27. Staying In Hell

"A paper? Isn't your fridge door always filled with sticky notes? Can you be more specific?" Sarah asked.

Grace fell silent for a few seconds. From Sarah's response, it was clear that she didn't know which paper she was referring to. Could it be that she didn't find it?

"So, you didn't find any notes at all?" Grace asked again.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "I just asked you, what kind of paper are you talking about, Grace? If it's just a piece of paper, I see plenty of it on your fridge door, and of course, I wouldn't pay attention to all the nonsense I didn't understand."

Sarah's answer was a stamp that validated Grace's thought that she didn't find her suicide note. Sarah wasn't someone to conceal things; she would speak up immediately if something was wrong. Grace, who was on the verge of suicide at that time, wouldn't leave Sarah as calmly as now. She would have attacked her with various questions and advice if she knew.

"Oh, I guess you didn't find the paper I meant. It's a … to-do list that I need to work on soon." Grace lied.

After entering the building, Grace and Sarah separated in the lobby because their classes were on different floors. Grace approached the elevator to go to the fifth floor, where her class was.

Her bandaged foot forced her to use crutches, which attracted many stares. Normally, Grace would feel uncomfortable about it. However, she didn't see those glances as a negative thing. Who wouldn't glance at a limping person moving through the crowd of people walking normally? Anyone could have an accident, anyway. However, what saddened her was that, out of all those gazes, not a single pair of lips asked about her condition. It was because she had no friends.

The open elevator door prompted her to move, ready to step inside. However, her body froze when she found Victor inside. Worse, Victor was with a hot blonde girl and two of his male friends inside. As usual, the university cool kids came up from the basement, where they parked their noisy vehicles.

"Oh! Menken," one of Victor's friends in a denim jacket exclaimed.

Grace remained silent, staring at the four dominating the elevator. She swallowed to moisten her suddenly dry throat. Her tongue became stiff, and the single leg supporting her body weakened. Her hazel-brown eyes moved to Victor's hand, which was embracing the shoulder of the popular girl who seemed to be his new girlfriend.

Grace couldn't remember him ever embracing her. No, they hadn't even held hands. That hand had only lightly patted Grace's head when she received and handed over his assignments, like a well-behaved dog getting petted by its master.

"Hey, don't you want to get on?" Victor's friend asked. "I'm holding the door for you, don't you see?"

Their stares pierced Grace's heart, causing it to bleed inside and making her courage shrivel away to nothing. Without planning it, her shoulders began to slump, and her face started to hang down.

"Are you going to get inside or not? You look like you're avoiding something inside this elevator. Don't waste our time!" Scolded the blonde girl, whom Grace knew as Kenzie.

Grace slightly jumped in surprise, then nodded. "I-I'll get on."

"What happened to your foot?" One of Victor's friends asked as the elevator door closed.

"I ... fell," Grace answered without lifting her face. She wanted to speak by looking into her speaking partner's eyes, but she couldn't. It felt like all the bones in her neck had rusted, keeping her head down.

"Well. So, it's because of her injured foot, Victor. You were too confident, saying that she didn't come for days because you broke her up," Said Victor's friend in the denim jacket. He chuckled at the end of his sentence.

The guy's words shattered Grace's heart, and her pride vanished. She couldn't believe they would openly talk about it in front of her without any guilt, as if she were an invisible ghost.

"Shut up, you asshole! I was just joking!" Victor retorted.

"Vic, did you really say that?" Kenzie asked, half-laughing. "As foolish as a girl could be, how could she not attend classes for days just because a guy broke her up? You must be joking..."

"I was just talking nonsense. I didn't even use my brain when I said that because those two idiots kept asking about Grace, who hasn't attended class," Victor replied quickly. Then one of his eyebrows lifted, and he alternated his gaze between his two friends. "It seems they're interested in that girl, so they keep asking?"

"Hell! No way!" Cursed the guy in the denim jacket.

Then his other friend chuckled with a smirk. "Sorry, but I still have plenty of time and energy to do my own assignments."

The sentence triggered laughter from everyone in the elevator except Grace, who just stood there with pain all over her bones and in her heart. How heartless of them to say that. Grace had helped Victor's friends with their assignments several times. How could they have the heart to say such mean things?

The journey from the first floor to the fifth felt like an eternity for Grace. She briefly thought the elevator might be broken and not take her anywhere. She was trapped in a circle of people who mocked and laughed at her. The longer it lasted, the smaller and smaller she felt she was.

When the elevator door finally opened, Grace stepped out immediately with hot eyes, holding back tears.

"Hey! That's not the fifth floor, idiot!"

Someone shouted from inside the elevator, but Grace ignored it and kept walking away from that hell. When she realized, she found herself on the fourth floor. Her face burned, and a drop of tear escaped her eye. She was sure that after this, rumors of her stupidity would circulate, and she would be a clown until she graduated.

'Grace Menken got off on the wrong floor because she couldn't stand being in the same elevator as her ex-boyfriend. Grace Menken got off on the wrong floor because she was humiliated by her ex-boyfriend.' Those were the joke headlines that Grace had creatively written in her mind.

Because Grace got off on the wrong floor and couldn't use the stairs with her current foot condition, she had to wait for the elevator to reach her floor. From the start, she arrived at the university a bit late, so she ended up being five minutes late to enter her class.

Opening the class door, Grace found her professor at the beginning of his lecture. He stopped and turned to look at her.

"I … I'm sorry I'm late, sir," Grace said.

The professor stared at Grace for a few seconds, and his gaze dropped to her leg. Then he sighed briefly and nodded once. "I'll let this slide this time. Please, have a seat, Miss Menken."

Grace pulled a stiff smile. "Thank you, Mr. Smith."

However, Grace couldn't breathe easily yet. She had to walk to the empty seat in the back row with everyone's eyes in the class on her. Some seemed to smirk, and even a small chuckle could be heard.

With tightly pursed lips, Grace sat in her chair. She sighed deeply, as if hoping her life would leave with that breath. Today would be a difficult day for her. And she wasn't sure how she would face the days to come.

The fact that Sarah would leave soon dwindled Grace's courage even more. She wanted to be brave and independent—meaning truly independent. According to Grace, being able to live alone didn't always mean she was independent. In reality, she lived alone because circumstances forced her to, not because she wanted to.

Grace knew she shouldn't keep relying on her friends. The reality was clear: in the end, everyone had their own lives, and they had to face them on their own. But Grace didn't expect to experience it so soon, as everything was falling apart. How could she endure it? Could she endure it? How could she get rid of this fear?