Chapter 380: The lonely boy

Noah

Nick Bennett didn’t accuse me; he just let everyone else reach the natural conclusion on their own.

The exams were cancelled and rescheduled, the charity money was gone, and the entire student body was furious about the extra weeks of studying.

Every single eye in that building turned on me with pure hatred.

The moment that officially broke me happened later that week. I was standing by my locker, holding my heavy bag in my hands, when my favorite history teacher walked past.

He stopped for a second, looked at me with deep, genuine disappointment, and said quietly, "I expected much better from you, Noah."

I was seventeen years old. The hallway felt a mile long, and there were too many faces looking at me, none of them kind.

Later that evening, Nick found me in our shared bathroom at home. He was leaning against the sink, adjusting his collar in the mirror, and his reflection showed that same slow, amused expression he always wore when a plan worked out exactly how he wanted it to.

I looked at him through the glass, my hands shaking against the porcelain tile. "Why?" I whispered, my voice cracking. "Why would you do that to me, Nick?"

Nick gave a small, bored shrug, not even turning around to face me.

"People kept asking me why someone like me had a brother like you," he said, his tone entirely casual.

"I figured it’d be easier if everyone just hated you instead. Still... it was really entertaining to watch you fall for such an obvious trick. You’re really stupid, aren’t you? Or maybe just desperate." He let out a soft, dry chuckle.

"I don’t know which one is actually worse."

It wasn’t a grand villain speech. It was just a petty, simple comment that completely devastated whatever was left of my life. For the next year, my father refused to look at me or speak to me across the dinner table.

My mother put on a massive performance of maternal concern for the neighbors, but inside the house, she folded completely inward, avoiding me as if I were contagious.

The house stopped being a home; it just became a place I had to survive every single day.

And the entire time, through the whole final year of school, I kept waiting for just one person to stop me in the hallway, or at the school gate, or at the bus stop. Just one person to look at me and say, I know you didn’t plan this.

Nobody ever came.

Inside the car, my voice finally trailed off into the quiet interior. The story had brought back the exact weight of that old hallway, the coldness of the linoleum, and the sharp sting of the teacher’s words.

I looked down at my lap, realizing that my hands were trembling slightly against the paper bags, my breath coming in short, uneven hitches.

Cyan noticed. He didn’t make a comment, and he didn’t offer any empty platitudes, but he smoothly steered the sports car out of the crawling line of traffic, finding a small, empty space along the dark curb.

He clicked the gear into park and turned the roaring engine off, plunging the interior into a deep, heavy silence.

He kept his hands firmly on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead through the windshield at the streetlamp outside. The silence between us lasted for a long time, the kind of silence where a heavy piece of information is being completely absorbed.

Slowly, I watched his knuckles turn a stark, bloodless white against the black leather of the wheel, one by one, his fingers clamping down with a force that looked like he was carefully trying not to explode.

Then, he spoke quietly, almost entirely to himself. "He really did all that to you."

I swallowed hard, my defensive instincts kicking in automatically out of habit. "I mean... it wasn’t entirely his fault, I shouldn’t have—"

"Don’t," Cyan cut me off, turning his head sharply. The single word was soft, but it carried a firm, absolute weight that stopped me instantly. He wasn’t angry with me; he was completely furious on my behalf.

I closed my mouth, staring at him.

"You are still telling that entire story as if you were the villain of the piece, Noah," Cyan said, his eyes drilling into mine with intense focus.

"But every single version of that memory ends with a frightened seventeen-year-old boy who was just begging for someone to like him." He let out a sharp, angry breath.

"You were seventeen. You were still a child, Noah. And he manufactured every single second of that nightmare. For months. Every smile those boys gave you, every single invitation to hang out... it was all fake. He paid for it."

I couldn’t respond. I just sat there in the quiet leather seat, letting the words wash over me, the old weight in my chest shifting uncomfortably.

"You don’t have to carry the shame for something you were completely manipulated into doing," Cyan added, his voice softening just a fraction.

"I unlocked the door, Cyan," I whispered, a small, stubborn knot of guilt tightening in my throat. "That part was me. No one forced my hand."

"You were seventeen, you were drunk, and you were desperately, horribly lonely," Cyan argued, leaning closer. "You were surrounded by people who had spent an entire semester building up your trust specifically so they could break it at the exact right moment to save themselves. If somebody has to carry the shame for that night, Noah, let it finally be the people who actually earned it."

I looked up at him, the yellow light from the streetlamp hitting the side of his face. Before I could stop it, a single, heavy tear escaped my eye, running down my cheek in a slow, hot line.

Cyan watched it fall, his expression turning completely serious. "Can I ask you something now?"

"Yeah," I choked out, wiping the moisture away with the back of my hand.

"Do you want him to suffer?" he asked simply. There was no judgment in his voice, no moral lecture about forgiveness or taking the high road. It was just a plain, direct question.