His Lies, My Unbreakable Heart

h. Enough for MIT, for Stanford, for any Ivy League school I had ever dreamed of. For a

s, the feeling of building something that could change the world. A smile spread across my fac

that cut through my quiet celeb

His usually perfect hair was a mess, his shoulders slumped, and h

mumbled, his

our scores?" I asked, my own happi

y eyes. He looked down a

y a whisper. "Completely. I'm not getting

guy who was good at everything without even trying, the one who

ry," I said, reaching

to the touch, his whole bod

ooked at me, his eyes pleading. "There's on

t of unease

do you

e could go together. We always said we would, remember? When we were kids

making silly, heartfelt promises. My loyalty to him was

e, I

alone. If you go off to some fancy school without me... I don't

the calculated tremor in his voice... something was wrong. It was too much, too dramati

pinged. I glanced over his shoulder. A pop-up notification

er was Jake, a wide, triumphant grin on his face, his arm slung around Emily's shoulders. And in his hand, h

h! So proud of my guy @JakePeterson for crushing the SAT

gious tech schools in the country. A school he could get into with

. The floor seemed to

ear-streaked, pleading face. The performa

was qui

got a

't a qu

vanished, replaced by a flicker of panic, then a

on my friends' pages?" he sn

Jake. You're cele

is charm replaced by some

s like. Emily is just.

ting about the s

dden, aggressive movement. "Gi

with a mixture of fear and fury. I h

e," I said, my voic

ce contorted. "After everything I've done for you, you

creen. The subject line was from our school's guidance

ts who had scored above 1400. I scanned the

n, Jake

ld the laptop up for him to see. His face went pale. The li