Chapter 4Funding the Flame

But right before my final college entrance exams, a few debt collectors ambushed me.

They snatched my exam admission ticket.

"Call your deadbeat dad and tell him to pay up. Otherwise, I'm burning this right now."

"Heard you get good grades, huh? Too bad. Say goodbye to college."

I frantically called my dad, but the line was dead.

In pure desperation, I called Roman.

He rushed over, out of breath.

He just asked coldly:

"How much does he owe you?"

They said, "Thirty grand."

He turned around and left. Not long after, he came back carrying a bag of cash.

The moment he reached his hand out to me, my nose stung.

He gripped my wrist tightly, pulling me out of that dark alley.

Walking behind him, I wiped away pathetic tears.

He turned around and glared at me fiercely:

"You're a grown man, why are you crying? So annoying."

During the two days of my exams, he canceled all his business and waited outside the testing center.

The night I finished my last test, after dinner, I gathered all my courage and hugged him from behind.

"Roman, you... you can sleep in the bed tonight."

His body went completely rigid.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I heard you like men..."

"And I can't afford to pay you back..."

Honestly, with every day that the exams had approached, my anxiety grew.

Once I graduated high school, I'd have no excuse to stay here.

But I stubbornly wanted to be tied to him.

He used thirty thousand dollars to sever the ties between me and my toxic family.

But it also made the dynamic between him and me completely unequal.