When the photo of my boyfriend and my best friend wrapped in each other’s arms hit the campus forum, everyone else seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. “They’re just so gorgeous together. Honestly, it was only a matter of time.” “I never understood why a guy like Jude, who’s basically campus royalty, was with someone as average as Megan in the first place.” Even my own roommate, Bella, whispered it to someone else when she thought I was out of earshot: “I mean, you have to admit, they really do look perfect together…” Whenever I brought up the gossip, Jude would just run his fingers through my hair, offering that effortless, boyish smile of his. “She tripped, Megan. I caught her before she hit the pavement. Some idiot with a camera made a big deal out of nothing. You’re not actually jealous, are you? You know you’re the only one for me.” And it was true that in public, Jude never hid me. He would introduce me to his colleagues and friends with complete ease: “This is Megan. My girlfriend. We’re getting married right after graduation.” But then came the senior gala. A waiter stumbled, sending a tray of scalding soup flying, and Jude didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, throwing his arm around Valerie’s waist to pull her out of harm’s way. The hot liquid splashed over his hand, but his eyes never left hers. I stood a few feet away, watching the tears spill over my lashes, my chest tight. “Who are you?” I wanted to scream, the words choking me. “What did you do with my Jude? Give him back.” 1 The senior gala was a blur of deafening music and clinking glasses, but in my head, the world had gone dead silent. I couldn’t hear a thing over the rushing sound of my own pulse. My eyes were locked on Jude’s right hand. It was already turning a raw, angry red from the scalding soup, but it was still resting on Valerie’s waist. He froze, realizing what he was doing, and quickly pulled his hand back, stepping toward me. “Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” He wiped the tears from my cheeks, his touch as gentle and reassuring as it had been for the last ten years. “Are you stressed about graduation? You’ve been overthinking everything lately, Megan. I told you, I have everything handled. You just need to focus on being happy.” But I couldn’t stop staring at his hand. I tried to speak, but the words felt like dry ash in my throat. A few feet away, Valerie watched us, a faint, unreadable smile playing on her lips before she held up her phone. “Jude, the team group chat just pinged. We need to jump on a quick online meeting.” Jude frowned. He grabbed a glass of warm water, plated two slices of the chocolate fudge cake I loved, and gently guided me into a chair by my shoulders. Finally, he pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed it into my hand. “It’ll only take a few minutes. Wait for me here. You can see me right from this spot.” “Be good. Don’t overthink.” Having arranged my world so neatly, he turned and walked off with Valerie to a table two rows over. Beside me, Bella sighed dreamily. “God, Megan, you are so lucky. Where does one even find a guy like Jude? Ten years, and he still treats you like you’re his whole world.” I looked past her to the two figures sitting side by side, their silhouettes perfectly aligned under the dim venue lights. My smile felt incredibly heavy. On the drive home, Valerie sat in the back, keeping a polite, respectful distance. The car hummed in the quiet night until she suddenly spoke up. “By the way, Megan, one of my mentors is hiring a digital illustrator for his indie game studio. I can put in a good word for you if you’re interested.” Before I could even process the offer, Jude’s brows furrowed as he looked in the rearview mirror. “She’s doing fine as she is. Besides, I’ll be making enough to support us both.” Valerie’s smile stiffened. She leaned back, her voice tinged with mock defensiveness. “Right. Forget I said anything.” The silence in the car grew thick and awkward. I looked at the two of them—each staring stubbornly ahead—and felt my chest tighten. Half an hour later, Jude pulled up to her apartment building. Valerie grabbed her designer bag, gave me a polite goodbye, and closed the passenger door with a sharp, heavy thud. Jude scoffed, shifting the car back into drive. “The attitude on her. We have to work together starting next week, and honestly, she’s already exhausting.” He reached over, taking my hand in his. “Forget about her, baby. I didn’t even get to eat at that meeting, I’m starving. Let’s go home. I want some of that late-night pasta you make.” I looked down at our joined hands, quietly pulling away to stare out the window. His phone kept buzzing with work notifications as we drove through the neon-lit streets, but my mind was miles away. Jude had graduated at the top of his finance class, landing a coveted analyst role at a top-tier investment firm in New York. He was brilliant, ambitious, and destined for success. Everyone praised him, usually followed by a quiet, pitying note about his rather ordinary girlfriend. Back in freshman year, when he and Valerie first went viral on the university forum for their matching looks and sharp wits, I had asked him, terrified, if he would be happier with someone who could run at his pace. He had laughed, tapping my forehead. “What does it matter how successful she is? To me, she’s just a stranger. You’re my home, Megan.” But now, as he unlocked the car door, the question that had been clawing at my throat finally slipped out. “Jude.” “How did you know exactly where her apartment was?” 2 The cold war that followed was unlike anything we’d ever had. It started that night under the streetlamp, with Jude pinching the bridge of his nose, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “Megan, I’ve been in meetings all night. I am exhausted. Do we really have to do this right now? Over nothing?” When I didn’t answer, a bitter laugh escaped him. “How many times do I have to say it? If there was anything between Valerie and me, we would’ve dated years ago.” He wasn’t entirely wrong. For four years, they were the golden couple of the finance department. Yet, Jude had always made it clear to everyone: “I have a girlfriend. She’s an artist. Her name is Megan.” I still remembered the first time I met his college friends. Waiting outside their private booth at the bar, I heard their loud voices drifting through the door. “If Jude turned down Valerie, his girlfriend must be an absolute goddess.” I didn’t miss the subtle flicker of disappointment in their eyes when I finally walked in. It was a silent, collective “Oh. Her?” Even my own friends would whisper, “A guy like Jude doesn’t stay single long once college ends, Megan. Hold onto him while he’s still yours.” It felt like our entire relationship was a ticking clock everyone else was waiting to run out. Now, looking at the untouched bowl of pasta that had gone cold on the kitchen counter, I buried my face in my hands, hot tears slipping through my fingers. The sudden shrill of my phone made me jump. I wiped my face quickly, only to hear Valerie’s exasperated voice on the other end. “Megan, please come pick up your boyfriend. We had a team dinner, I went to the restroom for five minutes, and everyone else bolted. Now I’m stuck here with a completely wasted Jude.” I ordered an Uber and rushed to the restaurant. While I was on my way, Valerie’s complaints kept lighting up my screen. When Valerie and Jude first became the talk of Columbia’s campus, she had actually been the one to approach me. “You’re Megan, right?” she’d said with a bright, easy smile. “Jude and I are just group project partners, I promise. Don’t believe the gossip. Honestly, I find you much more interesting, little artist.” For four years, she was one of my few close friends. She watched anime with me, came to my art exhibitions, and was always the first to comment on my posts: “You are literally a genius!” I once asked her what kind of guy she liked while Jude was busy scolding me for eating ice cream in the winter, snatching the cone from my hand. Valerie had rolled her eyes. “Definitely not someone like him. Too bossy, acts like a dad. Besides, I like being number one. I can’t stand guys who try to outshine me.” But when I arrived at the restaurant, the reality was different. His colleagues were hovering by the table, looking incredibly awkward. “We, uh, we thought you two had a thing going on,” one of them mumbled to Valerie, rubbing the back of his neck. “We were just trying to set you up…” Jude’s face was flushed red. He shifted in his seat, almost slipping off the chair, but Valerie caught him just in time. He sank into her embrace, murmuring something incoherent as his face brushed against her collarbone. The tension in the room was suffocating. Valerie quickly pulled back as if burned, her face turning crimson when she spotted me. “Megan. You’re here.” The colleagues looked like they wanted the floor to swallow them whole. I could hear their hushed whispers as I stepped forward. “So he actually has a girlfriend…” “She’s kind of plain, isn’t she? Must be a high school sweetheart thing.” I took Jude’s heavy arm from Valerie, offering her a tight, polite smile. “Thanks for calling me.” Back at the apartment, I managed to get him onto the sofa. The living room was pitch black. As I turned to fetch a wet towel to wipe his face, his hand suddenly shot out, gripping my wrist with surprising strength. “Don’t fight with me anymore, please,” he muttered, his voice thick with sleep. “It hurts.” A lump formed in my throat, threatening to break me. I tried to pull away, but my foot caught on the edge of the rug. I stumbled, landing right on his lap. And that was when I heard his quiet, slurred whisper against my neck. “I told you Apex’s financial statements were flagged… why do you always have to fight me on this?” “Valerie.” In the dark, my blood ran cold. 3 Once Jude officially started at the firm, his life belonged to Wall Street. An invisible wall grew between us, block by brick. He left before sunrise and returned long after midnight. Our conversations dwindled to nothing. Even on the rare occasions he was home, his laptop was a constant barrier, his fingers flying across the keyboard while I sat at the other end of the couch, drawing random, jagged lines across my screen—ugly scars on otherwise beautiful faces. The only updates I got about his life came from Valerie. “He got praised by the Managing Director again,” her texts would read, mixed with her usual complaints about work. “But honestly, the guy is a machine. He skips lunch completely. His stomach is going to be ruined at this rate.” I stared at my phone, typing back slowly: “He’s been coming home really late.” The status bubble showed “Valerie is typing…” for a long time before she replied: “I guess that’s just the analyst life. We don’t have family money or connections, Megan. We have to work twice as hard to build a life here.” I let out a bitter, silent laugh. “We.” They had started at the firm together, spending twelve hours a day in the same bullpen. When had they become “we,” while I became a stranger? I learned to eat dinner alone. I went to the grocery store alone. I bought a single ticket to the movie I’d been dying to see, sitting in the dark theater by myself. I stopped waiting up on the couch, leaving the hallway light off. Ten years ago, a devastating earthquake in our hometown had left me an orphan. Jude had pulled me from the rubble, refusing to let go of my hand, promising to be my family. Ten years later, I was finally learning how to survive on my own again. The day to visit our parents’ graves was set for Saturday. I was packing my bag when Jude walked out of the bedroom, his phone pressed to his ear. He froze when he saw the suitcase. “Megan? Where are you going?” I stared at him. “I’m going back home. To visit our parents. Did you forget?” His face went blank, then he struck his forehead in frustration. “Dammit, Megan, I’m so sorry. The team has an urgent due diligence review. The client only gave us a twenty-four-hour window. I can’t leave.” He stepped forward, putting his hand on my suitcase to stop me. “Just this once, okay? They’ll understand. Wait for me, and as soon as this deal closes, we’ll start looking at apartments to buy.” Before I could speak, a car horn honked from the street below. Jude gave me a quick, distracted hug, grabbed his coat, and rushed out the door. I walked to the window. Downstairs, he jogged over to Valerie’s sedan. She handed him a travel mug of coffee through the open window, saying something that made her playfully swat at his shoulder. Jude laughed—a genuine, lighthearted laugh I hadn’t seen on his face in months—and slid into the passenger seat. I watched the car merge into the New York traffic until it disappeared. Then I grabbed my suitcase, locked the door, and took the bus back to our small hometown in upstate New York. The cemetery sat on a quiet hill, the headstones of Jude’s parents right next to mine. They were weathered, worn down by a decade of harsh winters. Ten years since the day our lives changed forever. We had been neighbors, childhood sweethearts. When the earth shook, our parents used their last breaths to shield us under the collapsed beams. In an instant, Jude and I became the only family each other had left. Before the SATs, I used to stay up until three in the morning, crying over practice exams. Jude would hold my hands, his voice steady. “If you don’t get into Columbia with me, Megan, I’ll take a gap year and apply again. We go together. No matter what.” He ended up turning down higher-ranked Ivy League offers just so we could stay in the same city. People called him foolish, but he told them, “You don’t understand what Megan means to me. She is my life.” On that quiet hill, with only the wind rustling the branches of the old oak tree, I closed my eyes. I could still see seventeen-year-old Jude, his face covered in dust and dried blood, desperately clawing at the concrete until his fingernails tore, screaming my name. I could see him at eighteen, kissing me under the old oak tree, promising we’d make it out. I could see him at twenty-one, placing his first internship paycheck into my palm, promising to buy us a home. Jude was woven into the very fabric of who I was. How could I just let him go? I knelt down, wiping the dust from the gravestones, and forced a soft smile. “Mom, Dad… please watch over us.” Then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. The message on the screen made my smile freeze. 4 Jude’s text was simple. He wanted me to deliver a folder of tax documents to an address in the city. Valerie’s apartment. My fingers trembled as I typed out four words: “I’m not doing that.” Within seconds, my phone rang. Jude’s voice was sharp with frustration. “Megan, please. Can you grow up for once? This project is make-or-break for my career. I don’t have time to play games with you right now.” I looked at the cold stone faces of my parents, and a quiet, hollow laugh slipped past my lips. “Jude, I’m at the cemetery. In front of our parents.” The line went dead silent. “I guess that explains why you didn’t ask where I was last night,” I whispered. “Because you weren’t home either.” “Megan…” His voice suddenly sounded very small, very panicked. “I…” “Where were you last night, Jude? Were you at her place?” I hung up and boarded the bus back to the city. Through the window, the trees and hills rolled backward, slipping away just like the last ten years of my life. Jude was waiting at the Port Authority bus terminal, looking pale. He silently took my suitcase, his jaw tight as he opened the passenger door of his car. He let out a long, ragged sigh. “Don’t be mad at me, Megan. I’m so incredibly tired.” I stared at the dark purple bruises under his eyes, but before I could say a word, he kept going. “Do you think I want to spend eighteen hours a day at the office? Do you think I enjoy missing dinners with you? I don’t have a choice. This is how the city works. We don’t have trust funds or safety nets. If I don’t kill myself working, we will never own a home. We will never survive here.” I looked down at my hands. “But Jude, I never asked to conquer New York.” I thought of the warm, loving gaze of my parents on that hill. I reached out, gently touching his wrist. “We could go back home. You wouldn’t have to carry all this…” He flinched, pulling his arm away. His eyes grew cold. “I didn’t spend my entire youth studying just to go back to some dying town and live a mediocre life.” He looked at me, his disappointment cutting deeper than any insult. “Megan, after ten years, you still don’t understand me. Honestly, Valerie understands my ambition better than you do.” I tucked my hands into my sleeves, squeezing my fingers until they hurt. “Okay,” I whispered, forcing a smile. “Then go build the life you want.” After that day, Jude stopped trying to play the part of the attentive boyfriend. He and Valerie were inseparable, working late nights, traveling for client meetings, navigating the high-stakes world of finance side by side. Everyone at the firm spoke of them as a unit. Eventually, even their biggest clients assumed they were engaged, asking when the wedding was. This time, Jude didn’t bother to correct them. My chat history with Valerie had stopped a month ago, right after she texted me to ask what kind of coffee bean roast Jude preferred. “Sometimes I watch him present in front of the board, and I’m just in awe of how brilliant he is,” she had written. They were like two travelers who had finally found the right road after wandering in the dark. And I was just a small, forgotten detour they had passed miles ago. By late June, the project was finally over. Jude slumped onto our couch, loosening his tie, and reached over to ruffle my hair. “The bonus cleared. Go buy that new Wacom tablet you wanted.” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. He didn’t even realize that I had bought myself a new tablet three months ago. His phone buzzed, and his face lit up instantly. “It’s Valerie’s birthday. She’s inviting the whole team out to The Sapphire Lounge this weekend.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Great. I’ll pick out a gift for her. Tell her happy birthday for me.” Jude fell asleep on the couch minutes later. I looked out the window at the pale moon, then opened my phone to see Valerie’s latest Instagram post. It was a photo from their closing dinner. She and Jude were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, their smiles matching, looking like the perfect power couple. Three days later, Jude texted me the location of the bar, saying he was heading there straight from the office. I looked at my packed suitcase sitting by the door, taking one last look at the apartment we had shared. It was a beautiful place, but it was never going to be our home. I pulled my coat tight, picked up my bag, and walked out without looking back. Ten years of chasing someone else’s dream was enough. It was time to find my own light.
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