The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 439

She looked up. Piper Prescott was standing right beside her, wringing her hands together. Her eyes and the tip of her nose were completely red, making her look like a rabbit caught in the rain.

She wore a cream-colored sweater dress with tiny pearls along the collar. Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail with a velvet ribbon. She looked incredibly soft and sweet, but her expression promised absolute devastation.

"Sloane..." Her voice was a thin, trembling squeak.

Sloane set her pencil down and swiveled her chair around to face her. "What's wrong?"

"Did you... really say yes to Professor Jace?" Piper asked, her lips quivering as if she were asking a question she already knew the answer to but was desperately hoping was a lie. "Are you really his girlfriend?"

Sloane stayed silent for two seconds before giving a small nod. "Yes."

Tears instantly flooded Piper's eyes.

They pooled heavy and fast, finally spilling over the edge. Fat drops rolled down her pale cheeks and splashed directly onto Sloane's open notebook, blurring the freshly written ink into a messy gray smudge.

She didn't wail. She didn't throw a fit. She just stood there perfectly still, crying silently. That quiet, pathetic, abandoned-puppy crying was infinitely more lethal than an all-out tantrum.

"Now that you... have Professor Jace, you don't want me anymore, do you?"

She sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her pearl hair clip caught the sunlight. "I knew it. It's always like this. No matter what school I go to, the second I finally make a friend, they start dating someone and ditch me. I'm just a useless loser that nobody wants..."

Piper's tone suddenly shifted to absolute dead-seriousness. Her face was still blotchy, but the pathetic puppy look was gone, replaced by the calculating glare of a little fox that had just trapped its prey. The transition was so shockingly fast that Sloane began to heavily suspect at least thirty percent of those tears had been weaponized acting.

"I can't sing," Sloane protested, throwing her hands up.

"I'll teach you!"

Piper closed the distance, latching onto Sloane's wrist with a grip strength that completely defied her tiny frame.

"Sloane, you play the cello. Your musicality is elite. Pitch won't be an issue, you just need to project! Plus, the competition allows any format. If we team up, it works perfectly—I can sing while you play, you can sing while I play, or we can both sing. There are zero rules on format!"