Seven Years of Love Seven Minutes of Truth

Chapter 15

I managed to avoid seeing Aiden again until move–in day, though it wasn’t easy living next door. I’d time my coffee runs and grocery trips for when his car wasn’t in the driveway, Started taking the long way to everywhere, just in case.

Maya sent me his Instagram post a perfectly filtered photo of him and Madison at some rooftop party, his caption announcing they were official. I deleted the notification without opening it, but not before catching a glimpse of the likes piling up. All our mutual friends, already accepting this new reality.

I went through my social media with surgical precision, blocking anyone connected to him. His friends, his cousins, even his little sister who used to borrow my makeup. There was no point keeping any

open anymore. Some

there, of course, looking like she’d stepped out of a travel influencer’s feed in her matching luggage set and designer sweats. Her carefully curated airport look made my jeans and

“Hello” to my parents before storming off. He looked right

everyone pretending this wasn’t painfully awkward. No one looking back, because looking back meant acknowledging what we’d all lost.

He must have felt my gaze because he turned, just for a moment. One final cold

that, the boy who’d been there for every major moment of my life – first day of school, braces, driver’s test, prom – was walking toward a different future. The boy who knew all my secrets, all my fears, all my dreams. Or at least, the dreams I’d had before I learned to dream bigger than just being

were