Smiling like a little girl who'd just been handed her favorite candy.

I looked at the bracelet she'd taken off, and something dull thudded in my chest.

Not pain. Just a dull, heavy weight.

I turned my face away. Didn't want to look anymore.

“Daryl.” Nora's voice was light, breezy, like she was bringing up something that barely mattered. “I want to dance the first song with Jayden. That okay?”

Before I could answer, Jayden spoke first.

“Nora, I don't think that's a good idea.”

A slight frown, just the right amount of hesitation in his voice.

“Daryl's your boyfriend. The first dance should be yours and his.”

While he said it, though, his eyes flicked honestly toward me for a second before drifting back to Nora.

A thin film of satisfaction sat behind that look, like a current running just beneath still water.

He thought he was hiding it well. He wasn't.

Nora didn't look at Jayden. She was watching me, waiting for my reaction.

Probably expecting me to frown. To push back.

To get upset the way I had when she'd gone to see a movie alone with Jayden.

“He just learned ballroom dancing. He's too shy to dance with anyone else.” She added that like she was offering me an easy out. “You know his situation. We can't just leave him standing on the side watching, right?”

I didn't argue. Didn't make a scene.

I just looked at her for three seconds.

A lot came back to me in those three seconds.

Meeting her for the first time when I was three.

The way her eyes lit up when I fastened the bracelet around her wrist on her birthday.

All the plans she'd talked about, over and over, for after we got into Lakewood.

We'd applied to the same school. Same major.

She used to say we'd ride bikes under the sycamores together, eat our way through every stall at Midtown Mall.

She always smiled so brightly when she said those things. I'd always believed every word.

Three seconds ended.

I stepped back and quietly gave up my spot.

Nora blinked.

She hadn't expected me to fold that easily.

Surprise in her eyes, even a flicker of confusion, like I'd thrown off the script she'd already rehearsed in her head.

But the surprise lasted less than two seconds before her attention swung back to Jayden.

She took his hand and walked toward the dance floor.

The music started. A slow waltz.

They glided out together.

Nora's white gown moved like water under the lights, her steps barely touching the floor.

Jayden was stiffer, missing the beat now and then. Obviously a beginner.

Nora didn't care. She tilted her face up at him, nothing but delight in her eyes.

Everyone was watching them. Whispers. Phones out for photos. Some people scanning the room for me.

I could feel those gazes brushing past, carrying curiosity and pity.

I didn't look again.

Turned around and walked toward the doors of the hall.

Night air rushed in, cool against my skin.

Passing through the school gate, I reached down without thinking and touched the watch Nora had given me.

The leather strap was worn, the surface starting to crack.

I glanced at it, half-smiled, and left it on.

Not because I couldn't let go.

Because it didn't matter anymore.

My phone screen lit up. A message from Nora.

I opened it but didn't read the text right away. Checked the time first.

One waltz ran about three minutes. Add a bit of small talk with Jayden after, and this was exactly the window where she'd have a free hand to text me.

“I told you, Jayden's shy. He just learned ballroom dancing, he's too nervous to dance with other girls.”

“Can you quit it with the jealousy thing already?”

“Because once we're at Lakewood, I'm not telling anyone you're my boyfriend if you keep acting like this!”

Every message ended with an exclamation mark. Every message carried that same familiar tone — talking down to me like I was a child being scolded.

Like I'd done something wrong again. Overreacted again. Like it was my turn to apologize again.

I read them twice.

Then I laughed.

She didn't know that just one day earlier, I'd already changed my college application from Lakewood University to Northfield Institute of Technology.

It was the least hesitant decision I'd ever made in my life.

Back home, I started clearing out everything that had to do with her.

A thick stack of ticket stubs. A jar of folded paper stars. More than a dozen birthday cards.

Her handwriting on those cards was crooked and uneven, spanning elementary school to senior year — the little-kid ones signed “Love, Daryl's Nora”, the later ones just “Daryl”, bare and cool, no warmth left in it.

I piled all of it into a large cardboard box.

Then the walls.

A photo of us at fifteen, both in school uniforms outside the front gate. She was smiling wide. I stood half a head taller.

On my nightstand, a ceramic figurine she'd made by hand — a cat so ugly it barely looked like one. She'd insisted it looked like my face.

I held the little cat for two seconds, then tossed it in too.

The box was almost full.

I didn't seal it right away.

Every single thing in there came with a story I could tell.

One movie ticket stub was from the 3D re-release of *Titanic*. She'd cried during the film.

Leaned against my shoulder to wipe her eyes, told me we could never end up like Jack and Rose.

An amusement park ticket from that summer trip — she'd insisted on riding the roller coaster, then halfway through she was so terrified she dug her nails into my arm. Five bruises. I couldn't stop wincing.

There was a scarf she'd knitted in a middle school home-ec class.

The stitches were crooked, the loose ends not even tucked in, but she swore it was the best-looking one in the entire class.

The box was packed to the brim. Every inch of it was her.

Fifteen years of her, from age three to seventeen.

My entire youth.

My phone buzzed.

Not a call. A social media notification.

I tapped it open. Jayden Morton had just posted.

Two photos.

The first was a hotel room. Dim, warm lighting. White sheets.

The second was a close-up of a pair of crystal heels, toppled on the carpet, one lying sole-up.

I recognized them instantly.

Last year for Nora's birthday, I'd saved three months of allowance and asked my dad for an advance on my holiday money just to buy those shoes.

The sole had the Swarovski crystal logo. Size six. Exact fit.

When she'd tried them on, she walked laps around her room and told me they were the most beautiful heels she'd ever worn.

Jayden's caption read：“She said she drank too much and made me take her to a hotel. Exhausting.”

The comments underneath were piling up.

“Bro, you're living the dream!”

“She came to YOU? Those heels aren't cheap — and neither is she!”

I stared at those shoes for a few seconds.

Walked back to the box and wrapped the packing tape around it three times.

Carried it downstairs and dropped it into the trash bin outside the villa.

It hit the bottom with a dull thud, and then it was quiet.

Over the next few days, Nora didn't call. Didn't text. Not once.

Fine by me.

A week later, Jade Finch posted in the class group chat about a reunion dinner.

Then messaged me privately, said I had to come.

She was Nora's closest friend — the two of them had been inseparable since freshman year of high school.

I had a pretty good idea what she was trying to do.

Told her I was busy. Couldn't make it.

“Don't give me that. College applications are done, what could you possibly be busy with? You're coming, or don't ever call me class president again.”

Five o'clock. I got to the restaurant and found the private room.

I raised my hand to knock, then let it drop.

Not nerves. I'd heard my own name.

“……That night you danced the first dance with Jayden. Weren't you worried Daryl would get jealous?”

Nora's voice carried through the door, light with laughter, completely unconcerned：“Why would I be? I saw it coming a mile away.”

“That temper of his needs to be put in check more often.”

“He's so controlling. Doesn't give me an inch of freedom.”

“I danced with someone. So what? It's not like it killed him.”

Someone followed up：“But what if Daryl actually gets mad? He's a catch. There's got to be plenty of girls after him, right?”

Nora laughed again.

“Daryl and I have been together since we were kids. Fifteen years. I know exactly what kind of person he is.”

“Relax. He throws a little fit, sulks for a few days, then he's fine.”

“Same thing happened last time I insisted on going to the movies with Jayden.”

A pause. Then she added, voice even brighter：

“Even if the sky fell, he'd never break up with me.”

“That, I am one hundred percent sure of.”

I stood outside the door.

No heartbreak. No anger. Just one thing.

Tired.

The kind of tired you feel after walking a road so long you've forgotten when it started, and you've finally, finally reached the end.

She was right. I'd fought. I'd made scenes. But I had never once said the word breakup.

Every time she crossed a line, every time she treated my limits like a spring—push down, let go, watch them snap right back—every time she grinned and said “you won't actually be mad, right?” I swallowed it.

Not because I had no temper. Because I loved her.

But now I understood.

In her eyes, my patience wasn't tolerance. It was proof that my limits could be pushed back forever.

She'd taken everything I gave her and read it as evidence that I could never leave.

I was about to turn and go.

A hand clapped my shoulder from behind.

“Daryl. Why aren't you going in?”

Jayden stood there, smiling at me.

Before I could answer, he'd already reached past me and pushed the door open.

Everyone in the private room turned toward the entrance.

Nora was sitting directly across from the door. The seat beside her was empty.

She saw me, froze for half a second, then smoothed her expression back into place and even managed a smile.

Jade was the first to react, standing and waving me over：“Daryl! Get in here, come on, we've been waiting for you two.”

Jayden half-pushed, half-steered me into the room.

Jade grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward the empty seat next to Nora.

I said I'd rather stand.

Jade wouldn't have it. "Class president outranks you. Sit."

She pushed me down into the chair.

Nora glanced up at me and said softly：“You came?”

Casual. Like nothing had ever happened.

The Givenchy bracelet was back on her wrist.

Platinum chain catching the light, the dark-green enamel pendant resting against the slender bone of her wrist.

But right next to the bracelet, there was a faint indentation in her skin.

Left by the cheap bead bracelet.

The two marks sat side by side.

One fresh. One fading.

I didn't say a word. I dropped my head and ate.

Chopsticks picked up a piece of sweet-and-sour pork, chewed mechanically, swallowed.

The table was loud around me.

Jade was pouring drinks, someone was cutting cake, someone else was calling for the birthday girl to make a wish.

Nora was talking with Jayden. Her laughter drifted over in fragments.

I didn't look at them. I didn't speak.