The Future He Couldn’t Steal

I ended the call and opened the email about MIT’s orientation for incoming freshmen.

I entered my information carefully, though Luca’s voice kept interrupting my thoughts.

Bianca doesn’t have anyone else. You have me.

My phone rang before I finished the first page.

Luca.

For a moment, I watched his name flash across the screen. Then I answered.

“What was that supposed to mean?” he asked. “You said I’m not going anywhere.”

He tried to sound casual, but there was a hint of unease in his voice.

“It means you’ve made your decision.”

“Elena, don’t do this.”

“I thought about us before I gave her that recommendation,” he continued. “With your grades, you can still get into Columbia. And even if you don’t, you could easily get into any other college in New York. We’d still see each other every day.”

He made it sound so reasonable.

My application could suffer. My plans could change. As long as I remained within reach, what had I really lost?

“Bianca doesn’t have those options,” he said. “You do.”

I looked at the MIT email.

Apparently, having worked hard enough to earn a choice meant I was supposed to let him take one away.

“Luca.”

He stopped talking.

I knew that silence. He was waiting for my voice to soften, for me to admit I had overreacted.

Then he would tell me he loved me, and we would never mention what he had done again.

“You’re right. I do have other options.”

I hung up before he could answer.

The next morning, I went to school to get my final transcript.

Luca was waiting outside the gates.

His black Mercedes stood at the curb, its engine running.

Luca pushed away from the driver’s door when he saw me.

“Elena.”

He reached for my wrist.

I stepped aside.

His hand hovered between us before he lowered it, staring at me as though I had done something rude.

“You’re still angry?”

He opened the car door and took out a small jewelry box.

“I got you something.”

Inside lay the necklace I had wanted for my eighteenth birthday.

A delicate gold chain with a small emerald pendant.

There was nothing particularly special about it, except the way it was marketed: give it to the person you love, and you’ll stay together forever.

I had shown him a picture of it months ago. He had promised to take me to the boutique that weekend.

Then Bianca had called with a swollen ankle.

He canceled while I was already waiting outside the store.

“We can shop anytime, ”he had told me. “She needs me right now.”

We never rescheduled.

Now he held the necklace out between us, confident that he had finally found the right solution.

“I should have talked to you first,” he said. “Consider this my apology.”

I looked from the emerald to his face.

“Your apology for what?”

His jaw tightened.

“For making the decision without you.”

“Come on, Elena. Take it. We’ve dragged this out long enough.”

“Luca?”

The passenger door opened.

Bianca stepped out in a white dress.

I hadn’t noticed her sitting there. Of course he had brought her.

She glanced at the open box, then at me.

“Is she still upset because of me?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Luca said. “It’s Okay. Elena will understand.”

Bianca lowered her eyes.

“We can tell them there was a mistake. They can put her name back on the letter.”

Her voice trembled.

“I’ll be okay. My mom says the diner will give me more shifts after graduation. College can wait.”

A tear slipped down her cheek.

“No one in my family has ever had the chance to go to college.”

She swayed slightly.

Luca set the box on the roof of the car and caught her by the arm to steady her.

I watched him turn toward her.

Even now, he was more concerned about Bianca than the apology he owed me.

Luca glanced at me.

“Look at her, Elena. She’s barely holding it together. Why can’t you be a little softer, like Bianca? Why does everything have to be a fight with you?”

I turned to him.

“What did you just say?”

“Elena.”

The warning in his voice was unmistakable.

“She works closing shifts, then gets up at five to practice. She’s danced on bleeding feet. Last month, she fainted in rehearsal because she hadn’t eaten.”

“School has always been easy for you,” he continued. “You study, you get an A. You don’t know what it’s like to work that hard and still wonder if it’ll ever be enough.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak.

I remembered the light beneath my bedroom door at three in the morning.

His calculus assignments spread beside my own. The practice tests I had marked for him. The concepts I had explained again and again because he hadn’t listened the first time.

I remembered spending Saturday nights in the robotics lab, then coming home to find messages asking why I hadn’t made it to his game.

The scholarship essays. The competition deadlines. The coffee gone cold beside my laptop.

He had been there for so little of it that he had decided none of it existed.

“Her recommendation is already submitted,” he said. “Can’t you be gracious about this?”

I tightened my grip on the folder. I didn’t want to argue with him anymore.

“You’re right. I don’t understand.”

I walked past him.

For four years, Luca Moretti had given me reasons to love him.

He remembered how I took my coffee. He drove across the city when I was sick and stayed until I fell asleep. When I doubted myself, he used to be the first person to say, “You can do this.”

So when our plans didn’t quite fit, I was willing to compromise. I wanted a future with the boy who had been so good to me.

During junior year, we had spent an afternoon on the roof of his family’s Manhattan townhouse.

“Apply to Columbia,” he said. “We could get an apartment near campus.”

“We?”

“Yes, move in with me. I want to see you everyday. ”

I laughed.

He turned my hand over and kissed my palm.

“I’m serious, Elena. My father’s going to start bringing me into the business. I can’t leave New York.”

“I know.”

“So stay with me.”

At seventeen, I had thought it was the most romantic thing he had ever asked.

Columbia became my first choice, even though MIT was a better fit for my passion for robotics. My tutor urged me to choose the school where I could do the work I loved.

But I chose Luca without hesitation.

But somewhere along the way, he had grown used to being the reason I changed my plans.

He no longer thought to ask. He simply assumed I would.

So he kept expecting me to make concessions for Bianca, until he went so far as to put her name on my recommendation letter.

Maybe my grades would have gotten me into Columbia anyway. That still didn’t give him the right to hand someone else credit for my work.

This time, I decided to accept MIT’s offer. And leave him.

Getting into MIT had been an unexpected surprise, though it had always been my dream school.

A few months earlier, my mentor had encouraged me to apply.

“Give yourself a chance. At least you won’t have to wonder what might have happened.”

Now, I was more grateful than ever that my mentor had talked me into applying, even though I’d only meant to see if I could get in.

I stopped outside the school office and opened an email from the graduation coordinator.

Please confirm your college destination by noon today.

For weeks, I had left that field blank.

Now I typed:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The final admissions results would be announced in three days.

For once, Luca would find out about my decision after I had made it.