Goodbye to My Youth

When I picked up Mark Harrison’s call, I was studying for tomorrow’s college entrance exam. We promised that we'd go to the same university.

Just ten minutes ago, he sent me a text.

[Hang in there, Sadie! Good luck on the exam! I’ll be waiting for you at Horvard or Prescott.]

Ten minutes later, I picked up his call, only to hear him confess his feelings to the school beauty.

"Adele, I've fallen for you. Will you be my girlfriend?" Mark said over the line.

My body went rigid, and my pen clattered onto the desk.

Adele Gray and I used the same mobile carrier, and our phone numbers were only two digits apart. Mark didn't have a habit of saving contact names, so he must have dialed the wrong number by mistake.

Unaware of the mix-up, he kept talking.

"Adele, this isn't the first time I've confessed to you.

"Last summer, the first time I saw you at prep school, I fell for you at first sight in that white dress. I wrote you love letters, but you didn't take them. Even so, you agreed to take a walk with me on Valentine's Day."

Last summer, Mark and I were celebrating our second anniversary.

On Valentine's Day, we had planned to go to the movies together. I bought the tickets early and sat there with a tub of popcorn from the beginning of the film all the way to the end credits.

Mark never showed up. When I got home, he texted me saying he had a fever and wasn't feeling well.

Panic immediately washed over me. Forgetting my anger, I ran across three city blocks just to buy him medicine.

What was Mark thinking back then?

Was he feeling bad that I had waited for him all night? Or was he secretly reliving his very first date with Adele?

I blinked, my eyes burning with unshed tears.

Mark’s voice grew even more excited.

"And remember Christmas Eve? The whole school was busy exchanging gifts.

"That idiot Sadie baked me gingerbread cookies. But when you saw them, you said you didn't like them. So, I turned right around and tossed them into the trash without hesitating for even a second."

I remembered that night so clearly.

That Christmas Eve, I spent half my monthly allowance and ran around buying the best ingredients. Baking and decorating the cookies took me seven whole days.

The moment he received them, Mark’s eyes lit up. He held the cookies close, smiling radiantly. "Sadie, I promise I'll treasure these."

Yet behind my back, all it took was Adele saying she didn't like them, and those cookies, along with my heart, were thrown into the garbage can.

I bit my lip, unable to hold back the tears as they hit my review book.