My boyfriend let his new ‘little sister’ submit an application to transfer me hundreds of miles away.

He called it a prank.

I called it a reason to leave.

So I packed my bags, boarded the plane, and started a new life without him in it.

1

The day before the transfer deadline, I saw my name on the student exchange list for the university’s satellite campus, hundreds of miles away.

The applicant was Liam, my boyfriend.

My fingers trembled as I dialed his number. His voice was casual, light. “Oh, that? Maya submitted it for me. She said it would be a funny prank to play on you.”

He added, “You just have to go in and withdraw the application. No big deal.”

Maya. The freshman who had insisted on becoming Liam’s “little sister.”

I held the phone, silent, for a full minute before hanging up. I realized then that the four years of my life, the future I had so carefully planned, was nothing more than a joke to him.

I didn’t argue. I packed my books, my laptop, my life. And when the time came, I boarded the plane.

Halfway through the flight, my phone vibrated. It was Liam, his voice frantic.

“I told you to withdraw the application! You didn’t withdraw it, did you?”

“No,” I said.

When I first saw my name on that exchange list, I froze. I was staring at the laptop screen, but the words blurred into nonsense. Liam and I had a plan. We’d both agreed to stay at the main campus this semester, to focus on prepping for the national academic competition. It was a goal we’d set together two years ago.

But now, the system showed I was slated to go alone to the southern campus. If I hadn’t checked it on a whim, I wouldn’t have even had the chance to withdraw.

I took a deep breath and called him.

He was so nonchalant, like he was talking about the weather. “Oh, that. Maya thought it would be funny, you know? A little prank to see if you’d notice before you got shipped off.”

He laughed. A small, airy sound. “The deadline hasn’t passed yet. Just remember to go cancel it.”

Liam’s words were light, but each one landed like a shard of ice in my chest.

“So,” I began, my voice trembling with a weakness I hated, “you think this is… just a small thing?”

“Here we go,” he sighed, the impatience sharp in his tone. “Are you really going to make a big deal out of this? Just withdraw it and it’s over. Maya’s just… energetic. She was playing around.”

I stared at the transfer notification on my screen. My throat felt thick, clogged with wet cotton. It took me a moment to find my voice. “What if I hadn’t noticed in time? Maya used my student ID and password. I could report her to the dean’s office for this.”

Liam’s voice went cold instantly. “Ava, you are becoming seriously unreasonable.”

“It was a joke. And you want to report her? When are you going to cut her some slack?” He was getting worked up now, his voice rising. “I’ve told you a million times, she’s a freshman, she just transferred here, she doesn’t know anyone. I’m like her campus big brother. What’s wrong with me looking out for her?”

He finished with a sharp, final blow. “You know what? If you report her, you might as well report me, too.”

The line went dead.

The dial tone was a high, piercing whine that drilled into my ear, pinning me to my chair. I held the phone, my own shocked face reflected in the dark screen. The sounds of the library around me faded into a distorted silence.

High school to college. I’d known Liam for five years, dated him for four. He was my boyfriend, the upperclassman who had guided me through the confusing first days on campus.

I thought back to freshman year of high school, when I’d hidden in a library carrel, crying because I was homesick. He’d found me, sat with me, and talked me through it with a gentleness that soothed the ache in my chest. I remembered the homecoming dance our sophomore year, when a senior girl wouldn't leave him alone. I’d walked right up and looped my arm through his, claiming him. The way he’d looked down at me then, his eyes crinkling with a smile. After the dance, walking me back to my dorm, he’d asked me to be his girlfriend under a sliver of a moon.

Five years had woven him into the very fabric of my life. Everyone said we were the campus golden couple, destined to walk the same path. We’d already planned it all out: after graduation, we’d stay in this city, get an apartment, adopt a cat. We were going to carefully transplant our student love into the real world and watch it grow.

Everything was supposed to run on its designated track, smooth and steady, toward a bright future.

But now, I was staring at a cold, digital notification that felt like a punchline to a joke I wasn’t in on. The mouse cursor hovered over the “Withdraw” button, separated from it by an invisible chasm. All it would take was one click. One tiny movement, and the turbulence would smooth out, life would return to its familiar orbit.

But his voice echoed in my ears, light and dismissive. She was just playing around. Are you really going to make a big deal out of this?

It was the straw that broke something deep inside me. A profound, bone-deep weariness washed up from the soles of my feet, drowning everything else.

Suddenly, none of it seemed to matter anymore.

I didn’t even have the strength to lift my finger and click the button that was right there, waiting.

A soft tap on the glass of the study room door broke my trance. I looked up, dazed, to see Maya standing there. When she caught my eye, she tapped again, motioning for me to come out.

I pushed the door open, a cool draft from the hallway hitting my face.

She took a half-step toward me, her voice syrupy sweet. “Ava, hey! Hope I’m not bothering you?” She tilted her head, her expression a careful performance of innocence. “I was just talking to Liam about me joining the student government, and he seemed a little down. Said he needed to get some air.”

She paused, watching my reaction, a subtle curve to her lips. Her voice grew even more earnest. “So I wanted to ask you… is it okay if I go with him?”

She said it so directly, her words chosen to sound considerate and respectful, as if she were truly asking for my permission. But the triumphant glint in her eyes, a light she could barely contain, was a tiny needle that punctured the whole facade.

For the past six months, it had always been like this. She’d wear this mask of innocence in front of me, acting out these little dramas, pretending to hide her intentions while letting her smug satisfaction leak out at the edges.

I just stared at her, my gaze sweeping over her perfectly crafted innocent face. I felt a coldness spread through my chest, like I was slowly sinking into an icy lake.

Liam. When did he change? Why would he fall for this girl, who was so transparently artificial?

At first, Liam had been openly annoyed by Maya’s attention. He’d called her clingy and exhausting. That all changed after the inter-university basketball tournament. He’d gone up for a rebound and landed wrong, twisting his ankle. It swelled up instantly. I was out of town at a crucial, intensive training camp for the academic competition. We weren’t even allowed to have our phones on most of the time.

Later, I heard that Maya, who had been watching from the sidelines, burst into tears on the spot. But she hadn’t just stood there crying. With red-rimmed eyes, she had scrambled to follow him to the campus clinic, handling his registration, getting his prescription, clumsily but persistently taking care of everything.

Even more surprisingly, for the entire next week, she got up an hour early every single day to meet him at his dorm, letting him lean on her as they slowly made their way to class. At the end of the day, she would do the same thing in reverse.

For seven whole days.

After that, their relationship warmed at a speed visible to the naked eye. Maya started calling him her “Big Brother Liam,” a title she announced half-jokingly, half-seriously, at a crowded party.

And Liam… he didn’t stop her.

The story spread like wildfire across campus. The brilliant, kind-but-reserved Student Government President, Liam, had an inseparable “little sister.” And as his actual girlfriend, I was given a matching, painfully awkward nickname in all the whispers and jokes: the “Official Sister-in-Law.”

Every time I heard it, my stomach would clench. It just felt… wrong. But Liam would just laugh and ruffle my hair. “Don’t listen to them. You know you’re the only one for me.”

Now, looking at Maya’s triumphant smile, I wondered if he could still say that and mean it.

I pulled the corner of my mouth into a sarcastic smile.

She kept her sweet expression perfectly in place. “Ava, are you mad at me?”

Before I could answer, Liam strode up behind her.

“Maya, I told you to wait for me in the library. Why’d you come all the way over here?”

“I… I wasn’t sure if I should say yes to going for a walk with you…” Maya twisted the hem of her shirt, feigning anxiety. “So I wanted to ask Ava’s opinion.”

Liam’s expression softened immediately. “I want you to keep me company. Why would you need someone else’s permission for that?”

“But…” Maya looked down, the corner of her mouth twitching into a fleeting smile, though she held her hesitant pose.

Liam’s gaze snapped to me.

His eyes were full of impatience. “Maya is being more than respectful, don’t you think? She’s coming to you for permission just to take a walk with me. And you? You can’t even take a simple joke.”

He still thought it was a joke. A harmless, insignificant prank. And I was the one who was being difficult.

But why? Why should I have to accept a joke like that?

A cold laugh escaped my lips. “Respectful? Are you really so blind you can’t see the game she’s been playing with you for the last six months?”

I turned my attention fully on him. “Leaving you breakfast with little notes in front of your whole class, clinging to you and playing cute… you think that’s respectful? Pestering you until you let her call you her ‘brother’? It’s not just awkward, it’s pathetic. Can’t you see how fake this all is?”

The color drained from Maya’s face. Her shoulders started to tremble as tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

Liam’s face hardened. “Ava, why are you being so cruel?”

He let out a short, sharp laugh, full of scorn. “An attitude like that? You’re not just a bad girlfriend, you can’t even be a decent friend.”

It felt like a pair of shears had been driven straight into my chest, a deep, dull ache spreading outward. I never thought Liam, my Liam, could say something so humiliating to me. What did he think I was? A disposable part of his life? A bad girlfriend? Was he breaking up with me?

I stared at him, unblinking. For a second, his expression wavered, and he looked away. I knew he was thinking of our life together, just like I was. All those years, we had been each other’s rock. We had never tried to truly hurt one another.

But he had changed. His loyalty, his heart… it had shifted completely to Maya.

“Maya is a good person. She won’t take this to heart,” he said, his voice clipped. “Just apologize to her, and we can move on from this.”

That one sentence. In that one moment, five years of trust and intimacy shattered.

I shook my head calmly. “I’m not apologizing.”

His tone turned menacing. “Ava, are you really going to be like this?”

Like what? I didn’t understand. Everything he was saying felt absurd. Suddenly, the will to fight, to argue, to even speak, vanished.

“This is who I’ve always been,” I said.

Then I turned, walked back into the study room, and shut the door behind me with a decisive click.

Back at my desk, I stared at the student exchange portal again.

One hour left.

In one hour, the application would be irreversible. I would be leaving the city I had lived in for years, heading for a new life at the southern campus.

I still didn’t click “Withdraw.”

I just looked at the screen for a long time. Then I started Googling the satellite campus, reading about its programs, its dorms, its weather.

Time slipped by.

The application deadline passed. The status on my screen changed from “Submitted” to “Confirmed.”

I let out a slow breath.

Leaving Liam… it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. In fact, what I felt most was a sense of relief, as if a great weight had been lifted.

My phone screen lit up. It was my best friend, Jess. A string of furious texts appeared.

“AVA! I’M AT O’MALLEY’S AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS.”

“LIAM IS HERE! AND THAT MAYA GIRL! WITH A BUNCH OF PEOPLE FROM STUDENT GOVERNMENT.”

“THEY’RE DOING KARAOKE AND EVERYONE IS CHEERING FOR HIM AND MAYA TO SING A DUET! MY GOD, SHE’S PRACTICALLY DRAPED OVER HIM!”

A shaky video followed.

The image was blurry, the bar lighting dim and intimate. Liam was in the center of a circle of people, his collar unbuttoned, a smile on his face. Maya was pressed up against his side, her cheeks flushed. She was looking down shyly as people hollered, but she made no move to pull away.

A voice yelled over the noise, “Come on, Prez! You know the rules! You lose the drinking game, you either sing a love song with a partner of our choice, or you call Ava and have her come pick you up! Your choice!”

“YEAH! Call her! Let’s see if Ava will grace us with her presence!”

The energy in the room peaked. Everyone knew we were fighting. And nothing fuels a crowd like drama.

At the suggestion, Maya looked up at Liam, her eyes full of hopeful expectation.

Liam frowned, clearly annoyed by the spectacle. He was silent for a few seconds.

Then he pulled out his phone.

Maya’s face fell.

The call connected. His voice was stiff. “I was out of line earlier. I’ve cooled down now.”

A pause. “Come over to O’Malley’s. Apologize to Maya in person, and we’ll pretend today never happened.”

I said nothing.

His patience evaporated. “Did you hear me? Is it really that hard for you to just say you’re sorry?”

“Liam,” I said, my voice flat. “The only way I’m apologizing is if I’m dead.”

“Fine! Ava, you want to be stubborn? Fine!” His anger exploded through the speaker. “Then you can stay on the line and listen to me sing a love song with someone else!”

I hung up.

Instantly, a new video from Jess came through.

The scene was chaotic. Liam had thrown the microphone to the ground. Maya’s voice trembled, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Liam, we don’t have to sing. Please don’t be angry…”

“Who said I’m not singing?”

Liam’s head snapped up, his eyes finding the camera, finding Jess. He knew she was filming.

“What are you hiding for? Keep recording! Make sure your precious best friend gets a good look at who I’m with now!”

He grabbed Maya’s hand.

As their friends gasped and cheered, he laced his fingers through hers and began to sing.

Seeing that, a sharp, involuntary pang went through my heart.

But the pain was fleeting. It came and went in a flash.

I closed the video.

And I went back to packing my suitcase.

A few minutes later, I sent a text to Jess.

“Hey, can you help me shop for some summer clothes tomorrow? It’s warm down south.”