THE HEIR'S AGONY TRIAL BY FIRE

Rejection

Aidan had barely stepped foot onto the campus before the whispers started, before the looks of disdain turned into open cruelty. The students at Pacific West University had a way of making you feel small without ever having to say a word, and Aidan quickly realized that his scholarship was nothing more than a reminder of how different he was from them.

He wasn’t like the other students who walked with the confidence of the privileged, their brand-new clothes and expensive accessories making it clear that they were born into a world of wealth. He wore the same jeans every day, his shoes worn and scuffed from years of use. His shirts were old, faded, a far cry from the designer clothes the other students wore. He didn’t fit into their world, and they let him know it every chance they got.

The first few days on campus had been a blur of new faces, crowded hallways, and unfamiliar classrooms. But it didn’t take long for Aidan to realize that he didn’t belong here, not in the way the others did. He was an outsider, a charity case who had somehow managed to slip through the cracks of a system designed to keep people like him out.

The first incident had been simple enough, something he could brush off as a momentary lapse in judgment. He had been standing in line at the campus coffee shop when one of the girls behind him had made a snide remark about his clothes. It was a comment he had heard a thousand times before, but for some reason, this one stung more than the others. He hadn’t even had time to respond before she and her friends had walked away, giggling behind their hands.

But the mockery didn’t stop there. Every day, it seemed, there was something new—an offhand comment, a sneering glance, a subtle gesture designed to remind him that he didn’t belong. In the classrooms, the students who sat near him would avoid making eye contact, as though he were a plague they didn’t want to catch. In the cafeteria, they would move to the other side of the room if he sat down at a table, as though his presence was something to be feared.

It was a constant assault on his dignity, and it wore him down, little by little. He had always been good at keeping his head down, at not letting the words of others get to him. But here, in this foreign world, surrounded by people who seemed so much better than him, it was harder than ever to ignore.

The worst part was that it wasn’t just the students who treated him this way—it was the professors too. They didn’t say anything outright, but the way they looked at him, the way they spoke to him, made it clear that they saw him as a curiosity. Aidan wasn’t sure if it was his background, his scholarship, or just the fact that he was so obviously different, but something about him made them uncomfortable. And that discomfort translated into coldness.

It wasn’t as if he was the only scholarship student—there were others, a few, scattered across the campus. But they didn’t seem to have the same problems that Aidan did. They had their own circles, their own friends, their own place in the social hierarchy. Aidan, on the other hand, was invisible. He was a ghost in a sea of privilege, never seen, never acknowledged, always on the outside looking in.

The isolation was crushing, suffocating. Every day felt like a battle, and every night he would retreat to his dorm room, his sanctuary, to escape the relentless barrage of cruelty. But even there, it wasn’t safe. His roommates, three guys who had grown up in the same world as the rest of the students, treated him like an inconvenience. They didn’t outright mock him, but their indifference was worse. They didn’t care if he was there or not. They didn’t want him to be there at all.

There was an unspoken tension in the air, a feeling that he wasn’t welcome, and it made Aidan feel more alone than he ever had before. He had always been a bit of an outsider, but this was different. This wasn’t just about not fitting in; this was about being actively excluded. This was about being reminded, every single day, that he didn’t belong.

The worst part was that Aidan didn’t know how to fight back. He wasn’t the type to confront people, to stand up for himself in a way that would draw attention. He wasn’t like the others—he wasn’t rich, he wasn’t powerful, and he certainly didn’t have the connections that everyone else seemed to have. All he had was his intelligence, and that didn’t seem to matter to anyone here.

One afternoon, after a particularly difficult morning in class, Aidan walked across campus to clear his head. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the quad. He was heading toward the library, hoping to lose himself in a book, when he saw them. A group of students from his class, gathered together by one of the benches, laughing and talking. He tried to ignore them, to walk past without drawing attention to himself, but as he did, he overheard something that made his blood run cold.

"Did you hear about the new scholarship kid?" one of them said, his voice dripping with mockery. "I heard he’s so desperate to fit in. It’s kind of sad, really."

Aidan’s heart sank. He had tried so hard to avoid their attention, to stay invisible. But somehow, he had become a topic of conversation, a subject of ridicule. He could hear their laughter rising behind him, and it made his skin crawl. He wanted to turn around, to confront them, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t let them see how much their words hurt him, how much their cruelty was eating away at him.

Instead, he kept walking, his footsteps quickening as he made his way to the library. He pushed open the heavy doors and stepped inside, feeling a wave of relief wash over him as the cool air hit his face. The library was quiet, a sanctuary from the world outside. He found a seat by the window and pulled out a book, trying to focus on the pages in front of him.

But even here, in the silence of the library, the words of the students haunted him. "Desperate to fit in." The phrase echoed in his mind, over and over, until it became a mantra. Was that all he was? Desperate? Desperate to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be more than just the scholarship kid who didn’t belong?

He closed the book, unable to concentrate, and rested his head on the table. He felt a surge of frustration, of hopelessness. He had worked so hard to get here, had fought so hard to escape the life he had come from, and yet here he was—just another face in the crowd, invisible to everyone who mattered.

And then, as he sat there, alone in the library, a thought struck him—a thought that would change everything.

What if he wasn’t meant to fit in? What if this whole world wasn’t worth trying to belong to? What if the real challenge was finding his own path, away from the mockery, away from the cruelty, away from the people who didn’t understand him?

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He didn’t need to be a part of their world. He didn’t need their approval, their acceptance. He didn’t need to prove anything to them. He had his own dreams, his own goals, and that was enough.

With that thought, Aidan stood up and walked out of the library, a new sense of determination rising in his chest. He wasn’t going to let them break him. He wasn’t going to let their mockery define him. He was going to prove to himself that he didn’t need their approval. He was going to make his own way, and if they didn’t like it, then that was their problem.

But as he stepped outside into the fading sunlight, a chill ran down his spine. There, in the shadows, he could have sworn he saw someone watching him. Someone who had been there, waiting for him to make his move. He couldn’t see their face, but he could feel their gaze, cold and calculating.

Aidan’s heart raced as he quickened his pace, but the feeling of being watched didn’t go away. He couldn’t shake the sense that someone was following him, someone who knew more about him than they should. But who?

And why?