Chapter 3

Early on Valentine’s Day, Justin asked me to come downstairs.

He held a bouquet of red roses and a pretty gift bag. As soon as I came down, he gave me a big hug.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, babe. Even though I can’t be with you, we still need to have our moment!”

I thought I wouldn’t see him at all today. Turns out he’d prepared a gift for me.

After chatting for a bit, he left. I went upstairs happily and only opened the gift in my dorm room.

It was a YSL gift set. My roommates exclaimed, “Wow! Hazel! Your boyfriend is so good to you!”

“That must have cost a lot! No wonder your boyfriend’s been busy lately, he was earning money to buy you a gift.”

He’d given me what he thought was the best. I was very satisfied.

Chloe, one of my roommates, a beauty blogger with a keen eye, looked at the gift box but didn’t say anything.

Seeing her silence, the other two roommates, afraid of putting their foot in their mouth, also kept quiet.

I asked, “Chloe, is there a problem?”

She picked up a lipstick and looked at it, a bit hesitant.

“I can’t quite tell right now. Let me have my friend take a look.”

My heart dropped. I’d never encountered fakes before, nor paid attention to the differences between real and fake.

But if Chloe said that, it was almost certainly fake. She was just trying to save my feelings by saying she’d have a friend look at it.

My roommates tried to comfort me. “Oh, Hazel, maybe Justin just doesn’t know brands and got scammed.”

“Yeah, how would guys know what’s real and what’s fake?”

That made sense too. I sent Justin a message: [Where did you buy this gift set?]

He replied a few minutes later: [From the official online store.]

He even sent me a screenshot of the purchase history from the official store. Could you buy fakes from an official store? Or had Chloe really misjudged it?

Justin: [What’s wrong, babe? Don’t you like it?]

Me: [No, it’s fine. I love it.]

Justin: [Glad you like it. I’m off to tutor students now. We’ll talk later.]

My brother took me to an amusement park, but my mind kept wandering. It wasn’t until Chloe sent me a message: [Fake.]

She sent several pictures showing the differences between the authentic product and the fake. [Justin most likely bought it on Wish.]

She sent a link to a YSL gift set that cost just over a hundred dollars. The details in the buyer’s photos were identical to mine.

[Hazel, if he tells the truth, maybe he just didn’t know and thought YSL was that price. But if he lied to you, you’re better off without a guy like that.]

I didn’t know what to say. I asked her, [Can you buy fakes from an official online store?]

[Let’s put it this way: this set is an obvious fake at first glance. Even if an official store sold fakes, they’d only fake the quality, making it hard to notice.]

But Justin really did buy a gift set from the official store. I sent the screenshot to Chloe.

She replied, [What if that official store gift set wasn’t meant for you at all?]

She was right. What if Justin bought two sets—one from Wish and one from the official store—and gave one to me and the other to someone else? That would make sense.

But how could that be? How could Justin do something so despicable?

We’d been dating for over a year, and our relationship had always been good. He surely wouldn’t do that to me.

Just as I was thinking this, I saw a familiar figure in the crowd. It looked like Justin. Wasn’t he supposed to be tutoring students? Why would he be here?