Chapter 4

To silence any lingering doubts, I opened my laptop and immediately FaceTimed Maya. Without hesitation, moments before the midnight deadline, I logged into the Common App portal and changed my acceptance from Columbia to Stanford. The cursor hovered over the "Confirm Change" button for a fleeting second before I clicked, watching my future reshape with a single mouse click.

Maya was ecstatic, practically bouncing off her bed. She had been urging me since junior year to join her at Stanford, painting vivid pictures of California sunshine and Silicon Valley dreams.

Back in freshman year, Aiden and I had made a pact during late-night study sessions, fueled by shared aspirations. We would work hard, ace our SATs, and attend Columbia together. Its aerospace engineering program had been his dream since his father took him to the Air and Space Museum when we were twelve.

Even though I never truly embraced the idea of harsh New York winters or felt particularly drawn to Columbia's engineering focus, I had dedicated three years of high school to making it my goal. Every AP class, every SAT prep session, every extracurricular activity—all carefully chosen to align with Columbia's requirements. I even joined the robotics club simply because Aiden suggested it would bolster our applications.

Having been neighbors for so long, both our families envisioned our futures intertwined. His mother would invite me to Sunday dinners, discussing how wonderful it would be for us both to attend Columbia, casually mentioning friends whose children had found their soulmates during freshman orientation. Everyone, including me, assumed Aiden and I would naturally become a couple after graduation—the quintessential high school sweetheart story.

Now, I could find no compelling reason to attend Columbia. The prospect of walking the same campus paths with him, sharing classes, encountering him and Madison at the library or campus coffee shops—it made me physically ill. Indeed, continuing to follow Aiden like a faithful shadow would make me incapable of facing myself.

I needed to escape, to put distance between us. Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA—anywhere would suffice, as long as he wasn't there. The entire West Coast suddenly seemed like the perfect refuge.

If he was going East, I would go West. Three thousand miles and three time zones felt like a promising start to leaving the last six years behind.