One Form at Enrollment, and the Advisor Was Finished

On enrollment day, the advisor handed everyone a form.

Parents' occupations, mode of transportation, household annual income. Every last detail had to be filled in.

I've always kept a low profile, so under my parents' occupations I wrote driver and housekeeper.

The next day, the way my classmates looked at me had changed. Even the campus heartthrob who'd shown interest in me at the start of the semester turned around and started fawning over Michelle Fox.

I didn't care.

Then came the day of military training. My stomach acted up and I asked the advisor for leave, only to have her jab a finger in my face and lay into me: "I've seen plenty of girls like you. There's no excuse you won't cook up just to dodge work. Let me tell you, as long as you've still got a breath in you today, you'll stand out there to the very end."

But when Michelle Fox raised her hand for leave, the advisor didn't even lift her head before letting her go.

When I demanded to know why, she sneered at me instead: "What makes you think you can compare yourself to Michelle? Her father donated a billion to this school. If you've got it in you, have your father donate too."

"Oh, right! I forgot your father's just a driver. He's not even fit to fetch her shoes."

The whole crowd burst out laughing.

Only then did it hit me. That form we filled out at enrollment was so she could size everyone up and treat them accordingly.

I just wondered what her face would look like when she found out I was the one she was talking about, the daughter of the richest family who'd donated a billion to the school.

The pain had drained my face white. I couldn't be bothered to trade words with her and turned to leave.

The advisor rushed over and clamped both hands around me like a pair of iron pincers.

"Stop right there! If you dare walk off today, that's cutting class. You'll get a formal disciplinary report, and it'll drag down the whole class's ranking. Getting punished yourself is one thing, but how can you be so selfish and drag everyone down with you?"

My stomach clenched in waves, the pain bad enough to break me out in a cold sweat.

Same sick leave request, and Michelle Fox got off without a thing, while for me it was a disciplinary report and dragging down the whole class. I hadn't realized the school's rules could stretch so conveniently.

I gritted my teeth and shook her off. "Let go. Whatever the consequences are, I'll carry them myself."

If I didn't get to a hospital, I really was going to die right here.

Watching my face go whiter and whiter, one girl couldn't stand it. "I think she really might not be feeling well. Maybe we should"

Before she could finish, the others cut her off, dripping with sarcasm.

"She's not feeling well? I'm not feeling well either. You girls will invent any lie to get out of training."

"I think she's just a copycat. Not sick sooner, not sick later. Michelle takes sick leave, and suddenly she's sick too. I'd say what's really bothering her is jealousy."

"And all that talk about carrying the consequences herself. Can you even carry them? You're just running your mouth. If you drag the rest of us down, we won't let it go."

They piled on me one after another, and the girl fell silent, not daring to speak up for me again.

"Some people, if you weren't born for it, don't go putting on the princess act. You can't afford it, and nobody's going to indulge you."

Michelle Fox came sauntering over, slurping her bubble tea, her face flushed and healthy.

A few of the boys doubled over laughing.

"Miss Fox is right."

"Everybody knows she's just a driver's daughter. Not like you, the heiress of the richest family. She's not fit to compare with you."

The advisor's smile turned outright obsequious. "Michelle, go rest under the tree if you're not feeling well. In this sun, if you got heatstroke, how would I ever answer to your father?"

Ernest Harding was right there too, propping her up. "Michelle, let me help you to the classroom to rest."

Watching every one of those grasping, mercenary faces, there was nothing left for me to figure out.

They thought Michelle Fox was the heiress of the richest family, so they scrambled to curry favor with her, while they came down hard on me, the "driver's" daughter.

Another cramp twisted through my stomach. I clutched my belly and moved to leave.

The advisor's face flipped in an instant. She grabbed me and refused, no matter what, to let me go.

I laughed out of pure anger.

I pulled out my phone and called Oliver. "Oliver, my stomach's bad. Come to the school and pick me"

Before I could finish, the advisor snatched the phone away.

"Stella Mason, let me tell you, it's no use even if you call your father here today."

"These are the school's rules. We can't let one rotten apple spoil the whole class."

"This training, you're taking part whether you like it or not. It's not up to you to say no."

I looked at the phone lying smashed on the ground, and my face went cold.

When I was little, my parents were busy expanding the company, so they left me with a nanny. To save herself the trouble, she fed me only one meal a day. I ended up badly malnourished, and it left me with a chronic stomach condition.

Afterward my parents had that nanny put away for abuse, and hired a nutritionist to nurse me back to health.

My stomach hadn't given me any trouble for a long time.

Maybe I'd eaten something bad at school today, or maybe it was standing at attention all day, but my stomach had been off since morning.

It felt like a knife, the pain slowly spreading through my whole abdomen.

Afraid something would go seriously wrong if I held out any longer, I forced down my anger. "I'm not joking with you. I've had stomach surgery. If you don't let me go to the hospital and something happens, not one of you will be able to answer for it."

The advisor thought I was threatening her. She planted her hands on her hips, unimpressed. "Trying to scare me? Let me tell you, no student of mine gets to play deserter. It's just a stomachache. I've never heard of anyone dying from a stomachache. Class is almost over. Deal with it yourself."

"And if your personal problems interrupt training for the rest of the students again, you can go run fifty laps around the field."

She clearly wasn't going to budge. I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes until we were dismissed.

There was no leaving now. I'd hold on a little longer, and the second class ended I wouldn't stay a moment more.

Only when I obediently shut my mouth did May look satisfied and order everyone back into formation.

With the drill instructor gone, she threw her weight around.

One moment we were marching in step, the next we were dropping into a squat.

The pain twisted my face. My body had stopped obeying me, and every movement sent a stab straight through me.

May had planted herself right behind me. When she saw me lag half a beat, she sneered and drove her foot hard into the back of my knee.

"Useless! You can't even lift a leg. What are you ever going to be good for?"

I was barely staying upright as it was. The kick sent me crashing to the ground, and everything went black for a second.

When I didn't get up, May nudged me with her foot. "Get up. Don't play dead on me."

I really couldn't take it anymore, so I just gave up and lay there.

Five minutes until dismissal. I figured there was nothing she could really do to me.

Seeing that I refused to get up, May jabbed a finger at me and smiled coldly. "Fine. Not getting up, is that it? You just wait."

With that, she snatched the bubble tea out of Michelle's hand and hurled it at my face, lid and all.

The spot it hit stung fiercely, and my head and face were drenched in bubble tea. Furious, I pushed myself up. "What is wrong with you?"

May folded her arms and barked at me. "Since there's nothing wrong with you, get up right now. Slack off again and it's another half hour of drills."

I glared at her, my face blank.

May, was it?

Fine. I've got her memorized.

If I don't pay this back, my name isn't Stella Mason.

I'd barely made it to the end of class, dragging my exhausted body toward the door, when someone cut me off.

May Lawrence planted herself in front of me, malice open on her face.

"Everyone else can go. Stella Mason stays."

"You're going to run fifty laps around the field. You don't leave until you finish."

My patience with her had run out. My eyes went cold as ice. "Get out of my way. Block me again, and I'll make you regret today."

For a second, the look on my face stopped her.

Then she registered what I'd said and doubled over, clutching her stomach, laughing.

"You're killing me. A driver's daughter, threatening me? Let's see what you can actually do."

She jabbed a finger at the field, then slammed her palm hard into my back. "Run. You don't finish, you don't get out of here today."

The blow sent me stumbling, and the motion pulled at my stomach until that suffocating pain surged up again.

Fifty laps? In the shape I was in, I couldn't have made it half a lap.

I checked my watch again. Twenty minutes since I'd called Oliver Finch.

By my count, he should be here.

Seeing I wouldn't move, she glanced at my bloodless face and gave a nasty little smile. "Fine. You won't run? Then we'll just wait it out. Let's see who breaks first."

So there we stayed, one sitting, one standing, neither of us giving an inch.

The afternoon sun was hot enough to cook a person, and I stood under it, breaking into a clammy sweat.

Just before I went down, a familiar voice came from behind me.

"Miss Mason, what's happened to you?"

"Is it the old trouble acting up again?"

I knew Oliver's voice. I grabbed at him, barely able to breathe. "The... the hospital."

The moment he heard, he moved to get me out of there.

May still wouldn't let it go, throwing her arms wide to block our way.

"Stop right there! I said you don't finish those fifty laps, you don't leave."

In his younger days, Oliver had spent twenty years as my father's bodyguard, and when he got older he was assigned to drive for me.

Next to him, May was a chick against a grown man. He shoved her aside without a second glance.

He drove flat out and got me to the hospital.

Oliver called my father right away and brought in a specialist to operate.

When I woke, it was already the next morning.

The surgery had gone well. That same night I was able to get up and walk a little.

I had Oliver buy me a new phone.

The moment it powered on, two messages popped up.

Stella, come back quick.

May reported you to the department head. Cutting class on your own, breaking school rules. They're going to put a formal report on your record and issue a public reprimand.

I laughed, furious.

She put me in surgery, in a hospital bed, and I hadn't even settled up with her yet.

And she still dared to come at me.

My face blank, I picked up the phone and made a call.

This account, I was going to settle with her properly.

The day I came back to campus.

A dozen luxury cars sat lined up in a row outside the school gate, drawing a crowd of students who stopped to take pictures.

I walked in wearing head-to-toe couture, ringed by bodyguards.

Plenty of students recognized me, their eyes going wide with shock.

"Isn't that Stella Mason? What's she doing bringing all these people to school?"

"Hey, did you see the car she just got out of? That thing costs eighty million at least. Isn't her dad a driver? Where'd she get the money for a car like that?"

"Are you stupid? It's obviously her employer's."

"Did you forget she showed up in a luxury car on the first day of school too? We all thought she was some rich heiress, and she turned out to be a driver's daughter. What a fake."

Me, fake?

They didn't know the car I'd arrived in that first day was already the most low-key one my family owned.

May Lawrence liked to fawn over the rich and stomp on the poor, didn't she? Today I'd give her all the fawning she could want.

Right as I was thinking it, May came walking over behind Michelle Fox and Ernest Harding.

Her face darkened the moment she took in the scene.

"Stella Mason, what do you think you're doing?"

"This is a school. Get out of here and take these shady people with you. Or is the punishment the school gave you not enough for you?"

I shot her a mocking glance. "Clearly, it's not."

My family may be the richest in Ashford City, but my parents have always kept a low profile, and I take after them. In all these years not one classmate of mine knew a thing about my background.

Even the parent meetings were handled by Oliver and his wife.

So on the first day, without thinking, I'd put down their occupations in the box for my parents. I never imagined that would become May's excuse to come after me.

Ernest stared at his phone for a moment, then suddenly looked up, his whole face lighting up. "Stella, are those cars at the gate all yours?"

"What cars?"

May still had no idea what had happened at the entrance.

A student described it for her in vivid detail.

"Advisor, you don't know. Stella Mason drove up with more than a dozen luxury cars parked outside the gate. Even the cheapest of them runs into the millions. Everyone's crowded at the entrance taking pictures. Could she really be some rich heiress?"

May heard that and swept a contemptuous look up and down over me. "Stella Mason, you think renting a few cars and hiring a few bodyguards to parade around campus will change your lowly origins and make people look at you differently?"

"Let me tell you, fake is fake."

"I'll say it one more time. Take your rented cars and these shady people and get out of the school, or don't blame me when I report you to the administration and have you expelled."

"Go ahead."

"I'd love to see who the school expels today."

I glanced at Oliver. He stepped aside with his phone to make a call.

May flipped her hair, unimpressed, and sniffed. "Stop the act. Since I'm in a good mood today, get down on your knees and apologize to me, and maybe I'll let you off."

"Otherwise, once this reaches the administration, you can start packing your things and get lost."

From the corner of my eye I caught a few people hurrying up behind her. I lifted my chin. "Is that so? They're already here. Whatever you've got to say, you can say it now."

As I spoke, several school leaders came rushing over, apologizing to me in the meekest tones.

"Miss Mason, we're so sorry. We had no idea you were Mr. Fox's daughter. This whole thing was a misunderstanding."

"I've already given the order to revoke your punishment, and a letter of apology has been pinned to the top of the school website for one month. How do you find this resolution?"

May had been about to launch into her complaint, and hearing this she looked outraged. "Dean, Stella Mason skipped class for days without reason and brought all these disorderly people here to cause trouble. How can you let her off this easily, and apologize to her on top of it?"

This whole mess was her doing to begin with, and seeing her still dare to talk back, the dean glared at her, furious and exasperated.

"Shut your mouth!"

"Miss Mason's father donated a billion to the school. He's an honorary board member here. Her affairs are none of your business."