The Page Where The Story Began

At our high school graduation party, my so-called best friend tossed an old enamel lapel pin into my lap. She laughed, saying she had way too many guys chasing her, and since the poorest one bore her to death, she was letting me pick up her sloppy seconds. The moment my fingers closed around the cool metal of the pin, floating text suddenly illuminated in the air right before my eyes: [Don't believe her! That pin belongs to the male lead. If he sees you with it, he'll think you're a thief!] [The male lead and female lead grew up together. They're practically one confession away from dating. Using random trash to make him jealous is her favorite game.] [Tonight, the side character is going to get her bag searched in front of everyone and become the laughingstock of the academy!] [After this, the male lead gets her scholarship revoked just to avenge his girl. Her entire future gets trashed!] It turned out that every single scrap of kindness she had ever shown me was just a joke for her own amusement. But she didn't know one crucial detail. I knew the line of text scratched onto the back of that lapel pin better than anyone alive. The VIP room door swung open. Reed walked in, his gaze immediately locking onto the badge in my hand. His eyes turned freezing cold. Before he could speak, I slapped the metal pin face-down onto the glass table. "Hey, Reed." "Didn't you say this was Taylor's most treasured possession?" "Then why is my childhood name scratched into the back of it?" 01 The entire room fell dead silent for two seconds. Then, the leather sofas erupted into mocking laughter. "Ruby, are you out of your mind with jealousy?" "Taylor throws you a piece of trash to play with, and you actually start acting out a soap opera?" "Your childhood name? What's next, are you going to tell us you and Reed were secretly married in preschool?" Taylor sat in the center of the sectional sofa. She was wearing a designer white dress, her curled hair cascading over her shoulders, the corners of her eyes flushed a delicate pink from the champagne. She looked at everyone like a victim on the verge of tears. Hearing my words, she paused for a second before letting out a soft, condescending giggle. "Ruby, stop it." She reached out to grab the pin, her voice dripping with the sugary sweetness of an adult coaxing a toddler. "This is Reed's old badge. It means a lot to him. Even if you're obsessed with it, you can't make up wild jokes like that." I didn't let go. Taylor's hand hovered awkwardly in mid-air. Reed's eyes shifted toward me. He stood by the entrance, the sleeves of his black button-down shirt rolled up to his forearms. On the pale skin of his wrist sat a faint, jagged scar. He got that scar when he was seven years old, falling into a drainage ditch back in the Westside slums. The floating comments surged across my vision: [Oh no, the side character is trying to steal his childhood trauma now!] [The back of the badge says 'Misty', right? That's the female lead's childhood nickname!] [He's been searching for his first love for ten years. He hates liars more than anything.] [Get ready for the bag search! Here comes the karma!] [Wait, doesn't Ruby's middle name happen to be Misty too?] [Just a coincidence, stop defending the thief.] The crowd was already eager to see me humiliated. A girl jumped up from the sofa and aggressively snatched my worn canvas tote bag. She ripped the zipper open. AP Calculus workbooks, a dollar-store chapstick, and my grandmother's medical bills spilled all over the sticky floor. She picked up the hospital notice and read it aloud with theatrical pity: "Kidney dialysis, three thousand dollars past due?" "Ruby, are you so desperate for cash that you're actually trying to con Reed into paying your bills?" The roar of laughter hit me like a physical slap, ringing sharply in my ears. Taylor furrowed her brow with fake concern. "Don't be mean, guys. Ruby has a lot of pride." She always did this. She would hand the knife to someone else. Then she would gently remind them not to twist the blade too deep. I bent down and quietly gathered my grandmother's medical bills, one by one. When my fingers brushed against the enamel pin, I flipped it over. On the tarnished gold back, someone had clumsily scratched two words with a pocketknife: For Misty. The letter 'S' in Misty was carved backward. The kid who scratched it was only seven years old, too young to even write his own letters correctly. Reed's expression finally cracked. He took a sharp step forward, reaching out for the pin. Taylor's eyes welled up with tears first. "Reed, don't listen to her." "She's just depressed because the Ivy League scholarship nominations come out next week. She probably just wants to prove that somebody cares about her." "I'm not mad at her, really." Reed stood in absolute silence for a long time. Then, he extended his hand toward me. "Ruby, give me the pin." His voice wasn't loud. But the entire room instantly quieted down. They were waiting for me to break, waiting for me to cry, waiting for me to bow my head and apologize just like I used to. Instead, I gave a small smile and dropped the cool metal into his palm. As my fingers brushed against his skin, he flinched. I looked him dead in the eye and spoke softly. "Reed." "That pin isn't the only thing you managed to throw away." 02 Before I turned seven, my name wasn't Ruby Shaw. My name was Misty. My father died young, and my mother remarried, claiming I was bad luck before dumping me on my grandmother in the Westside slums. My grandmother raised me by collecting scrap metal and cardboard boxes. Everyone in the neighborhood called me Misty. Later on, my grandmother legally updated my birth certificate and registration. The name Misty was buried at the bottom of a municipal relocation file, never to be seen again. The year I met Reed, he had just escaped from kidnappers. He was hiding behind the condemned stage of an abandoned theater, burning with a violent fever, his jaws clamped tightly around a shard of broken porcelain. He looked like a feral, stray dog soaked in the rain, terrified and aggressive. I crouched down and offered him half of my sugar cookie. "What's your name?" "Wilder," he rasped through dry lips. "I'm Misty," I said. "Sounds cool together, doesn't it?" He was delirious from the fever, but he still sneered. "Misty is a stupid name. Fog just blows away the second the wind hits it." I didn't hold it against him. That night, I stole aspirin from my grandmother's cabinet and hid him inside a wooden crate beneath the old stage. The next morning, the men hunting him tracked him down to our alley. Terrified they would find him, I grabbed a loose brick and smashed the leader right above the eyebrow. The man kicked me so hard I flew into a pile of shattered glass, leaving a gash between my thumb and forefinger that required seven stitches. Eventually, his wealthy family found him. A fleet of black luxury cars blocked the entire dirt road. Before the bodyguards lifted Wilder into the car, he grabbed my hand and refused to let go. His eyes were bloodshot, but he tried to put on a brave, tough face. "Misty, wait for me." "When I grow up, I'll buy you a real academy badge." Back then, Westridge Prep was the most elite school in the city. He always bragged that he would get in someday. I nodded. Years later, the slums were demolished, and my grandmother moved us into a cramped public housing flat. I became Ruby Shaw. In the second semester of my freshman year, I earned a full academic scholarship to Westridge Prep. My uniform was washed until the fabric turned gray, my sneakers were glued together at the seams, and my bangs hung long enough to hide my eyes. Nobody in the classroom wanted to sit next to the charity case. Only Taylor voluntarily moved her desk next to mine, flashing a brilliant smile. "Ruby, I think you're really special." I actually believed her back then. When she said she hated the cafeteria breakfast, I woke up at five in the morning and walked twelve extra blocks to buy her favorite bakery croissants. When she said she didn't understand AP Calculus, I broke down my competition notes into the simplest, step-by-step explanations and tutored her for hours. When she said her parents were too strict about boys, I screened her messages for her. I threw away the love letters she didn't want. I blocked the guys she didn't care to see. Now and then, she would throw me a tiny bone. A half-used designer lip gloss, a headband she didn't like anymore, or a casual, "Ruby, you're literally my best friend." That lasted until the winter of my sophomore year. I walked to the dance studio to drop off her winter coat and overheard her chatting with the cheer squad. "Do you seriously treat Ruby like a real friend?" someone asked. Taylor let out a delicate, airy laugh. "Her? She's just useful." "Poor people have fragile egos. If you throw them a tiny bit of validation, they'll act like your personal servant." I stood outside the door, my knuckles turning white as I gripped her coat. Just as I turned to run, someone reached out and offered me a small pack of tissues. Reed leaned casually against the lockers, his expression entirely unreadable. "Don't cry on her expensive coat." It wasn't a nice thing to say. But he wasn't laughing at me. After that day, I started paying attention to Reed. He was the "Reed" Taylor always bragged about. Their families lived in the same gated estate, running in the same wealthy circles since birth. Everyone at academy said it was only a matter of time before they made it official. I thought so too. Until one afternoon, I went to the gym equipment room to drop off a inventory log. The door was slightly cracked. I heard Taylor whining inside. "Reed, why won't you just ask me out already?" His voice was quiet and heavy. "Taylor, I'm looking for someone." "You mean that girl Misty again?" My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack my chest open. I wanted to push that door open. I wanted to tell him that I was Misty. But an instant later, Taylor opened the door from the inside. Seeing me standing there, her face didn't register a single hint of surprise. "Ruby, you heard all of that?" She smiled, casually taking the clipboard out of my frozen hands. "Then you should know your place. In some stories, even if the poor girl tries to insert herself, she'll never be the main character." 03 The graduation party ended in total disaster. As I walked out of the VIP room, the whispers from my classmates still trailed down the hallway. "Is Ruby insane? Why would she fight Taylor over trash?" "She's always been pathetic like that. Whatever Taylor has, she stares at like a hungry dog." "I heard her scholarship nomination is in trouble. She probably just snapped." I didn't look back. Reed jogged out and caught up to me. "Ruby." I stopped walking. He stood three steps away from me, his fingers clamped tightly around the old enamel badge. The dim hallway lights washed across his features, stripping away his usual cold arrogance and leaving behind raw panic. "What did you mean by what you said in there?" I looked back at him. "What do you want it to mean?" Reed stared intently at my face. "The old Westside slums. The abandoned theater. The sugar cookies." "Do you know about those?" He had clearly investigated his past. He just hadn't found the whole truth. The floating text surged again: [Wait, what is happening? Is the side character actually his first love?!] [No way! In the original plot, she just makes up lies to get attention, and the male lead chooses to believe the female lead anyway.] [Taylor, get out here and explain! Don't let the liar steal your backstory!] [Why does the male lead look so desperate right now?] I looked at Reed. For a split second, I genuinely wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell him that when he was convulsing from a fever, I begged the clinic doctor to put the medicine on my tab. I wanted to tell him that when those men cornered him in the alley, I held a broken glass bottle in my bare hands to buy him time. But in the end, all I said was: "No idea." The desperate light in his eyes instantly died out. His knuckles turned white around the badge. "Then how did you know about the engraving on the back?" Before I could answer, Taylor hurried out of the room. Her eyes were rimmed with red, playing the innocent victim to perfection. "Reed, stop questioning her." "It's my fault. I shouldn't have brought the pin out." "Ruby is just jealous of my life. She didn't mean any harm." Her voice broke into delicate sobs. Reed's jaw tightened. But for the first time ever, he didn't immediately reach out to comfort her. Taylor froze in shock. I suddenly felt exhausted by the entire game. I turned around to leave. Taylor lunged forward and grabbed my wrist from behind. "Ruby, the final Ivy League recommendation list gets posted next week, right?" "You really wouldn't want a nasty scandal ruining your chances at a time like this." 04 Taylor's retaliation arrived much faster than I expected. During first period the next morning, my guidance counselor called me into his office. A thick stack of printed chat logs sat on his desk. The printouts showed me offering competition answers in exchange for scholarship votes, along with fake bank transfers to faculty members. The screenshots were flawless. The profile picture, the handle, the timestamps, everything matched my account. The only problem was that I had never written a single word of it. The counselor looked disgusted. "Ruby, the administration is taking these allegations very seriously." "Until the ethics board completes an investigation, your nomination for Valedictorian speaker is suspended." I stared down at the printed papers. I didn't cry, and I didn't waste my breath defending myself. The floating comments were already spoiling the aftermath: [Here it comes! Her scholarship is officially gone!] [This is so satisfying. She never deserved to breathe the same air as the female lead.] [Taylor is just teaching her a little lesson. That's what she gets for touching the male lead's keepsake.] [Wait, did Ruby actually send those messages?] [Who cares? As long as everyone believes she did, that's all that matters.] They were right. Did the truth even matter? Taylor's greatest talent wasn't creating a lie. It was making sure everyone around her was eager to believe it. By noon, an anonymous confession post popped up on the academy's forum. [A certain scholarship student tried to steal her best friend's crush, and now she's caught cheating on her academics too.] It didn't use my name. But the attached photo clearly showed my profile as I walked out of the guidance office with my head down. The comments broke three thousand in an hour. People called me a desperate gold-digger. People called me a fake intellectual. Someone even dug up my awful student ID photo from freshman year and captioned it: "Looking like a stray dog and she still thinks she can compete with Taylor? Delusional." I sat on the concrete steps of the stairwell, scrolling through the comments one by one. A notification banner popped down from the top of my screen. Reed: [Where are you?] I ignored it. He sent another: [I know you didn't do it.] My thumb hovered over the glass. A second later, an incoming call took over the screen. I answered, greeted instantly by his tense, frustrated voice. "Ruby, look up." I raised my head. Reed stood at the top of the stairwell, holding a carton of milk and a pastry from the bakery. His eyes dropped to the bright red slap mark across my cheek, his pupils contracting sharply. "Who hit you?" I touched my face. Oh. One of Taylor's cheerleaders had walked past me in the hall and decided to teach me a lesson. I didn't fight back. Not because I couldn't win. The hallway security camera was broken. If I fought back, they would just tell the principal I was the aggressor. Reed walked down the steps and crouched in front of me, his voice rough. "Why didn't you dodge?" I offered a dry smile. "Hey, Reed. Aren't you worried Taylor might cry if she sees you talking to the school pariah?" He didn't answer. He unscrewed the cap of the milk bottle and held it out to me. "Eat something first." I didn't reach for it. He stayed silent for a moment, then grabbed my hand and forced the warm bottle into my palm. "Ruby, you don't have to look at me like I'm your enemy." I finally met his eyes. "Then how should I look at you?" "Do I need to squeeze out two pretty tears like Taylor before you believe I'm innocent?" Reed's throat bobbed. "I don't believe her." "But you didn't believe me either." He stiffened. The moment the words left my mouth, I caught myself. It sounded too much like a complaint. A complaint that he hadn't recognized me after all these years. A complaint that he had let Taylor wear my memory like a costume. A complaint that he had stood by and watched me get dragged into the dirt over and over again. I stood up and set the milk bottle down on the step. "I don't need your charity, Reed." "And stop searching for Misty." "She stopped waiting for you a long time ago." 05 That afternoon, the administration called an emergency senior assembly. The head of the scholarship committee stepped up to the podium and spoke into the microphone: "Due to recent controversies regarding academic integrity, Ruby Shaw's nomination for the Ivy League endowment is officially suspended." A wave of whispers rippled through the auditorium. Taylor sat in the front row, turning her head to look back at me. There wasn't any obvious gloating in her eyes. Just a sickening, superior kind of pity. After the assembly dismissed, she cornered me in the restroom. "Ruby, it's not too late to apologize," she said, pulling a designer compact out of her purse to touch up her lipstick. "Give the lapel pin back to Reed, tell everyone you were making up stories last night, and I'll personally talk to the dean for you." I watched her reflection in the mirror. "Taylor, aren't you exhausted?" Her smile faltered. "Stealing someone else's childhood just so you can get babied for ten years. Doesn't that get exhausting?" She raised her hand to slap me across the face. This time, I caught her wrist in mid-air. I squeezed hard. The blood drained from her face as she gasped in pain. I leaned in close to her ear and whispered: "Why do you think I haven't released my statement yet?" Panic finally cracked her composed mask. That night, she sent a text demanding I meet her on the academy roof. By the time I pushed through the access door, the sky was pitch black. The wind was brutal, slamming the heavy iron door against its frame. She stood near the safety railing, her eyes puffy and wet. "Ruby, we were friends for three years." "Do you really have to ruin everything over a stupid crush?" I gave a cold laugh. "A little late to play the best friend card, don't you think?" She bit her lip. "Fine. I admit someone helped me edit those chat logs." "But you aren't innocent either!" "You knew Reed was obsessed with finding that little girl from the slums, and you deliberately used the badge to mess with his head." I looked at her, truly amazed by her delusion. "Taylor, did your brain stop working? You literally threw that badge into my lap." "So what?!" She finally dropped the act. Her pretty face twisted into something ugly in the darkness. "I can make you the most popular girl at Westridge Prep, or I can make you a pathetic joke before graduation! You belong to whatever category I put you in!" I tapped the screen of my phone, saving the voice memo. Her expression shattered as she lunged forward to grab my device. I stepped aside, letting her stumble. Suddenly, the heavy iron door burst open. Reed stood in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, clearly having sprinted up the stairs, his eyes fixated entirely on Taylor's face. Taylor instantly burst into hysterical sobs. "Reed! It's not what it sounded like!" "I was just terrified!" "I was scared she was going to take you away from me!" He walked out onto the roof, step by slow step. He didn't even look at her. He walked straight toward me. "Did she hurt you?" Taylor's sobs cut off instantly. The floating text exploded into chaos: [Wait, what is happening to the male lead?! Why is he checking on the side character?!] [This isn't how the script goes!] [Taylor is crying her eyes out! Is he blind?!] I slid my phone safely into my blazer pocket, my voice flat. "No." Reed let out a long, shaky breath. Taylor completely unraveled. "Reed!" "Did you forget who stayed by your side for the last ten years?!" "Does a decade of my life mean nothing compared to a few weeks in a slum?!" He finally turned his head to look at her. "Taylor, you know the only reason I ever let you stay around me was because your nickname was Misty too." All the color drained from Taylor's face in an instant. She opened her mouth, but her throat couldn't produce a single sound. He looked away from her, his gaze dropping to my left hand, which I always kept tucked long inside my uniform cuff. His eyes turned red around the rims. "Ruby." "Who are you, really?"