LOVE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

Chapter 02: The wrong kind of chosen

March 5th,2026

"You're a pig, Eliora. I don't deal with creatures who roll in their own filth."

The words landed without hesitation. Without apology. But with so much weight that my body stilled like something fragile dropped too suddenly on a hard floor.

Jalen didn't lower his voice. Didn't look around to check who was listening. Didn't flinch.

The lounge of his college dorm smelled like old pizza and cheap cologne and burnt popcorn. A flat screen hummed quietly on the wall muted, flashing colors from a game no one was watching anymore, because they were all watching me. Three of his friends sat scattered across the couches, pretending not to stare while absorbing every second.

I stood in the middle of the room in a dress I'd bought because I thought tonight would matter.

It did. Just not in the way I'd imagined.

The dress was amber Jalen's favorite color. He'd said it once, offhandedly, during our second year of dating. "Amber looks like the inside of something warm," he'd said, not even looking up from his phone. I had filed it away like a treasure. After that, amber became my color too. I painted my bedroom walls in my parents' home amber sophomore year. I bought amber candles, amber throw pillows in my college dorm because I wasn't allowed to change the room paint. I wore it whenever I wanted him to look at me the way he used to like I was the only warm thing in a cold room.

Tonight the dress was soft at the waist, hugging my curves the way he once said he loved. Fitted through the hips, flaring just slightly at the hem. I had tried on eleven dresses before this one. Eleven. Zania had sat on the boutique chair with the patience of a saint while I turned in front of mirrors, asking the same question in different ways does this look like someone worth choosing?

My hair fell in loose, glossy curls, framing my face exactly how he preferred. He'd mentioned once, years ago, that he didn't like hair pulled back on me said it made me look severe. So I never wore it up around him again. Not once in six years. My nails were freshly done: almond-shaped, pale pink the shade he'd pointed to on a magazine once and said looked elegant. I smelled like vanilla and lavender the exact combination he'd buried his face in my neck for, years ago, and said he could fall asleep to.

Everything about me tonight was a love letter written in his language.

I had built myself into everything he liked, down to the last detail.

A week before graduation. Nine years together. And this is how he opens.

Earlier that afternoon, when Jalen's text came through "Remember we need to talk later tonight" my heart had leapt so violently I'd nearly dropped my phone.

He'd been distant for weeks. Secretive. Always stepping away to take calls. I'd told myself it was nerves graduation was a week away, after all. We'd been together since middle school. High school sweethearts. College survivors. It made sense. It was time.

I'd run straight to Zania's dorm, screaming, crying, laughing all at once.

"He's going to propose!" I'd said, breathless, spinning in the hallway. "I know it. I just know it."

Zania had raised an eyebrow, slow and skeptical, but she'd smiled anyway because I looked so happy it was hard not to.

"You sure?" she'd asked carefully.

I'd laughed and waved her off. Jalen loved me. He always had. He was the boy who defended me in seventh grade when a classmate called me fat. The boy who punched a senior in ninth grade for snapping my b*a strap in the hallway. The boy who looked me in the eyes when puberty softened my body faster than other girls and said, without flinching, "I like curves. Bones aren't comfortable to hold."

I had believed him.

So we went shopping. Three stores. Two malls. One boutique I couldn't really afford but walked into anyway, because tonight mattered. Zania held my purse while I got my hair done. Sat beside me while my nails dried. Teased me about future wedding colors.

"You're going to be insufferable when you're engaged," she'd laughed.

I'd smiled so wide my cheeks hurt.

Now I stood in Jalen's dorm lounge wishing I could disappear into the carpet.

"Pig. Creature. Filth."

Each word pressed into my skin like it was trying to brand me. I looked at him waiting for the laugh, waiting for the twist, waiting for him to pull me into his arms and tell me it was a cruel joke.

His face was calm. Almost relieved. Like he'd finally said something he'd been rehearsing for a long time.

"I told you I needed to talk to you tonight," he continued, casually crossing his arms. "I didn't want to do this over text."

Do this. As if I were a task. An item he was returning.

The room felt too bright. Too loud. Too small. My ears began to ring.

Behind me, laughter erupted sudden and sharp then cut off. Someone coughed. Someone shifted.

My cheeks burned.

"Why?" I finally managed, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be. "Why would you say that to me?"

He shrugged. Actually shrugged.

"Look at you," he said, gesturing vaguely. "You let yourself go. Quite honestly, I'm not attracted to this anymore."

This. As if I were an object. A phase. A mistake.

My chest tightened. "You told me you liked my body. You said"

"That was when you had control," he cut in, irritation flashing across his face. "Now you're just indulgent. You eat too much. You don't even try."

Twelve years compressed into seconds.

"You knew my body type," I whispered. "You watched me grow up."

"That's exactly the problem," he snapped. "You grew up wrong!"

Silence crashed down heavy and suffocating. One of his friends shifted on the couch. Another stared at the floor. No one intervened. Not one of them.

I realized, slowly, that this was deliberate. He'd wanted witnesses. He'd wanted me to break publicly.

My hands trembled at my sides.

"So what?" I asked quietly. "You just decided to end everything?"

"Yes." He said it instantly. "I'm done."

My vision blurred. I blinked furiously, refusing to cry.

"Is there someone else?" I asked, even though the answer was already coiling ugly in my gut.

He hesitated.

"She's… healthier," he said finally. "She takes care of herself."

Healthier. As if softness equals sickness. As if joy equals failure.

I nodded slowly, absorbing the damage.

"I thought you were going to ask me to marry you," I said — the truth tumbling out before I could stop it.

A snort escaped him.

"Marry you." He scoffed. "Eliora, be serious."

Laughter burst out behind me — louder this time, unrestrained. I was the joke.

My heart cracked clean down the middle.

"I turned down scholarships for you," I said quietly. "I stayed close because you didn't want distance. I planned my life around us."

He rolled his eyes. "That was your choice. I never asked you to do any of it."

The cruelty of it stole my breath. Twelve years of friendship. Nine years of loving him. Reduced to an inconvenience.

I reached for the necklace at my throat fingers closing around the small charm he'd given me freshman year of high school. I pulled it off slowly, deliberately, and set it on the table beside him.

Then I straightened my spine.

The humiliation was still there. The pain was unbearable. But something else settled beneath it something hard and sharp and unfamiliar.

I looked at his friends. Really looked at them. I saw the amusement. The excitement.

I refused to give them tears.

"Thank you for telling me who you are," I said, my voice steady despite the wreckage inside. "I won't forget it."

The hallway swallowed me whole.

The door clicked shut behind me and the sound small, quiet, ordinary undid everything.

My knees hit the floor before I even felt them go. My back found the wall and I slid down it slowly, the fabric of my amber dress his favorite color, always his favorite color bunching around me like a cruel reminder of everything I had prepared for a night that never existed.

The sobs didn't come gently. They tore. Raw and ugly and shaking, the kind that hurt your ribs and blur your vision and make you wonder if this is what it feels like to come apart at the seams. I pressed both hands over my mouth trying to contain it, trying to hold onto whatever dignity I had left but my body refused. It had been holding this for too long.

Nine years. I had loved him for nine years. I had shaped myself around him like water finding the edges of whatever container it's poured into. The colors I wore. The way I styled my hair. The scent on my skin. The scholarships I declined. The distance I never created. I had quietly, completely, made myself into someone built for him and tonight I had dressed in all of it like armor, like an offering, like a prayer.

And he had looked at me and seen a joke.

My phone buzzed against the floor. Zania's name lit up the screen.

I stared at it, unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to explain to my best friend who had held my purse and dried my nails and laughed about wedding colors that there was no proposal. That there was no ring. That the boy I had believed in had gathered an audience and taken me apart in front of them.

I pressed my forehead to the cool wall, shaking uncontrollably, the amber dress pooling around me in the empty hallway.

Tonight, I had thought I was being chosen.

Instead, I learned how easily love can turn into cruelty — and how dangerous it is to build your entire self around someone who decides whether you are enough.