Chapter 1

My boyfriend was obsessed with keeping his distance.

Whenever I asked him for advice on my group projects, he refused, claiming we had to maintain professional boundaries so no one would think I got in through favoritism.

When I was burning up with a fever and begged him to bring me medicine, he coldly said he was just my boyfriend, not my butler, and owed me nothing.

Then came the campus career fair. Ten minutes before my interview, I realized my hearing aids were gone.

Panicking, with nowhere else to turn, I went looking for him.

And found him sitting in a quiet lounge, my best friend perched on his lap in a tiny miniskirt.

Lillian smiled playfully, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Ethan, you just made management at top tech. Don't go pulling strings or helping anyone cheat, okay? Consider this a little test for Maya."

Ethan grabbed her wandering hands with a smirk. "With you watching over me, how could I dare?"

I watched them touch and whisper, completely lost in their own world.

Turns out, his strict boundaries were only ever meant for me.

To them, I was nothing but a punchline.

Fine. I was done with both of them.

I forced myself to walk into that interview anyway. I couldn't let my hard work go to waste.

The entire time, I strained my eyes reading the interviewer's lips, speaking into a world of dead silence.

At first, she spoke slowly.

But as the interview went on, she spoke faster and fired off more complex questions.

Her lips blurred. I could barely make out the words.

Cold sweat trickled down my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Ethan standing nearby.

Instinctively, I looked at him, silently begging for help.

All he had to do was mouth the questions to me slowly, and I could have aced the interview.

His eyes flickered. Then, slowly, his lips formed two words:

"Professional boundaries."

He turned his back on me and started chatting with Lillian, never looking my way again.

I was an idiot to ever expect anything from him.

I had heard those words countless times over the past four years. Every time I needed him, that was his default excuse.

Yet Lillian, who was interviewing for the exact same tech giant, stood right beside him.

They laughed and whispered without a shred of professional distance. He was even patiently coaching her on interview tips.

Seeing my silence, the interviewer repeated herself:

"Maya, what would you say is your greatest strength?"

Doing an interview completely deaf while watching my boyfriend ignore me to flirt with my best friend?

Swallowing the bitter self-mockery in my throat, I answered with complete sincerity.

"Resilience."

I explained what that word meant to me. The interviewer nodded, visibly impressed, and moved on to the next topic.

When it was over, she smiled warmly and nodded in approval.

I offered a polite smile, turned around, and walked into an empty corner to pack up my portfolio.

Suddenly, someone grabbed my wrist.

Ethan stood there, looking annoyed, his mouth moving rapidly.

When I didn't respond, he finally remembered I wasn't wearing my hearing aids.

He reached into his backpack and pulled them out.

My chest tightened, followed by a strange, numbing calm.

My hearing aids had been in his bag the entire time. He knew. He just deliberately chose to watch me struggle.

The moment I put them in, his sharp voice hit my ears: "Lillian was calling your name just now. Why didn't you stop?"

"How was I supposed to hear her?" I asked, bewildered. "You just gave me my hearing aids."

Ethan choked for a second, then straightened his posture. "Go apologize to Lillian."

"Why the hell should I apologize to her?"

"She hid my hearing aids! She almost ruined my interview!"

"She did it to help you," Ethan argued.

"If you wanted to help, you would have handed them to me!"

Ethan frowned. "Keeping them from you was to build your independence. It's for your own good."

A lump formed in my throat.

"For my own good? Then why do you constantly hurt me?"

"Who gave you the right to decide what's good for me?"