I’ve known one thing since I was old enough to know anything at all: I was the Heroine, and Rhys Maxwell, my brilliant, perpetually-scowling boy-next-door, was the Hero. The captions floating in my periphery—the ones only I could see, a constant, shimmering overlay I called The Script—always told the same story: ‘The clueless ingénue and the genius scholar.’ ‘They are literally endgame. Total OTP material.’ Egged on by a thousand digital whispers of ‘Ship them!’ and ‘Such a vibe!’ I’d been Rhys’s shadow, his devoted little barnacle, for years. Until today, when I found a box of emergency contraception tucked deep inside his backpack. The Script would tell me, as it always did, that this was just a massive misunderstanding. But I was tired of being the girl who always understood. I decided, right then, that I was done loving Rhys Maxwell. 1 The box of birth control was lying there, stark white and unforgiving, when I pulled open Rhys’s travel bag. I replayed his words in my head—the ones he’d delivered after our last fumbling kiss, his breath minty and cool: "Wren, we’re still young. Some things should wait until we’ve thought them through." So, if we were still waiting, who was he planning to not wait with? The Script went ballistic. The text became huge, blinding: 'Here we go! Time for the angst arc!' 'Don't be mad, sweetie! It's totally a misunderstanding! Rhys only has eyes for you!' I held the small box, my expression a confusing blank slate of shock and exhaustion. I considered shoving it back in, pretending I’d never seen it, but then Rhys, fresh out of the shower and smelling of pine and academic stress, emerged from his bedroom. “It’s for Sylvie, the Senior Research Fellow,” he sighed, running a tired hand over his wet hair. “The pressure on the computational chemistry project is killing her. She’s been having debilitating cycles and can barely function in the lab. I spoke to the university clinic—this might help regulate things. I was going to drop it off tomorrow.” He took the box from my hand, his touch surprisingly gentle, and slid it into a hidden zipper pouch in his pack. “There’s nothing going on between us, Wren,” he insisted. “Just professional courtesy between lab partners. I know how much you overthink things.” His voice was heavy with a profound fatigue that felt less about the lab work and more about fighting with me. We’d had too many arguments about Sylvie; too many explosive scenes fueled by my insecurity. “It’s true, little sis! I swear, Rhys hasn't done anything with Sylvie!” The Script screamed in my vision. 'Don't let this misunderstanding ruin things! Fighting is so destructive!' I nodded, the movement almost imperceptible. I looked him in the eye, and for the first time in my life, I lied to Rhys Maxwell. “I believe you.” The dramatic shift in my demeanor—the lack of tears or yelling—actually made him pause, his disbelief visible. I sealed the zipper, closing off the pills, the argument, and the Script’s frenzied pleas. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop. Your mom—Aunt Eliza—just asked me to check if you packed your chargers for the research seminar trip.” I turned to grab the clothes he needed, anything to break eye contact and put distance between us. “No—wait—I didn’t say you were snooping. You can…” He didn’t finish the sentence, and I kept my back to him, deliberately missing the bewildered, slightly wounded look on his face. 2 Rhys messaged me right after my afternoon lecture, asking where I was. I'm meeting my roommates at the dining hall. What's up? I hit send and then saw his silhouette across the courtyard, waving. He was waiting for me. Rhys rarely waited for me. He was always booked: classes, the lab, research meetings, leaving me with slivers of his time. He reached me and took my hand. “My team meeting ended early,” he said, pulling me in the direction of the main gate. “How about that sketchy Thai place you love? The one with the crazy spicy Pad See Ew?” I pulled my hand free. Rhys stopped, a flash of genuine hurt crossing his features before he gripped my hand tighter. His palm was warm, even as the early autumn wind whipped around us. “Don’t be mad, okay?” he pleaded. “There’s nothing with Sylvie. I was wrong. I’ll be more careful, I promise. I’ll keep a professional distance from now on.” I looked into his eyes. They were sincere. I truly believed he meant it right now. But sincerity is fleeting. Every time we fought, he gave me this exact apology, this exact promise. And every time, we ended up fighting about Sylvie again. I scanned the quad, searching. When I spotted my roommate, Jamie, I gave her a small, tight wave to show I was on my way. “You always say that place smells like feet,” I reminded him, the lie smooth and easy. “And anyway, I made plans with my roommates. That place closed down last month.” I slipped my hand out of his and walked toward Jamie. The truth was, I’d gone to that Thai place alone weeks ago. The owner had been so heavy-handed with the chili oil that the “mild” dish had made me cry. I had sat in the corner for hours, eating and sobbing until the heat and the sadness were both completely purged. 3 The next morning, my phone buzzed with texts from Rhys. Finals are coming. I highlighted all the key concepts for your Intro to Bio and your Lit Theory classes. I also compiled a predictive question set. Please study hard. You can’t afford to fail this semester. I’ve always been slow. In elementary school, a teacher worried I might have a learning disability and suggested my parents get me tested. My IQ score was 71. Seventy is the clinical definition of a developmental disorder. My parents moved from panic to acceptance. “It’s fine, Wren,” my mother always said. “A little slow, a little simple. Simple people have simple luck.” I guess I did have simple luck. Rhys’s parents moved in next door shortly after. Their son, Rhys, was the genetic lottery winner. Handsome, smart—cooler than any Ken doll. I was instantly obsessed. When I was still wiping snot on my sleeve, I was trailing after him, a tiny, annoying satellite. Rhys was so standoffish and easily annoyed that the kid-me wanted to retreat a million times. But The Script always appeared: 'Don't be shy, baby girl! Be persistent!' 'Rhys is just a repressed hottie! He pretends to hate it, but your innocence melts his cold heart!' Cheered on by the digital chorus, I became his permanent fixture. I knew he liked me, too. Rhys was a high-functioning genius who excelled at everything without effort. There was only one thing he threw himself into: tutoring me. I, the girl barely above the line of being considered intellectually disabled, was tutored by him all the way to the same top-tier university. The day I got my acceptance letter, Rhys actually smiled. “Congrats,” he said, his eyes bright. “Four more years of having to keep up with me.” We made it official shortly after. The Script showered us with blessings. Everything looked like the perfect, inevitable trajectory. But something shifted in college. The time we spent together dwindled. We weren’t the sweet, messy couple from the romance comics I read. He was always busy: lectures, labs, research seminars, grad student study groups… I accepted it. His texts, even the brief ones, were enough to sustain me for days. Until the day I saw him eating with Sylvie in the dining hall. I stared at the phone in my hand, at the text Rhys had just sent me: 'Can't talk. Busy.' My eyes welled up immediately. I read The Script’s hasty explanation: ‘They’re just lab partners getting a quick bite after their experiment. It means nothing.’ It was nothing. His smile was wide and genuine—that was nothing. They were in the same cutting-edge research team, intellectually matched. It was expected they’d have things to talk about. I’d subtly suggested Rhys create some distance with Sylvie, but he always dismissed me with his classic: “She’s just a colleague, Wren. You’re being too dramatic.” Then the campus gossip board blew up. A post speculating that Rhys, the untouchable scholar, had been claimed by Sylvie, the glamorous research star, went viral. My roommates looked at me with pity. I pretended not to care. “They’re in the same lab,” I shrugged. “They have to interact. It’s unavoidable.” But the excuses were starting to taste like dust. I couldn’t swallow them anymore. 4 It was Rhys’s birthday. I baked him a cake from scratch and waited outside his apartment building. I imagined the look on his face when he got home. Would he give me his usual tired, exasperated chuckle, or would he actually be surprised and tell me my baking had improved? I waited from dusk until late into the night. Sitting, then crouching, then finally curled up on the cold steps. Rhys never answered his phone. Just as I was about to panic and call the campus police, my roommate sent me a screenshot. It was from Sylvie’s private Instagram story. "Celebrating my junior research fellow. Happy Birthday to the best lab partner!" Attached was a photo of her and Rhys. They looked incredible together. Rhys was smeared with frosting, but he was laughing—a genuine, unrestrained laugh. I remembered my own eighteenth birthday. I’d dabbed a tiny smudge of icing on his nose, and he’d lost his temper, telling me he had a phobia of messes and hated things like that. But the Rhys in the photo didn't look displeased. He was gazing at Sylvie with an expression I instantly recognized: fondness. The Script started its defense again: ‘It wasn’t a private dinner! The whole lab was celebrating!’ ‘Sylvie only posted a photo of the two of them to stir up trouble! Don’t fall for it!’ This time, the digital excuses couldn’t stop the long-suppressed bitterness from finally rising. I sat on his doorstep and cried until my eyes were dry. Rhys finally came home long after midnight. “Where were you?” My voice was raw and hoarse. He took one look at the melted, misshapen cake box in my hands, wrinkled his nose in distaste, and pulled out his keys. “Team bonding dinner.” I felt something sharp and excruciating twist in my chest. I shoved the photo in front of his face. “I’ve never seen you smile like that at a ‘team bonding dinner.’” His hand froze on the doorknob. He turned back, his brow furrowed. “What is your problem, Wren? Are you being sarcastic?” The cake fell from my numb hands and splattered on the concrete. My eyes burned red. “You hate people putting icing on you! You said you had a phobia of messes!” I yelled. “Is it that you don’t like icing on you, or is it that you don’t like me?” I grabbed his shirt, shaking it violently. “If you didn’t like me, why did you let me chase you for all these years? Why did you agree to date me?” I was tearing at his collar, and a button popped off, clattering onto the ground. It wasn't a standard button. It was the one I’d personally sewn onto his shirt the day we started dating. "Rhys," I'd whispered, "the second button on a man's shirt is closest to his heart. I hope you only keep me in yours." Rhys looked at me with utter contempt, as if I were a screeching, unreasonable child. “It’s my birthday,” he said, peeling my hands off his shirt. “I didn’t ask you to come here. How I spend my time is my business.” He stepped over the ruined cake, his voice cold. “I told you a hundred times, she’s just a colleague. And you choose to pick a fight about it on my birthday. Can you please, for once, just grow up?” 5 I told Rhys we were done. I blocked his number, his social media, and every way he could contact me. I went back to my dorm and, in a fit of despair, started tossing every piece of evidence of our relationship into the trash. The love letters I’d written him, the candid photos I’d taken of him, the journals where I’d documented my secret crush. The Script, of course, was heartbroken: 'She’s really hurting now. Just letting out the frustration.' 'I wish they would just talk! It's all a misunderstanding. Rhys and Sylvie have nothing going on!' ‘They’ll get back together, obviously, but this fighting is damaging.’ ‘Rhys is just emotionally stunted, a genius with a blind spot for feelings. Only his sunshine girl can handle him.’ ‘If she’d just calm down and think back, she’d realize Rhys loves her.’ Calm down and think back? I salvaged the items from the bin and looked at them. They felt… different. I pulled out the stack of love letters. Rhys had returned them immediately when I gave them to him, unread. Now, flipping through them, I saw tiny corrections in red pen marking my spelling errors and misplaced commas. My heart hitched. When had he looked at these? The Script immediately started swooning: 'Rhys, the repressed academic, correcting her love letters! Dying!' 'I remember that! He stole them back just to read them and correct her grammar. He was planning for her to find them and realize he’d seen them all along!' ‘Look at the candid photo too! He told her he was asleep from studying, but he was actually exhausted from making her study guides!’ I picked up the photo of Rhys asleep on his desk. ‘Rhys is a genius, he doesn’t have to study that hard. He spent days building a curriculum for her so they could get into the same college. That’s what made him pass out!’ ‘He worked all night on her coursework and tutored her all day. He’s the silent guardian. That’s just his personality, let him be.’ I flipped through my old diaries, the pages marking the time before the college entrance exams. My parents had practically given up. They had hired expensive tutors, but the ROI was dismal. They were ready to settle for the nearest state college when Rhys stepped in. He offered to tutor me, saying he had the time and figured he could at least try to pull off a miracle. Under his guidance, my practice scores climbed steadily. I genuinely believed I was finally “smart” and that his casual tutoring was enough. I had been blind. It had been Rhys. All of it. A rush of warmth washed over the icy pain. When everyone else had lowered their expectations for me, it was Rhys who had lifted me up, dragging me to this incredible university. 6 I gathered the scattered pieces of my life off the dorm room floor and put them back in the cabinet. I tossed and turned all night, watching the pre-dawn light bleed through the window. Finally, I unblocked Rhys’s number. I’m sorry, Rhys. I was too insecure and overreacted. I still want to be with you. Please don’t let us break up. He didn't reply. He’d been complaining about the lab being overwhelming. I decided to get up, grab coffee and bagels, and wait for him outside the research building. The door required a key card, so I stood in the biting, mid-winter wind, clutching the warm bag of food. My fingers were starting to go numb as I called him. No answer. I looked through the glass, desperation mounting, and spotted a student who looked like he was taking a break. I knocked on the glass, hoping for help. The student cracked the door open and told me outside students couldn’t come in, but he’d page my contact. “I’m Rhys Maxwell’s girlfriend,” I said, trying to look composed. “Can you check if he’s in the lab? I have his breakfast.” The student looked confused, then told me he’d ask. He pulled out his phone. The automatic glass door closed, but the seal was bad. I could still clearly hear his phone conversation. “Yeah, that Rhys Maxwell, can you check?” “Oh, he’s not in? Okay, I’ll tell her.” I was about to thank him when I heard him lower his voice, whispering conspiratorially to the person on the other end. “Can you believe it? This girl says she’s Rhys’s girlfriend!” “I know, right? It’s wild. Rhys and Sylvie are practically glued together. Everyone thought they were the couple.” My legs felt like jelly. I gripped the cold wall to steady myself. The Script was a deafening, panicked blur, but I couldn't focus on the words. Glued together. The couple. A shared meal meant nothing. A shared workspace meant nothing. A birthday celebration meant nothing. Did kissing mean nothing? Was that another misunderstanding? I fought for breath. I knew the student could hear the frantic rhythm of my breathing. I managed to adjust my expression into a tight, strained smile and called out to him before he could put his phone away. “Hey, could you do me one last favor? I need you to pass another message to Rhys.” He looked uncomfortable, realizing the poor acoustics of the door. “W-what is it?” I kept the painful smile fixed on my face. “Just tell him… the message I sent him on his phone this morning? It doesn’t count anymore.”
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