The Last Paper Star

After our last mock exam, the whole class went to a karaoke lounge to celebrate. A video suddenly appeared on my phone, supposedly sent by Mason Blackwell ten years in the future. Mason and I had grown up together for over a decade, and I'd secretly loved him for five. In the video, he wore a suit, his familiar face softened by a tenderness I'd never seen before. "Hannah, I'm getting married. "To Paige Monroe." The next second, class beauty Paige linked her arm through his, their fingers intertwined. "Hope you find your true love soon." The video ended. The black screen reflected my reddened eyes. I splashed water on my face and went back into the private room. The moment I walked in, everyone turned to stare. Paige stood up with a bright smile and announced into the microphone, "See? I told you she'd cry!" The room erupted in laughter. Mason rose with a frown, swept a cold look across the room, and said, "Knock it off." He walked over and looked down at me, a trace of nervousness in his voice. "Paige asked me to make that video. Her grades improved this time, so it was her reward. Don't read into it." Behind him, Paige added with a laugh, "It was just a joke. Don't tell me you can't take one?" I stood there, staring at the face I'd secretly loved for five years, and said nothing. The video really was a joke. But ten years later, they truly did get married. Because I'd come back from ten years in the future. Chapter 1 Mason Blackwell looked down at me with his brows drawn together, but he didn't say anything. He'd always been like that. When he wore that cold expression, he could scare people off and send them running a mile away, but I knew he simply didn't know how to put his feelings into words. Like freshman year, when I stayed home with a high fever and he slipped three days of class notes under my door after school without sending so much as a text. Or every birthday, when he was always the first person to leave a present on my desk. So no, I'd never loved him without reason. But in my last life, that video consumed me. I spent every day distracted, bombed the entrance exams, and ended up at an ordinary state university in our city. Given another chance, I chose to leave them behind completely and study overseas. Paige Monroe walked over with her hands on her hips. "Seriously? Is all this necessary? It was one video, and it wasn't even real. Do you have any idea how long I had to beg Mason before he agreed? I practically talked myself hoarse." Her voice was light and spoiled, carrying the careless entitlement of someone who'd been indulged her whole life. "I only did it because you've been so tense about exams lately. I wanted to play a joke and help you relax. You're not really this bad at taking a joke, are you?" Mason glanced at her, his voice still cold. "Enough." Then he turned toward me. "You were the one who said better grades deserved a reward, weren't you?" I froze. At the start of senior year, Ms. Sherman, our homeroom teacher, had formed peer tutoring groups. Paige, the prettiest girl in class, had been assigned to Mason and me. Her grades were near the bottom, and our teacher wanted the two top students to help her. Mason's face had gone dark enough to make it look as though someone owed him a fortune. During break, he said impatiently, "I'm not tutoring her. Have her switch groups." I shook my head. "The teacher already assigned the groups. Where is she supposed to go?" His pen kept moving, but his voice dropped. "That's her problem. It has nothing to do with me." I spent a long time persuading him. "Treat it as a favor to me, okay?" He was silent for a while before saying, "Do whatever you want." With both of us helping, Paige's grades really did improve. I was thrilled and suggested to Mason that we give her a small reward. Without looking up from his physics competition workbook, Mason said, "Your call." So whenever Paige improved on a test, we prepared a small surprise. Sometimes it was a milkshake. Sometimes it was a handwritten encouragement card from me. I never imagined Paige's rewards would one day become her excuse to cling to Mason. Paige tilted her head at me. "Why aren't you saying anything? Are you really mad?" I came back to myself and looked at the two of them. "I'm fine. I just want to go home and study." I picked up my backpack and turned away. Footsteps sounded behind me. Mason was following. "Hannah Whitaker." He called me by my full name. I didn't turn around. Paige's voice chased after us. "Mason, wait. I'm not finished talking to you." The footsteps stopped. When I got home, the house was dark. I felt my way to my room, tossed my backpack onto the bed, and pulled out my journal. I'd bought it in eighth grade and written in it on and off ever since. All kinds of random things were tucked between the pages. Movie-ticket stubs from outings with Mason, the gold leaf-shaped bookmark he'd given me, and the notebook where he'd collected my mistakes from old tests. I turned to the newest page and had just pressed my pen to the paper when someone knocked. Three long knocks and one short. No one else in the world knocked in Mason's rhythm. Chapter 2 I stared at the door, but my mind uncontrollably drifted back to something long ago. The winter I was eight, Mom brought a boy home. He wore an ill-fitting black coat, and his hair covered most of his face. Mom crouched beside me and said, "Hannah, this is Mason. He'll be living with us from now on." I skipped over, took his hand, and looked up at him. "Hi, Mason. I'm Hannah Whitaker." His hand stiffened, then pulled away. Mom sighed and explained that his parents had died in a car accident and gone somewhere very far away, so he would be living with us. Later, I secretly went to knock on his door. "Mason, I'll give you half my strawberry cake. Please don't be sad, okay?" The door didn't open, but I heard muffled crying from beneath his blankets. From that day on, I followed him around like a little shadow. At first he ignored me. Eventually, he got used to me. But he never smiled, and he never said anything sweet. Still, if a boy in class pulled my braid, that boy would show up the next day with a black eye and apologize. If I scraped my knee, Mason would crouch down and carry me home from school, walking forty minutes without letting me get off his back. I took a deep breath and turned the doorknob. Mason leaned against the frame, half his face hidden in shadow. When he heard the door open, he turned slightly and pulled a folded paper star from his pocket. Once, after we had an argument, we went three days without speaking. The next morning, a paper star appeared in my desk drawer. When I unfolded it, the word sorry was written inside. After that, the stars became his standard apology. Whenever he upset me, he folded one. Sometimes it said "Sorry." Sometimes "Got it." Once, it even said nothing but "Okay." I kept every star in a clear glass jar in the most noticeable spot on my desk. During the second half of freshman year, I joked with him. "Mason, once this jar is full, it means you've made me mad too many times. Then I'll have to leave you." His fingers paused. "Then stop getting mad all the time." The jar had remained nine-tenths full ever since. Until today. I reached out and took the star from his palm. He froze. Before, whenever he handed me a star, I would deliberately glare at him for a long time. But today, I neither glared nor smiled. I took the star and closed the door. "Han..." His voice was shut outside. I walked to my desk and dropped the star into the glass jar. It filled the jar exactly to the top. I screwed on the lid, removed the jar from my desk, and placed it in the deepest corner of a drawer. Then I opened my journal again and lowered my pen. "I came back from ten years in the future." Early the next morning, I knocked on Mom's bedroom door. "Mom, I'm taking the day off. Come with me for a checkup." She was brushing her hair and stared at me. "I feel perfectly fine. Why would I need a checkup?" I couldn't exactly tell her that one day, she would suffer a sudden heart attack, call Mason as her final attempt to reach someone, and he wouldn't make it in time. By the time I got home from school, her hand would already be cold. I dragged Mom to the hospital. The doctor frowned at her test results. "I recommend admitting her for observation and running a more thorough cardiac workup." Mom waved it off, but I firmly completed the admission paperwork and settled her into a room. In my last life, on the tenth anniversary of Mom's death, Mason and I visited her grave. Mason crouched beside me with a bouquet of white lilies. "Mrs. Whitaker, I'll take good care of her." The clicking of high heels came through the wind at the worst possible moment. Despite Mason trying to stop her, Paige had insisted on following us. "Hannah, I've thought about this for a long time. Today, in front of your mother, I think I should finally explain everything. "Your mother's death wasn't Mason's fault. "She called him that day and said she felt sick and needed a ride to the hospital. "But he couldn't go because I called him. I'd been drinking and couldn't get home alone, so I asked him to pick me up. "By the time he reached your house, your mother was already gone. "Hannah, it was because of me. I caused it, not Mason. Stop using gratitude to keep him tied to you. Just because your family raised him doesn't mean he owes you his whole life. It's been ten years. Let him go." Those words, let him go, became the nightmare that woke me in the middle of the night. So all those years, I'd been binding him to me with a debt of gratitude. Tears fell in heavy drops onto my school uniform. I wiped my face carelessly and returned to school. When I was solving problems, Paige approached with a test paper. "Can you explain this question to me?" I didn't turn my head. "After I finish this problem." Paige suddenly bent her knees and dropped straight to the floor. "Hannah, I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have made that video or played that kind of joke. I really know I was wrong." Chapter 3 Her eyes reddened on command. "I don't deserve to ask you for help, but I really do want to learn. Can you forgive me?" The classroom went silent, and every eye turned toward me. Mason clicked his tongue. Leaning back in his chair, he looked past me at Paige on the floor. "Get up. I'll teach you." As soon as he said it, the whispers around us grew louder. "Of course Mason is taking Paige's side." "Hannah is so petty. Paige is literally on her knees, and she still won't forgive her?" "Aren't Mason and Hannah childhood friends? Why is he defending Paige?" In my last life, Paige's kneeling had left me flustered and helpless. The next day, rumors spread through the class chat that I'd used my grades to bully a classmate and forced Paige to kneel in public. Then an anonymous post appeared on the school's social board, vividly describing how I'd tormented her. The rumors snowballed until I felt people pointing at my back whenever I walked through school. But this time was different. I took a deep breath, finished the final question, and stood. "When did I ever say I wouldn't teach you?" Paige froze. "You clearly did." I didn't argue. I simply pressed the button on the voice recorder. I'd prepared it as soon as I came back. I wouldn't fall into the same trap twice. Paige's voice played clearly from the recorder. When it ended, the students who'd been whispering looked embarrassed. Paige's expression shifted. She could only lower her head in humiliation. Mason started to speak, but I cut him off without concern. "Whatever you want to say, I don't want to hear it right now." Mason froze, and his gaze darkened. After that, he started giving me the silent treatment. He used to leave milk on my desk in the morning. Now the milk disappeared, and whenever he passed my seat, he stared straight ahead as though I didn't exist. In my last life, the slightest coldness from Mason would have made me restless. I would chase after him between classes and ask what I'd done wrong. He was using silence to wait for me to surrender. Like every time before, he stood still and expected me to walk back to him. But this time, I put all my attention into my exams. I worked through practice paper after practice paper, and my notebook of mistakes grew thicker. Even when Mason deliberately coughed as he passed my desk, I didn't look up. It lasted until the entrance exams. When I sat in the testing room, I felt calmer than I'd expected. After the second day's exams, I went home and even watched television for a while. The door suddenly opened. Mason walked in with Paige behind him. They passed me without looking over and went straight into Mason's room. The door hadn't shut completely, and fragments of Mason's comforting words drifted out. I laughed bitterly, turned off the television, and went to my room. So even the icy Mason Blackwell knew how to comfort someone. The next day, I reached school just before check-in. When I went to take out my documents, I discovered that my admission ticket was gone. I searched my backpack in disbelief, but couldn't find it. Seeing Paige in line ahead of me, I gave a cold laugh, left campus, and sat in the coffee shop across the street. Two hours later, I acted as though nothing had happened and entered the restaurant my parents had booked in advance. Not long after, the private dining-room door opened and Mason walked in. Paige followed him. I didn't miss a beat, spearing another roasted peanut with my fork and carrying it steadily to my mouth. Mason's gaze landed on my face, but he still said nothing. "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker." Paige wore a sweet smile as she greeted my parents and took the seat beside Mason. "Sorry. My parents aren't home today, and I didn't want to be alone, so I shamelessly invited myself to dinner at Mason's." Mason frowned and shifted his gaze to the ribs on the table, but his words were clearly meant as an explanation to me. "Her reward." Mom stared for a moment, then smiled and said the more people, the livelier the meal. Not long after sitting down, Paige looked at me with apparent concern. "Hannah, why didn't you take the exam today?" The instant she said it, Mason's head snapped toward me. For once, obvious shock and panic broke through his usually indifferent expression. "What happened? You missed an exam?" Chapter 4 I met his gaze calmly. "That's my business. It has nothing to do with you." Mason's fork froze in midair. When I was ten, I practically hung from Mason like an extra limb. When he played basketball, I sat courtside hugging his water bottle. When he went to the library, I sprawled across from him with picture books. I shared everything with him. If I got a perfect score, he was the first to know. If a teacher praised me, he was the first to know. If I saw a pretty orange cat on the street, I would run home and spend ages describing it to him. Back then, I said, "I'll tell you everything for the rest of my life." He didn't lift his head, but the corner of his mouth curved. "Got it." I only realized after growing up that, to him, I was probably just an annoying little tail. Now that the tail had cut itself loose, he probably wasn't used to it. After dinner, he stopped me outside the restaurant. "Hannah, what is going on with you?" I turned around, my voice even. "Nothing. I just realized I was pretty childish when I was younger." He gave an unhappy scoff and strode away. After that, Mason never voluntarily said another word to me. We returned to our silent treatment. I didn't feel much about it. Summer passed quickly. I slept until I woke naturally, watched a movie after getting up, and occasionally reviewed my overseas university application materials. My days were peaceful and full. Paige, meanwhile, updated her social feed constantly. Sometimes it was a side profile of Mason staring down at a table in a milkshake shop, captioned, "Someone says this is my reward for improving my grades." Sometimes it was two movie tickets side by side, captioned, "Finally dragged the genius out for some air." Once, she posted a mirror selfie in which the true focus was Mason, supposedly captured by accident. I stared for a moment before an email from my admissions consultant suddenly appeared, notifying me that my overseas application had been accepted. I smiled at the screen for a long time. The class group chat exploded on score-release day, screenshots flying everywhere. "Mason Blackwell is first in our class? The eternal runner-up finally turned things around." "What about Hannah? What place did she get? She's never fallen from first before." "Shh, stop posting. She missed one exam..." I was about to keep reading when Mason sent me a message. It was the first time he'd contacted me all summer. The message contained only a few words. "Going back to visit the teachers tomorrow. Coming?" I replied, "Sure." When I returned to school, Paige was still trailing behind Mason. It was as though she had replaced me as Mason's new little shadow. Ms. Sherman was delighted to see us and pulled us into a meeting with younger students to introduce ourselves. When we left the office, sunlight flooded the campus. As we reached the honor board, Paige suddenly stopped and began reading from the top, pointing lazily as she went. "Wow, first in the graduating class. Impressive. "Not bad, Mason. You did pretty well this time. "Oh, and what's-his-name from our class is near the top too." Then her finger stopped at the very bottom of the list. "Hannah, there you are. "It's okay if you didn't do well." Paige sounded sincere. "An ordinary state university is still perfectly fine." I stared directly at her, my voice cooling. "What business is that of yours?" Mason stepped half a pace forward and positioned himself in front of Paige, a faint rebuke in his eyes. "That's enough." I shifted my gaze to Mason. The person who once promised to protect me was now standing in front of someone else. "Fine." I turned and walked toward the school gate without looking back. Mason reached out to grab me, but I shook him off. Suddenly, a stir rose behind us. Several younger students near the board let out hushed exclamations. "Look! There's another board over here!" "Oh my God, is that Hannah Whitaker? Isn't she the senior who was just standing here?" "A full scholarship, and she's going overseas?"