The room went silent.

Nadia’s face turned pale.

Ethan frowned.

“Olivia, cancel the call.”

“Why?”

“You’re wasting everyone’s time.”

I looked at him.

“Yesterday you were willing to sacrifice a year of someone’s future for Nadia.”

I placed my phone on the table.

“Today we’ll find out whose year it is.”

The Academic Integrity Director finally seemed to sense that something was wrong.

“Wait.”

He turned toward the IT administrator.

“Can deleted files be recovered?”

“Usually.”

Nadia immediately spoke.

“But I emptied the trash.”

The administrator looked at her.

“That doesn’t necessarily erase the server logs.”

Her expression changed.

Ethan stepped forward.

“She already admitted it was an accident.”

“I haven’t accused her of deleting my thesis,” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

The counselor frowned.

“What?”

I repeated calmly:

“I never said the deleted thesis was mine.”

Ethan stared at me.

Then something flickered across his face.

I opened my student portal.

My thesis submission appeared on the screen.

Submission date:

Seven days earlier.

Status:

Received.

Supervisor approval:

Completed.

The room became completely silent.

The director leaned closer.

“You already submitted?”

“Yes.”

Nadia whispered:

“Then… what did I delete?”

I looked at Ethan.

He finally understood.

“No.”

He rushed toward the computer.

The IT administrator restored the deleted folder.

FINAL VERSION.

The document opened.

At the top appeared a name.

ETHAN JIANG.

Student number beneath it.

Ethan stopped breathing.

Nadia stared at the screen.

“No…”

I folded my arms.

“You didn’t check.”

She shook her head.

“I thought—”

“You thought it belonged to me.”

Ethan immediately began clicking through folders.

“Where’s the backup?”

I answered for him.

“You told me you hadn’t made one yet.”

His face became gray.

The director checked the clock.

Two hours and forty-three minutes remained.

Ethan turned toward me.

“You corrected it.”

“Yes.”

“Then you have another copy.”

“No.”

His voice rose.

“You edited half of it!”

“I corrected comments in your document.”

“You must have saved something!”

“I saved it exactly where you told me.”

On his computer.

Nadia started crying.

“Ethan, I’m sorry.”

He turned toward her.

For the first time, he didn’t immediately comfort her.

“You deleted my thesis?”

“I thought it was Olivia’s!”

The moment those words escaped, Nadia covered her mouth.

Too late.

Everyone had heard.

The director’s expression hardened.

“So it wasn’t accidental?”

Nadia began shaking her head.

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

The IT administrator spoke quietly.

“The logs can establish that.”

They did.

The security footage showed Nadia deliberately opening folders after I left.

Computer records showed searches for my name.

Then she found FINAL VERSION.

She opened it only briefly before deleting it.

She never bothered checking the title page.

Because she hadn’t wanted to edit anything.

She had wanted to destroy it.

Then came the second problem.

The complaint against me.

The university traced the submission account.

Nadia had filed it.

But parts of the allegations contained academic information she shouldn’t have known.

That information had come from Ethan’s counselor—his uncle.

Suddenly nobody was discussing my apology anymore.

The counselor stood.

“This is being misunderstood.”

The Integrity Director looked at him.

“You provided confidential student information to support an unverified accusation?”

“I was concerned about academic misconduct.”

“Then why didn’t you follow procedure?”

He had no answer.

Ethan finally turned toward Nadia.

“Why?”

She cried harder.

“Because she hates me.”

“No.”

His voice sounded strange.

“Why did you delete what you believed was Olivia’s thesis?”

Nadia reached for his sleeve.

“Ethan…”

He stepped backward.

It was a tiny movement.

But I’d spent four years waiting for him to take that step.

Now it meant nothing.

“You told everyone it was an accident.”

“I was scared!”

“You let me attack Olivia publicly.”

Nadia’s expression twisted.

“You attacked her because you wanted to!”

Silence.

Ethan froze.

For once, Nadia had told the truth.

He looked at me.

I could see the exact moment he realized there was nowhere left to hide.

He couldn’t blame Nadia for everything.

She had created the trap.

He had willingly stepped into it.

Worse, he’d dragged me underneath it.

“Olivia…”

I raised my hand.

“Don’t.”

He stopped.

The director looked toward me.

“Ms. Lin, your academic record and thesis submission appear valid. We’ll complete the formal review, but there is currently no basis to prevent your graduation.”

“Thank you.”

Then he turned toward Ethan.

“As for your thesis…”

Ethan’s face tightened.

“Can I receive an extension?”

The director looked at the clock.

“You argued yesterday that missing the deadline by one’s own actions wasn’t important, correct?”

Ethan looked sharply at me.

I’d saved the livestream.

So had dozens of other people.

The university already had a copy.

The director remained professional.

“Any extension will be considered under the same rules applied to every student.”

No special treatment.

No uncle.

No girlfriend repairing his work overnight.

For the first time, Ethan had to face his own future without someone else quietly protecting it.

I stood.

He followed me into the corridor.

“Olivia!”

I kept walking.

He caught up.

“Please.”

I stopped.

“What?”

“Help me reconstruct it.”

I stared at him.

He looked desperate.

“You know my research better than anyone.”

That sentence was almost insulting.

“You said my future was insignificant compared with Nadia’s emotions.”

“I was angry.”

“You said losing a year wasn’t important.”

“I didn’t understand.”

“Exactly.”

I looked into his eyes.

“You didn’t understand because you thought it was my year.”

He went silent.

I continued:

“When the future being destroyed belonged to me, you called it a blessing.”

“Now that it’s yours, suddenly every hour matters.”

His face reddened.

“Olivia, we’ve been together four years.”

“Not anymore.”

He froze.

“What?”

“We’re finished.”

His voice dropped.

“Because of a thesis?”

I almost smiled.

“No.”

“Because when you believed I had lost mine, you laughed at my pain.”

I walked away.

The investigation lasted several weeks.

Nadia faced disciplinary consequences for deliberately interfering with academic work and filing a false complaint.

The counselor was removed from matters involving students connected to his family while the university reviewed his conduct.

Ethan missed the deadline.

He appealed.

The university reviewed the circumstances and made its decision according to policy.

Whatever happened afterward was his responsibility.

I stopped checking.

Instead, I prepared for graduation.

On graduation day, my parents flew back from overseas.

When Ethan’s old group of friends saw them sitting beside senior researchers from their institute, their expressions were almost comical.

So much for the orphan with nobody behind her.

But I hadn’t invited my parents to prove anything.

I wanted them there because they were my family.

When my name was called, I crossed the stage.

My thesis received a departmental distinction.

After the ceremony, I found Ethan waiting outside.

He looked thinner.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

He handed me a small box.

I didn’t take it.

“What’s that?”

“The necklace I bought for our anniversary.”

“Our anniversary doesn’t exist anymore.”

His fingers tightened around the box.

“I know.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he said:

“Nadia and I don’t talk anymore.”

“That isn’t relevant to me.”

“I should have believed you.”

“Yes.”

“I should have checked the computer.”

“Yes.”

“I should never have allowed anyone to treat you that way.”

I nodded.

“Yes.”

He looked almost surprised by how easily I agreed.

Perhaps he’d expected me to comfort him.

The old Olivia might have.

I wasn’t her anymore.

“Can we start again?”

“No.”

His eyes closed briefly.

“Is there really nothing I can do?”

“There is.”

Hope immediately appeared.

I smiled politely.

“Next time someone you claim to love is accused of something, find out the truth before deciding they’re disposable.”

Then I walked toward my parents.

A year later, I began doctoral research at another university.

The thesis Nadia had tried to destroy became almost funny whenever I remembered it.

She’d wanted to take away my graduation.

Instead, she had exposed herself.

But the greater mistake had belonged to Ethan.

He had been so certain that my future was cheap that he never bothered checking whose future was actually sitting inside that folder.

And when the truth finally appeared on the restored title page, I learned something too.

Four years earlier, Ethan had run through the rain because he couldn’t tolerate anyone treating me unfairly.

Four years later, he’d become the person doing it.

People sometimes ask when a relationship truly ends.

Mine didn’t end when Nadia deleted the file.

It didn’t end when Ethan defended her.

It didn’t even end when he publicly humiliated me.

It ended when he looked at what he believed was the destruction of my future and decided it wasn’t important.

So when that destruction turned out to belong to him instead, I kept the only promise he’d made that night.

Losing a year wasn’t the end of the world.

He could learn to live with it.