He Took Her to Europe With My Money Chapter 01

He Took Her to Europe With My Money Chapter 01

It was the day of our graduation photo.

I cautiously reached for my boyfriend’s hand, barely brushing my fingers against his.

He shoved my hand away.

“Go stand in the back row.”

“The best-looking people should be in the center. You’ll throw off the whole picture, so let Leona take your spot.”

My face went pale.

My best friend, Leona Hayes, leaned closer with a placating smile.

“Camille, Darien’s just looking out for you.”

“You get nervous in crowds anyway. You’ll be much more comfortable in the back row.”

Everyone else had already found their places, and the photographer was beginning to lose patience.

I quietly moved to the corner.

I had stepped aside so many times that even the hurt had gone numb.

The class president posted the photo in the group chat.

My entire face was blocked by the tall guy standing in front of me.

Leona stood in the spot that should have been mine, her fingers intertwined with Darien Hearst’s.

Darien tilted his head slightly, his warm, attentive gaze fixed on her.

He had never looked at me for more than three seconds.

We had been secretly dating for three years.

He always gave me the same excuse.

“We have to keep things low-key.”

“If I’m always looking at you, people will figure us out. Besides, what’s there to look at?”

I bought us matching promise rings because I wanted to make our relationship public.

He tossed them into a drawer.

“You’re too anxious around people. If we go public, everyone will gossip about you, and you won’t be able to handle it. I’m protecting you.”

The next day, one of those rings appeared on Leona’s finger.

A few feet away, they stood shoulder to shoulder, taking picture after picture.

The matching rings on their fingers caught the sunlight, and the glare made my eyes sting.

Fine.

We did not need to make our relationship public.

Soon, there would be nothing left to announce anyway.

…

My phone chimed twice with the special notification sound I had assigned to Leona’s updates.

She had posted a photo dump on her social media feed.

The caption read: [Happy graduation. I can’t believe we already have 132 photos together.]

In one picture, Darien was straightening the collar of her graduation gown.

In another, he leaned closer to hear what she was saying.

Then there was one of him flicking her forehead, his eyes creased with laughter.

I opened my own camera roll.

We had grown up together for fourteen years and dated for three.

Yet we did not have a single decent photo together.

My throat tightened.

Darien was leaning against the parallel bars, drinking water.

Leona stood beside him, dabbing the sweat from his jaw with a tissue.

I stopped a few feet away.

He glanced at me.

“Why do you look so miserable?”

“Let’s take a picture together.”

Just one.

Something to mark the end of our fourteen years.

He gave a dismissive laugh.

“The closer you are to someone, the fewer pictures you need. Don’t you understand that?”

Leona nodded.

“Exactly, Camille. When two people are truly close, they don’t need pictures to prove it.”

Darien ran a hand through his hair, and the ring on his finger caught the light again.

“Besides, you flinch every time someone points a camera at you. You go completely stiff.”

“It’d be a waste of a shot.”

When my expression fell, Leona slipped an arm around my shoulders and tried to smooth things over.

“Camille’s just sensitive. Darien’s being considerate. He doesn’t want you to see a bad picture of yourself and feel worse.”

I lowered my gaze and turned off my phone.

“Got it.”

No picture, then.

Those fourteen years did not need memorializing either.