Lena barely remembered the walk to her apartment. Her heels clicked mechanically on the hallway floor, keys turning in the lock out of pure muscle memory. But inside her mind, Ethan's voice echoed relentlessly.
"I left because you looked at him like he was your hero."
The words slammed into her again as she stepped inside, the door clicking shut behind her. She leaned back against it, trying to catch her breath, trying to steady the chaos inside her.
Ethan had been there that night. In the city. In the shadows. When she needed someone most. And she had never known.
All these years, she had handed her trust and gratitude to the wrong person. To someone who had lied.
Lena slipped off her coat and tossed it carelessly onto the back of the couch. She moved automatically toward the kitchen, pulled down a glass, and stood staring at it, her mind far away.
Her fingers were cold and rigid around the glass. She filled up the glass with cold water, but even as she drank, the storm inside her didn't settle.
It had been Ethan all along.
Lena sank onto the edge of the couch, the weight of it all crashing down. High school memories surfaced: quiet lunches, missed glances, a girl with her nose buried in books, a boy too wild and too golden to ever notice someone like her.
Lena recalled the days back in high school. She had always been the most hardworking and focused student in class. Since young age, she knew what she wanted—to be the best, to succeed, to prove herself as she grew up in a single family. Her father had passed away due to illness when she was young. She told herself that didn't have time for distractions. Her life was a carefully constructed plan, a series of goals and milestones she was determined to achieve.
And Ethan Calloway? He was the biggest distraction of all.
Lena liked to think she'd never been one of those girls—the ones who whispered about him in the halls, swooned over his smirk, his money, his bad boy reputation. Because Ethan Calloway had been everything she hated. Arrogant. Cocky. Too confident for his own good. Always late to class, always flashing that lazy grin, leaning back in his chair like he ruled the world.
And yet—everyone loved him. Teachers, students, even the janitor seemed to have a soft spot for him. He was everything she despised: entitled, reckless, and used to getting whatever he wanted without trying.
Still, there was one moment she had never been able to forget.
It was junior year, after a brutal debate competition. Lena had spent hours dismantling her opponents, her voice sharp, her arguments relentless. By the time it ended, she was completely drained—starving, dizzy, and ready to collapse.
She slumped onto a bench outside the school, closed her eyes, and tried to catch her breath.
And then—Ethan Calloway appeared.
He dropped down beside her without a word, casual and unbothered. Lena barely opened her eyes, too tired to deal with whatever mischief he had planned.
"What do you want, Calloway?" she muttered, her voice rough with exhaustion.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him grin—lazy, boyish, and unfairly charming.
"Relax," he said. "I come in peace. Just making sure you didn't faint from all that verbal slaughter."
Despite herself, a small laugh escaped her. "Please. It was just a debate."
Ethan tilted his head, studying her with a mock-serious look. "You looked like you were about to set the podium on fire. I was low-key terrified."
Lena rolled her eyes but didn't tell him to leave.
Instead, they sat there, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows over the pavement.
After a moment, curiosity got the better of her. She glanced sideways—and for the first time, really looked at him.
He wasn't just the billionaire's son. Or the school's golden boy. Or the reckless flirt with the cocky smirk.
Sitting there, dressed in a wrinkled shirt, hair a little messy, his sneakers tapping lightly against the concrete—he just looked like a boy. A boy who could smile a little too easily and make the air around him feel lighter.
And maybe, just maybe, he was kind of... cute.
Another incident happened during senior high, Lena had stayed late in the school library, hunched over her textbooks, notes scattered everywhere. She had barely slept the night before, cramming for the next big exam, and now all she wanted was a few quiet minutes to finish her outline before heading home.
A group of girls from her class strolled by, loud enough for half the library to hear. They weren't exactly subtle.
"Look at her," one of them sneered, loud enough to make sure Lena heard. "Probably thinks getting straight As makes her better than everyone."
Another one giggled. "Maybe if she spent less time with her nose in books, she'd actually have friends."
Lena kept her head down, her pen moving steadily across the paper even though her fingers trembled slightly. She was used to this—used to the whispers, the sidelong looks, the snide comments thrown like darts when teachers weren't around.
She told herself it didn't matter. That it would all be worth it someday. That people like them weren't even worth acknowledging.
But before she could bury herself deeper in her notes, another voice cut through the air—sharp, low, and completely unmistakable.
"Wow," Ethan Calloway drawled from somewhere behind her. "Remind me again which one of you can even spell university without help?"
The group of girls froze, turning toward him.
He stood casually at the end of Lena's table, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, looking like he didn't have a care in the world. But there was a cold edge in his voice that made even the loudest of them hesitate.
"You know," he continued, almost lazily, "it's kinda funny watching you bash someone for actually having a brain. Probably because it's hard to recognize what you've never used yourselves."
A few other students nearby stifled laughter. The girls flushed in embarrassment, their bravado shrinking under the weight of his mocking stare.
One of them opened her mouth to say something, but Ethan beat her to it, leaning in just slightly, his smile razor-sharp.
"Next time you want to make a scene," he said, "try thinking first. Oh wait—you'd need brain cells for that."
The girls muttered under their breath and hurried off, shooting Lena one last glare that quickly dissolved under Ethan's unimpressed look.
For a moment, the library was silent except for the quiet scratch of Lena's pen on paper. Slowly, she looked up, meeting Ethan's gaze.
He gave her a small shrug, like it was no big deal, and tossed her a lazy grin. "Don't let idiots get in your head," he said. "You're miles ahead of them anyway."
Small, unexpected smile tugged at Lena's lips as the memory surfaced. Pushing herself off the couch, she padded toward the bathroom, her steps slow, heavy with exhaustion. She turned toward the bathtub, reaching for the faucet. She let the water run hot, the steam quickly filling the small space. Lena slipped out of her clothes and sank into the tub, the heat sinking deep into her tired muscles, loosening the tension she hadn't even realized she was holding.
She rested her head against the cool porcelain edge, closing her eyes, letting herself drift for a moment.
The chaos of the night—the truths she had learned, the memories she had unearthed—still churned inside her.
But here, in the quiet, surrounded by warmth, she could finally breathe a little easier.
*****
Ethan shut the door to his apartment with a quiet click, the weight of the night settling heavily on his shoulders. He made his way to the bathroom without bothering to turn on any lights. His body ached—not from any physical strain, but from everything he had tried to hold back tonight. And everything he had finally let loose.
Ethan twisted the tap, letting the water run hot until steam curled into the air. He stripped off his clothes and stepped into the bath, sinking low until the water lapped at his chest, burning away the chill that had clung to him since the moment he watched Lena walk away.
Closing his eyes, he let his head tip back against the edge of the tub, the warmth soaking into his skin, but doing nothing to quiet the storm inside his chest.
He kept replaying the night in his mind—the way Lena had looked at him, stunned and guarded, after he told her the truth. Her silence. Her refusal to believe—at least, not right away.
And most importantly, her firm rejection of his feelings, that part still stung.
Yet, even as the ache twisted deep in his gut, Ethan knew one thing with absolute certainty: He didn't regret it. Not a single word. Not the confession. Not the truth about that night years ago.
She deserved to know. She deserved more than the lies she had been fed, more than the false gratitude she had wasted on someone who didn't earn it.
And as for his feelings... he wasn't the boy he had been back then—wild, reckless, afraid of wanting too much.
He ran a hand over his face, the heat from the bath doing little to ease the tightness in his chest.
After a long while, Ethan finally dragged himself out of the bath, toweling off and pulling on a pair of loose sweatpants. The apartment was still dim, the quiet stretching endlessly around him. He dropped heavily onto his bed, the exhaustion of the day weighing down every muscle.
But even with his body demanding rest, his mind refused to go still. It kept circling back—to Lena. And as sleep finally began to pull at the edges of his mind, a memory slipped through.
In highschool, Ethan had always been the kind of guy who got exactly what he wanted. Girls at school fell over themselves to be close to him, his confident smirk, and the aura of power that seemed to follow him everywhere. Teachers gave him special treatment, either out of fear or admiration, and his friends looked up to him as the leader of their pack. But Lena? Lena had never cared. She didn't fawn over him, didn't laugh at his jokes just to win his favor, didn't even seem to notice him most of the time. And that—that intrigued him in a way nothing else ever had.
He remembered the first time he really noticed her. It was during junior year, some stupid group project in history class. He had shown up late—because he always did—and slid into his seat, fully prepared to charm his way into getting the easiest task. But when he leaned toward Lena, smirking, and said, "So, what are we working on?" she didn't blush. She didn't giggle. She just barely glanced at him, her dark eyes sharp and unimpressed, and said, "Maybe if you showed up on time, you'd know." Ethan froze. Because no one talked to him like that. No one had ever called him out. But Lena had. And she hadn't even looked impressed with herself for doing it. She had just gone back to her notes like he wasn't worth her time. And that? That was the exact moment Ethan Calloway was attracted to Lena.
But once Ethan noticed her, he couldn't stop.
He began to see the little things. The way she always sat in the front of the classroom, scribbling down notes like the world depended on it, even when no one else was paying attention. The way she stayed behind after school, tucked into corners of the library, her face buried in textbooks, long after everyone else had gone home. The way she wore the same faded backpack every year, the stitching along the straps frayed but carefully mended.
She had calloused fingertips from writing too much, tired eyes from staying up too late, and a quiet kind of pride that didn't need to shout to be seen. It wasn't just her intelligence that caught him. It was her strong determination and her quiet refusal to give up.
He heard whispers too—about how she came from a single-parent family, how her mom worked long shifts to support them both.No silver spoon and everything Lena had, she fought for with her own two hands.
And Ethan, born into a world of privilege he hadn't even earned, found himself drawn to her for reasons he couldn't explain.
At first, he told himself it was curiosity. Admiration, maybe. But the truth ran deeper than that.
Because when Ethan looked at Lena Kim, he didn't see a nerd, or an overachiever, or a girl who ignored him in the halls.
He saw strength—and a quiet kind of courage.
And somewhere along the way, without him even realizing it...She became the one person he couldn't look away from.