My Parents Deleted My Only Graduation Photo for My Bestie Chapter 07

My Parents Deleted My Only Graduation Photo for My Bestie Chapter 07

They didn’t go straight home after leaving Zenith.

Logan stood outside the building, borrowing phones from anyone who would hand one over, calling me from a dozen different numbers.

Every single one went straight to voicemail.

My mom stood nearby, her hands shaking so badly she could barely type out a text.

She sent one frantic message after another.

[Audrey, I just found out about Westridge.]

[Why didn’t you tell us? This is huge.]

[Call me back. Please. Stop this.]

Every single one bounced back the same way. [Message Not Delivered].

By the last few texts, her panic started showing through.

[Audrey, where are you?]

[I was wrong, okay? I shouldn’t have said those things. Please just answer.]

[Failed to Send].

My dad called the university’s Career Center, desperate to track me down.

They told him alumni employment information was strictly confidential. They couldn’t share it.

He called my academic advisor next.

The advisor listened, then went dead quiet.

“Audrey completed her employment verification with the institute through the proper channels

over a month ago.”

“You’re her parents… and you’re just now finding this out?”

My dad had nothing to say to that.

Julian blew up the phones of everyone he knew, trying to figure out where I had

gone.

But I wasn’t anywhere they would have thought to look. Nobody had a clue.

Logan scrolled through his entire contact list, messaging every mutual college classmate who

might know anything.

Finally, one of my lab partners wrote back.

“Wait, didn’t Audrey leave for Westridge like a month ago?”

“She’s doing amazing, from what I hear. The institute loves her.”

“Hold on. Aren’t you her boyfriend? How do you not know where she works?”

That question cut deeper than any insult could have.

No. He hadn’t known a thing.

He didn’t know I had graduated at the top of my class. Didn’t know my GPA was the highest in the department.

Didn’t know that the moment I clicked Accept on the offer, my screen had lit up right under his

nose.

And he’d been too busy deleting the only photo out of hundreds that had me in it.

By the time they dragged themselves home, it was pitch black outside.

My mom made a beeline for my room the second she walked in, looking for anything that might tell her where I had gone.

But the room wasn’t mine anymore.

Chloe’s pink bedding was neatly spread across the mattress. The new vanity sat by the window, her expensive perfume bottles lined up perfectly on top.

My mom stood in the doorway and looked around. There wasn’t a single trace of me left.

She remembered what I’d asked her that night.

“What if my job is better than Chloe’s?”

She’d frowned and called me pathetic for making things up. She never asked a single follow-up question.

Now those words dug into her chest like a splinter she couldn’t pull out.

My dad yanked open the desk drawer, looking for a printed copy of my offer letter.

Nothing. Just rows of Chloe’s brand-new makeup.

My diploma, my transcripts, my employment contract. I’d taken everything that mattered with me.

Julian found wadded-up strips of packing tape in the storage closet.

The ones I’d peeled off my battered old suitcase.

My dad remembered the day they’d dropped almost $30,000 dressing Chloe from head to toe.

And called a $300 suitcase for me a waste of money.

I’d dragged that broken suitcase two thousand miles to Westridge all by myself.

Logan hadn’t said a word since leaving Zenith.

He sat in the living room and pulled up the route to Westridge on Google Maps.

Two thousand miles. Even the fastest route meant a connecting flight and a brutal three-hour drive

after that.

He stared at the screen, and the reality finally sank in.

I had gone far away. So far out of his reach.

I’d made up my mind to walk away from all of them for good.

Logan booked the earliest flight out to Westridge.

He thought if he just showed up in person, I’d forgive him. That was how it had always worked.

He was dead sure I’d come back.