[STORY] My first LOVE ripped my letter and said I was too ugly to date him

My first LOVE ripped my letter and said I was too ugly to date him

The Pieces I Kept

A story about a letter, a rejection, and everything it taught me about the difference between being wanted and being known

Chapter One: The Letter

I spent three weeks writing that letter to Dylan in sophomore year. Three weeks choosing every single word perfectly. When I finally gave it to him after chemistry class, he read it right there in front of his friends. Then he started laughing.

“Are you serious right now?” He held it up for everyone to see. “Look at this. She actually thinks she has a chance with me.”

Then he ripped it. Not just in half — he tore it into tiny pieces while his friends recorded everything.

“Maybe try again when you don’t look like that,” he said, throwing the pieces at my feet. “This is embarrassing for both of us.”

I picked up every piece while people laughed.

Dylan kept making jokes about it for months. He’d walk past me in the hallway and say things like, “Still waiting for that glow-up?” or “Did you write any more love letters today?” His girlfriend, Jenna, thought it was hilarious. She’d pretend to hand me makeup samples. “Maybe this will help.”

I transferred schools junior year — not because of them, my family moved — but I was relieved to leave.

Chapter Two: The Reappearance

Two years later, I started college at the state university. I’d changed a lot. Got into running, figured out skincare, learned what actually looked good on me. Nothing dramatic. I just finally looked like myself.

First day of economics class, guess who walked in. Dylan. He sat right behind me without recognizing me at first. Halfway through class, I heard him whisper to the guy next to him, “Who’s that girl in front of us?” His friend said my name. Dylan went completely quiet.

After class, he practically ran to catch up with me. “I can’t believe it’s you. You look incredible. Completely different.”

I just said thanks and kept walking. But Dylan wouldn’t let it go. He started showing up everywhere — outside my dorm, at the library, at the coffee shop where I studied.

“Can we just talk? I was young and stupid. I’ve grown up a lot since then.” He’d bring me coffee, offer to carry my books, save seats for me in the dining hall. “I know I was terrible to you. Let me make it up to you.”

The thing was, I still had feelings for him. I hated that I did, but seeing him every day, having him actually pay attention to me — it was everything I’d wanted in high school. So I let him back in slowly. We started studying together. He was actually funny and smart when he wasn’t being cruel. He’d apologize constantly for high school. “I was so insecure back then. I only dated Jenna because everyone expected me to. I actually always thought you were interesting.”

Things were going well for about a month.

Chapter Three: The Mask Slips

Then other guys started noticing me too. This guy, Brandon, from my biology class asked me to get dinner. When I mentioned it to Dylan, just casually in conversation, his whole demeanor changed.

“Brandon? That guy’s a total player. You’re not actually considering it, are you?”

I said I hadn’t decided yet. Dylan got weirdly intense. “After everything I’ve been doing to show you I’ve changed, and you’re going to go out with some random guy?”

I reminded him we weren’t together.

“But I thought we were heading there. I’ve been putting in all this effort.”

That’s when I realized nothing had actually changed. He didn’t like me. He just couldn’t stand that someone he’d rejected now had options.

The next day, Brandon sat with me at lunch. Dylan appeared out of nowhere and inserted himself into our conversation. “Hey, babe,” he said to me, even though he’d never called me that before. He spent the entire lunch talking over Brandon, bringing up inside jokes we didn’t have, touching my arm constantly. Brandon eventually excused himself. Dylan looked satisfied. “You’re better off. That guy just wants one thing.”

This pattern continued with every guy who showed interest. Dylan would suddenly appear, act possessive, then lecture me afterward about how none of them were good enough for me. “I’m just looking out for you. You don’t know guys like I do.”

When I confronted him about it, he got defensive. “I’m trying to protect you. These guys don’t actually care about you.”

I asked him if he actually cared about me.

“Of course I do. I’m the only one who knew you before all this. I liked you for who you really are.”

So I asked him to describe who I really was. He couldn’t answer. He just kept saying things like, “You know — you’re sweet and smart and stuff.” Generic things anyone could say.

That’s when I pulled out my phone and showed him something. A photo of the ripped letter pieces I’d kept all these years. I’d held onto them, taped back together.

“You didn’t like who I really was. You made that very clear.”

Dylan’s face changed. He went pale. Actually pale, like all the blood drained out of his face at once. I watched him stare at my phone screen, at the image of those tiny pieces of paper I’d carefully taped back together into something readable. His mouth opened, but nothing came out at first. Then he tried to laugh — this weird, forced sound that didn’t match his expression at all. His hand came up like he wanted to touch my arm, but stopped halfway.

The words came out shaky when he finally spoke. Something about how we were just kids back then, how everyone does stupid things in high school, how it didn’t matter anymore. But his voice kept cracking on certain words.

I put my phone back in my pocket and picked up my bag. Told him I needed to go. He said my name twice as I walked away, but I didn’t turn around. Left him standing there in the middle of the dining hall with people moving around him to get to the food stations.

Chapter Four: Harper

The walk back to my dorm took maybe five minutes but felt longer. My hands were shaking when I used my key card to get into the building. Harper was sitting at her desk when I came in, headphones on. She pulled them off the second she saw my face, asked what happened before I even closed the door.

I sat down on my bed and just started talking. Told her everything — the letter in sophomore year, Dylan reading it in front of everyone and ripping it up while his friends recorded, the pieces on the floor, months of jokes afterward, Jenna pretending to give me makeup samples, transferring schools, seeing Dylan again in economics, how he’d been showing up everywhere, bringing me coffee, apologizing constantly, the other guys he’d scared off, how possessive he got, asking him to describe who I really was and watching him fail completely, showing him the photo and watching his face change.

Harper’s expression shifted from concerned to angry somewhere in the middle of my explanation. By the time I finished, she was standing up, pacing between our beds. She said his behavior sounded controlling. Said it was manipulative, not romantic. Said the fact that he couldn’t describe me as a person, but claimed to care about who I really was, proved he was lying.

She asked if I was okay, and I realized I actually was. Showing him that photo had felt like taking back something he’d stolen from me.

Chapter Five: The Waiting Game

My phone started buzzing before I even woke up the next morning. Text after text from Dylan. Can we talk? You’re misunderstanding everything. I really do care about you. Please, just let me explain. I deleted them without responding. More came during my morning classes. I’m sorry if I upset you. This is all coming out wrong. Just give me 5 minutes. I care about you so much. You have to believe me.

I turned my phone on silent and shoved it in my bag. After biology, I came out of the science building and there he was, leaning against the wall near the entrance like he’d been waiting. He straightened up, took a step forward. I walked right past him without stopping. He called my name, but I kept going. The same thing happened after my psychology class. This time he tried to walk next to me, talking fast about how I was getting the wrong idea. I told him I wasn’t interested in talking, and he finally stopped following me, but I could feel him watching as I walked away.

It felt different now. Before, when he showed up everywhere, part of me had been flattered, even though I knew I shouldn’t be. Now it just felt wrong — like I could finally see what he was actually doing instead of what I’d wanted to believe he was doing.

Chapter Six: Brandon

Biology lab the next day involved working with microscopes, and I kept messing up the focus, couldn’t get my brain to settle enough to see the cells properly. Brandon was my lab partner and he noticed. After we finished, he asked if everything was okay — said I seemed distracted the whole lab. The way he asked was nice, not pushy, just genuinely checking in.

I told him I had some stuff going on but I was handling it. He nodded, said if I ever wanted to talk about anything he was around. Then he started telling me about his attempts to cook actual meals in his dorm — how he tried to make pasta last week and somehow burned it even though it was in water, how his roommate had banned him from the hot plate after he set off the smoke alarm twice in one month, how he’d been surviving on sandwiches and whatever his mom sent in care packages.

I found myself actually laughing at his stories. We talked for maybe twenty minutes outside the science building about classes and professors and the terrible dining hall food. It felt easy, normal, like talking to an actual person who wanted to know what I thought about things.

Brandon was still talking when I saw Dylan coming toward us across the quad. His expression changed the second he spotted us together — from neutral to something cold and hard. He walked right up without slowing down, inserted himself directly into our conversation, started asking me questions about our economics assignment. Specific questions about the reading. His whole body was angled toward me, blocking Brandon out. He touched my arm twice while talking — a possessive gesture that made my skin crawl.

Brandon picked up on the weird energy immediately. His smile got more polite, more distant. He said he had to get to his next class. Before he left, he pulled out his phone and asked for my number, said we should study together for the biology exam coming up. I gave it to him while Dylan stood there watching with his jaw tight.

The second Brandon was gone, Dylan’s whole attitude changed. Looked satisfied, almost smug. Started telling me how Brandon was probably just trying to get with me, how guys like that only wanted one thing.

Chapter Seven: What He Couldn’t Answer

I waited until we were alone in the dining hall later that week. Dylan had been texting me constantly, and I’d been giving short responses — nothing encouraging, but not completely shutting him down either. When he sat across from me with his lunch, I put my fork down and asked him directly why he couldn’t handle me talking to other guys when we weren’t even together.

He immediately got defensive. Said he wasn’t trying to control me. Said he was just trying to protect me. That these guys didn’t actually care about me the way he did.

I asked him how he knew what they cared about.

“Because I’m a guy. I know how guys think.”

I pointed out that he was describing exactly how he was acting — showing up everywhere I went, trying to control who I talked to, acting possessive of my time and attention. And he couldn’t even tell me who I actually was as a person. He started to argue, but I cut him off. Asked him again to describe me. Not how I looked now, not generic things like sweet and smart, but actual things about my personality, my interests, what I cared about.

He opened his mouth and nothing came out. Finally he said I liked running. I asked him how he knew that. “Because you’d mentioned it.” I asked him what else I liked, what I wanted to do after college, what kind of books I read, what made me laugh. He couldn’t answer any of it. Just kept saying he was getting to know me, that we were building something.

I told him we weren’t building anything. He was trying to possess something, and there was a difference.

Over the next few days, Dylan tried a different approach — started asking me questions about myself. What movies I liked, what I did for fun, what I wanted to study. But the questions felt wrong somehow, like he was filling out a form instead of actually wanting to know me. He’d ask something and then barely listen to the answer before moving to the next question. When I mentioned I’d gotten into running over the past two years, he immediately jumped in: he ran too, we should go running together. I’d been running on the campus track for months and had never seen him there once. He said he ran early in the morning, asked what my route was, how far I usually went — questions that felt like he was gathering information to use later rather than actually connecting with me about something I enjoyed.

He kept doing this with everything I mentioned. I said I liked reading psychology books, and he immediately claimed he’d always been interested in psychology too. I mentioned a coffee shop off campus, and he said that was his favorite place. Every single thing I shared, he tried to mirror back at me like that would make us compatible. It just made me tired.

Chapter Eight: Running Club

Harper found me in our dorm room that Friday afternoon staring at my homework without actually reading it. She asked if I wanted to go to something with her — a running club meeting that evening she’d been thinking about checking out. The meeting was at six, near the track. About fifteen people were stretching and talking in a loose group. A guy with a clipboard came over and introduced himself as Caleb. He was friendly, not in that intense way Dylan was friendly — just normal and welcoming.

We ended up in the beginner group doing a three-mile loop around campus. Caleb ran with us, made conversation easy, asked questions about classes and majors without it feeling like an interrogation. By the end, I was tired, but in a good way. Harper was breathing hard but smiling.

I started going to running club regularly after that — Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Saturday mornings. I made friends with people who knew nothing about my high school experience or my situation with Dylan. They just knew me as someone who was getting better at running and made terrible puns during water breaks. It felt like I was finally building the college experience I’d wanted. Being seen for who I actually was instead of how I’d changed from high school.

Three weeks in, Dylan showed up. I was stretching with the intermediate group when I saw him walking toward the track in running clothes that looked brand new — expensive shoes that hadn’t been broken in yet. Caleb suggested he start with the beginners, but Dylan insisted he’d be fine.

We started the five-mile loop, and Dylan kept up for maybe the first mile. Then he started falling behind. By mile three, he was walking. He finished, but it took him almost an hour. His face was red, and he looked miserable. But the next Tuesday, he showed up again. Same thing happened. He struggled through the run, clearly hated every minute, but kept coming back.

After the third session, one of the other regular members pulled me aside, asked if Dylan was okay, said his behavior seemed kind of obsessive — that it was obvious he didn’t actually enjoy running, but kept showing up anyway. Another person mentioned he always positioned himself near me during stretches and water breaks, even though we barely talked. That he watched me more than he focused on his own running. The club members were starting to notice, and it made everything feel uncomfortable again.

Chapter Nine: Alicia’s Warning

The next Tuesday after running club, a girl from my economics class came up to me while I was getting water. Alicia — we’d done a group project together once but never really talked beyond that. She looked uncomfortable, said she needed to tell me something.

We sat on the bleachers. She explained she’d gone to the same high school as Dylan and me, just a different friend group. She remembered what happened with the letter, because everyone talked about it for weeks. She’d seen the videos people posted. She asked if I was okay with Dylan being around me so much now, said his behavior at running club seemed weird, that he watched me the whole time instead of focusing on his own workout.

The concern in her voice made something click. I’d been so focused on whether Dylan had changed that I hadn’t stepped back to see how strange his current actions were. Showing up everywhere I went, inserting himself into my conversations with other guys, now joining a club he clearly hated just to be near me. None of that was normal. None of that was healthy.

I thanked Alicia and told her I was going to handle it.

Chapter Ten: Setting the Line

That night I texted Dylan to meet me at the library. He showed up fifteen minutes early, looking hopeful. We found an empty study room on the third floor. I kept the door open. Told him I appreciated his apologies for high school, that I believed he regretted what he did back then, but his current behavior showed he hadn’t actually changed. He was still treating me like an object to possess rather than a person to know — following me around campus, sabotaging my interactions with other guys, joining activities he hated just to be near me. I needed him to leave me alone completely.

Dylan’s face went from hopeful to confused to angry in about ten seconds. He said I was being unfair, that he’d been nothing but nice to me for weeks — coffee, studying together, apologizing constantly. I cut him off and said nice wasn’t the same as respectful. That constantly inserting himself into my life when I’d asked for space wasn’t kindness — it was control.

He stood up so fast his chair scraped across the floor. Said I was going to regret this when I realized what I was giving up, that guys like Brandon didn’t actually care about me, that I was making a huge mistake. Then he grabbed his bag and left. Didn’t slam the door, but walked fast enough that I could hear his footsteps echoing down the hallway for a while after.

The next morning, no texts from Dylan. He wasn’t waiting outside biology. Wasn’t at any of the lunch tables. The absence felt strange at first, because I’d gotten used to him being everywhere. But then I realized the strangeness was actually relief. My shoulders weren’t tense. I wasn’t scanning every room wondering when he’d appear.

Around two that afternoon, Brandon texted asking if I wanted to grab coffee and study for the upcoming biology exam. I said yes. We met at the coffee shop, spent three hours going over cell processes and taking practice quizzes. He asked what I thought about different theories, actually listened when I explained my answers. When I got something wrong, he helped me figure out why instead of making me feel stupid.

Chapter Eleven: Jenna, and What Persisted

Two days later Dylan showed up at our dorm anyway. Harper blocked the doorway with her body and told him showing up without an invitation wasn’t okay, that he needed to leave. He tried to look past her at me, said he just wanted five minutes, that I was being unreasonable. Harper’s voice got harder, told him if he didn’t leave right now she was calling the RA. He stood there deciding whether to push it. Then he finally turned around and walked away.

The next morning, I went to find our RA, explained the situation — the constant showing up, the unwanted attention, him coming to our dorm even after I’d set clear boundaries. She took it seriously, wrote everything down, added it to her incident log, told me to let her know immediately if he did it again.

Dylan didn’t text me or show up outside my classes after that, but he found a different way to make his presence known. Vague social media posts about how hard it was when people didn’t appreciate genuine feelings, about giving someone a second chance and having them throw it away. A few people from economics reached out, asked what was going on. Alicia texted to check in. It helped to know who actually cared versus who just wanted drama to talk about.

A few days later, I ran into Jenna, Dylan’s high school girlfriend, at the campus coffee shop. Our eyes met and she froze; I froze. She walked over, hands shaking a little, asked if we could talk for a minute. We sat at a corner table. She apologized — said she’d been thinking about high school a lot, about how awful she’d been to me, that she was insecure back then and followed Dylan’s lead because she thought that’s what she was supposed to do, that she knew it was wrong even while it was happening but didn’t have the guts to stop.

She told me that after she and Dylan broke up junior year, she heard things about how he treated other girls who liked him — made fun of them to his friends, used them for attention, then dropped them. It made her realize he had this pattern. It wasn’t actually about any of us. It was about him needing to feel powerful.

We didn’t hug or become friends. But something shifted, like a weight I’d been carrying around got a little lighter. Walking back to my dorm, things clicked into place. Dylan’s cruelty wasn’t because something was wrong with me. It was because something was wrong with how he treated people. He needed to make others feel small so he could feel big. A sophomore girl writing a love letter was brave, not pathetic. He was the one with the problem.

Chapter Twelve: The Group Project

Economics class brought a group project the following week — Professor Harris paired me with Dylan, Alicia, and two other students. Dylan looked over at me when he heard the pairing. I kept my face blank. In the library, he kept trying to catch my eye, kept suggesting we should meet outside group time to work on our sections together. I redirected every time. Alicia backed me up, said the whole group should stay coordinated through email.

At our second meeting, Dylan made a comment about how much I’d changed since high school, said I seemed way more confident now, clearly thinking he was complimenting me. Alicia didn’t even look up from her laptop. “I probably hadn’t changed that much as a person,” she said. “He was just finally paying attention.” The other two group members went really quiet. Dylan’s face turned red. He didn’t say anything else for the rest of the meeting.

Brandon and I kept seeing each other over the next few weeks — dinner twice more, coffee between classes most days, a movie one weekend, study sessions that actually involved studying. He was consistent. Texted when he said he would, showed up on time, listened when I talked, asked follow-up questions that proved he’d been paying attention. One night at the library, I told him about Dylan, about high school, the letter, everything. He listened without interrupting. When I finished, he asked what I needed from him. I told him I just needed him to keep being himself. He smiled. Said that was easy, because he liked being himself around me.

Chapter Thirteen: 28:15

Race day for the 5K came on a Saturday morning in early November. The running club group met at the starting line at seven. Harper showed up right before the start with coffee for after and stood near the finish line.

The starting gun went off. I focused on keeping steady, breathing evenly, finding my rhythm. My legs felt strong. I passed a few people in the second mile, pushed harder in the third, crossed the finish line, checked my watch. Twenty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds. My best time ever.

Harper was cheering and handed me water. Then I saw Brandon — he’d made a sign with my name on it in big letters, little running shoes drawn around the edges. He’d gotten up early on a Saturday to come support me.

The group gathered after everyone finished. Caleb brought donuts. We sat on the grass talking about our times, how the course felt. People congratulating each other, making plans for the next race. I looked around at these friends I’d made, at Brandon sitting next to me, at Harper laughing with the other runners. This was what support actually looked like. People showing up, celebrating together. No drama, no manipulation. Just genuine care.

Monday afternoon, a message from Dylan. He’d seen photos from the race, wrote a long message about being happy I was moving on, said he wanted me to know he’d always care about me, hoped we could stay in touch, that maybe someday I’d understand what he’d been trying to do. It felt like he was trying to keep some door open, wanting me to remember he existed and still thought about me.

I read it twice. Felt nothing. No anger, no hurt, no confusion. Just this clear understanding that he was still trying to control the narrative, still trying to have some kind of claim on me. I opened my phone settings and blocked his number, then blocked him on every platform — Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. Deleted the message without responding.

Harper high-fived me. We celebrated with ice cream and a terrible reality show. She said watching me set boundaries had made her think about her own life — times she’d let people push past her limits because she didn’t want things to be awkward. She said I’d inspired her to be better at saying no.

Chapter Fourteen: What I Understood, Finally

The economics presentation went smoothly the following Thursday. We got an A-minus as a group. After class, Dylan caught up with me in the hallway, asked if we could talk privately for a minute. I stayed in the open hallway, where other students were walking past. He said he understood I was with Brandon now, that he got it, but he hoped eventually we could be friends, that we had history and he didn’t want to lose that completely.

I looked at him clearly. Told him I didn’t want friendship with him, that he needed to fully respect my boundaries going forward. No more messages, no more trying to talk, no more anything. He started to argue, but I walked away. Didn’t look back, didn’t second-guess myself.

Over the next few days, Dylan wasn’t outside my classes anymore. Wasn’t at the coffee shop. Didn’t text or try to approach me in the halls. The constant presence that had been following me around campus for weeks just stopped. I could walk to class without scanning the crowd for his face. The relief felt physical, like I’d been holding my breath for months and could finally exhale.

Brandon and I met up after his biology lab one afternoon, sat on a bench near the student center. He asked directly if I wanted to be exclusive, to actually be together as a couple. I said yes without hesitation. He grinned and took my hand. He mentioned he liked how we’d become friends first before dating, said he felt like he actually knew who I was as a person, not just what I looked like or what he wanted me to be. That meant everything to me.

A few days later, I was studying in the library for my psychology midterm when I found myself thinking about that letter again — sitting at my desk for hours, choosing each word carefully, pouring so much hope onto those pages. The memory used to make my stomach hurt. But sitting there in the library, I felt something different. Gratitude. If Dylan had said yes back then, I would have wasted years on someone who didn’t see my worth. His rejection, as cruel as it was, had saved me from that. I’d learned what I didn’t want. Now I knew what I did want, and I had it with Brandon.

Chapter Fifteen: What Support Looks Like

Harper and I went to a campus therapy workshop about healthy relationships and boundaries. The counselor talked about love bombing, possessive behavior, manipulation disguised as care. I kept thinking about Dylan, how he’d checked so many of those boxes.

In economics, Alicia and I started hanging out more, met her friend group off campus. Having more social connections made the university feel less small. During one dinner, she mentioned Dylan had started pursuing some girl from his dorm — his behavior with her was apparently the same as it had been with me. Intense, always around, very focused. Hearing that confirmed what I’d already known. Dylan’s interest in me had never been about me specifically. It was about the chase, about not being able to have something he thought he should have.

My psychology midterm came back with an A, a note from my professor asking if I’d considered pursuing counseling as a career. Sitting in the campus center reading that note, I understood: the whole experience with Dylan, as awful as it had been, had actually deepened my interest in psychology. I understood human behavior better now. I could recognize patterns and motivations. Sometimes the hardest experiences teach you the most valuable things, even when you never wanted the lesson.

Chapter Sixteen: Indifference

One afternoon in March, I saw Dylan across the quad, with a group of people I didn’t recognize. I felt absolutely nothing. No anger about high school, no hurt about how he’d acted, no curiosity about his life now. He was just a person who existed in the same space as me sometimes.

I realized that indifference was the real opposite of love, not hate. Hate still meant he had power over my feelings. Indifference meant he didn’t matter anymore. He’d taught me important lessons about recognizing manipulation and knowing my worth, but those lessons belonged to me now. He was irrelevant to my actual life. I kept walking toward the library without changing my path, without looking back.

Epilogue: The Pieces I Threw Away

During winter break, I’d found the container where I’d kept the taped-together letter pieces all those years. I took them out carefully, read through my teenage words. The handwriting looked so young and hopeful. I felt compassion for the girl who wrote that letter, for how brave she’d been to put her feelings out there, even though it ended badly. But I didn’t feel that crushing embarrassment anymore. Those words belonged to someone I used to be, and I’d grown into someone different now. I carried the pieces downstairs and threw them in the kitchen trash. My mom saw me do it and didn’t ask questions, just squeezed my shoulder as she walked past.

The spring brought a 10K I trained eight weeks for, Brandon biking alongside me on long runs with water bottles and energy bars, Harper’s new relationship with a boy named Michael who made her laugh constantly, a teaching assistant position for my favorite psychology course, a summer internship for Brandon that we agreed to handle with trust instead of jealousy.

I crossed the 10K finish line two minutes faster than my goal. Brandon was waiting with a huge smile. Harper and Caleb and Michael ran up cheering. We took photos together, and I felt overwhelmed with thanks for these people who’d become my chosen family. This was what real support looked like. People who showed up and cheered you on and celebrated your wins with genuine happiness — not people who tried to control you or make your achievements about themselves.

Sophomore year ended in early May, and I packed up my dorm room thinking about how much had changed. I’d come to college carrying the weight of Dylan’s rejection, still believing somehow that I wasn’t good enough. I’d let him back into my life for a few weeks, confused by the attention I’d always wanted from him. Then I’d finally recognized my own worth, walked away from someone who only wanted to possess me, not know me.

Now I was thriving in every way that mattered. Strong grades, a clear career path, a group of friends who showed up for each other, a relationship built on being known rather than being chased. I looked at the photos on my wall — the 10K race, game nights, study sessions. These were my people now. This was my life. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Finally free from the girl who’d picked up those letter pieces off the floor while people laughed.

That girl deserved so much better than Dylan ever gave her. And now, at last, she had it.

— The End —