His Jealousy Sent Me Straight To The Ivy League Chapter 04
That afternoon, the senior class Discord server was blowing up.
The college counselor posted an announcement.
“Graduation ceremony and college confirmation meeting tomorrow morning. Attendance is mandatory for all students. Please bring your student ID.”
Messages immediately flooded the channel.
People posted screenshots of their submitted applications and speculated about when decisions would come out.
Talia posted one, too.
“Does anyone know if you can still change things after submitting? I think I forgot to add safety schools…”
Conrad replied almost instantly.
“It’s okay. Ask the counselor at school tomorrow. If it really doesn’t work out, there’s always rolling admission.”
A bunch of classmates jumped in to reassure her.
“Don’t stress, Talia.”
“Your scores aren’t bad.”
“With Conrad looking out for you, you’ll be fine.”
No one asked me anything.
And no one knew that the person whose application had *actually* been changed was sitting there, watching every single message scroll by.
I closed Discord and opened my browser.
*What to do if someone tampered with my college application?*
Almost every result said the same thing.
Call the police.
But even if I did, I would need evidence.
What did I have?
One anonymous DM thread from a sender with no real-name identity attached.
One ugly cat meme. I had sent it to both Conrad and Mallory. Either of them could have saved it.
A set of used-up text verification attempts. The system only showed that the limit had been reached, not who had requested the codes.
Logically, I knew it was Conrad.
Legally, I had almost nothing I could prove.
Unless he admitted it himself.
I opened the Confessions admin backend again.
The anonymous conversation from the night before was still there.
The final message had been sent at 12:01 a.m.
“Forget it. Time’s up. So this is how it is. Luck made the choice for her. Goodnight.”
I took a screenshot of the page and saved it to my camera roll.
Then I opened the profile page for the anonymous account.
I had built the anonymous system for this page myself.
When each account registered, it had to go through a one-time encrypted verification using the last four digits of a student ID. This confirmed the person posting was a Northgate student and blocked outside spam.
Under normal circumstances, the backend only displayed a string of encrypted data.
Even I couldn’t see the original numbers.
Not unless I dismantled the encryption algorithm I’d written.
I stared at the string of characters for five minutes, then closed the page.
Not yet.
That evening, Mallory came over.
The second she walked in, she tossed her backpack onto the couch.
“Inez, I have to tell you something, but promise you won’t get mad.”
“What?”
“This afternoon, Talia said something in a private group chat.”
She pulled out her phone and showed me the messages.
I wasn’t in that group.
It was called “Senior Trip Planners.”
Talia had written:
“Conrad said Inez applied to schools in the South, too, so we can all still hang out after college starts.”
Someone replied beneath it:
“If Inez comes too, we’ll have a free study buddy, lol.”
Conrad’s reply was:
“That’s just how she is. You’ll get used to it. Just don’t say it in front of her or she’ll overthink things.”
Mallory locked her screen and looked at me.
“Your Emory application is okay, right?”
I didn’t answer right away.
Her expression shifted.
“Inez?”
“It was changed.”
“What do you mean, changed? Changed to what?”
“Harvard. Yale. Princeton.”
Mallory’s eyes went wide.
“Are you crazy? Your scores aren’t high enough for those schools.”
“No.”
“So you’re just betting everything on a miracle? Who changed them?”
I looked at her and said nothing.
She caught on fast.
“Was it… Conrad?”