Tangled love

DAISY’S POV The envelope was thinner than I expected. I stood in the middle of our small living room, the ceiling fan humming above me like it always did when the house was too quiet. Mom was at work. My little brother—Theo was still at school . The house smelled faintly of detergent and yesterday’s rice—familiar, heavy with memories that I didn’t always want to touch. I turned the envelope over in my hands. *Congratulations.* My fingers trembled as I tore it open. I sat down on the edge of the couch, the same couch my dad used to fall asleep on before he left when I was nine—before he decided that staying was harder than going. I told myself not to think about that. Today wasn’t about old wounds. Today was supposed to be different. I unfolded the letter. *We are pleased to inform you that you have been admitted…* My breath caught. *…with a full academic scholarship.* For a moment, the room disappeared. —Eldridge University, My dream school, my full-ride scholarship to a literature degree and dreams of professorships. A laugh broke out of me—shaky, almost in disbelieving. I pressed my hand over my mouth, tears blurring the words on the page. All those nights staying up late, reading under a flickering lamp. All the essays I rewrote again and again. All the times I chose books over parties, silence over noise. It mattered. I mattered. I squeezed the letter to my chest, heart pounding so loudly it felt like it might crack my ribs open. Then my phone buzzed. The sound was enough to pull me back down. I didn’t need to look at the screen to know who it was from. My stomach tightened anyway, the happiness leaking out of me like air from a punctured balloon. Ethan. I stared at the name until the buzzing stopped. Just last week, I had stood in the rain outside the campus café back home, watching him through the glass as he laughed with her—his hand resting casually on her waist like it had always belonged there. Like I had never existed. It’s not what it looks like, he had said later, his voice panicked—but it had looked like betrayal and it had felt worse. I swallowed and turned the phone face down. Not today. I reread the letter, slower this time, letting each sentence sink in. The scholarship details. The start date. The welcome note that talked about opportunity and growth and future potential. An escape. The word settled deep in my chest. I wasn’t running away—at least that’s what I told myself—but I couldn’t ignore the truth either. This admission wasn’t just a step forward. It was a door out, out of the version of myself that stayed too long and trusted too easily. I stood up and walked to the small window by the front door. Outside, the street looked the same as it always had—neighbors’ cars parked crookedly, a cracked sidewalk, laundry hanging from someone’s porch railing. Nothing had changed. I thought of my mom, how tired she always looked when she came home from work, but how she still smiled like everything was okay. How she raised us alone without ever making it feel like we were missing something—except sometimes, late at night, when she thought we were asleep. I’d hear her cry. I thought of my dad, whose absence had taught me early not to expect too much from anyone. And I thought of Ethan, who had somehow managed to confirm that lesson all over again. Maybe that was why this letter felt so heavy in my hands. It wasn’t just paper. It was proof that I could leave. That I didn’t have to stay where everything hurt. My phone buzzed again. A text this time. “Daisy, please. Just talk to me.” I closed my eyes. For a second, I imagined replying. Imagined telling him about the letter, about how my life was about to change. Imagined the look on his face when he realized I wouldn’t be around anymore. The betrayal played in my mind all over again. I deleted the message without replying. My hands were steady this time. I folded the letter carefully and slid it back into the envelope. Then I placed it on the coffee table, right in the center, like it deserved to be seen. When Mom come home, I wanted to watch her face when she read it. I wanted to see her eyes light up the way they used to when I brought home good grades in elementary school. I wanted her to know that all her sacrifices had meant something. Later that night, Mom came home from her second shift, very late and tired but as always, she tried to hide it. She saw the letter where I kept it, and she read it, she couldn’t hold back her tears. She hugged me tight, enough to suffocate me—I’ve worked so hard for this. We’ve both worked so hard for this. “I’m proud of you, Daisy” she’d say. I walked to my room and sat on my bed, looking around at the walls covered in sticky notes and book quotes. Lines about courage. About change and about becoming. I picked up my notebook and flipped to a blank page and just before I could start writing anything on the page, Theo barged into my room. “Daisy!” he gasped, clutching the door frame. “You gotta come quick—Ethan’s here! He’s downstairs in the lobby asking for you!” My stomach dropped straight through the mattress.