adrian’s, and the scream of four thousand students caught my breath.

That evening I was wearing red lipstick — the kind Clara always called “war paint.” I had loved Adrian silently, patiently, and with foolish devotion for three years. I knew what kind of coffee he liked, on which days he was afraid of exams, and why he did not talk about the dog that had died when he was a child. He asked nothing of me, but he did not stop me either.

That was exactly why, when the camera caught both of us and shouting broke out in the hall, I thought for the first time that the waiting had come to an end.

Adrian stood up.

I stood up too.

I took one step toward him.

He stepped back.

“Alma…” he said and smiled awkwardly.

“Kiss her!” someone shouted.

Adrian raised his hands.

“People, don’t exaggerate.”

Then he leaned so close to the microphone that everyone heard:

“Alma is like a little sister to me.”

The hall became noisy and silent at the same time. It sounded like that strange sound people make when someone is publicly humiliated.

My cheeks burned. I saw my own face on the screen and realized that I could not start crying there.

Clara took my hand.

“Sit down, please.”

“No.”

Two rows below, Gael Walker was sitting. The strongest player on the university basketball team. The boy about whom they said that he found fights everywhere, changed girls every week, and had almost been expelled once. Dark drawings were visible on his arms, and he had an old scar near his lower lip.

I looked at him.

He raised an eyebrow.

“If you’re coming, don’t change your mind halfway,” he told me quietly.

I did not think.

I went over and kissed him.

The hall exploded.

When the kiss ended, Gael first looked at me in surprise, then slowly smiled.

“Interesting.”

He returned to the court, while I froze in place. Only then did I realize whom I had kissed.

After the game, Adrian was waiting for me in the corridor. A plastic cup attached to the wall rattled thinly every time the door closed.

“What the hell was that?” he asked me.

“A kiss.”

“Why did you go after Walker?”

“You did not want to kiss me.”

“That does not mean you had to let him.”

“Why does it bother you?”

Adrian could not find an answer.

“He is dangerous, Alma.”

“And you watched me love you for three years.”

Anger appeared on his face.

“I just want to protect you.”

“No. Now, for the first time, you realized that you can no longer decide my life.”

He left.

I rushed into the women’s restroom and stood by the mirror for ten minutes. I was not crying. I simply wiped away the trace of red lipstick with my finger and laughed strangely.

When I opened the door, one of the team’s players was waiting for me.

“Walker is looking for you.”

“Why?”

“I would not ask questions.”

I found Gael leaning against the damp wall near the locker room. He had a small cut by his lip, and my lipstick was smeared across his cheek.

“You did this,” he told me.

“You can clean it too.”

“I tried. I made it worse.”

I took a wet wipe from my pocket and went close to him. I smelled soap, sweat, and mint. My hand trembled.

Gael stood completely still.

“Alma, before we remove this, there is one thing you should know,” he said.

His voice suddenly no longer resembled the irony I had heard in the hall. He turned on his phone, turned the screen toward me, and pressed one file with his finger…

The file opened, but no sound could be heard yet. Adrian was visible on the screen — in the hall, behind the cameras, several minutes earlier.

“Turn it off,” I told him.

“Listen first.”

Gael raised the volume.

“If Alma says anything today, everyone should know that she is only a friend. I do not want anyone to think that I promised her anything.”

My stomach clenched.

“When did you record it?”

“When I entered the team room. I left my phone on the table.”

“Why were you keeping it?”

“Because something was wrong in this story.”

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps came from the end of the corridor. Adrian was coming. Gael turned off the phone and stood in front of me.

“Now you decide,” he told me quietly.

Adrian stopped beside us.

“Alma, I’ll take you home.”

“No.”

His gaze moved to Gael.

“You do not know him.”

“Maybe,” I answered. “But I already know enough about you.”

Adrian clenched his teeth.

“Tomorrow morning you will regret it very much.”

Gael smiled, although there was no laughter in his eyes.

“Is that a threat?”

“A warning.”

Adrian left. Silence fell for several seconds.

Then Gael told me that this recording was not the only evidence. A second file was stored on his laptop, but to see it we had to go to the university’s old archive.

It was becoming midnight when we arrived at the abandoned library. The iron door was half open.

Someone was already waiting for us inside…

Only one lamp was lit in the library archive. The old clock showed twelve seventeen. There was a smell of dust, and the wooden box on the table had a freshly scratched mark beside the lock.

Dr. Meredith, the head of the student council, was standing there. Adrian stood beside her, his hands in his pockets, with a look as if he had planned this entire scene in advance.

“Alma, go back,” he told me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Because Walker is going to use you.”

Gael laughed quietly.

“This story again?”

Dr. Meredith put a white folder on the table.

“Gael is threatened with expulsion from this university. Because of fighting, threats, and academic fraud.”

I heard the sound of blood in my ears.

“Academic fraud?”

Adrian immediately interrupted him:

“You see? That is exactly what I was telling you.”

Gael stepped forward and took a small memory card from his pocket.

“Then let’s listen to everything.”

He turned on the laptop. In the first recording, Adrian’s voice sounded.

“If we make Alma believe that Gael is dangerous, she will turn back to me herself. His research files must also remain with me until the competition ends.”

Dr. Meredith lowered her face.

My fingers went cold.

“You took my research?” I asked Adrian.

“It was not like that.”

The second recording started.

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

Silence filled the room.

Adrian lost color.

“This voice could have been edited.”

Gael put a document on the table.

“Then here are the file creation time, the camera recording, and your signature with which you transferred Alma’s paper into my name.”

Dr. Meredith opened the folder and turned it toward me.

There was the title of my research. As the author — Adrian.

“Why?” I barely asked.

Adrian could no longer endure my looking at him.

“Because if you became independent, you would no longer need me.”

That was the truth. Not love. Not protection. Control.

Gael said in a low voice:

“And there is one more thing you should know, Alma. I did not protect you that night by accident. I had known what he was doing for three weeks. I wanted to take you away from him, but I never made the choice instead of you.”

For the first time I looked at his tattoos and saw that one of them depicted a small sheet of paper. It turned out to be a drawing by his sister, Nora. Nora had been unjustly blamed and left the city. It was then that Gael decided he would never again let anyone turn another person’s fear into a weapon.

Adrian suddenly opened the door.

“I will not leave this here.”

He went out.

Dr. Meredith looked at her phone and knitted her brows.

“Bad news. Adrian has already filed a complaint claiming that Gael pressured you. The commission will meet tomorrow morning.”

Gael fell silent.

A new message appeared on his phone. He read it, and for the first time I saw his face change.

“What happened?” I asked.

He turned the screen toward me.

The message said: “If you save Alma, I will reveal your own secret too.”

But Gael still did not know that Adrian had more than just his past in his hands…