chapter 4
The morning of my flight, Jess came all the way to the gate with me.
She had dragged herself out of bed before sunrise and was still somehow more awake than I was, clutching a paper cup of terrible airport coffee like it was a weapon.
At security, she hugged me so tightly my ribs protested.
“Text me when you land,” she said into my hair. “And when you meet your new roommate. And when you see your new campus. Actually, just never stop texting me.”
“Bossy,” I murmured, my throat tight.
She pulled back, eyes shining.
“Someone has to be. You’ve spent five years letting Liam’s emotions set the weather. It’s time you check the forecast for yourself.”
I laughed, then turned and walked toward my gate without looking back. I knew if I did, I might lose my nerve.
Halfway through the flight, my phone vibrated.
Liam.
I didn’t even need to see the caller ID.
The conversation went exactly the way I had expected.
His voice was frantic now.
“I told you to withdraw the application. You didn’t withdraw it, did you?”
“No,” I said.
He swore under his breath. “Ava, are you insane? Why would you do that?”
Because you made my future a joke, I thought.
Because I finally realized I was the only one treating us like something real.
But out loud, I only said, “I’m already on the plane.”
Silence.
Then he laughed once, sharply, like he couldn’t believe me.
“You’re unbelievable.”
Maybe.
Or maybe I was finally done being predictable.
When the plane landed in the southern city, the air felt different the moment the cabin doors opened.
Warmer. Softer. Faintly salted, touched with something floral.
I stepped onto the jet bridge and felt, irrationally, like the ground itself was glad I was here.
I followed the signs, collected my luggage, and took a shuttle to campus.
The university rose out of the hills like a clean-lined mirage of glass and sunlight. Palm trees lined the avenue. Students moved in laughing clusters, completely uninterested in me and my old life.
No one here knew I was the official sister-in-law.
No one here knew I had detonated a five-year relationship by refusing to click a single button.
My dorm was in an older building at the edge of campus, ivy crawling up the brick.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The room smelled faintly of pine cleaner and someone else’s perfume.
A girl with a messy bun and an oversized T-shirt looked up from where she was hanging fairy lights.
“You must be Ava,” she said, crossing the room in three quick steps and hugging me like we had known each other for years. “I’m Noor. Don’t worry, I already claimed the squeaky bed, so you get the good one.”
I blinked.
It was absurdly easy.
No testing questions. No fake sweetness. No subtle competition.
Just warmth.
That night, lying in the good bed and staring at the unfamiliar ceiling, I waited for grief to swallow me whole.
I waited for the urge to call Liam. To bargain. To break.
It never came.
Instead, my mind replayed Maya’s syrupy voice.
Would it be okay if I go with him?
As if I had ever really been allowed to say no.
I turned my head toward the dark window and caught my reflection.
Hair messy. Eyes tired. Face drawn.
But there was something else too.
A sharper edge. A quiet defiance.
I fell asleep sometime after midnight to the soft hum of Noor’s laptop fan and someone singing badly somewhere down the hall.
When I woke up the next morning, the room was flooded with sunlight.
Noor peeked over the top of her blanket and said, “Important question. Are you a coffee person, a tea person, or a barely-functional disaster until noon person?”
I laughed before I even realized I was laughing.
Maybe that was the first sign I had really left.