Chapter 11: The Departure (Year One) Anna
I left home with two bags, a burning secret, and the taste of someone else's name on my lips.
Kelvin
I never said goodbye to him. Never explained. Never even texted. I just vanished after that night—after the mistake that didn't feel like one until morning light revealed a truth I couldn't handle. I had thought I was kissing Josh. Loving Josh. But it was kelvin—my best friend.
The realization had cracked something deep in me. I'd wanted it to be Josh, convinced myself it was him, because loving kelvin—seeing him that way—felt like betrayal. To him. To myself. To the version of Anna that had always seen Kelvin as a safe place.
So I ran.
I told my parents I needed a transfer for better academic opportunities. I said I needed space. My dad didn't ask questions, and my mom only stared at me like she knew there was more but respected the silence I wrapped around myself.
A new university. A new city. I changed my major to business, buried myself in numbers and long hours and neat, color-coded spreadsheets. There was something calming about control—how profit margins and forecasts didn't ask why your chest hurt when you heard a name.
And then came Samira.
She was the first real friend I made at the new school. Loud, fiercely loyal, and always ready with snacks or unsolicited advice. We were total opposites—she hated mornings, loved rom-coms, and somehow dragged me to every networking event she could find.
She didn't know the version of me that had secrets. She just knew the Anna who was driven and always said yes to responsibility. I let her believe that was all there was.
She introduced me to Cameron one rainy Thursday in the library. Clean-cut, polite, with an awkward kind of charm. I wasn't looking for anyone. He was persistent in the softest way possible. He offered coffee the second time we met. He brought lemon biscotti the third.
By the fifth time, I said yes to dinner.