At our high school graduation party, the five of us who had grown up together sat down to play a game called Who Knows Who Best.
In the first round, my best friend Mia Harper asked the question.
“If one of us got stranded somewhere in the middle of the night, who would you go save first?”
The three boys everyone had jokingly called my future husband candidates for as long as I could remember all wrote down her name.
Someone teased them for being so in sync.
Mia’s cheeks turned pink as she explained.
“It’s probably because I’m the biggest scaredy-cat. Chloe is so capable. She’d never need anyone to rescue her.”
They all nodded in agreement.
But they had forgotten. When I was sixteen, I was the one stranded in the mountains, and they were the ones who found me in the pouring rain and fought over who got to carry me down.
Back then, all three of them had said the same thing.
“No matter what happens, we’ll always choose you first.”
The second round came around, and it was my turn to ask.
I looked at each of them and smiled as I read the question off the card.
“If only four of the five of us could go to the same college, who would you leave behind?”
The private room went dead silent.
Mia bit her lip and was the first to flip her card over.
She had written her own name.
But when the other three cards turned around, every single one had mine on it.
Grayson Hale, the one who had always doted on me the most, was the first to speak.
“It’s just a game. You’re not actually going to take it seriously, are you?”
Ethan Pierce jumped in right after.
“Mia isn’t in great health. It wouldn’t be right for her to go off to a strange city on her own.”
Julian West just ruffled my hair with that same gentle tone he always used.
“Besides, you applied to a school right here in town. Even if one of us had to stay behind, you’d still be home every day. It’s not like we’re leaving you.”
I looked at those four answer cards and, out of nowhere, I laughed too.
They had no idea that the local college they had already picked out for me had never once made it onto my application list.
That night, Julian sent me a message on his own.
【Don’t let a game get to you.】
【The five of us are going to stick together forever.】
I didn’t reply.
I just stared at the school on my screen, seventeen hundred miles away from here, and hit final submit.
They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 10 At twenty-six, the deep space observation project I was part of officially published its results. After the press conference, a reporter asked me why I had chosen astrophysics. I looked back at the nebula image behind me and thought about the […]
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 09 In my junior year, I was selected for a joint program at Cambridge. Before I left, my mother came to visit me at school for the first time, alone. Three years had gone by. She looked older. A few silver hairs
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 08 Before the winter holidays, the observation project I was on hit a major milestone. My advisor put my name on the report and recommended me for the undergraduate research program the following year. When the news went out to the family
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 07 A month into the semester, I joined the campus astronomy club. The first time we went out for observation, the faculty advisor put me in charge of documentation. I photographed the Orion Nebula and compiled all the data into spreadsheets. I
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 06 The next afternoon, I found Julian waiting downstairs at my dorm. He looked like he hadn’t slept all night. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his shirt was badly wrinkled. In eighteen years, I had never seen him look this rough.
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 05 The day they finally realized I was gone, I was at a stargazing event for new students. The school sat on high plateau country, where the days and nights swung wildly apart in temperature. The afternoon had been clear and bright,
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 04 After Mia moved into my room, Grayson and the others were over almost every day. Grayson brought food. Ethan put together prep materials for her college classes. And Julian bought a projector, mounting it on my wall himself, worried she’d get
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 03 Three days into their trip to the Rockies, Mia posted a graduation travel video on Instagram. In the clip, the four of them were running around at the base of the snowy mountain in matching ski jackets. Grayson was carrying her
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 02 The next morning, I asked Julian to meet me at the coffee shop on the corner. Not to confirm the trip, but to end it in person. When I pushed the door open, the four of them were already sitting at
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They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 01 At our high school graduation party, the five of us who had grown up together sat down to play a game called Who Knows Who Best. In the first round, my best friend Mia Harper asked the question. “If one of
They Said She Was Strong So They Never Had To Choose Her Chapter 01 Read Post »
