The Scholarship Girl & The Rich Young Master

ne I had left. I told myself yesterday was just yesterday. At Rosewood Elite Academy, if you showed fear, they would eat you alive. So I would not show fear. I

t. Now I would walk around all day with a red stain. Ms. Johnson, our homeroom teacher, walked in. She was holding her coffee. She saw my desk. She saw the blackboard. She saw me sitting in a puddle of red ink with red hands. And she sighed. A long, tired sigh. Like I was the problem. "Mia," she said, "please clean that up before class starts. We have a test today." Not "who did this?" Not "are you okay?" Not "who wrote that on my board?" Just "clean it up." Just like that. This was Rosewood Elite. This was how it worked. If you were poor, if you were a scholarship girl, you were invisible unless you were a problem. And then you were told to clean up your own mess, even if you didn't make it. I nodded. I couldn't speak. I took out tissue paper from my pocket, the cheap kind that tears easily, and I started wiping the ink. My hands were red. The stain wouldn't come off the desk. It just smeared. The more I wiped, the more it spread. My tissue turned red, then broke apart. Suddenly, a shadow fell over my desk. The giggling in the class stopped. It went quiet. Jace. He stood in front of me. Up close, he was even taller. I could smell his cologne, something expensive and cold. He was holding a clean, new set of textbooks. Expensive ones. The same edition I had, but new. No bent corners. No second-hand stamps. The Rosewood Elite crest shining on the cover. He dropped them on my desk. Thump. Loud. "You're making the class smell like cheap ink," he said loudly, so everyone could hear his disgust. His voice was cold, arrogant. The voice of a Rich Young Master. "Use those." I stared at the books. They were brand new. No name on them. No writing inside. Someone had just bought them from the school store this morning. Was he... helping me? After he ruined my lunch yesterday? After he stared at me like I was nothing? "Why?" I whispered. My voice was so low I thought he wouldn't hear. He leaned down, close enough that only I could hear. I could see his eyelashes. I could see a small scar near his eyebrow. His voice dropped. "Because you're distracting me, scholarship girl. And I don't like distractions. So stop being pathetic and sit down. You're blocking the air." His voice was harsh, but his eyes... his eyes looked at my stained hands for a second too long. His jaw tightened. Like he was angry, but not at me. Or maybe he was. He went back to his seat. The class was in shock. Jace Carter had just given something to the scholarship girl. The poor girl. In front of everyone. Tyler frowned at him. He took his feet off the desk. "Bro, what are you doing?" Jace didn't answer. He just looked out the window, jaw tight, his hands in fists on his desk. He ignored everyone. I sat there,