Evening Winds Sweep Away Teenage Longings

1 While my boyfriend was asleep, I noticed his phone screen lighting up with a relentless stream of notifications. Curiosity got the better of me.

When I tapped the screen, I saw he was replying to a popular prompt on a local Q&A forum: How far can a person go for someone they can't have? "I've loved my childhood best friend for twelve years," his response read, "but I'm currently dating a girl I don't love at all." "My childhood friend is in love with someone else, her own personal 'one that got away.' To help her secure her happy ending, I went out of my way to pursue his crush, who happens to be my current girlfriend.

I did it to clear the competition for her." "Now, my childhood friend is practically engaged to her dream guy. As for me?

Well, since I can't have the girl of my dreams, it doesn't really matter who I'm with. It's all the same to me." My hands began to shake.

The realization hit me like a physical blow: I was the unloved girlfriend. The phone slipped from my trembling fingers, landing softly on the mattress.

Ashton didn't wake up, but he instinctively rolled closer to me, his arm draping over my waist. "Rowan..." he muttered in his sleep, his voice thick and affectionate.

If this had happened yesterday, I would have found his sleeping gesture incredibly sweet, a sign of his deep devotion. Now, it felt sickeningly absurd.

I knew exactly who his childhood friend was. Gemma. She was currently dating Wesley, a popular senior from our university. I had met Gemma once or twice.

Whenever Ashton spoke of her, he insisted she was just a dear friend from his neighborhood. Asfor Wesley, he had actually confessed his feelings to me back in college.

I barely knew him, so I had politely declined. When Gemma and Wesley eventually got together, I assumed it was a sweet stroke of fate.

I had even sent them my warmest congratulations. But there was no fate. It was a calculated game designed by Ashton, and I was just an insignificant pawn on his chessboard.

Taking a shaky breath, I unlocked his phone again and kept scrolling through the post.

It was a detailed, public diary of his unrequited love for Gemma. "I've known I loved her since I was ten, but her eyes were always fixed on someone else." "Of course, it killed me to see her with another guy.

But I couldn't bear to see her unhappy either, so I chose to make her dreams come true." "When she confessed to Wesley and got rejected, she locked herself in her room and cried for three straight days.

I was absolutely furious. I hated Wesley for rejecting her, but more than that, I hated my current girlfriend.

Why did she get to effortlessly capture the attention of the guy Gemma wanted?" "So, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I targeted my current girlfriend, planned to date her for a year, and then dump her." The strange, unreadable looks Ashton used to give me suddenly made sense.

Yet, he had treated me so well, with such tender care, that I never had a reason to doubt him. Our oneyear anniversary was next week.

I had spent the last month excitedly planning a special weekend for us, hoping to surprise him. I never could have imagined our entire relationship was a lie.

A calculated act of revenge. The comment section of his post was a battleground. "Have some selfrespect.

How could you possibly post this publicly?" "What did your girlfriend do to deserve a toxic jerk like you?

Let her go." But a few took his side. "He hasn't cheated on her, and he treats her well.

Why is everyone calling him toxic?" "Am I the only one wondering how he managed to sweep his girlfriend off her feet so easily, while failing with his childhood friend for twelve years?" Ashton had replied to that comment: "You have to walk on eggshells around the person you actually love, terrified of saying the wrong thing.

But with my girlfriend? She's just a game where I calculated her stats. A few carefully placed strategies, and she was mine. It was incredibly easy."