Chapter 2: Meeting Natalie

I walked aimlessly on the street, my Italian leather shoes clicking against the pavement.

Bought a six-pack of Sam Adams and sat by the harbor on the riverbank, watching the sailboats bob in their slips.

Many new messages popped up on my phone, the notifications lighting up the screen like a slot machine.

Rachel Turner's matter had spread in the circle faster than a leaked sex tape. Several good friends came to comfort me:

[Michael, where are you? Want us brothers to come out and have a few drinks with you? I know a great whiskey bar in SoNo.]

[I know about this. Lucas Shaw seduced Rachel. That kid has many schemes, only wants to cling to wealthy heiresses like a barnacle on a yacht.]

Seeing the three characters Rachel Turner, my heart felt suffocated, like I was wearing a lead vest to an MRI.

Fortunately, the gentle evening breeze from the river gradually calmed me down, carrying the smell of salt water and diesel from the boats.

Don't know how much I drank. The sky got darker, small boats also lit up their lights, their masts twinkling like a forest of Christmas trees.

"I'm fucking done!"

"Damn bitch! Ahhhhh!"

"No one can cheat on me three times and still cheat on me, no one!"

I crushed the beer can, the aluminum crinkling in my fist. Sharp edges biting into my palm, matching the sting in my chest. Roaring angrily at the water, but the depression in my heart didn't decrease at all.

Consciousness was already on the edge of trance and madness, that dangerous place where you either break things or break down.

"Michael?"

Someone called my name. I looked up through beer-blurred vision. It was a pair of clear eyes, the kind that seemed to see right through your bullshit.

It was Natalie Xu, our university's most mysterious campus belle—the girl who'd ghosted more Ivy League trust fund babies than a haunted mansion.

Why was she here, at this random spot by the harbor at nine PM on a Tuesday?