Comments Said Not to Save My Toxic Childhood Sweetheart, I Chose Cambridge Chapter 09

Comments Said Not to Save My Toxic Childhood Sweetheart, I Chose Cambridge Chapter 09

He froze completely, stunned by my blunt response.

“You know your parents visited me once, right? She told me not to distract you from your academic goals. After Seraphina transferred to our prep academy, you dismissed every worry I shared as nagging and boring. I never said a word against you, because I truly believed you’d snap out of your obsession with her eventually.”

“You finally woke up to the truth, but you took far too long to see clearly.”

I turned and walked toward the airport gate without glancing back.

“Elowen!” he shouted behind me.

I kept walking forward without pause.

“Elowen, I’m so sorry!”

I didn’t slow my pace at all.

His shouts faded into the noise of airport travelers surrounding us, swallowed whole by the crowd.

I never looked back once.

After boarding the plane, I sank into my assigned seat. My phone vibrated inside my backpack nonstop.

A text message popped up on my screen from Kael.

[I know you won’t trust me, but every single regret weighs on me heavily now.]

I left the message unread.

My phone vibrated again moments later.

[I went back through every old Discord thread we ever had together. Every morning I’d get your study reminder texts, every night you’d check in to ask if I’d finished my practice work. I only ever

replied with short, cold one-word answers like ‘Yeah’ or ‘Okay’.]

Another vibration.

[You put together three huge prep binders stuffed with practice problems for me for me over three

years, and I never once thanked you for any of it.]

One more buzz.

[Every time Seraphina bullied me into ignoring you, I never stood up to defend you once.]

i powered my phone fully off and stuffed it deep into my backpack pocket.

A Flight Attendant walked over to my row, asking what beverage I’d like to order.

I requested a glass of plain water, leaned back against the seat cushion, and closed my eyes.

My phone buzzed several more times inside my bag, but I ignored every alert.

As the plane lifted off the runway, I thought back to three years prior.

Kael and I sat side-by-side at our classroom window back then, and he tapped the glass to get my attention.

“Someday we’ll both hit MIT and Stanford together,” he’d said.

I’d smiled and agreed wholeheartedly.

Back then I assumed we’d follow the same path forever. But eventually, he reached a crossroads and chose to walk alongside someone else.

This wasn’t his fault, nor mine-we were simply never meant to share the same future.

Once the plane landed at my destination, I turned my phone back on. Over thirty unread messages waited in my inbox, all sent from Kael.

His final text read: [I’ll wait for you. I’ll keep waiting until you’re ready to reply to me.]

I tapped his username and blocked his contact permanently.

This wasn’t a petty, angry choice. I just didn’t want constant reminders of all the painful memories I’d left behind.

One month after I started my Haverthorp coursework, Wren sent me a private message online.

[Guess who I spotted downtown?]

[Who?]

[Seraphina. She’s hanging around the Milkshake Diner you and Kael used to visit all the time.]

I didn’t reply to her message.

Wren and I’d grown far closer since everything unfolded at the testing center parking lot. She earned her acceptance letter to Willow Creek State University with her top exam scores.

She sent another follow-up message minutes later.

[She’s camped out there waiting for Kael to show up.]

A photo attachment popped up after that.

Seraphina stood outside the retro diner wearing her oversized hooded sweatshirt, her hair loose around her shoulders, stuck in that same desperate routine from months prior.

Kael stood across the pavement from her, a milkshake cup in his hand, his face unreadable in the snapshot.

Wren texted again.

[She’s crying for him.]

A short while later, another message popped up.

[He walked straight past her without stopping.]

[He didn’t even acknowledge her?]

[Nope. She stretched her arm out to block his path, and he just stepped around her and left.]

I stared at Seraphina’s lonely figure in the photograph, recalling the words she’d spat at me once before.

“Do you think you’ve truly won this fight?”

I hadn’t won anything. And she hadn’t lost everything either.

We’d simply chosen two completely different paths to walk down.

I’d moved forward with my life, while she stayed trapped replaying the same old mistakes over and over again.

The next day, Wren messaged me once more.

[Seraphina waited for Kael outside the prep academy campus again today. Campus Security Officer escorted her off the premises.]

[What about Kael?]

[He never left the main building. Security said he snuck out through the prep’s back staff exit to dodge her]

A quiet, dry laugh escaped my lips.

A few months back, all Seraphina had to do was bat her eyes and ask, and Kael would drop

everything to hand it over.

Now she didn’t even need a grand gesture-only one single glance from him—and he refused to spare her even that much attention.

It wasn’t that Seraphina had changed. Kael had finally woken up to the truth.