The Ex's Revenge:The Ultimate Upgrade

I sat alone on a freezing plastic chair in the ER, nursing my bleeding wound, while my boyfriend cut steak for a pretty underclassman at an outrageously expensive Michelinstarred restaurant.

He was icecold by nature.

He laid down his ground rules from day one: no holding hands in public, no posting pictures of us on social media, and absolutely no invading his personal space.

Our social media accounts never interacted. He never posted a single picture of me on his Instagram, not even a tagged photo. I went grocery shopping alone.

I spent my weekend nights watching mindless reality TV shows by myself. Then came the week he iced me out completely, leaving all my texts on read.

Yet, I stumbled upon a voicemail where that same girl used her sweet, cloying voice to beg him to help zip up her evening gown. "We're done," I said.

He didn't even blink. "Fine." Much later, I ran into him at an exclusive charity gala in London. Cole, the man who was always so damn arrogant, completely lost his mind.

His eyes were bloodshot as he shoved his way through the crowd, desperate to grab my hand. I didn't flinch.

I just swirled the champagne in my glass, tilted my head, and pulled Harrison—the billionaire heir whose eyes held nothing but me—into a deep, hungry French kiss.

Chapter 1 [Cole, it's our oneyear anniversary. Are we going out tonight?] I chewed my bottom lip, deleting and retyping the text a dozen times before finally hitting send.

Ten minutes passed. No reply. I sent another message: [Haha, no worries if you're too busy!] The chat screen remained stubbornly blank.

My roommate, Paige, slammed her MacBook shut and rolled her eyes so hard I thought they'd get stuck. "Camille, why are you still wasting time on that emotional vampire?

He's a coldblooded jerk." "The guy is literally made of ice," she continued, pointing a manicured finger at me. "You're never going to thaw him out.

You're just going to get frostbite." I waited all afternoon. No text from Cole. I called his phone. It went straight to voicemail. Desperate, I dialed one of his roommates.

When I introduced myself as Cole's girlfriend, there was a heavy pause on the other end.

I heard a muffled hand go over the receiver, followed by a hushed whisper: "Since when does Cole have a girlfriend?" The sound was faint, but it echoed loud and clear in my ear.

Cole hated any kind of attention.

When he finally agreed to date me, he looked down his nose at me like he was tossing pennies to a beggar. "Since you're so damn persistent, we can try this out.

But you better not cause any trouble for me." He laid out his ground rules immediately: no holding hands in public. No posting pictures of us on social media.

No invading his personal space. Back then, I was so thrilled just to have him that I didn't care about missing out on the absolute basics of a normal relationship.

Which brought me to the humiliating reality of today. I gripped my phone, a stiff, plastic smile plastered across my face even though no one could see me.

Eventually, his roommate seemed to recall that I actually existed. "He went to the lab to see his advisor." I jogged all the way to the science building where his advisor worked.

I reached the double doors just as Cole walked out with another girl. They walked shouldertoshoulder. He held a thick stack of research papers in one hand.

The girl wore her hair in a simple ponytail, sporting an effortless, nomakeup look. She was laughing at something Cole said, and Cole had a genuine, relaxed smile on his face.

I stepped forward. "Cole!" He froze. Instantly, the warmth vanished from his features, replaced by his usual icecold mask. "What are you doing here?" "You didn't answer my texts.

Did you forget? Today is our—" His face went blank. Even as the words "oneyear anniversary" hung in the air, his eyes showed zero recognition. He completely forgot.

The girl gasped, covering her mouth in an exaggerated show of surprise.

Her eyes, however, were sharp with hostility as they dragged up and down my faded, washedout jeans. "Oh my god, Cole, is this the girlfriend you never bring around?

She looks… very domestic." It wasn't just me looking at her. I watched Cole's gaze drop to her face, his attention snagged by her presence. Then it hit me.

I knew exactly who this was. This was Sadie. She was his advisor's new golden child, in the same biotech program as Cole.

She was a prodigy who skipped a grade in high school and was three years younger than him. Cole had praised her to me multiple times.

Chapter 2 "Rain check," Cole said, checking his watch with a hint of impatience. "Sadie hit a wall with her research project, so I need to take her somewhere nice to unwind." "I'll come with you!" I blurted out as he turned to leave. "No.

We're talking data over dinner." "I won't interrupt, I promise!" "Camille." Cole's voice dropped an octave.

Using my first name like that was his tell right before he lost his temper. "What's rule number one?" No invading his personal space. But we were supposed to be dating.

I froze in my tracks, watching Cole and Sadie walk away. Sadie glanced back over her shoulder, tossing me a look dripping with pity.

Paige always trashed him, saying he was destined to die alone. But even she couldn't deny the guy was frustratingly attractive. Instead, my life had become a complete disaster.

I stared at the blank screen of my phone. I sent another text. [Are you done with dinner? Want to grab a movie offcampus?] [If you're still busy, tomorrow works too.

I can skip my morning lecture.] The little 'Read' receipt popped up immediately.

My screen just sat there, frozen on the long string of voice notes I sent three days ago checking in on him. His only response had been a cold, generic thumbsup emoji.

Did Cole even like me? Why the hell was he with me if he didn't? Distracted by the pathetic state of my relationship, my foot slipped off the edge of the stairs.

I pitched forward and tumbled hard down the steps. Freezing rain mixed with mud soaked through my clothes.

I blindly clawed at the railing to stop my fall, but my palms just dragged against the rough concrete until they were scraped and bloody.

Students passing by stopped to point and whisper. I just lay there in a pathetic heap, desperately shielding the little anniversary cake I'd bought for tonight.

It was already crushed beyond recognition.

When Paige saw my arms covered in abrasions and my knees scraped raw and bleeding, she let out a shriek that nearly shattered my eardrums. "How many times are you going to get hurt this year?

You practically live at the campus clinic!" She cursed under her breath, hauling me up by my good arm. The second I put weight on my leg, a sharp hiss of pain escaped my teeth.

It was a steep drop. I hadn't just scraped my skin off—I'd twisted my right ankle. Chapter 3 Paige resigned herself to acting as my crutch, throwing my good arm over her shoulder.

She scoffed as we hobbled along. "Camille, you are the textbook victim of a toxic relationship. Since you started dating him, you're either in the ER or on your way to the ER.

Your bad luck could literally fuel a whole season of a reality show." I let out a dry laugh. "Maybe I'm just cursed." Paige rolled her eyes so hard I thought she'd pass out. "No, this is the universe screaming at you to dump his ass!" The campus doctor dug the gravel out of my raw scrapes with a pair of tweezers.

I bit my lip hard as the sharp pain forced hot tears into my eyes. Paige crossed her arms and huffed. "You brought this on yourself." I glanced down at my phone screen.

Paige had practically directed a horror film, spamming Cole with dozens of gruesome photos and videos of my bleeding knees and bruised ankle, trying to shock him into caring.

But the chat remained dead silent. I pressed my phone facedown on my lap, staring blankly at the gray storm clouds gathering outside the clinic window.

I scrolled aimlessly through TikTok to distract myself. A random video popped up, the creator's voice cutting through the clinical silence. [If you don't feel loved, you aren't.

Stop gaslighting yourself.] Cole was the youngest research prodigy in the Ivy League, riding on a fullride scholarship.

His entire world consisted of nothing but cold lab data and toptier academic journals. Arrogant, selfish, and devoid of empathy—that was the consensus on him.

It took until this very moment for that truth to finally sink into my bones. My injuries turned me into the VIP of our dorm.

Even classmates who had barely spoken two words to me were sliding into my DMs to check on me. Some even dropped off coffee and pastries. But Cole, my actual boyfriend?

Radio silence. Yet, I saw him actively posting links to his new research findings on LinkedIn and his Instagram stories. And then, there was Sadie.

She had recently added me, and her latest post popped up right at the top of my feed. [Pulled an allnighter for the project, and Cole rented out the entire top floor of that impossibletobook French restaurant just to reward me!

Feeling like a total princess tonight, especially since he's the one swiping the black card! ?] In the photo, Sadie was practically glowing, flashing a vibrant, youthful smile at the camera.

In the background, sitting at the immaculately set table, was Cole. He was casually studying the menu, the harsh lines of his face relaxed. He looked genuinely happy.

A whole month dragged by. Even with my notoriously terrible immune system, my deep scrapes had finally scabbed over and healed.

He, however, seemed to have completely forgotten that I existed. I finally caved.

Pathetic as it was, I swallowed my pride and dialed his number. "Are you done with your experiments?" I asked. "Yeah." A month of silence, and his voice was exactly the same—crisp and indifferent.

Through the receiver, I could hear the muted clinking of crystal and the soft hum of classical music in the background.

Sadie's clear, tinkling laughter pierced right through it all, grating heavily against my ears. "Are you at the restaurant?" "Yeah." The conversation was hollow.

It felt like I was talking to a brick wall. "I got hurt. Did you know that?" "I saw." A bitter smile tugged at my lips.

What was the point of playing the victim to scrape up a few crumbs of his attention?

Cole didn't buy into that kind of guilt trip. "Ah!" Sadie let out a sharp, sudden yelp over the phone. "What's wrong?" Cole's voice snapped to attention, an unmistakable thread of urgency laced through his tone. "Nothing, I just grazed my hand against the hot soup tureen," she whimpered.

Her voice went instantly small and pitiful, a calculated sound designed to trigger a man's protective instincts. "It's already blistering." "I have a firstaid kit in the trunk with burn ointment.

I'll go get it right now." A flurry of rustling noises came through the speaker. I heard the scrape of his chair pushing back as he immediately stood up to leave the table.

Chapter 4 "Cole." I took a deep breath, my voice as cold as ice. "What is it? Make it quick." "We're done.

Go spend the rest of your life with your precious underclassman, you selfish bastard." "Hurry up, man, what are you zoning out for?" a voice rushed him in the background.

He simply replied, "Whatever you say." The line went dead. I didn't shed a single tear. I let out a cold, bitter laugh and immediately deleted him from my emergency contacts.

Then, I grabbed that crushed anniversary cake, along with his spare toothbrush, and dumped them straight into the trash. That night, sleep evaded me.

Right as I was finally drifting off, my phone buzzed, jarring me awake. My custom notification for Cole had popped up on Instagram.

Shockingly, he had posted a massive photo dump with the caption. [Great night out.] In the main group shot, Sadie had her arms draped over his shoulders, her cheeks flushed as if she was tipsy.

Cole looked a little buzzed too. His usually dead, indifferent eyes actually held a trace of a smile, and he made zero effort to push her away.

Maybe he only allowed people he actually cared about into his personal space. His golden rule of "no invading his space" also meant absolutely zero physical contact in public.

Two months into our relationship, when I stupidly thought we were actually getting close, I gathered my courage during a tense scene in a movie theater and reached out to hold his hand