Chapter 6: Independence and Regret

That night, I walked home under the streetlights, hoodie pulled tight, kicking rocks and letting the chill settle deep in my chest. I deleted Ryan’s number, and the last piece of that fantasy, for good.

The air was sharp, moon glaring overhead. I made a promise: I’d never depend on anyone again.

In the next two months, riding the high of being state’s top scorer, I hustled—tutoring gigs, scholarships. Before college started, I wired $42,000 to my mom, keeping only $5,000 for myself.

She hugged me, sobbing. “I’m sorry you had to grow up so fast, baby…”

I stroked her hair, remembering her hands red and raw from scrubbing dishes, the slap of overdue bills on the counter. “I turned eighteen half a year ago. I’m not a kid anymore.”

After the debt was gone, I actually dreamed of Ryan that night.

I’d been top in everything except math, so he poured himself into tutoring me—lifting my math score from 600 to over 750.

Half a month before the SAT, he asked, “Elle, will I really see you at MIT?”

Elle was the fake name I used.

My heart skipped, but I forced myself to record a voice message, making it soft and sweet:

“Of course! With your tutoring, I’ll definitely get into MIT. I don’t want to do long-distance with you~”

Ryan didn’t answer for five minutes. Then:

“Don’t lie to me.”

I had lied. I wasn’t a beauty, and I wasn’t going to MIT—I was going to Stanford.

On move-in day, Chloe posted a photo at San Francisco airport—Ryan’s tall silhouette ahead of her.

“Came to pick me up—so considerate.”

I saw it sitting on a Greyhound, suitcase bumping my knee every time the bus hit a pothole. San Francisco and Cambridge might as well be different worlds.