He Left Me For My High School Bully

Before the first snow even hit the ground, my world ended on a glowing smartphone screen.

I was scrolling through UniConfessionsone of those anonymous Instagram accounts where students air their dirty laundrywhen a post stopped my thumb in mid-swipe.

[To the Physics girl at BU: You might want to check on your boyfriend.]

The caption was brutal. The poster said she was at Carboneimpossible to get a reservation, naturallyand overheard a couple at the next table. They were making a scene.

The girl was whining, complaining that the guy kept bringing up his ex. The guy was soothing her, his voice dropping into that low, liquid register that sounded like safety.

Maya is different. We grew up together. I cant just cut her out of my life like that.

The voice was clear, distinct, and devastatingly familiar.

It was my boyfriend, Liam.

And the Maya he was talking aboutthe one he couldn't cut outwas me.

My heart contracted, a physical spasm that felt like my blood had turned to slush. I tapped the video attachment. It was only a few seconds of shaky footage pointing at a white tablecloth, but the audio was crystal clear.

It was Liam.

1

I would know that cadence anywhere. It was the voice that had whispered promises into my hair at 3 a.m., the voice that had shouted my name across crowded football fields in the heat of July.

Then, the other voice cut insharp, vocal fry dialed up to eleven, tearful.

But you promised to spend the First Snow with me! What if Maya finds out?

Liams reply came fast, laced with a soothing sort of impatience.

She wont find out. I told her I had a department mixer. Come on, babe, stop spiraling.

The comments section was a war zone.

[User1: Damn, voice is smooth. Too bad he's trash.]
[User2: Physics major at BU... implies long distance. Run, girl, run!]
[User3: Wait, Carbone is in NYC. Is this a cheating scandal? Spicy.]

I gripped my phone so hard I thought the glass might snap.

Liam and I weren't just a couple; we were an institution. Neighbors in middle school, lab partners in high school, and then survivors of a long-distance relationship through college. Seven years.

He was the golden boy of the Finance program at NYUStudent Body President, charming, destined for Wall Street.

And I was Maya. Just a Physics major in Boston. Good grades, but otherwise invisible.

To the outside world, we were the gold standard. Seven years of stability. Every holiday spent glued to each other's sides. A future mapped out in detailed spreadsheets.

We had a tradition. For the seasons first snowfall, he would take the Amtrak up from New York to Boston to be with me. Wed done it for five years running.

My screen lit up. Caller ID: Liam.

I took a breath that rattled in my chest and swiped to answer. My voice came out terrifyingly calm.

Hey.

Maya, Liam said. He sounded warm, affectionate, with just the right amount of regret. I am so, so sorry. The department just dropped a bomb on us. Mandatory end-of-year networking gala tomorrow night. I... I can't make it up there.

I listened to the silence in the background of his line.

Somewhere inside me, a structural support beam snapped. I was free-falling into a dark basement.

He kept performing.

I hate that I'm missing the snow with you. Seriously. Once this week is over, I'll come up for the whole weekend. Ill make it up to you, okay?

Yeah. Okay, I whispered. My throat felt like it was full of broken glass. Get some rest.

You okay? You sound off. He was always sharp.

I'm fine. I forced a smile that distorted my face in the empty room. Just a head cold coming on. The gala is important. Don't worry about me.

Good. Drink some tea, wrap up warm. Love you.

When the line went dead, my legs gave out. I slid down the wall until I hit the cold laminate floor.

Outside the window, the first flakes began to drift past the streetlights.

Bostons first snow was finally here.

But the boy who promised to watch it with me was in another city, getting ready to watch it with someone else.

It was almost funny.

I didn't sleep. Not a wink.

When the sun turned the sky a bruised purple, I DM'd the girl who ran the gossip account.

I didn't scream. I didn't rage. I just asked, politely, if she could describe the girl or knew her handle.

Maybe my calm terrified her, or maybe she just pitied me. Thirty minutes later, a reply pinged.

[Anon: Hey, I don't know her handle, but she was striking. Heavy makeup, beach waves. She had a really distinct tattoo on her right wrista blue butterfly. And I think the guy called her 'Bianca'.]

Bianca.

Blue butterfly.

Those two details were keys turning in a rusted lock.

A name I thought Id scrubbed from my life floated to the surfaceBianca Rhodes.

My hands shook as I opened my high school alumni network, scrolling until I found the profile I hadn't looked at in years.

Her main feed was locked down. But I didn't stop there.

I went to TikTok. Searching variations of her name.

Finally, I found it. An account called @QueenB_NYC.

There she was.

Her latest Story was posted yesterday. A photo of an Amtrak ticket. Boston to New York Penn Station.

Caption: Running to my happy place!

I scrolled back. A selfie from two weeks ago showed her holding a latte, and there it was on her right wrist: a delicate, electric-blue butterfly.

It was her.

Bianca Rhodes. My high school tormentor.

She came from old money, the kind of girl who had the world handed to her on a silver platter. I was the scholarship kid who studied through lunch.

We shouldn't have had any reason to interact, except for Liam.

Back then, Liam was the boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Single mom, poor, defensive. Bianca looked down on him, but she hated me because I had the loyalty of the handsome, brilliant bad boy she felt entitled to toy with.

She made our lives hell. The worst incident was senior year. She cornered me in the locker room with her friends, mocking me for dumpster diving for a boyfriend.

When Liam found us, I was already fighting back. It was the only time Id ever thrown a punch, defending Liams fragile pride.

Bianca became a forbidden name between us. I thought that after graduation, she would just be a ghost story we told ourselves.

I never imagined she would reappear like this.

As my boyfriends mistress.

The irony was so thick I could taste it.

I walked to the mirror. The girl staring back was pale, eyes hollowed out. I looked like a marionette with cut strings.

Was I sad? Devastatingly.

Was I heartbroken? I couldn't breathe.

But beneath the grief, something hotter was waking up. A profound sense of nausea and rage.

I wasn't going to let this slide.

Seven years of devotion couldn't end with a grainy Instagram video.

I needed the truth. I needed to see it with my own eyes.

And more importantly, I needed the people who broke me to pay the bill.

I opened the Amtrak app and booked a ticket to New York for that afternoon.

My roommate watched me pack, concerned. Maya, I thought you were sick? Where are you going?

I zipped up my bag and forced a smile that felt like baring teeth.

New York. I'm going to surprise Liam.

2

New York was cold. The wind coming off the Hudson cut right through my coat as I stepped out of Penn Station.

My phone buzzed. A text from Liam.

[Liam: Hey babe, you eating okay? Miss you.]

Attached was a photo of a conference room. A projector screen displayed: Dept. of Finance: Year-End Strategic Review.

He was putting real effort into this lie.

I pinched the screen, zooming in.

He was sloppy. In the bottom right corner, reflected in the glossy screen of a colleagues MacBook, was a window. Outside that window was the distinctive red awning of Le Monde, a cafe near Columbia University.

The meeting was a fake. He was just stalling until his date.

I sent back a cute sticker of a cat eating noodles. [Just ate. Focus on your meeting, don't get distracted! x]

Then I hailed a cab and gave the driver the address for Le Monde.

I haunted the streets of the Upper West Side like a ghost. This neighborhood was full of us. The bagel shop where we had our first real fight, the park bench where we planned our post-grad life.

Now, every landmark felt like it was mocking me.

Twilight settled over the city. The snow intensified, dusting the brownstones in white. I stood in the recessed doorway of a bookstore, waiting.

Finally, I saw them.

Liam was wearing a long black Canada Goose parkamy birthday gift to him last year. It had cost me a month's rent.

Next to him, clinging to his arm, was Bianca. She was wearing the exact same coat, but in pristine white.

We had bought those coats as a set. He took the black one. I kept the white one.

Now, my coator its twinwas on another woman.

They looked perfect. Like a catalog couple. The most beautiful things on the snowy street.

Liam reached out and gently wiped a snowflakeor maybe a smudge of saucefrom the corner of Bianca's mouth. The look in his eyes was tender, reverent. It was the same look he used to give me.

That was the moment my universe fractured.

I stayed in the shadows and pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly I had to brace my elbows against my ribs.

I hit record.

I captured every laugh, every touch, every intimate glance as they walked into the restaurant.

My phone buzzed again. Liam.

[Liam: God, this meeting is dragging on. Just a bunch of old guys talking about yield curves. Wish you were here.]

Bile rose in my throat. I actually gagged.

I didn't reply. Instead, I walked into the cafe directly across the street and took a table by the window.

Through the glass, I had a front-row seat to their date.

I watched Liam tending to her, pouring her wine, laughing at her jokes like she was the only person in the room.

I ordered a black coffee. The bitter liquid burned going down, but it couldn't touch the acid in my stomach.

One hour. Two.

I watched them like I was studying a specimen in a lab. Detached. Numb.

When they left, they didn't head toward the dorms. They turned down a side street and disappeared into a boutique hotel.

I filmed them walking through the revolving doors. I filmed them checking in at the front desk.

When they vanished into the elevator, I stopped recording.

I had enough.

I finished the cold dregs of my coffee, stood up, and walked out into the freezing night.

On the train ride back to Boston, I stared at my reflection in the dark window. My mind was a blank tape.

Seven years. Gone.

Back in my dorm, I locked myself in the bathroom and splashed freezing water on my face until my skin was numb.

I opened my photo gallery. Thousands of images.

Prom. The beach trip after graduation. The day we moved him into his dorm.

In every photo, he looked clean, kind. He looked like he loved me.

I remembered ninth grade. My family had moved next door to his. His mom was volatile, struggling. The neighborhood kids called him trash.

He was prickly back then, a wounded animal.

I was the one who brought him leftovers. I was the one who helped him with his calculus. I was the one who begged my parents to help him with tuition when he almost dropped out.

We were supposed to be the success story.

When his biological fathera wealthy real estate developerfinally entered the picture sophomore year of college, everything changed.

Liam got the credit card, the clothes, the confidence.

I'm never going to let you struggle again, Maya, he had told me over a $200 dinner.

I believed him.

But money didn't just polish him; it exposed him. The insecurity was still there, just masked by designer labels. Bianca wasn't an accident; she was inevitable. She was the status symbol he finally felt worthy of.

And me? I was just the witness to his embarrassing past. The girl who knew him when he was nothing.

Realizing that hurt, but it also clarified things.

I deleted the photos. One by one.

Then I changed my profile picture from us to a black and white portrait of Richard Feynman.

It felt like a funeral rite.

Goodbye, Liam. Goodbye to my youth.

3

For the next few days, I functioned on autopilot.

Classes. Library. GRE prep. Applications for my semester abroad.

Liam noticed the profile picture change. He started panicking.

[Liam: Maya, whyd you change your pic? Did I do something?]
[Liam: Please pick up. Im getting anxious.]
[Liam: Babe, Im sorry, just talk to me.]

I ignored them all.

He wasn't anxious because he loved me. He was anxious because his safety net was fraying. His love exhibited wave-particle duality: it looked like love when he observed it, but collapsed into selfishness the moment he looked away.

Friday was our seven-year anniversary.

The night before, he sent a wall of text.

[Liam: Maya, tomorrow is our day. I bought the first ticket out. Ill be in Boston by 8 a.m. Meet me at our breakfast spot. I know Ive been distant. Scream at me if you want, just let me explain.]

I stared at the message. Explain? Explain how he managed to be two people at once?

I typed one word: [Okay.]

The next morning, I slept in.

I woke up to sunlight bouncing off the melting snow. I took a long shower, did my skincare routine, put on light makeup, and went to brunch with my roommate.

My phone vibrated incessantly in my bag. I put it on Do Not Disturb.

We shopped. We saw a movie.

At 3 p.m., I finally checked my phone.

Forty-seven missed calls. Sixty texts.

The last one was pathetic.

[Liam: Ive been standing here since 8 a.m. Im freezing. People are staring. Im so worried about you. Im not leaving until you come.]

Once, that would have broken me. Now, I just saw a man manipulating the narrative.

I texted back: [Oh my god. I totally forgot. Im out with friends. Just saw this.]

He called immediately.

Maya! His voice was a mix of fury and relief. What is wrong with you? Do you know how long I've been waiting?

I told you, I forgot, I said, keeping my voice light, airy. It's just an anniversary. We're adults, Liam. We don't need to make a big deal out of dates. I've been so busy with my exchange applications.

Silence. He was processing the shift in power.

Fine, he said, his voice tight. I get it. You're busy. Look, next weekend, the soccer team is having a mixer back in New York. Can you come? I want to properly introduce you to everyone.

I almost laughed.

The audacity.

He wanted to bring me into her territory. He wanted to parade me in front of Bianca to prove... what? That he was a good guy? Or was this a setup?

Sure, I said. I could use a weekend in the city.

I hung up and immediately checked Biancas TikTok.

She had just posted. A video of her and some guys in NYU soccer jerseys at a bar.

Caption: [Some people better stay home next weekend, or its going to get ugly. ]

It was a trap. They wanted a scene. They wanted me to show up so they could humiliate the boring girlfriend.

Well. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction.

But I was going to give them a show.