My Childhood Love Came Back Too Late

I walked over. He killed the smile the second he saw me. "What is it?" I thought he was playing it cool in front of everyone. He changed my contact name from "Lettie" to "Letitia Winfield." Deleted every photo of us from his social feed. I thought he was worried a teacher might see. Now I know—he was worried Freya might see. Worried Freya might be unhappy. So he destroyed my guaranteed admission with his own hands. And he did it the way I'd trust most: food he cooked himself, his gentle voice saying, "Eat a little more." The boy I grew up with, the one who said he'd marry me—he shoved me into the ER with his own hands, all for another girl. My eyes burned, dry and raw. I forced myself not to cry. I looked at Alvin and pushed every last bit of strength into my voice. "Is it true?" He sat next to Freya. His expression didn't change at all. "Does it matter? The outcome's the same either way." His voice was flat, not a ripple in it. My words sank into deep water without so much as a splash. Because he didn't care. Didn't care about eighteen years of growing up together. Didn't care about the future we could have had. My throat clamped shut, acid surging upward in waves. I bit the inside of my lower lip, using that small, sharp pain to hold back everything threatening to break. I stood up and bolted out of the room. Behind me, laughter and jeering bled together. "Letitia! Don't leave! Your childhood sweetheart's got a girlfriend now, aren't you going to congratulate him?" "Is she actually crying?" "So what if she is? Alvin doesn't even like her. Who's she putting on a show for?" I stood on the curb for a long time. The night wind dried the tears on my face. My phone buzzed. A message from Alvin. Where'd you go? Come back. Don't give them something to laugh about. I stared at those words, and all I could think of was being seven years old, bawling at our kindergarten graduation ceremony. The other kids laughed at me. He marched right up. "She can cry if she wants to! Mind your own business!" Back then, he was all the courage I had. Now he was telling me not to give them something to laugh about. That was just a dare I lost. Come back, I'll explain everything. A dare. I gripped my phone. My palm was slick with sweat. A taxi rolled past. The driver honked twice. "Getting in or not?" I didn't move. All those years came flooding back at once—ten years old, burning up with fever, and he scaled the wall to bring me medicine, got chased three blocks by our dog. Twelve, and I'd bombed a test, and he tore up his own award certificate: "This thing's useless. Next time I'll help you get first place." Fifteen, and someone was shoving me around, and he threw himself into the fight, took three stitches by his eye, and still grinned at me. "Doesn't hurt." Had he changed? Or had he always been this way, and I just never said what I felt? Had I been lying to myself the whole time? "Getting in or not?" The driver honked again. I clenched my jaw, turned, and ran back. Full of hope, I pushed open the door to the room. A bucket of cold water hit me from above. Ice water ran down through my hair, blinding my eyes, soaking through every layer of clothing. I stood there shaking, unable to move. Shrill laughter tore through the room. "She actually came back! She really came back!" "Freya, you're insane—how'd you know that tomboy would come running?" "A bet's a bet! Al, hand over your lucky jade charm!" Freya was leaning against Alvin, shaking with laughter. "Told you she'd come back!" She reached over and crooked a finger at Alvin.

"She's basically your dog, Alvin—can't get rid of her no matter what you do!" Alvin's mouth curved, and he reached up and unhooked a red cord from around his neck. A lucky jade charm hung from it. I had one too. We'd gotten them when we were seven, both families visiting the temple together. One each. We'd worn them since childhood, never once taken them off. He said they were our pledge—proof we belonged to each other. The day we got married, we'd exchange them. Now he placed his in Freya's hand. She held it up to the light, turning it over, her eyes crinkling into a grin: "Pretty. This is mine now—and so are you!" I wiped the water from my face and looked at Alvin. He turned his head, gave me a sidelong glance, and the smile dropped: "What? Since when do I need to run it by you before I give someone my stuff?" I hadn't gotten an explanation. What I got was a bucket of cold water and a roomful of cruelty. He wasn't the boy who would've done anything for me anymore. Someone called out: "Let's go, let's go! Next stop KTV, I already booked it!" The whole group headed for the door. When Freya passed me, she stuck out her foot. I pitched forward and my knees cracked against the threshold, the pain sharp enough to steal my breath. She looked back at me, smile sweet as sugar: "Oops, sorry. Didn't see you there." Then she hooked her arm through Alvin's and walked out. He let her pull him along, right past me. He glanced down. The look was so brief I couldn't even read what was in it before he turned away. And followed her out. I knelt on the cold floor, blood seeping from my knees, water dripping from my hair and hitting the tile. Drop by drop. Like all the years of my heart I'd given him for nothing. I didn't dare go home. If Dad saw me looking like this, he'd worry himself sick. I found a hotel and checked into a room. I stood under the hot water for a long time before the warmth finally sank in. When I came out, there were several messages on my phone. From Alvin. Your dad called asking when you'd be back. I told him you were with me. Go home soon. Where are you? Are you safe? Then a video call request. I hesitated, then picked up. His face filled the screen, still impossibly handsome, a dimly lit hallway behind him. He frowned. "You're at a hotel?" "Yeah." "Which one?" "None of your business." A few seconds of silence. Then: "Then stay put. I don't want to have to explain to your dad." "Alvin." I looked straight at him. "You really gave her the lucky jade charm?" He said nothing. "When we were kids, you said it was our pledge. That we'd exchange them on our wedding day." "…" "You gave yours to Freya. So what about me?" His mouth opened, closed, and the only thing that came out was: "It's not like it was worth anything." I laughed. "Yeah. Not worth anything." "Just like me, right." "Letitia—" I hung up. Half an hour later, the doorbell rang. A delivery. A tube of ointment for scrapes, and a bowl of hot porridge. I sat on the hotel bed. The class group chat wouldn't stop buzzing. People were sharing videos. Freya and Alvin, singing a duet at KTV. Her head resting on his shoulder, both of them holding microphones, singing some love song I'd never heard. The chat blew up underneath: "Alvin, the way you look at Freya is so sweet it hurts!" "Please, I'm begging you two—just kiss already, do it for the rest of us!"

"Kiss her! Kiss her!" In the video, Alvin was actually smiling. The way he looked at Freya—soft, indulgent, warm in a way he had never once looked at me. Not in three years, at least. The video ended with Freya rising on tiptoe toward him, then cut to black. Freya's social feed refreshed. The new post: a screenshot of her guaranteed admission acceptance letter, next to a photo of her and Alvin together at KTV. The caption read: High school's over. A new beginning. Got my school, got my love. Comments from mutual friends piled up underneath: "I'm SO jealous! Your boyfriend's hot AND a genius!" She'd replied with a blushing emoji. "Bet SOMEONE's seeing this and absolutely losing it rn " "The tomboy! ^^ Girl above is calling you out!" I closed my phone and lay back on the bed. The ceiling was very white. The light stung my eyes. I thought about everything I'd put in for that guaranteed admission spot. Cutting my waist-length hair short. Drilling practice problems until three in the morning. Never taking a single weekend off. Filling notebook after notebook with revision notes. I'd been so close to reaching that slot. So close to going to the same university as him. He never knew that every single first choice on my college applications was the school he wanted. He'd said he wanted to go north. Wanted to see snow. So I put every application toward the north. And now? I sat up, reopened my phone, and logged into the college application portal. One by one, I changed every first choice. All of them to the south. He hated the heat. Said he didn't like the south. But I liked places where spring came warm and flowers bloomed. The south would be good. The farther from him, the better. I hit submit. The screen read: Changes saved successfully. Then I turned off my phone and drank the bowl of porridge. It had gone cold. The porridge was bland. No sugar. He knew I liked things sweet. But he never thought to add it—just like he knew I was waiting, and never came. The next day I went back to school to pick up my file. The moment I stepped through the gate, every pair of eyes turned toward me with contempt. "Someone went straight from the college entrance exams to a hotel room with some older guy. Tsk tsk tsk." "Who? Who?" "The tomboy! There's video proof!" I stopped walking. Not far ahead, Freya was surrounded by a cluster of classmates. She was holding up her phone. A video was playing on the screen. A hotel corridor. Me in wet clothes, swiping a keycard to open a door. "Getting knocked up by some old guy at her age…" Freya said it with a smile, her tone dripping with implication. Whispers rippled through the crowd, eyes full of malice and appraisal. I walked over and stood in front of her. "Delete that video. Now." "Why would I?" She tilted her head, all innocence. "You're the one who went to a hotel. What's it got to do with me?" "You're making things up and you know it!" "Am I?" She turned to Alvin beside her. "Al, tell me. Didn't she go to a hotel?" Alvin was standing right there, file folder in hand. He looked at the video on the phone screen. Then at me. "Alvin." My voice was shaking. "Tell her why I went to that hotel." He knew everything about last night. Even if he didn't like me, after all those years, he would at least say one fair word for me. Right? Then he looked me in the eye and said it. "If you didn't do anything, then you've got nothing to worry about." When I heard that, I thought I'd misheard. "What did you say?" "You know what happened. Just ignore it."

He looked away, his tone light and dismissive. "You're clean, so act like it. Don't bother with her." I'd cried until midnight in that hotel room because of his messages. He'd brought me medicine. I thought that meant he still cared, at least a little. Turns out that little bit of caring wasn't even worth one sentence spoken aloud. My voice rose sharply: "Alvin! You're protecting her to this extent? She's spreading a slut-shaming rumor about me, and you tell me I've got nothing to worry about? She stole my guaranteed admission spot, and you tell me not to bother?!" Alvin cut me off, his voice louder than mine. "Then what do you want?! You didn't show up for the test! Freya did! She won the award! She got guaranteed admission! You can throw all the fits you want—none of that changes!" I stood frozen, tears falling silently. The corridor was quiet enough to hear the wind. I turned to leave, and Freya suddenly grabbed the red cord around my neck. "Wait, what's that you're wearing around your—" The cord snapped. The jade pendant slipped from my collar, flew outward, and dropped from the fifth floor. I watched it arc through the air and land in the flower bed below. That was the only thing my mother ever left me. She'd said this pendant would protect me for life. It had cracked once before, and I'd cried for three days and three nights. Alvin was the one who'd gone to every jade shop in the city until he found someone who could piece it back together. When he fastened it around my neck again with his own hands, he'd said: "If it ever breaks again, I'll find you something even better." My whole body was shaking. I shoved Freya hard. She lost her balance and stumbled backward. Alvin reached out and caught her. He held Freya in his arms, looked up at me, his eyes cold as ice. "Letitia, enough!" "Do you have to go around snapping at everyone like a stray dog?" I looked at Freya, safe and smug in his arms, that satisfied little smile at the corner of her mouth. I said nothing. Turned and ran downstairs. It was pouring outside. I tore through the flower bed like I'd lost my mind. My nails broke against the dirt, mud jammed under the skin, and the pain shot straight up my arms. Laughter drifted down from above. "Look at her down there. Doesn't she look like a dog?" "More like a pig, I'd say. A wild boar splashing around! Hahahaha." Their voices threaded through the rain, each word a needle in my back. The jade pendant had shattered into three pieces, lying in the muddy water. I picked them up and closed my fist around them. The shards cut into my palm, blood running out and washing away in the rain. I knelt there in the downpour and finally cried out loud. After that, I never went back to school. My applications were already changed. My file was already picked up. Alvin sent message after message. [Letitia, stop throwing a tantrum. Freya didn't mean any harm.] [The jade pendant broke. I'll find someone to fix it.] [My parents want to have a meal with you. Come over to our place?] [I got the lucky jade charm back.] [Letitia!] One after another. I didn't reply to a single one. The day the admission results came out, he ran to the foot of my building. He leaned on the doorbell. No one answered. He called me. No one picked up. He texted: [Lettie, let me take you to see the campus. Get a feel for it early. Didn't you say you wanted to see Mirror Lake?] [Lettie, we had a promise, didn't we?] Mirror Lake. We'd promised to go there together. He'd said that there, he would have flowers and love waiting, and he would tell me how he felt. A neighbor, one of the older women from our floor, saw him standing there and sighed. "Alvie, Lettie went traveling." "She did so well on her exams. She's going to South Coast University." His hand started shaking around the phone. The case—she'd given it to him. Two little figures printed on the back, holding hands in the snow. The colors had worn away to almost nothing. He'd never once replaced it. "South Coast—she went to *South Coast*?!"