Chapter 12
Only when I locked myself in my bedroom did I finally let the tears I’d been holding back pour freely.
Tanner’s words echoed in my mind, each syllable cutting deeper than the last.
I still couldn’t understand it.
How could he abandon aerospace engineering–the dream he’d cherished since childhood?
We’d worked toward this goal together for years, finally scoring high enough for our dream program.
Just moments before walking into that restaurant, I’d been glowing with joy, thinking we were about to achieve everything we’d planned together.
But I never imagined this.
The future I’d fought tooth and nail to build for both of us–he’d thrown it away for someone else’s casual request.
Even if he had to change his mind, why couldn’t he tell me? Was he really that afraid of me clinging to him?
If he found me so suffocating, then what about that night under the stars on my eighteenth birthday?
That tentative, careful kiss he’d initiated, the way both our hearts had hammered against our ribs–what did any of that mean?
Maybe it was just a drunken impulse he’d acted on, while I’d foolishly read it as something real.
Something inside me snapped.
The truth was, I didn’t have to follow him everywhere.
From kindergarten through high school, I’d attended every school alongside Tanner.
Everyone–including Tanner himself–just assumed I’d continue shadowing him forever, that we’d never be apart.
But what no one knew was that I had my own reasons for wanting MIT.
Reasons that had nothing to do with Tanner.
Even if he wasn’t going, I would have chosen it anyway.
I closed my laptop, the application portal I’d unconsciously opened glowing accusingly at me.
I had no desire to look at that system again.
And certainly no intention of changing my application to follow his lead.
He could chase his golden girl to the ends of the earth, but I had my own horizons calling.
Since we each had our own paths to walk, there was no point dwelling on what used to be.
