Part 3The Poor Student’s Revenge

I slowly pulled my thoughts back, my chest rising and falling, finally expelling a sigh of frustration. I figured it must have been Jess’s possessiveness, hearing Lucas mention girls staring at me, that made her so angry. So, it wasn’t entirely for me. It was purely about her pride.

Lucas, with a taunting tilt of his chin, cackled incessantly. “Jess, what are you saying? Liam’s angry, go sweet-talk him!”

Jess’s eyes were deep and dark, fixed on me like a snake finding its prey. Damp, sticky, and utterly unnerving. That’s how she got when she was angry—not saying a word, but forcing me to appease her. A classic diva tantrum, some would call it. But didn’t poor people deserve to have tempers too?

I coldly averted my gaze, turning to Lucas. I asked, with what I considered utmost politeness: “I heard your family went bankrupt?”

Lucas froze, then wrinkled his nose, his face openly hostile. “Liam, why do you smell like trash? My family isn’t bankrupt, and don’t come near me, I’m afraid I’ll catch something from you!”

I smiled faintly. “Oh? Then why are you on the scholarship list? Could it be that young master Lucas wants to experience life as a scavenger too?”

Lucas crossed his arms, rather imperiously. “Liam, Liam, I just wanted to experience how you lower-class people live. But you? You’re destined to pick scraps, always destined to pick scraps. I’ll tell you, it was Jess who deliberately let you use her smartphone so you’d be photographed, and that’s how I got your spot!”

Oh, so that’s how it was. I lowered my lashes, a faint pang in my heart. Jess was a germaphobe; she never allowed me to touch her things. I remembered one time, it was raining, and she had a stomachache. I ran to buy her food, and in my haste, I fell and scraped my knee, covered in mud. She frowned at my wound, silent. I urged her to eat, but she simply tossed the food into the trash.

She said, “Liam, don’t get hurt for me; it worries me. And also, I don’t like touching things others have touched. It’s dirty.”

But her germophobia was fake, and her affection was fake too. She just found me dirty. The earthy smell of rain was exactly like the small shack where my grandfather and I lived. A shack piled high with scrap metal.

Lucas was right. I made a living by selling salvaged goods. But I never felt ashamed because of it.