Chapter 3

The post hadn't been up for even a minute before the comments spiraled into a frenzy.

"Confess now! We want to see this love story happen!"

"Your childhood best friend is super hot. I'd fall for him too!"

I switched to my private account and left a reply in the comments.

"Have some shame."

The moment I posted it, people started attacking me.

"Some people are just jealous. They can't stand seeing others happy."

More and more people piled on in the comments, and soon my DMs were flooded too.

A few minutes later, the comment was deleted, and my account was restricted from posting.

At 1:00 am, Maeve updated her caption.

"I've made up my mind! If this gets 100,000 likes, I'll confess. I don't want to miss my chance with him."

The likes shot up like crazy. It passed 10,000 in less than a minute and quickly started trending.

I liked the post too. If their feelings were mutual, then I'd give them what they wanted.

At some point, Blake came back into the bedroom. I was in his arms when I woke up, but he smelled like Maeve's perfume. It was a sweet, lingering scent that made me want to throw up.

I tried to push him away, but his arms tightened around me.

There were dark circles under his eye, a clear sign that he'd obviously stayed up late again helping Maeve with her paper.

"Stop moving around," he grumbled. "Let me sleep."

Still, I pulled myself out of his arms and went to wash up. I opened my suitcase and started packing.

That immediately woke Blake.

"Noelle, where are you going?" he asked, grabbing my wrist.

"Back to Southbury."

"Didn't you say you were going to look for a job in Bexford? Why are you going back to Southbury?"

"Blake, let's break up," I said, enunciating every word clearly as I looked him straight in the eye.

He let out a disbelieving laugh, as if I'd just told him a joke.

"You're breaking up with me because I didn't come pick you up at the station?" he asked, incredulous. "Noelle, are you seriously being this childish?"

Every time we argued, he'd call me childish. This time was no different, but I didn't want to explain myself anymore.

When I didn't respond, Blake opened a drawer and tossed a document onto the table.

"Maeve and I found you an internship at a major company. You start in a few days," he announced. "We had to call in a lot of favors to get you a job.

"Grow up, Noelle. Stop making everyone worry about you."

I glanced at the paperwork.

It was an internship at one of the biggest tech companies, paying 3,000 dollars a month with only one day off a week. But the offer I'd received paid more than twice as much.

I slammed the paperwork onto the table.

"Is that really how useless you think I am?" I asked, my eyes burning with tears. "You really think I can't even find a job on my own?"

Blake looked at me, his gaze condescending.

"What qualifications do you even have? Maeve and I went to Bexford University, while you only went to an ordinary college. If it weren't for us, with a résumé like yours, you wouldn't even get through the company's doors!"

His words cut straight through me.

Growing up, Blake and Maeve had always been exceptional, while I was the ordinary one.

Whenever Blake tutored me, he'd call me an idiot.

Everyone was always pairing Blake and Maeve together, saying they were perfect for each other.

Even after I started dating Blake, his parents never really warmed up to me. Whenever I went to their house for dinner, they'd make one comment after another about how I wasn't good enough for Blake, how I couldn't compare to Maeve, and how we should break up.

I'd cried over it more times than I could count, but Blake would always take my hand and reassure me that I wasn't beneath him, telling me to ignore whatever his parents said.

But now, he looked down on me just like everyone else.

"Blake, you think I'm not good enough for you too, don't you? You think my degree embarrasses you, right?"

He froze for a moment, panic flashing across his face.

"No, that's not what I meant. Noelle, I—”

I shoved him away. As I stormed out of the bedroom, I ran straight into Maeve, who was standing outside the door.

Acting as though nothing had happened, she reached for my arm, her expression completely innocent.

"Noelle, you've misunderstood," she said. "That's not what we meant."

I'd had enough.

"Get out of my way!" I snarled, yanking my arm away.

I used more force than I meant to, and Maeve cried out and fell hard onto the floor.

Blake's furious voice came from behind me. He shoved past me and immediately crouched down to help her.

"Noelle, that's enough!"

It was the first time he'd ever yelled at me like that.

A sharp, suffocating pain spread through my chest as I slammed the door behind me and walked out without looking back.

Blake didn't come after me.