After graduation, Will told us he’d only managed to snag two VIP pit tickets to the music festival. I was already typing a message to Daisy, ready to apologize for not being able to go with her, when his screenshot of the ticket confirmation popped up in our group chat. “Daisy and I are going in,” his text read. “Iris, you can watch the big screen from the general admission lawn, right?” Daisy immediately sent a crying emoji. “Iris, I’m so sorry! I’ve been dying to see this lineup forever. Do you mind letting me have this one?” I wanted to tell her that I had let her have things more times than I could count. But in the end, I deleted my draft—I really wanted to go too— and left the screen blank. Standing out on the dusty grass of the general admission lawn, squinting through the crowd, I watched Will pull Daisy close, shielding her from the rowdy push of the pit. During the headliner’s signature love ballad, the camera swept over the front row, broadcasting them onto the massive stadium screens. Daisy and Will looked at each other and laughed. The entire crowd erupted into cheers. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” echoed all around me. Will didn’t pull away. It was only after Daisy posted the photo on Instagram that Will finally sent me a text. “Don’t overthink it. We were just playing along with the crowd.” As the finale fireworks burst in brilliant colors overhead, painting the sky in fleeting shades of gold and violet, I silently tapped the screen and left our three-person group chat. 1 The gray notification You have left the conversation flashed on my screen, and then my phone fell dead silent. Around me, the massive crowd from the festival began to surge toward the exits, guided by the drone of security guards shouting through megaphones. I slipped my phone into my pocket, letting the human tide carry me toward the subway station. I had just reached the turnstiles when a hand tapped my shoulder. “Iris, why did you leave the group?” Will’s voice cut through the noise behind me. He was holding two unopened bottles of water, his dark curls damp with sweat, framing his face with that effortless charm he’d always had. Daisy hovered right behind him, wearing Will’s black windbreaker. I had practically begged Will to bring that jacket before we left the house, knowing the New England evening air would turn brisk. Now, it was wrapped tightly around Daisy’s shoulders. The oversized sleeves hung past her fingertips, making her look delicate, almost bird-like. Daisy peeked out from behind him, clutching a canvas tote bag hand-signed by the lead singer. It was the exclusive merchandise reserved only for the first fifty VIP ticket holders who made it to the barrier. I had explicitly asked Will weeks ago to help me get one. Seeing me look at it, Daisy avoided my eyes, her hand instinctively pulling the bag behind her back. “Iris, please don’t be mad,” she murmured, her voice carrying that soft, trembling vulnerability that always made her sound like the victim. “I got so excited down there that I spilled my drink all over my shirt. Will only lent me his jacket so I wouldn’t freeze.” She paused, then slowly brought the tote bag forward, draping it over her chest. “And this… I had so much loose stuff, and Will happened to grab it, so he told me to use it to hold my keys.” Will casually offered me one of the water bottles. “We texted you in the group but you didn’t reply,” he said, his tone carrying that easy, familiar reassurance he used whenever he wanted to smooth things over. “I figured you’d left early. They only gave out one tote bag. Daisy’s never been to a festival like this and didn’t bring a bag. If you really want one, I’ll find one on eBay tomorrow and buy it for you.” I didn’t reach for the water. Droplets of condensation rolled down the plastic, dripping onto the dry concrete, leaving dark, fleeting stains. “Don’t bother,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “I don’t want a secondhand copy.” Will’s hand froze. His brow furrowed, and his expression hardened as he pulled the bottle back. “Iris, we all came out to have a good time. Can you not be such a buzzkill? It’s literally just a bag.” “Exactly,” I replied, my voice flat. “It’s just a bag signed by my favorite artist. Keep it. Give it to her.” I turned on my heel and walked toward the rideshare pickup zone. Will called out my name. “Iris!” I didn’t stop. Within a few yards, I heard Daisy’s soft sniffling. “Will, is Iris mad at me? Maybe I should give the bag back to her. Really, it’s fine…” Will’s footsteps slowed to a halt. “Don’t worry about her,” his voice drifted over the evening breeze, filled with that comfortable certainty he always had when it came to me. “You know how she is. She gets moody, but she cools down fast. She’ll be fine by tomorrow.” I pulled my headphones out of my pocket, jammed them into my ears, and cranked the volume to the maximum, letting the raw, gravelly voice of the indie band drown out the rest of the world. It was past midnight when I got home. The house was dark, and I slipped my shoes off by the pale glow of the streetlights shining through the window. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a direct message from Will. “Did you get home safe?” “Daisy lives all the way across town and it’s too late for her to take the train alone. I’m driving her home first.” “I made a new group chat. Accept the invite.” “Don’t take tonight to heart. Let’s grab that sushi place downtown tomorrow, okay? We’ll put this behind us.” I stared at the green bubbles popping up on my screen. Without responding, I flipped the phone face down on the nightstand and went to the bathroom to wash my face. In the mirror, my eyes were rimmed with red. Will and I had been in each other’s lives for twelve years. From kindergarten playdates to high school lockers, we were a permanent fixture in each other’s worlds. He had grown comfortable with my understanding nature; he relied on my capacity to be the bigger person. But ever since Daisy moved into the house next door to his sophomore year, Will had slowly started asking me to yield. Move seats so Daisy could sit next to him. Let her borrow my AP Lit notes. Give up my spot on the debate team trip because she was anxious about traveling alone. And now, it was music festival tickets, his jacket, the signed merchandise. He assumed I would always be waiting in the exact same spot, ready to wipe the slate clean the moment he tossed a sweet gesture my way. But Will forgot one crucial thing: even the most patient person gets tired. I patted my face dry and walked back to my bedroom. From the bottom drawer, I pulled out a thick, heavy college planning binder. I had spent a month building it, filling the pages with color-coded tabs, essay outlines, and admission requirements. Every single tab pointed to universities in New York City. That was the city Will and I had promised we’d conquer together. I opened the first section, staring at the bold red circle around Columbia University’s Pre-Med program. Will’s grades were slightly better than mine; he wanted to major in Computer Science at Columbia, and he had made me promise to apply to the same school so we wouldn’t be separated. I picked up the eraser on my desk. Slowly, deliberately, I rubbed away the red pencil circle. The paper began to fray under the friction, leaving behind nothing but a faint, smudged gray shadow. My phone lit up again. Will: “Why aren’t you replying? Are you seriously still mad?” Will: “Meet me at the school library tomorrow morning. We need to submit our final enrollment decisions.” I stared at the text, left it unanswered, and clicked the power button. 2 The next morning, the school hallways were buzzing with restless energy. Now that final grades and AP scores were officially out, everyone was debating where they would spend the next four years. I sat in my usual seat by the window, flipping through a guide to university programs. The heavy classroom door swung open, and Will walked in, guiding Daisy by her elbow. Daisy’s eyes were bloodshot, her eyelids swollen from what looked like a long night of crying. Will walked straight over to my desk, reaching naturally for the meticulously annotated college binder sitting on the corner. “Iris, do you mind if Daisy borrows your binder for a second?” I kept my hand flat on the cover, not budging. “Isn’t she committed to the local arts institute?” I asked, looking up at Will. Will let out a heavy sigh and pulled out the chair in front of mine, turning it around to face me. “Her financial aid fell through, and her portfolio scores weren’t high enough for the New York school. She can’t go to Columbia’s partner program anymore.” Behind him, Daisy let out a soft, miserable sob. “Iris, I’m so sorry. I’m just so stupid. Now I’m ruining everything for Will, too.” Will turned to her, pulling a pack of tissues from his pocket and gently pressing them into her hand, rubbing her shoulder. “Don’t cry, Daisy. We’ll figure something out.” Then he turned back to me, his tone conversational, but carrying the weight of a decision already made. “Iris, Daisy is going to apply to Boston State. I don’t feel right letting her stay here all by herself.” He paused, looking at me. “I’m going to change my enrollment decision. I’m staying in Boston to be with her.” The old classroom ceiling fan hummed a steady, rhythmic creak overhead. I looked into Will’s eyes. They were filled with the noble, protective instinct of a savior—but there wasn’t a single shred of guilt toward me, the person he had built a twelve-year dream with. “You’ve already decided?” I asked. “Yeah,” Will nodded. “Actually, I was thinking you should change your choice too. We could all stay in Boston. Your mom always wanted you to stay close to home anyway.” He paused, offering a soft smile. “That way, the three of us can still be together.” It was almost funny. In Will’s mind, his own dreams weren’t the only things that could be casually discarded for someone else—mine were expected to bend to his new plans, too. Slowly, I lifted my hand off the binder. Will immediately picked it up, handing my weeks of meticulous research over to Daisy. “Look through these sections,” he told her. “Iris mapped out all the local programs in detail. Her notes are incredibly thorough.” Daisy’s tears vanished, replaced by a grateful smile as she clutched the binder to her chest. “Thank you so much, Iris. I promise I’ll study it carefully.” I stared at the empty space on my desk. “Will,” I said quietly. “Yeah?” He looked back. “You don’t have to give the binder back when you’re done,” I said, sliding my red pen into my pencil case and zipping it shut. “She can keep it.” Will blinked, clearly caught off guard by how easily I had surrendered it. A faint crease appeared between his brows. “Iris, are you mad at me?” “No,” I said, my voice steady. “Since you guys are staying local, that research doesn’t do me any good anyway.” Just then, our homeroom teacher walked in, tapping a marker against the whiteboard. “Alright, everyone, the official state enrollment portal closes tomorrow at midnight. Make sure your final choices are locked in.” Will was called to the counselor’s office to help organize some final transcripts. With Will gone, Daisy slid into his vacant chair right in front of me. She opened my binder, her fingers tracing the dense, neat lines of my handwriting, before she slowly turned around to look at me. “Iris, do you really not blame Will and me?” Her voice was barely a whisper, meant only for my ears. “He gave up Columbia for me. I know that must be incredibly hard for you to swallow.” I turned a page in my college catalog, keeping my eyes on the print. “He has his own feet. He can walk wherever he wants.” Daisy bit her lip, clearly frustrated by my lack of reaction. “To be honest, Will told me last night that he finds your pragmatism a bit… suffocating sometimes. Like you don’t really need him.” She smoothed her hand over the plastic cover of my binder. “He said I actually need him around. He feels like he has a purpose when he’s helping me.” My finger froze against the edge of the paper. The sharp corner cut into my skin, leaving a stinging, bloodless line. I looked up, locking eyes with Daisy’s carefully constructed expression of innocence. “You’re right,” I said, shutting the book with a quiet thud. “You two are perfect for each other.” I stood up, grabbing my water bottle. “Where are you going, Iris?” Daisy called after me. “To get water.” I walked down to the end of the quiet hallway and set my bottle under the dispenser. As the hot water trickled in, steam rose, fogging my view of the hallway. I watched the condensation form on the metal surface, taking a slow, deep breath. Will, you think I’m too pragmatic. But the truth is, I just refused to let you see me break. If you think she needs you more, then I’ll gladly step out of the way. 3 For our senior class send-off dinner, the class president had reserved a private room at a popular restaurant downtown. By the time I arrived, the room was buzzing with laughter and clinking glasses. Everyone in our class had long assumed Will and I were a packaged deal, so they had left two empty seats right next to each other at the main table. I stepped away to the restroom to wash my hands. But when I pushed the heavy wooden door of the private dining room back open, Daisy was already sitting in my seat. She was leaning close to Will, their heads bent over his phone screen. His arm was casually draped over the back of her chair. The room fell into an awkward, sudden silence when I walked back in. The class president stood up quickly, trying to diffuse the tension. “Hey, Iris! Come sit over here. We saved this spot for you.” He pointed to a chair next to his own, on the far end of the long table, as far away from Will as possible. Before I could even speak, Daisy scrambled to her feet, looking panicked. “Iris, I’m so sorry,” she said, pressing a hand to her collarbone, her face pinched in distress. “I was feeling so nauseous from the car ride here, and Will said this seat was closer to the window breeze.” She made a show of grabbing her purse. “Since you’re back, let me move over there.” Will caught her by the wrist, gently but firmly pulling her back down into the chair. “You’re sick, Daisy. Just sit still.” He looked up at me, his face open and completely untroubled. “Iris, sit over by Ben. It’s just dinner, it doesn’t matter where we sit.” I looked down at his hand resting on Daisy’s wrist. Then I looked at the seat that had belonged to me for as long as I could remember. “Sure,” I said. I walked over and took the empty seat at the far end of the table. Mid-way through dinner, the drinks started flowing, and the mood picked up. Someone suggested a game of Truth or Dare. An empty wine bottle was spun on the lazy Susan, whirring past faces until the neck pointed straight at Daisy. “Dare! Dare!” the table chanted. The class president drew a card from the deck, reading the prompt aloud: “Call the person in this room you care about the most, and tell them ‘I’m waiting for you.’” A collective, knowing murmur rippled through the room. Every eye bounced back and forth between Daisy and Will, though a few of my closer friends shot me quiet, worried glances. Daisy’s face flushed pink. Biting her lip, she pulled out her phone and dialed a number. Three seconds later, Will’s phone lit up on the dark wood table. The ringtone buzzed loudly against the silence of the room. The crowd went wild. “Answer it! Answer it, Will!” Will looked at the name flashing on his screen, but he didn’t pick up immediately. Instead, he looked across the long table, searching for me through the crowd. There was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, a silent, testing question. I sat quietly in my corner, raising my water glass to my lips, taking a slow sip. I didn’t return his gaze. Not even a glance. Will looked away from me. He reached down, picked up the phone, and swiped to answer. “I’m waiting for you,” Daisy whispered into her phone, her voice soft and sweet. “Yeah,” Will replied quietly into the receiver. The room erupted into cheers. I set my glass down and quietly stood up. “Iris, where are you going?” Ben asked from next to me. “It’s getting a little stuffy in here. I’m going to get some air.” I slipped out of the private room, pulled out my phone, and Venmoed Ben my portion of the dinner bill. Stepping out of the heavy double doors of the restaurant, the warm summer air hit my face. I started walking down the sidewalk, the hum of the city surrounding me. I hadn’t gone far when the familiar scuff of sneakers echoed behind me. “Iris.” Will ran up, stepping into my path. “Are you mad?” He searched my face. “It was just a game. Everyone was chanting. If I hadn’t answered, it would have made things incredibly awkward for Daisy.” “I’m not mad,” I said, looking at the warm glow of the streetlamp above us. “Then why did you leave early?” “I’m full. I just want to go home.” Will stared at my quiet, unbothered expression, frustration creeping into his features. “Iris, can you please stop doing this? This act where you pretend you don’t care about anything?” His tone grew sharp, irritated. “I’d prefer it if you actually yelled at me or got angry. Anything is better than this cold shoulder.” I looked at him. “Will,” I said softly. “If I had thrown a scene in there… would you have stood up for Daisy, or would you have stood up for me?” Will froze. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words died in his throat. Right then, Daisy’s frail voice drifted from the restaurant entrance. “Will…” She was leaning against the doorframe, her face pale. “My stomach… I think I’m going to be sick.” Will’s body pivoted instinctively toward her. He took a few steps toward the door, then stopped, looking back at me with a pained, torn expression. “Iris, maybe you should take an Uber home first. Text me when you get back, okay? Daisy had a little bit of wine and she’s already nauseous. I need to make sure she gets home safe.” I nodded. “Sure. Take her home.” I turned around and kept walking. This time, Will didn’t follow me. Behind me, I could hear his low, comforting murmur as he helped her up the street. The streetlights cast my shadow long and thin against the pavement. I pulled out my phone and logged into the state enrollment portal. There were exactly four hours left before the system locked. 4 Back in my room, I opened my laptop and pulled up the university enrollment portal. The page was still open to my drafts from yesterday. My first choice was currently set to the top program at our local university in Boston. That was the choice Will had insisted I make this afternoon, right after he had updated his own profile. My phone began to buzz incessantly on the desk. A flurry of messages from Will flooded the screen. Will: “Just got Daisy home safe.” Will: “I’m sorry about tonight. I shouldn’t have picked up that call. I know it made things weird for you.” Will: “But you know I only look at her like a younger sister. Please don’t overthink it.” Will: “The portal closes tomorrow. Let’s go visit the campus together sometime this week.” Will: “I heard they have gorgeous cherry blossoms in the spring. I’ll take photos of you.” I stared at the stream of sweet, conciliatory words, feeling nothing but a profound exhaustion. He always did this. He would hand his devotion to someone else, then turn back to offer me cheap, leftover comfort, expecting it to heal the wounds he’d caused. Out of habit, I opened Instagram. The top post on my feed was a new photo from Daisy. Daisy: “To the next four years. Let’s do this.” The picture showed her acceptance letter to Boston State. Resting right beside it was a small, worn silver compass charm on a black cord. Will had bought that charm at a vintage market during our junior year. He had bought two of them, telling me they would keep us pointed toward the same future—toward Columbia. He wore his on his key ring every day. Now, that key ring was sitting on top of Daisy’s college acceptance letter. I pulled open my desk drawer and dug out my own compass charm. The silver was tarnished, the metal cold. Without a second thought, I tossed it into the wastebasket by my desk. My eyes returned to the laptop screen. I grabbed the mouse, clicked on the drop-down menu for my first-choice school, and let the cursor hover over the options. It scrolled past Massachusetts, past New York, past the entire northeast. Finally, it rested on Atlanta, Georgia. Emory University. Pre-Med. One thousand miles away. It was the furthest top-tier school I could find. I systematically changed all my backup options to universities down south as well. Once everything was filled out, I hit the Submit and Lock button at the bottom of the screen. A warning prompt popped up: Once locked, your enrollment decisions cannot be changed. Do you wish to proceed? I stared at the bold red text. My finger didn’t hesitate. I clicked Confirm. The page refreshed, displaying a confirmed, locked status. It was done. The decision was final. My phone vibrated again. Will: “Are you free tomorrow afternoon? Let’s go to our usual spot downtown.” Will: “We should celebrate officially finishing our applications.” Looking at the screen, I let out a quiet laugh. Will, you always think there’s time to make things up to me. But some things are lost the moment they’re neglected. I clicked on Will’s contact profile. I turned off the “Favorite” status, disabled his custom ringtone, and toggled the notifications to silent. Then, I held down the power button until the screen faded to black. The room fell into a deep, peaceful quiet. The cool moonlight filtered through the window, washing over my empty desk. I closed my eyes and whispered into the dark: “Goodbye, Will.”
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