THE CONFRONTATION

Michael, his emotions raw, couldn't hold back.

"Sydney, you're a cheat! I can't believe you managed to deceive me all these time," he exclaimed, anger rising in him.

He reminisced about the romantic moments they shared the night he first asked her out and she agreed. He recalled how he tirelessly worked to scrape together a bit of money to take her to the movies that evening, even going as far as sacrificing meals just to save up enough.

"After all I did for you, you cheated on me with Jack? The same guy I warned you about, the one who was always picking on me?"

In response, Sydney slapped him. Jack, sensing the tension, stepped in, attempting to prevent a physical altercation.

"Look, you idiot! Why'd you call her a cheat? Has the irritated smell from the toilets decayed your brain, and now you can't reason properly?" Jack taunted, provoking laughter from everyone around, who chimed in, agreeing with Jack.

"Why would you call a random girl a cheat?" Jack interjected

Heartbroken, Michael answered, his voice carrying a sense of hurt.

"She's my girlfriend, you brat!" he declared, clenching his teeth.

The crowd burst into laughter at Michael's declaration, mocking his claim.

Amidst the jeering crowd, Michael caught snippets of ridicule.

"Sydney with him? Like, seriously?"

"What was he thinking? A girl from her background would never go for someone as wretched as him. Who would believe his claim!"

Ignoring the distant taunts, Michael maintained his gaze on Sydney.

"Did you leave me for a rich guy like Jack?"

The initial sadness transformed into a potent mix of anger and betrayal as he confronted her.

Sydney, feigning innocence, laughed as if she had never been involved with Michael. The crowd's amusement only deepened Michael's sense of heartbreak and betrayal.

Jack, upon hearing Michael's claim that Sydney was his girlfriend, couldn't contain his laughter.

"This is so hilarious. This poor orphanage boy, trying to claim my girlfriend, Sydney. People still dream good dreams," Jack chuckled.

"Why'd Michael, the church rat, say you're his girlfriend?" Jack added between chuckles of disbelief.

Sydney, seizing the opportunity to share her manipulated version of events, began narrating aloud for the crowd to hear, with the sole purpose of humiliating Michael even more.

"There was this one day I was struggling with math, an elective from his department," Sydney explained.

"Michael offered to teach me and took my contact. Somehow, he must have deluded himself into thinking that teaching me math meant we were dating."

The crowd, including Jack, erupted in laughter after hearing Sydney's story. Unbeknownst to them, Sydney was lying, and Michael stood there, drenched in humiliation from her words and the laughter of the crowd. The air was filled with mockery as Sydney's false explanation further fueled the amusement around them.

Jack and Sydney, fueled by cruelty, showered Michael with a relentless stream of insults, each one more hurtful than the last.

"Look at him, barely managing that pitiful job," Jack sneered, contempt dripping from his words.

Sydney joined in, "How does someone like him even survive? He can't even feed himself properly."

Jack, with a malicious grin, continued the onslaught, "Did you crawl out of the sewer this morning, Michael? You're filthy!"

Sydney, amplifying the attack, added, "Coming from an orphanage, you should be grateful you even made it to university. Pure luck, I'd say."

Jack chimed in again, "You don't belong here. The toilet is the only place you belong within the walls of this university. You're just a charity case. You should be begging on the streets, not pretending to be one of us."

Sydney, her tone cutting, mocked, "I bet you can't even afford the basic demands of university life."

Jack, relentless, piled on, "You're a stain on this campus, an embarrassment to everyone who's worked hard to be here."

Sydney, seizing the opportunity, jabbed, "Luck got you in, but it won't keep you here. You're nothing."

Jack, disdain evident, concluded, "You're a joke, Michael. A pathetic joke. Your poverty is a stain on the very idea of success."

Jack, with a cruel tone, attacked Michael's financial situation.

"You're stuck in a kind of poverty I've never seen," Jack sneered. "It's not getting better for you. You'll be poor forever. I'm filthy rich – my dad owns huge businesses in town. Someone like me deserves Sydney, not you."

He continued, "All you deserve is a toilet brush. That's about the only thing you can take care of," Jack said and everyone erupted into laughter. The harsh words emphasized Michael's financial struggles, leaving him feeling even more humiliated.

Unable to endure the insults any longer, Micheal, overwhelmed with frustration, slapped Jack across the face, the sharp sound punctuating the air, and his mouth fell shut.

Four of Jack's buddies, part of the basketball crew, rushed in to keep Jack from tumbling down like a tower. One of them, feeling all tough, got in Michael's face, asking if he even understood the mess he just created by slapping Jack Mcoy.

"Do you know who you just hit?" he sneered, playing spokesperson for Jack. "You're in serious trouble, Michael Wayne. You're in for it. You're a dead meat!"

Unfazed and red-hot with anger, Michael shot back, "I don't give a darn about the consequences." 

Michael turned his attention back to Sydney.

"Give me back the gold pendant I gave you that night," Michael demanded, his tone strained with frustration.

"Gold pendant? What pendant are you talking about?" Sydney feigned ignorance, her laughter betraying a mocking undertone.

"You know, the gold pendant from our first date," Michael clarified, hope lingering in his voice.

Laughs!! 

"Gold? You couldn't afford gold. That pendant was made of plastic, just painted gold, which has probably washed away by now." 

Sydney's laughter intensified, a cruel edge to her words.

Laughter erupted from the crowd, amplifying Michael's humiliation.

"I was too ashamed to wear it. I flushed it down the toilet sink that very night," Sydney, unapologetic, revealed the pendant's fate.

Laughter erupted from the crowd as Sydney continued her verbal assault. She confessed to flushing the pendant down the toilet sink that very night, and Jack joined in the laughter, reveling in Michael's humiliation.

Jack stepped in front of Sydney, sealing their betrayal with a deep kiss that sent shockwaves through Michael. His heart shattered as he clenched his jaw, silently begging Sydney to resist, to kiss him back, but she didn't yield.

When Sydney and Jack finally separated, the crowd erupted in cheers, celebrating the couple's display of affection. Seizing the moment, Jack turned to Michael, taunting him about the kiss he just witnessed.

"Did you see that, Michael? That's how you kiss a girl, not whatever you were trying to do with her. You can’t use Math to make a girl like you," Jack gloated, his grin triumphant and everyone laughed, pointing at Michael.

Michael, his eyes burning with pain, stayed silent.

“You should know that no girl would ever really like you, because you are always below everybody’s standard. Now tell me, have you ever kissed her like I just did?” Jack asked. Michael’s eyes fell away from Jack, momentarily. The answer was “NO,” and he was too ashamed to pronounce it. He now realized that Sydney was lying to him all the while she told him she wanted to have her first kiss on the night of their wedding, after school. She refused because she felt disgusted to kiss him.

With a grin, Jack turned to a random person in the crowd.

"Hey, you there! Tell us, how long have Sydney and I been dating?" Jack demanded.

"Oh, it's been over two months now. I still remember the very day you asked her out," the random guy confirmed.

Time froze for Michael. Two months ago, he had just started dating Sydney. The revelation meant she had been with Jack all this time, playing him for a fool. Humiliation engulfed him as laughter echoed in his ears.

Determination burned in Michael's reddened eyes. "Sydney's going to regret this public humiliation," he asserted quietly, a fierce resolve propelling him forward.

As the crowd's laughter reverberated, Michael's lips tightened into a thin line, containing a surge of emotions. 

"I won't let this define me," he affirmed within, steeling himself against the waves of betrayal and ridicule.

His gaze remained locked on Sydney, a mix of hurt and anger simmering beneath the surface.

"I'll rise above this, and you'll face the consequences of your actions," he declared, a silent promise to himself amidst the noisy laughter.

“Now, you see that she was only using you all these time,” Jack said, and Sydney smiled slyly.

Sydney's cold words cut through the air, echoing her heartless confession.

"That's so true, I only used you to solve my Math problems. I would never want to kiss a guy drowning in unending poverty. This is not a fairy tale, where a princess gets to kiss a frog," Sydney declared, glancing down at the hole on the top of Micheal's shoe.

The crowd, like a chorus of cruelty, erupted in laughter that reverberated through the entire hallway. Laughter so intense that some students laughed hard enough to roll on the floor, their mockery adding insult to Michael's profound injury.