I Gave Up on Us. Why Are You the One Regretting It?
The night before the study abroad application deadline, the class group chat blew up.
[Oh my God, Ryan, why did you switch your application to the UK? Weren’t you supposed to go to France with Emma Bennett?]
Ryan Hawthorne replied like it was nothing.
[Yeah, I changed it. She has my login anyway.]
[Once she sees it, she’ll switch too. She always follows me around. She can’t function without me.]
I stood there with my phone in my hand, my mind going completely blank.
Scattered across the floor, half tucked between my open suitcases, was the gift I had prepared especially for Ryan.
I left the group chat, threw the gift away, and never opened the application portal again.
What he did not know was this.
He could give up the future we were supposed to share for Sophie Quinn.
And I could give him up too.
I could choose my own future without ever looking back.
All those late nights, all those years of work, had never been only for him.