Five Years Together… And He Gave the Ring to My Old Bully Chapter 05

Five Years Together… And He Gave the Ring to My Old Bully Chapter 05

I didn’t say a word on the way home.

After sending that photo from the lab and not hearing back, Alex kept texting. Message after message.

By the time dawn broke and my flight landed in Kingsley, I’d finally calmed down enough to answer.

[Let’s break up.]

He’d probably been up late the night before and wasn’t awake yet. For once, he didn’t reply instantly.

So I blocked him, deleted his number, and moved on.

Then I called my mom.

Our families had lived across the hall from each other for as long as I could remember.

Mrs. Thorne and Mrs. Morrison had been best friends for decades.

They still worked at the same company.

Mrs. Thorne never had a daughter of her own, so she’d always treated me like one.

Whenever she had something good to eat or drink, she’d bring it over for me to try first.

I felt it was only right to tell them right away.

One by one, I deleted every photo Alex and I had taken together over the years, trying to erase every memory of him from my mind.

When I reached the photo of us at six, on our first day of first grade outside the school gate, I paused.

Alex had been a skinny kid. He walked slower than everyone else.

Every morning, I slowed down so we could walk to school together.

I’d been waiting for him ever since—for more than a decade.

But this time, I was done waiting. There wasn’t time to drown in heartbreak.

I submitted my applications to study abroad.

Back when Alex told me he wanted to go to grad school at Kingsley University, I’d quietly changed my own plans to match.

I wanted to be the person who stood beside him in his future.

Now I knew. My future and his combined still mattered less to him than Savannah.

If that was the case, my life didn’t need to revolve around him.

After my application was accepted, I left for a month-long intensive summer camp abroad.

The day I got back to school, Grant Hartwell invited me to dinner.

He was the only student at Kingsley University applying to the same international program as me.

On my first day at camp, he’d helped me move all my luggage.

What made it even more of a coincidence—we’d gone to the same high school.

The first time we met, he held out his hand.

“I’ve heard a lot about you. Nice to finally meet you, Clara.”

I thought about it for a few seconds, then agreed without hesitation.

“Sure. I’ve been wanting to thank you for looking out for me this past month anyway.”

We chose the most popular restaurant right by the school gate, where we could easily drop off our bags.

We arrived late and got seated near the front.

So when Alex walked in, the first thing he saw was Grant sitting across from me.

He let out a cold laugh, then crossed the room like a madman and punched Grant in the face.

“Clara, you suddenly broke up with me out of nowhere—was it because of him?”