He Favored Her, I Left for Good

Chapter 3

Caleb and I went way back. We met in middle school, ground through the same top-tier high school together, ended up at the same university, and even landed at grad schools in the same city.

I knew that guy inside and out.

The way he was acting all shady and covering his tracks? I'd already pieced most of it together.

I just didn't wanna believe it. The guy who'd been my whole world since high school was catching feelings for someone else.

We got together in senior year before college.

Back when our homeroom teacher was breathing down our necks, he went out of his way to fold me 999 paper cranes and slipped them to me on the down low.

"Took me forever to make these. Hope you like 'em."

Those cranes were loaded with all the dumb, sincere love a teenage boy could muster. I treasured them like they were made of gold.

I still had them, sitting in that little apartment.

Of course, we couldn't fool our homeroom teacher forever. She loved us too much to come down on me, but him?

She made him run ten laps around the track.

And there he was, this lanky kid in a white tee, drenched in sweat, glowing under the setting sun.

I figured he was my forever.

But just when I thought everything was going according to plan, the whole damn thing started slipping sideways without me even noticing.

His lab work got busier. He went from coming back to our place every week to every two weeks, then three, then a whole month.

He reached out to me less and less.

Hell, this year, he straight-up forgot my birthday.

And now? This. A cold, locked password on his w******p.