The university was hosting a debate tournament. The topic: “If you’re in a committed relationship and the love of your life—your ex—comes back, what do you do?” The affirmative argued for the ex; the negative argued for the current partner. My boyfriend of three years, Chris, chose to speak for the affirmative. My roommate, Zoey, watched me warily, keeping her voice low as if any wrong word might shatter whatever fragile composure I had left. “Maeve…” I forced a small, practiced smile, offering the perfect excuse on Chris’s behalf. “It’s just for the course credits. I’m sure he didn’t want to be on the affirmative side anyway.” But during the free-rebuttal round, things got heated. The third speaker for the negative, his face flushed with adrenaline, gestured sharply toward where I sat in the crowd and shouted: “Chris! Your girlfriend is sitting right there in the audience. Are you seriously standing up there and telling us you’d choose your ex?” Chris didn’t look at me. His gaze drifted, turning distant, as if he were suddenly pulled back into some old, sacred memory. “My current relationship is a perfect score,” he said, his voice echoing through the microphone, steady and heartbreakingly clear. “It’s a flawless paper. But she’s the bonus question I never got to solve, and I’m just not ready to leave it blank.” The auditorium erupted into thundering applause. In my quiet corner of the back row, the sound was deafening, swallowing me whole. Chris won the debate. He got the trophy, the handshakes, the loud cheers of his peers. But he made sure I lost everything. … When the debate ended, Chris practically ran off the stage toward me. He leaned down, bringing his eyes level with mine. “Mae, I only did what I had to do for the grade. You know me. You know I didn’t mean it, right?” I kept my eyes trained on the floor, blinking hard against the hot tears clinging to my eyelashes, refusing to let them fall. The tragedy was that I “did” know him. And because I knew him, I knew he was telling the truth—he truly, deeply, could not let go of that unsolved question. Seeing how quiet I was, Chris tried to soften the air. Like a magician performing a cheap trick, he pulled a cherry lollipop from his coat pocket. He tore open the plastic wrapper with a quick, practiced flick and held it out to me. “Eat something sweet, Mae. It keeps the sad faces away.” Our story had started with a lollipop just like this one. Three years ago, I was living through the darkest winter of my life. My high school sweetheart had ghosted me out of nowhere, cutting me off so cleanly it felt like a physical amputation. Around the same time, my parents finalized their bitter divorce, remarried other people, and decided that since I was eighteen, I was no longer their responsibility. I was a leftover child, suddenly entirely alone. To top it off, I had choked on my finals, missing out on a crucial scholarship by a mere fraction of a GPA point. I remember sitting on a bench in the pouring rain, sobbing hysterically, utterly convinced the world had abandoned me. That was when Chris appeared. He held an umbrella over my head and handed me a lollipop. He told me that if I ate something sweet, my face wouldn’t have to look so sad. Later, I learned that Chris had been going through his own quiet hell that day. His family’s business had collapsed into bankruptcy overnight. His girlfriend had boarded a plane to study abroad without even saying goodbye. And his little sister, whom they couldn’t afford to keep in the clinic, had passed away. The lollipop he gave me was the one his sister loved most—the last gift he’d never got to give her. From that afternoon on, those cheap lollipops became my anchor. Every time my world started to tilt, they brought me back. Maybe we were just two drowning people clinging to each other for warmth, or maybe it was real, but our grief eventually bloomed into love. We fell into a relationship naturally, and we stayed there for three years. I reached out to take the lollipop from him. But just as my fingers brushed the wrapper, a fragile, trembling voice cut through the crowded hallway. “Chris…” Chris stiffened instantly. His hand jerked, and the lollipop slipped from his fingers, hitting the linoleum floor and shattering into a dozen sharp, sugary pieces. He turned around, his eyes instantly turning a raw, painful red as he stared at the girl standing a few feet away. I recognized her instantly. I had seen her face tucked away in a hidden, password-protected folder on his laptop. It was Rebecca Shaw—his great, unfinished love. Rebecca took a tentative step toward him, her voice thick with tears. “Chris… I heard what you said on stage. I came back because I needed to tell you. I didn’t leave you because I wanted to. I had no choice.” Chris let out a harsh, mocking laugh, though his lips trembled. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the exit. My mind was a chaotic blur. A small, desperate part of me wondered if I had been overthinking things. Maybe he really had moved on. Maybe I could trust him. I squeezed his hand, trying to offer some silent comfort, trying to anchor him to me. But then, Chris stopped. I looked up. He had his eyes closed tightly, his chest heaving as he took a succession of shallow, ragged breaths. When he turned back around to face Rebecca, his voice shook with a desperation he couldn’t hide. “What choice did you have?” Rebecca froze, caught off guard by his sudden demand. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Chris’s expression crumbled, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “You didn’t even bother to think of a lie before coming back? You couldn’t even respect me enough to fake an excuse?” He took a step toward her, his voice rising. “And as for the debate—don’t flatter yourself. It was an assignment. Nothing more. I will hate you for the rest of my life.” But he couldn’t even bear to look at her face. He turned and stumbled blindly out the doors, running away from the very sight of her. In his haste, his heavy boot came down hard on the shattered pieces of the cherry lollipop. The sharp, cracking sound of breaking candy echoed in my ears like a gunshot. He left me standing there, face-to-face with Rebecca. Rebecca walked up to me, her eyes filled with a pity that made my stomach turn. “You see it, don’t you?” she whispered. “He’s still completely in love with me. Staying with him is just humiliating yourself.” She looked me up and down, her voice dripping with condescension. “You’re smart enough to go to this school. You know when to walk away, right?” I didn’t answer. Around us, the whispers of passing students were already starting to swell. “It was such a tragedy when Chris and Rebecca broke up. Even their names sounded like they belonged in a book together.” “Remember when he hijacked the campus radio station to apologize to her? Or when he engraved her initials on his soccer trophy? He literally jumped into the campus lake in November to find her lost ring. You don’t just forget a love like that.” “Honestly, Maeve was always just a placeholder. She got him on the rebound because he was lonely.” It was true. In the three years Chris and I were together, no one in his circle ever really took us seriously. They all whispered that if the Mercer family hadn’t lost their fortune, a guy like Chris would have never looked twice at a girl like me. Our entire relationship felt like something I had stolen, a temporary lease on a life that belonged to someone else. A few people tried to defend me in the crowd. “If he wasn’t over his ex, he shouldn’t have started dating someone else. How is any of this Maeve’s fault?” But those quiet voices were quickly drowned out by the romanticized nostalgia of his past. I walked out of the building and headed toward the wooded hill behind the campus, sitting down on our usual wooden bench. On the back of the wood, our initials were still carved: “M + C”. I traced the letters over and over, my fingers shaking as the tears finally spilled over. A sudden rain began to fall, soaking through my clothes, chilling me to the bone. It occurred to me that exactly three years ago today, on this very bench, in a rainstorm just like this, Chris had found me. But today, there was no umbrella. There was no sweet candy to make the sad face go away. I buried my face in my knees and whispered to the wet grass that when the rain stopped, I would let him go. A few minutes later, the downpour abruptly ceased to hit my back. But the sound of water splashing nearby kept going. I looked up. Chris was standing in front of me, holding an umbrella over my head. Just like three years ago. The dam broke, and I sobbed, loud and ugly, right there in the open air. I didn’t understand why happiness was always something dangled in front of me, only to be yanked away the moment I reached out to touch it. Chris dropped to his knees and pulled me gently into his arms. “Mae, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. I lost my temper, and I never should have left you there alone. I’m so sorry.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another lollipop, his eyes pleading. “Look, I got you a new one. Don’t cry, okay?” The gentler his voice was, the more it broke me. The word “breakup” was lodged in my throat like a stone, heavy and unspeakable. He helped me up, tilting the umbrella so it covered me completely while the rain beat down on his shoulders. “Come on. Let me walk you back to your dorm.” But as we took our first step, Rebecca’s voice cut through the rain again. She was standing on the path behind us, completely drenched, without an umbrella. “Chris… are you really just going to abandon me?” This time, Chris’s face was entirely blank. He didn’t even look back. He kept his hand firmly on my shoulder, guiding me forward, away from her. Then came the sound of splashing water—a frantic, clumsy run, followed by a dull, heavy thud. Rebecca had tripped on the slick pavement, falling hard into a puddle. She lay there, clutching her ankle, letting out a sharp cry of pain. That sound seemed to strike Chris right in the chest. He stopped dead in his tracks. He let out a long, slow breath, then turned to me and handed me the umbrella. “Mae, go inside and take a hot shower. Don’t catch a cold, okay? Just go on up.” He didn’t wait for me to argue. He turned around and walked back down the path toward Rebecca. Seeing him approach, Rebecca reached up with her pale, trembling arms. “Chris… I knew you wouldn’t leave me.” Chris looked down at her, his voice freezing cold. “This is the last time. Don’t ever seek me out again.” He bent down and lifted her into his arms. Rebecca smiled through her tears, her hands naturally wrapping around his neck. I stood under the umbrella, watching them disappear into the gray mist, my chest feeling as cold and hollow as the rain. I don’t know how long I stood there before I finally turned and walked the other way. When I reached my dorm, I closed the umbrella, walked over to the trash bin outside the lobby, and tossed it inside. The resident advisor saw me and jogged over. “Oh, sweetie, that’s a perfectly good umbrella. Are you sure you want to throw it away?” I gave her a quiet, empty smile. “Yes,” I said. “I don’t need it anymore.” I didn’t need the umbrella. And I didn’t need him. I went upstairs, took a long shower, and dried my hair. When I reached for my phone to check the campus forum out of habit, Zoey suddenly snatched it out of my hand. “Mae, you’ve been on your phone too much today. It’s bad for your eyes,” she said quickly, her voice unnaturally bright. “Yeah, seriously,” our other roommate, Sarah, chimed in. “Blow-dry your hair, and let’s go grab some diner food. My treat.” I looked at their anxious faces, the tension in their shoulders. “What’s going on? What is on my phone that you don’t want me to see?” They exchanged a nervous glance, their forced smiles faltering. “Nothing, really. We just realized we haven’t had a girls’ night in forever.” I sighed gently. “Give me the phone, guys. You can’t keep me in a bubble forever.” I took the phone back and opened the student forum. A headline pinned to the top of the feed made my blood run cold: “Maeve: The Gold-Digging Homewrecker Who Ruined a Perfect Love.” I clicked on it. The comment section was a toxic wasteland of vitriol. “Honestly, Chris and Rebecca were soulmates. Maeve just saw an opportunity when Rebecca went abroad and leaped on him. Pathetic.” “I bet she sat on that bench every single day waiting to trap him. Who else sits in a rainstorm on purpose?” “No wonder her parents abandoned her the second she turned eighteen. Clearly, there’s something fundamentally wrong with her.” The words sliced through the fragile scars I had spent three years trying to build, tearing them open to bleed in public. My family, my past—I had only ever shared those secrets with one person. Chris. I knew he wouldn’t post this himself. He wasn’t that cruel. Which meant there was only one other person who could have done it: Rebecca. I couldn’t believe that within twelve hours of her return, Chris had already handed her the weapons to destroy me. Before I could scroll any further, my phone buzzed. Chris’s name flashed on the screen. When I answered, his voice was as gentle as it always was, but it no longer carried the power to soothe me. “Did you take that hot shower? I ordered a ginger tea to your dorm lobby. I got one for your roommates too, so you don’t have to walk down into the cold air to get it.” He was still so attentive, so careful with the logistics of my life. But I was done playing the game. “Have you seen the forum?” I asked, cutting through his pleasantries. I expected him to play dumb, but he didn’t. He answered with a heavy quiet. “Yes.” “Rebecca posted it, didn’t she?” I braced myself for him to defend her, to accuse me of being paranoid. But again, his honesty was brutal. “Yes. It was her.” I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “Then why haven’t you cleared my name?” A soft sigh traveled through the receiver. “Maeve… if the school finds out why she really left three years ago, she’ll be absolutely ruined. The online mob will tear her apart.” He paused. “I’ve already talked to her. She knows she was wrong.” “I’ve already talked to her.” My privacy had been violated, my painful past broadcasted to thousands of strangers, and my reputation dragged through the mud—and all it warranted was a polite scolding behind closed doors. I couldn’t stop the bitter laugh that escaped my lips. “And what about me, Chris? Will the online mob not tear me apart?” “Mae, the truth always wins in the end. People will move on. You know who you are.” I looked at my reflection in the dark window pane, feeling a profound, cold clarity. He knew everything. He knew Rebecca was selfish, that she had abandoned him when he was poor, and that she was currently trying to ruin my life. He knew her flaws, and yet he still loved her. And he loved me simply because I was “good.” I was the safe harbor, the girl who didn’t cause trouble. In that moment, the contrast was painfully clear. I used to think that letting go of someone you loved was a long, agonizing process filled with sleepless nights, empty bottles, and screaming at the ceiling. But as I sat there, the weight of the last three years simply evaporated. I just felt tired. And finished. “Chris,” I said softly, my voice barely a whisper. “Let’s break up.” In that exact second, a loud, frantic voice echoed on his end of the line. I heard Rebecca calling his name in panic. “Mae, something’s happening. I have to go, I’ll call you right back,” he said hurriedly, and the line went dead. I didn’t care enough to wonder what drama had called him away. I put my phone on silent, crawled into bed, and closed my eyes. But sleep didn’t bring peace. I dreamed of my parents walking away from me at a crowded train station, of my high school ex turning his back on me, of the bench in the pouring rain. When I finally woke up, Zoey was sitting on the edge of my bed, her eyes full of concern. “Mae… you were crying in your sleep. Are you okay?” I wiped my face, finding it damp. “I’m fine.” “Okay. Well, get dressed. We have the department dinner tonight.” I had forgotten. Chris and I shared the same major, which meant we shared the same academic advisor. Every two months, the department organized a dinner at a local restaurant to keep everyone connected. As the student representative, I couldn’t skip it without looking unprofessional. When I arrived at the private dining room, Chris was already there. Rebecca was sitting right next to him, laughing at something she had just said. Chris’s face was neutral, but I knew him well enough to spot the faint, relaxed curve at the corner of his mouth. A few students at the end of the table looked up, their eyes darting between me and the couple. “Well, look who it is. The perfect score has arrived,” one of Chris’s friends muttered under his breath, loud enough for the table to hear. Against such mockery, Chris did nothing to stop him. Zoey stepped forward, her mouth opening to defend me, but I laid a hand on her arm, shaking my head. It wasn’t worth the energy. I walked to the far end of the long table, taking the seat furthest from Chris, and quietly ate my dinner. Halfway through the night, whether from the chill of the rain or the tension in the room, my stomach started to ache. I excused myself to the restroom. When I came out to wash my hands, Chris was waiting by the sinks. “Mae,” he said, stepping into my path. “Rebecca doesn’t really have any friends here yet. That’s why she sat next to me. I knew you had Zoey and the others, so I figured you wouldn’t feel lonely.” He called her Rebecca now. Not “my ex,” not “her.” Just Rebecca. When I didn’t reply, he pressed on. “Mae, she’s not staying here permanently. But we are. We both got accepted into the graduate program here. We have our entire lives ahead of us. Please don’t let a temporary situation make you insecure.” Before I could speak, one of his friends, Connor, walked into the hallway. “Hey, Chris. Rebecca’s had a bit too much to drink. She’s asking for you.” Chris pinched the bridge of his nose, looking exasperated. “She always does this. She knows she can’t handle her liquor.” Despite the complaint in his voice, his feet were already moving, rushing back toward the dining room before Connor could even finish his sentence. Once Chris was out of earshot, Connor turned to me, his expression cold and critical. “You should just do the right thing and step aside,” he said. “Save yourself the embarrassment.” I knew Connor had never liked me. In his eyes, a girl with no family and a mediocre background was a stain on Chris’s potential. Whenever we hung out, he always called me “Maeve,” formal and distant. But Rebecca was always “Becca.” I let out a slow, steady breath. “I don’t remember asking for your advice on my life, Connor.” He let out a dry, mocking laugh. “Suit yourself. Keep humiliating yourself if you want.” On the way back to the table, I bumped into our advisor, Dr. Sterling, who was standing near the coat rack. I looked at him, feeling a sudden, liberating wave of certainty. “Dr. Sterling, I’m sorry, but I won’t be accepting the graduate offer here. I’ve decided to attend the University of Texas at Austin instead.” He looked toward the dining room, where Rebecca was currently leaning her head on Chris’s shoulder, then looked back at me with a soft, understanding sigh. He patted my shoulder gently. “I understand, Maeve. Go do what you need to do.” When I went back inside, Rebecca was practically glowing, her face flushed as she rested against Chris’s chest. “She’s just a little drunk, Maeve. Don’t take it personally,” someone called out. I didn’t answer. I smiled at the rest of the table. “Is everyone finished? I’ll go take care of the bill.” As the student rep, I had the department card. The line at the host stand was long, and by the time I returned to the room, most of the students had already left. Only Chris, his core group of friends, and a semi-conscious Rebecca remained. “Chris, seriously, what are you doing?” Connor was asking, leaning over the table. “Rebecca’s back. Who are you choosing?” Chris stared blankly at the polished wood of the table. After a long, agonizing silence, he spoke. “I don’t know.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “But Maeve is my girlfriend. I have to be responsible for her. Rebecca is going to leave eventually to finish her degree anyway. Once this period is over, things will go back to normal.” As he spoke, Rebecca murmured something in her sleep, shifting closer into his side. Chris’s arm tightened around her automatically. He looked down at her with a tenderness that made my stomach drop. “Just let me have this one last moment,” he whispered. In the weeks that followed, I didn’t reach out to Chris, and he didn’t reach out to me. It wasn’t until I was in the library, researching the prerequisites for my new curriculum, that I ran into them again. The moment our eyes met, Chris dropped Rebecca’s hand as if he had been burned. When he saw that my expression remained entirely neutral, he let out a subtle sigh of relief and walked over, sliding into the empty chair next to mine. He glanced at the textbooks spread out in front of me, his brow furrowing. “Are you studying the wrong material? These aren’t the courses for our graduate track here.” I didn’t want him to know about Austin yet. Before I could formulate a lie, Rebecca stepped up behind him. “Maeve is a straight-A student, Chris. She probably just reads this stuff for fun. Stop micro-managing her.” Chris seemed to accept that. He gave her a fond, teasing smile. “True. Mae’s always been the smart one. Unlike you, who only went to Europe to slack off.” Rebecca giggled, tapping his shoulder playfully. I felt a physical wave of nausea. I truly did not understand how he could live like this—maintaining this effortless, agonizing equilibrium between two different women. Just then, Zoey walked up to the table. She gave Chris an icy glare. “Excuse me. You’re in my seat.” Chris stood up quickly, offering a polite nod. “Sure. Mae, make sure you eat something when you’re done studying.” I didn’t look up. I just kept writing. By dinnertime, the library had cleared out, but I stayed behind, determined to finish the last set of advanced calculus problems. Zoey and the others had gone to grab food, leaving me alone in the quiet stacks. A few minutes later, a bag of takeout and a carton of milk were set gently on the corner of my desk. I looked up to see a freshman library assistant. “Are you Maeve?” I nodded. “Some guy named Chris asked me to bring this to you. He said you always forget to eat when you’re studying and that you need to take care of yourself.” I stared at the paper bag. He knew me well enough to predict my habits. He knew I would skip dinner. Yet he had ordered sweet and sour cod—a dish he knew I absolutely despised. A love so careless, so divided, was something I had no use for anymore. The semester blurred by, and soon the day arrived to check the graduate admission results. When I logged into the portal and saw the acceptance notification from UT Austin, I knew my future was secure. A few days later, the university published the official list of accepted students for our local graduate program. Chris searched the list cover to cover, but my name was nowhere to be found. I was walking back from the campus mailroom, holding the physical acceptance package from Austin in my hands, feeling a quiet sense of triumph. It had been a long, hard road, but I was finally free. Before I could even savor the feeling, Chris appeared at the end of the path. He looked like he had been running across campus for hours, his chest heaving, his face pale. “Maeve! Why isn’t your name on the graduate list? What happened? Was there a mistake with your paperwork?” Then his eyes fell on the package in my hands. The logo of the University of Texas was printed clearly across the front. The color drained entirely from his face. “Mae… you’re going to Austin?”
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