Chapter 4 - The Cruelest GiftTwo weeks later, Maya set her tragic plan into motion.

She invited Ethan to the Blue Lantern Diner—the very place where he had first confessed his love to her.

Ethan arrived beaming with pride, holding an envelope containing his first junior project manager bonus of three hundred dollars. He had planned to buy her a new winter coat.

Instead, Maya sat across from him in the booth, her face cold, distant, and completely unreadable.

“I’m leaving Northern Ohio State, Ethan,” Maya stated, looking past his eyes. “I’m moving to Chicago.”

Ethan’s smile froze. “Chicago? For a floral design internship? Maya, that’s great! I can transfer—”

“No, Ethan,” Maya interrupted, her voice dropping into an icy, cruel register she had practiced for three nights in front of her bathroom mirror. “I’m going with Marcus Vance.”

Marcus Vance was the wealthy, handsome son of a regional real estate developer who had been buying up properties around campus.

Ethan sat frozen, the blood draining from his face. “Marcus...? What are you talking about, Maya?”

“I’m tired of counting pennies, Ethan,” Maya lied, her heart screaming in agony behind her ribs while her face remained a stone mask. “I’m tired of cheap pawn shop rings, cold apartments, and waiting for 'someday.' Marcus can give me a real future right now. You’re a good boy, Ethan... but you’re just not enough.”

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She stood up, slid his cheap silver ring across the diner table, turned her back, and walked out into the cold rain.

She collapsed in her mother’s car around the corner, coughing up blood, weeping until her lungs burned, while Ethan sat alone in the booth, his soul shattered into millions of sharp, unhealing pieces.