Leaving My Childhood Crush Behind

With exactly one hour left until our biggest AP exam, the boy I loved leaned in and called me disgusting right in front of his entire crew.

The lockerlined hallway rang with the roaring laughter of his boys. This was the guy who promised we were endgame.

Now, he just shrugged, writing the whole thing off as a stupid dare.

He stood by and watched me become the ultimate punchline, all to score points with the new queen bee glued to his side. My nails dug into my palms until the skin turned bonewhite.

I didn't shed a single tear. I just logged into my college portal and wiped my application list clean of our shared dream schools. I was heading toward a brilliant future.

He just wasn't in it. Chapter 1 The final week of college application season dragged on, and the California sun beat down with an irritating, relentless glare.

We were down to the wire—only two hours left until the AP US History exam that would decide our Ivy League fates. Lunch break was suffocatingly tight.

Harrison, my childhood best friend, had told me to grab a quick bite and meet him at the library so we could rest before the final gauntlet.

But the second I stepped into the hallway outside the study area, I regretted it.

Harrison was leaning against a row of metal lockers, surrounded by a bunch of meatheads from the football team.

He was loudly bragging about some wild house party from the night before, even cracking filthy jokes about the morning's test questions.

I didn't want to eavesdrop, but their obnoxious voices carried, forcing me to realize I might have bombed a few multiplechoice questions. What was done was done.

I just needed to block them out, preserve my sanity, and focus on the afternoon session.

Through the glass, I could see dozens of exhausted seniors slumped over the library tables, desperate for a nap.

I walked over and cut through Harrison's booming laughter. "If you guys want to mess around, can you take it outside?

People are trying to sleep before the AP." Harrison blinked, the smirk freezing on his face. But then he flashed that signature, easygoing smile. "Sloane's right, guys.

Let's take it out to the hall." He herded his pack of meathead bros toward the exit. As they passed, one of the guys threw me a mock salute. "My bad, Harrison's girl.

Get some rest and crush that exam." Harrison shoved the guy's shoulder playfully. "Shut up, man." He turned back to me, his tone softening. "Just ignore them, Sloane.

Do your thing." I crossed my arms on the cold, hard library desk and buried my face in them, praying for a few minutes of peace.

But the study hall was only separated from the corridor by a thin glass partition, and the door was propped open.

Their voices kept bleeding through—a constant, grating buzz punctuated by explosive bursts of laughter. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Exhaustion gnawed at my bones, but the noise kept dragging me back to the surface. The clock was ticking. The panic of the impending exam twisted in my gut, making sleep impossible.

Then, a hand tapped my shoulder. I blinked my heavy eyes open and pushed myself up. Harrison stood right there. He leaned down, bringing his face dangerously close to mine.

I could feel the soft brush of his hair against my temple. My heart slammed against my ribs. Heat rushed to my cheeks. He was the boy I had secretly loved for years.

Having him invade my personal space like this… my stomach did nervous backflips. His warm breath ghosted over the sensitive skin of my neck.

I instinctively leaned back, but Harrison just closed the distance, pressing closer. He didn't seem to care how intimate this looked. "What are—" I started to ask.

But before the words could leave my mouth, he cut me off. He looked down at me from his superior height, a cruel, mocking smirk twisting his lips.

His voice wasn't loud, but it was perfectly calibrated for the circle of cheerleaders lingering nearby to hear every single syllable. "You're disgusting." The hallway erupted.

The same guy who had just jokingly called me 'Harrison's girl' practically shouted over the noise. "She was acting all high and mighty telling us to shut up, but the second Harrison puts her in her place, she doesn't make a peep!" Another guy chimed in, "Every guy needs a childhood friend like that.

Give her a little reality check and she falls right in line." "Look at Sloane's face! She's frozen solid.

Don't tell me she actually thought he was leaning in for a kiss?" Harrison's friends doubled over, clutching their stomachs and pointing straight at me.

And standing right in the middle of them, soaking it all in, was someone else. Peyton. Chapter 2 She bit her lip, her eyes sparkling with malicious amusement.

Her face was perfectly flushed.

If I didn't know she was treating me like a punchline, I might have actually been flattered that someone that conventionally gorgeous was smiling at me.

Peyton was the new transfer cheer captain, the undisputed queen bee of the entire school.

She wore a micromini skirt that barely covered anything, practically slithering around the center of his boys like a snake.

I had no idea when she showed up, or how she even knew Harrison, considering they didn't share a single AP class. "Hey, don't be so sensitive.

We were playing Truth or Dare, and I pulled the dare to humiliate the most invisible nerd in the room.

You know how it is, bro code." Harrison dropped the excuse and didn't even wait for me to process it. He just turned on his heel and strode right back to his boys.

He set me up as the ultimate joke, then tossed me aside like garbage. A heavy block of ice settled in the pit of my stomach.

Was this the same Harrison I had spent my whole life loving? The same boy who used to take a bruised jaw in middle school just to protect me from bullies?

Barely a week ago, he had sworn to me, looking right into my eyes, that we were endgame. The peanut gallery out in the hallway kept running their mouths. "Harrison is ruthless!

Throwing Sloane under the bus just to flex for the cheer captain!" "I mean, look at Peyton. Next to her, obviously Sloane is a troll. Right, Peyton?" Peyton didn't say a word.

She just deepened her fakeshy smile, a calculated blush rising on her cheeks. She playfully swatted the guy's arm, but her gaze locked dead onto Harrison. Harrison caught her look.

He flashed her a knowing, intimate smile. It all clicked. Peyton had been standing there the entire time. A guy as smart as Harrison could have effortlessly dodged that dare.

He could have easily spun it to avoid humiliating anyone. But he didn't. He specifically targeted me.

He branded me disgusting, right to my face, offering my humiliation up on a silver platter for Peyton to enjoy. They had to be hooking up behind my back.

It was the only explanation.

And yet, exactly one year ago today, Harrison had dragged me out to his driveway, demanding I promise him we would make it official the second our APs were over.

He had no idea how that moment felt. How years of burying my feelings finally being validated made me feel like I was flying.

That night, I had stayed up reading cheesy romance tropes, kicking my feet and rolling around in my bed, grinning like an idiot until the sun came up. Now?

Every ounce of that hope, every stupid teenage fantasy, was nothing but a cheap punchline. I had handed him my heart, and he used it to dress me up as a clown.

The image of Harrison sneering at me played on a violent loop in my head. The roaring laughter of his boys. That shared, filthy look between him and Peyton.

A sharp, physical cramp seized my chest. My vision blurred as heat pricked the corners of my eyes. I blinked hard.

Through the glass, Harrison was already back to hyping up his boys, not even bothering to glance back at the wreckage he left behind. The tears stopped dead.

He wasn't worth a single drop. I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin nearly broke. The sharp sting of pain anchored me, a brutal physical reminder to lock it down.

I refused to cry. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of an even bigger show. Agonizing over a blown test question wouldn't change my grade.

And bleeding my heart out for a guy who had already rotted from the inside wouldn't bring the old Harrison back. There was only one direction left to go. Forward.

From this exact second on, I was done making the wrong choices. Exactly one hour remained until the AP exam that would decide my Ivy League fate.

I refused to sit here chewing on the toxic waste Harrison just fed me.

I wouldn't waste another brain cell trying to pinpoint the exact moment this senior year when he mutated into trash. Every precious, ticking second I had left belonged to my future.

I wasn't wasting another breath on him. Chapter 3 I took a few deep breaths, forcing the fog out of my head.

I shoved my study guide into my backpack, zipped it shut, and stood up to leave. Harrison chased after me, his fingers wrapping tight around my wrist. "Sloane, they're my boys.

Don't be such a buzzkill over a stupid game. Lighten up, don't make a scene." Call me disgusting, then tell me to smile. I wasn't built to be that forgiving.

Just a week ago, while we were grinding through AP practice tests, we hit a brutally tricky multiplechoice question. I got it wrong; Harrison nailed it.

In the Ivy League bloodbath, one missed question could mean the difference between an acceptance letter and a brutal rejection, sending us down entirely different life paths.

I had looked up from the textbook and asked him, "You think one stupid question could split us up for good?" His smile back then had been warm and bright—the kind of smile that justified every cliché.

He had been so damn sure. "Never. We're endgame, remember?" "Where you go, I go.

Nothing is tearing us apart, definitely not some irrelevant test question." But today, he lost a stupid dare and chose to throw me to the wolves, indifferent to how the public humiliation might tank my actual AP exam.

It turned out it wasn't a multiplechoice question that ruined us. It was his choice. We were walking entirely different paths now.

I casually twisted my wrist out of his grip. "Like you said, it's just a game. I'm not mad." I even forced a shallow, convincing smile to sell the lie.

If I blew up right now, Harrison would just flip the script, draining my energy with a toxic argument. I refused to let him sabotage my score. Harrison finally backed off.

He reached out and ruffled my hair, his tone dripping with that sickeningly fake sweetness. "I knew it." "You're the best, Sloane. Go handle your business.

Crush that exam!" I nodded, keeping the sugary smile plastered on my face. The second I turned my back, it dropped.

I headed to a different floor entirely, found a deadquiet corner by the science labs, and buried myself in my flashcards. Oh, I was going to crush it, Harrison.

I was going to fight tooth and nail, counting every single second, sprinting toward a brilliant future that didn't have you in it.

During the final stretch of the AP exam, everything just clicked.

Not only did I breeze through the multiplechoice section, but I also filled three entire pages for the brutal DocumentBased Question essay.

Stepping out of the testing center, the heavy clouds had finally cracked open. The California sun was blazing across a wide, open sky. A massive weight lifted off my chest.

But I barely made it ten steps down the concrete path before I ran straight into Harrison and his crew.

They were midconversation, but the moment I appeared, every single pair of eyes snapped to me.

I kept my face blank and walked right past them, treating them like invisible air. "Sloane! Not even gonna say hi? What's with the mood?

Did you bomb the test?" Harrison closed the distance in three long strides and grabbed my shoulder. "Come on, let's go get a massive dinner.

Anywhere you want, it's on me." A week ago, his touch would have sent butterflies rioting in my stomach. Now, it just made my skin crawl.

I brushed his hand off my shoulder, giving him a flat, deadeyed stare. "I'm heading home. Have fun." Chapter 4 Harrison's brows snapped together. "Why?

We agreed to party tonight to celebrate finishing APs. Are you throwing a tantrum just because of what I said at lunch?" "I already told you, it was a dare.

You think I liked saying it?

Why can't you put yourself in my shoes for a second and see how messed up I feel about it?" I faked a pained expression, rubbing my temples. "I have a killer migraine.

I just want to go home and sleep." One of his boys hollered from the back, "You sure you wanna bail? Peyton's coming tonight.

If you don't keep him on a tight leash, someone else might snatch up the title of Harrison's girl!" Harrison stepped closer, dropping his voice to a low, warning pitch. "Stomach ache at lunch, migraine now.

You better not be making up excuses to ditch me. I'll explain this one last time." "You were the only girl there I actually knew. I barely know the others.

I couldn't exactly walk up to a total stranger and call her ugly, could I?" "You're my person. You're the closest person to me. That's why I picked you.

You know I didn't mean it." "How could I ever think you're ugly? You're the girl I'm going to marry. Now, think about it again.

Are you coming tonight or not?" Right on cue, Peyton strolled up. She waved excitedly at Harrison. "Harrison! I'm here." "Did I keep you guys waiting?" Perfect timing.

If being close to Harrison meant being the designated punchline for his frat brothers, then Peyton could have the job. If she wanted the title so badly, it was all hers.

Without a second of hesitation, I shook my head. "My head is pounding. I'm out." He threw a cold, hard glare my way. "Don't regret it later.

If I get wasted tonight and end up making out with someone else, that's on you for not keeping an eye on me." Harrison didn't text me once after that.

He didn't check on my migraine—even if it was a lie. He was probably having the time of his life making his move on Peyton.

A small part of me missed the boy who used to freak out over a simple sneeze. But that boy was gone. Whoever had taken over his body was practically a stranger to me now.

I considered the Harrison I loved dead. I didn't see him again until locker cleanout the next day.

My parents and I were out in the parking lot, shoving cardboard boxes into the trunk of my dad's SUV. My mom muttered under her breath, "Where did Harrison run off to?

He promised he'd come over and help us pack everything up, and now he's a ghost." My dad's face darkened as he stared across the lot. "Right over there.

Take a look at exactly what he's busy with." I followed my dad's line of sight. Under the shade of an oak tree, Harrison was carrying two massive moving boxes.

Scrawled across the side in thick black marker was a name: Peyton.

The girl walking next to him reached up, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead with a brilliant, blooming smile. With looks like that, she was impossible to miss. It was Peyton.

Harrison's lips moved, saying something I couldn't hear. Immediately after, Peyton went up on her tiptoes. She planted a kiss right on his cheek. Harrison's eyes lit up.

His grip on the boxes slipped. A stack of thick folders tumbled off the top and hit the asphalt. They spilled open. I recognized them instantly.

They were packed full of the Ivy League application essays I had stayed up all night editing for him word by word, along with a complete, custom set of AP crashcourse flashcards.

Earlier this semester, Harrison had caught a brutal strain of the flu and missed a whole week of school.

From that point on, I had practically done double the work, making sure he had every possible advantage for college apps and the APs.

Now, my sleepless nights were sitting in the dirt next to Peyton's moving box. All my genuine sacrifice was nothing but a cheap prop Harrison used to flirt with the cheer captain.

Chapter 5 Harrison stared at the dropped folders on the asphalt. His shoulders tensed. He bent his knees to set the heavy boxes down.

Peyton stepped right into his path, blocking him. "Are you stupid? Why pick up trash? Just toss it! It lightens the load for you anyway." He hesitated for exactly one second.

Then, he gave a short nod, letting Peyton sweep my sleepless nights straight into the nearest dumpster. My parents obviously recognized those folders.

They were the ones who saw the light under my bedroom door burning past midnight. They knew I always drafted his college essays first, putting his future ahead of my own sleep.

They had watched the entire exhausting process play out for months. I hadn't told them about the hallway humiliation yet. I hadn't needed to.

Watching him abandon my work in the dirt spoke louder than anything I could have said. They understood instantly. The era of me and Harrison being a packaged deal was dead.

My dad's jaw tightened. He grabbed the last heavy crate and slammed the trunk shut. "Stop looking at them." "It's a waste of energy.

Get in the car." The second I pulled my seatbelt across my chest, Harrison sprinted across the parking lot. His knuckles rapped against the glass of my window.

His usual effortless cool was gone, replaced by raw panic. "Mr. and Mrs. Lin! Sloane! How long have you guys been out here?" My mom rolled down the SUV window.

She pulled off her designer sunglasses and fixed him with an icy, deadpan glare. "Harrison, are you done playing these cheap little games?

Take your filthy hands off my daughter's car door." Thick drops of sweat slid down Harrison's forehead, dripping onto the collar of his shirt.

He scrambled toward the passenger side, his hands waving in defense. "Mrs. Lin, please, you have to understand.

She's just a friend!" "Her parents are out of state and couldn't make it to moving day. She begged me for help at the last minute.

I just didn't get a chance to tell you guys yet!" A thick, suffocating silence filled the SUV. Harrison's panic spiked.

He bent down, trying to catch my eye through the glass. "Sloane, say something!" "You know the truth! Peyton and I are platonic.

Tell them so they don't get the wrong idea!" Platonic? Right. Their lips looked pretty platonic a minute ago. Before I could even open my mouth, my mom fired back.

She arched an eyebrow in mock surprise. "Is that how platonic friends greet each other now? Did your father teach you that?

Because if that's the standard, I certainly don't feel safe letting Sloane anywhere near you." Harrison choked on his next breath. A dark flush crawled up his neck. "No!

My dad never—she initiated it!" "I was holding those massive boxes, I couldn't dodge! Mrs. Lin, please don't tell my parents.

It's a massive misunderstanding!" My mom waved a manicured hand, cutting off his pathetic stuttering. "Save your breath, kid. APs are over.

Who you choose to date is your business." "We don't care. What we do care about is basic decency.

If you were seeing someone, you should have been a man and said so." "Sloane would have stepped back immediately.

She wouldn't have wasted hours writing your essays, and your new girlfriend wouldn't have had to throw her hard work in the garbage." "Your behavior is a complete insult to both of these girls.

Now, run along. Your girlfriend is waiting." She hit the button, rolling the window up right in his face. My dad stomped on the gas pedal.

The SUV lurched forward, leaving Harrison eating our dust. I checked the rearview mirror.

He was standing frozen on the edge of the asphalt, staring blankly after our retreating taillights. He looked oblivious to Peyton, who was now jogging up behind him.

But the distance swallowed them up in seconds, shrinking them into tiny, insignificant specks on the pavement. A sharp ping of nostalgia hit my chest.

If Peyton had never transferred here, would Harrison and I be sitting in the backseat right now, mapping out our ultimate senior road trip? But 'what ifs' were for losers.

There was a massive, brilliant world waiting out there. And without Harrison dragging me down, I was finally going to see every single inch of it.

Chapter 6 I forced a laugh, trying to shake off the awkward encounter in the parking lot, and opened Instagram to scroll through summer road trip itineraries.

But the algorithm is brutally efficient. It spoonfed me the top trending post from our high school's anonymous gossip page. The stars of the show? Harrison and Peyton.

The anonymous tip claimed that after the AP afterparty wrapped up, everyone else went home, but those two vanished.

It came with a photo of them walking out of a cheap motel together the next morning.

Peyton was practically glued to his side, her arm looped through his, while Harrison had his hands shoved in his pockets, looking down at her with a soft smirk.

The comment section was a feeding frenzy: [ Been calling this for months! APs are finally over and they're official. ?✨ ] [ They're literally so gorgeous together.

Ultimate power couple, I'm obsessed! ] [ Wait… is everyone just forgetting about that other girl who was always following him around?

Weren't they childhood besties or something? ] [ Hot take: if that velcro girlfriend wasn't always breathing down his neck, Harrison and the cheer captain would've gone public way sooner.

They probably had to keep it lowkey because of her. ] But the top comment pinned right at the top belonged to Peyton herself: [ Omg, look at me on the feed lol.

Thanks for all the love, guys! We're so happy ? ] Her profile picture was a fresh mirror selfie. I tapped her username, and sure enough, it took me straight to her public grid.

Her latest post was uploaded right around 3:00 AM. In the photo, Harrison was lying shirtless on a messy motel bed in the background.

Peyton was in the foreground taking a mirror selfie, wearing his starting quarterback jersey. A glaring red hickey was stamped right on her collarbone.

She captioned it: [ No more hiding. The summer of just you and me starts right now ☀️? ] I had to hand it to her. She knew exactly how to spin a narrative.

This post was blowing up even faster than the gossip page. The comments were an avalanche of people hyping her up, calling them hot, and throwing absolute trash at me.

I kept scrolling down. Almost every single post on her grid was a breadcrumb leading straight back to Harrison. Only then did the puzzle pieces snap into place.

Every Saturday afternoon when Harrison claimed he was at basketball practice, he was actually out on dates with Peyton.

Those walks home after school, when Peyton just happened to be taking the same route, walking ten feet ahead of us?

Harrison might have been walking beside me, but his eyes were locked on her.

And when he was out sick with the flu and I brought him my study guides… that red mark on his neck wasn't a mosquito bite. It was a brand left by Peyton.

I felt like a disgusting voyeur, piecing together an entire secret relationship they had been flaunting right under my nose for the past year. The clues had been everywhere.

I was just too blind to see them. I practically forced him to call me a disgusting troll to my face before my pathetic, onesided fantasy finally shattered. My stomach churned.

I slammed the phone face down on my desk, scrambling to cut off the feed. My chest tightened so hard I couldn't drag in a breath. My ribs felt like they were splintering.

I was the one who had been played for a fool, the ultimate clown in their little game. But reading through Peyton's carefully curated digital diary, she had inverted the narrative.

I was painted as the villain, the stagefive clinger stealing their right to a public romance, forcing these starcrossed lovers to sneak around in the dark.

Hot, heavy drops hit the dark glass of my phone screen. I reached up and touched my cheeks. I was crying. A bitter, selfdeprecating laugh clawed its way up my throat.

I wanted to reach back in time and slap my pathetic self from last night.

I had woken up in a cold sweat multiple times, instinctively unlocking my phone to check my messages with Harrison out of pure, pathetic muscle memory.

It took staring at an empty chat box in the dead of night to finally remember his sneering face calling me disgusting. The boy who used to throw punches to protect me was dead.

Chapter 7 It wasn't hard to guess who tipped off the anonymous gossip page. The star of the show had practically camped out in the comment section to farm engagement. But honestly?

I had to thank Peyton. If I hadn't seen that post, I would have spent my entire summer blind.

While I was lying awake last night, twisting my sheets into knots over Harrison's cruel little stunt, he was busy sweating it out on cheap motel sheets with the cheer captain.

The very last, pathetic ember of hope I had left for him just flatlined. The human survival instinct is a brutal thing.

Once the blind, stupid infatuation shatters, raw disgust rushes in to fill the void. My phone buzzed against the wood of my desk. Harrison's name flashed across the screen.

My pulse didn't skip a beat. I just felt a heavy, bonedeep exhaustion. I unlocked the screen.

It was Harrison's pathetic, delayed 'apology'. [ Sloane, I really took what your mom said to heart. Whatever happened these past two days, let's just say it's on me. My bad.

I'm sorry! ] [ I already ordered your favorite flowers. I'll drop them off at your place in an hour. We had a tiny hiccup this week, but we're endgame, remember?

Let's just drop this stupid fight and move on, yeah? ] Publicly humiliating me in front of his friends and nearly sabotaging my AP exam was just a 'tiny hiccup'.

Harrison genuinely believed he could stab me in the back, hand me a cheap bouquet, and I would just swallow the disrespect whole.

Before I could even type a reply, another text popped up. [ One tiny favor for your guy, though. ] [ You didn't tell your parents about the hallway thing, right?

Seriously, don't say anything to them. I don't want them thinking I'm not good enough to marry you down the line. ] No wonder he was sweating bullets in the parking lot.

Disrespecting me was nothing. He figured he could just throw some flowers at the problem and I'd be planning our wedding again by dinner. But my parents?

Pissing off my parents meant permanent consequences. Even Harrison knew that parading me out as the ugly punchline right before the biggest exam of our lives crossed a massive line.

He was terrified I had exposed him. Familiarity breeds contempt. The old cliché was dead right. But that was fine. We were done being familiar.

Crossing my bottom line came with a heavy price tag now.

I tapped the text box and typed my response. [ Harrison, you hooked up with that plastic cheer captain behind my back while playing me for a total fool.

You took the Ivy League essays I stayed up all night writing for you, handed them to her, and stood there while she threw them in the trash.

You humiliated me in front of your braindead bros right before the APs without a single thought for my future.

A piece of trash who can't keep his pants zipped doesn't get to talk about endgame. ] [ For the sake of our parents' friendship, I didn't tell them anything beyond what they saw with their own eyes in the parking lot.

As for whether they would ever accept a liar who publicly humiliated their daughter? You're not an idiot. Do the math. ] [ Thanks for looking out for me when we were kids.

But we are officially done. ] I hit send. It was almost funny how the guy I had worshipped my entire life was being wiped from my existence with a few screen taps.

The California scenery blurred past the SUV window, fading into the distance. Time would eventually scrub the rot he left behind clean from my memory.

I pulled up his contact profile and pressed the red text at the bottom of the screen. Blocked. Chapter 8