A week later, my entire semester boiled down to a moment of truth on a Friday afternoon. I'd been fidgety all day, checking and double checking the student portal to see if the history grades had been posted yet. Mr. Harris had said he'd share them by the end of the day, and my spot on the finals roster that weekend hinged on it. Audra had texted me every hour we weren't in class together, and by the end of the day, I was so anxious that I could've burst. After class, she and Gyeong-Ja joined me in the common room, all three of us staring at my laptop screen while I endlessly refreshed.
When the grade alert finally pinged, I slammed my eyes closed.
"I can't look," I said, fingers shaking over the trackpad.
"You want me to open it?" Gyeong-Ja asked.
I sucked in a breath and nodded, eyes still pressed shut. Behind me, Audra muttered something that sounded an awful lot like a prayer.
The click of my trackpad hung in the silence between the three of us.
"Ellie," Gyeong-Ja said. I didn't want to hope that it was a smile in her voice.
I opened one eye right as Audra exploded into a fit of cheering.
Summary of Grades - History
Class Participation: B
Quizzes: C
Midterm paper: B+
Term average: B
I'm pretty sure I screamed. I know I knocked my chair over in my haste to stand, and Audra's arms were around me, dragging me into her frenzied jumping while Gyeong-Ja laughed. A B+ was more than I could've hoped for, and finally, finally, it felt like something was going right.
"We need to celebrate," Gyeong-Ja said, when I'd calmed down enough to click through and read Mr. Harris' comments on my paper.
"Gustavo's," Audra said without a beat of hesitation. "Let's start the carb loading early. Like, right bloody now."
Just the name of the restaurant had my shoulders tensing. But I couldn't let every damned thing remind me of the Ellerbys. Riding the high of my passing grade, I forced my shoulders to relax. I deserved to start resetting some of those bitter memories.
I closed my laptop. "I'm in."
"Perfect. I'll get an Uber," Audra said, head already bowed over her phone.
So ready to eat and finally get off campus after all my endless studying, I raced upstairs to drop my laptop, then flew back down so fast that I only barely skidded to a halt to avoid crashing into Theo on my way out the door.
"You okay?" he asked, brows crashing together in something that looked an awful lot like concern, before he seemed to remember himself and stiffened.
I swallowed down the ache in my chest that had reawakened at his concern. "I passed my history paper," I said, then ducked around him.
He didn't say anything else. Or, maybe he did, but I was already out the door, refusing to be sucked back in.
It was over, and I needed to be okay with that. And with Gyeong-Ja and Audra and an entire menu of carbs all awaiting me, I was starting to feel like I finally could. Like there were good things on the other side of this, if I could just stop looking back.
Gustavo's turned out to be delicious, and the three of us lingered over a pizza so massive they had to put it on a little platform above our plates so it could fit on our tight, wobbly table. For the first time since things had ended with Theo, I actually enjoyed the taste of my food, and nearly snorted my 7up out of my nose at one of Audra's jokes. It was so nice to get off campus and away from Kingsbridge and all its drama for a little while that I didn't even think about how the last time I'd left, it had been for Thanksgiving.
"I am so bloody relieved, Ellie," Audra said, when we'd piled into another Uber after the sun had set and curfew approached. "We don't stand a chance against Harcourt's strikers without you."
I inhaled, steeling myself against my nerves for the upcoming game. In the frenzy of studying, I hadn't thought about the team we were facing in the finals—the very same one with the ridiculously fast striker who'd gotten me benched earlier in the season.
"Let's hope so," I said.
"Are we watching the boys' final tomorrow? Or are we skipping it in protest?" Gyeong-Ja asked.
My stomach flip-flopped. I hadn't given much thought to the boys' game, either. Coach Patel would probably have understood if I begged off watching it, but that felt like too much of a coward's move. Besides, I'd managed to exchange a sentence earlier with Theo without wanting to burst into tears or die of mortification. Now that my time at Kingsbridge wasn't about to come to an abrupt end after all, I wouldn't be able to avoid him forever. Maybe forcing myself to cross paths with him until he stopped causing an ache in my chest was how I could finally bury him in my past.
"I'm pretty certain JJ would murder me if I missed it," Audra said. "Though if you want to skip—"
"I'll watch," I said decisively.
"Well done, mate." Audra punched my shoulder.
I'd like to think it was that decisiveness that drove me to my phone later that night, under the cover of my duvet. Heart beating in my throat, I opened Theo's Instagram. I hated the part of me that uncoiled, relieved that there were no new posts. But I hadn't come here for that. Instead, my finger hovered over the block button. It was something I should've done a long time ago, but I hadn't quite been able to. Maybe because this was one of the last ways I could stare at him and let the pent-up tears flood my eyes where no one else could see them. But that needed to end now. I couldn't move on if I kept coming back to him, even if it was just in pictures.
With a deep breath, I braced myself and clicked the block button. Just like that, his posts disappeared. That hollow space in my chest ached when I closed the app, and part of me wondered if he'd realize what I'd done. Another part of me wondered if he'd even care. He had Madeleine now. He probably wouldn't even notice.
Chewing my lip, I scrolled down to our text thread. The ache in my chest worsened when I realized how far it had gotten buried beneath my other texts to Audra, Gyeong-Ja, and Jake. Once, Theo had been the one I'd texted the most, always sitting at the top of my messages. Not anymore.
It didn't matter. If he'd cared—if it had meant anything to him—he would've replied. He would've heard me out. He would've acknowledged my existence, and he hadn't. I swiped left, determined to erase the whole damned thing with the big red delete button.
But my willpower finally failed me. With a sigh, I swiped away the delete option and opened the thread. I scrolled back, through all the endless messages we'd exchanged. Even though it might not have been real to him, it certainly had been real to me, and the proof was all here. I grinned at some of our old exchanges, despite the tears flooding my eyes. Reading them over made it feel, if only for that moment, like we were back there. Back before Thanksgiving and the gala, the bistro and Halloween. Back before everything had gone sideways. I knew the right decision was to delete them all, but I'd already purged him from the rest of my life. Maybe I didn't have to purge him entirely. Not tonight, at least.
I was about to put my phone away when the thread suddenly jumped to my string of texts at the bottom.
William caught me by surprise. I never wanted that.
I wanted you.
What we had was real.
All of it was real to me.
I meant to tell you at Thanksgiving, but I didn't have the courage.
I'm sorry.
And then, a grey typing bubble.
I held my breath, rubbing my eyes to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. It was there for another second, then it vanished. And then it came back, and vanished again.
I clutched my phone tighter, hating the terrible squeeze in my throat. And the way my fingers itched to type something. But the bubble never popped back up and, as I stared at my old texts, I forced myself to hold the power button and let my screen go dark.
**A/N: The way I have absolutely spent time staring at a gray text bubble that I was hoping for and then disappeared...oof haha. What do you think Theo was typing?? And why do you think he didn't send it?
As always, if you enjoyed it, please take a moment to vote and comment!!
And, finally, since we're nearing the end and I'm not ready to let go of this world, are there any chapters you'd want to see from another POV? I'm thinking of doing a few Theo POVs, including the bistro date for sure. But are there any others that you'd want to see as readers? Let me know!!**