He’d Marry Me Only If His Friends Gave Me a Perfect Score, So I Quit the Game Chapter 04
Ethan practically threw himself down the stairs.
He was always steady on the football field, but that night he missed his footing twice as he ran down
to me.
When he dropped to his knees beside me, his hands would not stop shaking.
My glasses had landed several feet away. There was a cut near my temple, and my face had gone
very pale.
Ethan reached towards
me, then stopped, as though he was afraid to touch me.
“Erin. Open your eyes. Look at me.”
At the top of the stai
Claire stood with red–rimmed eyes.
“We were only messing about. How were we supposed to know she’d suddenly rush over like that?”
Someone else immediately tried to explain.
“It was only a necklace. She’d been drinking. She lost her footing.”
Ethan whipped around.
“Shut up!”
In five years, that was the first time I had ever heard him shout at his friends because of me.
But by then, I could barely hear anything.
When the paramedics arrived, I was taken to hospital.
The tests showed that none of my injuries were life–threatening, but I had a mild concussion,
bruising across my shoulder and back, and several scrapes on my knees and palms. The cut near my
temple needed treatment too.
I trembled the entire time they cleaned the wound.
But out of habit, I clenched my teeth and refused to make a sound.
Ethan stayed beside me.
“If it hurts, say so. You don’t have to pretend you’re fine.”
I was barely conscious, but somehow I still answered him.
“I can’t cry. If I cry, they’ll hate me. If they hate me, I won’t get a perfect score.”
Ethan went completely still.
He stayed with me the entire night.
By the third day, I was fully awake.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Ethan sitting beside the bed.
He looked as though he had not slept all night.
Then I noticed the clear plastic bag on the bedside table.
My necklace was inside.
The chain had snapped into several pieces. The two rings were still there, but both had obvious marks from the impact.
For a moment, I could not speak.
I turned my face away because I did not want him to see me cry.
By the time I had calmed down, I already knew what I was going to do next.
The second Ethan realised I was awake, he called the doctor.
I stayed quiet throughout the examination.
When the doctor told me to raise my arm, I raised it. When he told me to follow the light with my
eyes, I did.
Just as he always had, Ethan took my silence as a sign that I was going along with him.
He even smiled a little.
“When you’re out of here, I’ll take you to your favourite restaurant.”
I did not bother reminding him.
That restaurant had closed two years ago.
He had never noticed.
After the doctor left, Ethan crouched beside my bed.
“Does it still hurt? This was my fault. I shouldn’t have stood there and let them carry on like that. From now on, I’ll make sure they know where the line is.”
I looked at him and suddenly realised how absurd his thinking was.
Even now, he still believed this was nothing more than a joke that had gone too far.
An apology, a promise that they would be more careful next time, and in his mind, everything could simply be over.
I spoke slowly.
“You asked if it hurts. It does. A lot.”
Ethan froze.
I continued.
“When I fell down those stairs, I really thought I was going to die.”
For the first time, I did not rush to comfort him.
Before, no matter how badly I had been treated, I would always say the same things: it was fine, I was not angry, I knew he had not meant it.
But now,
I did not want to make excuses for anyone anymore.
“And I’m not letting this end here.‘
Ethan’s expression stiffened.
“What do you mean?”
I touched the plastic bag holding my broken necklace.
“To you, this was just a joke that got out of hand. But they humiliated me in front of everyone. They mocked me about my parents. They took the last thing my mum left me.”
“When I fell, I wasn’t even thinking about whether I was going to get hurt. All I could think about was getting it back.”
I looked at the twisted, broken chain.
“After my mum died, this was the last thing I had left of her. Whenever things got bad, all I had to do was touch it and I’d think of her.”
But now it’s broken. Even if someone repairs it, it’ll never be what it was before.”
Ethan’s face slowly went rigid.
I did not cry. I simply kept talking
“Before, whenever your friends made fun of me, I’d go home and cry where no one could see me Then the next day, I’d still come back and spend time with all of you because I thought I was the one
who didn’t know how to fit in.”
“I actually started wondering if I was too sensitive, if grades were the only thing I had going for me,
if maybe I really wasn’t good enough for you. But now I get it.”
“Putting up with it doesn’t make people stop. It only teaches them that I won’t fight back.”
Ethan answered immediately.
“I can get the necklace remade. Exactly the same.”
“And they can all come here and apologise. But we’ve known each other for years. Do we really need to drag the police into it?”
I looked at him.
“I’m not the one who’s afraid of what happens next. You are.”
He went still.
My voice was quiet.
“We’re finished. Your friends have nothing to do with me anymore.”
Ethan stared at me as though he had not understood the words.
“You’re breaking up with me? Over this?”
I did not explain again.
He stared at me for a long time, then turned and walked out.
The door slammed shut behind him.
For the next several days, he never came back.
