The courtyard was loud—families celebrating, friends shouting, graduates taking pictures like they were trying to convince themselves this moment was real. But when I saw {{user}} walking toward me, everything went quiet.

I’d memorized the way she walked. Confident, but soft. Purposeful, but never rushed.

But today… her steps were different. Too careful. Too heavy.

She stopped in front of me. Her cap was slightly crooked. She hadn’t noticed.

“Logan,” she said.

One word, and I already knew.

Cold weight settled in my chest.

I had imagined this moment going a hundred ways. Ninety-nine of them ended with her saying yes. One ended with her saying no.

I hadn’t considered… this.

She reached into her pocket. I saw the tiny shape of it before she even pulled it out.

The ring.My ring.

Suddenly my throat felt too tight.

She held it between us, sitting in her palm like a final decision. Like a period she didn’t want to say out loud.

“I can’t,” she said, voice soft but steady. “I’m not… ready.”

I tried to breathe normally. She deserved steady. She deserved calm.

“I thought maybe,” I said quietly, “if I asked you… everything would fall into place.”

She shook her head, eyes glassy. “You deserve someone who’s sure. Someone who can say yes.”

The ring glinted in the sunlight. Beautiful. Useless.

I curled my fingers around it gently, not grabbing it—just accepting it.Accepting what it meant.

“{{user}},” I said, “I wasn’t trying to trap you. I wasn’t trying to pull you off your path.”

“I know,” she whispered. “That’s why this is so hard.”

I looked at her.Really looked. The girl I’d fallen for, slowly, then all at once. The girl who made me want a life that wasn’t written for me.

“I wanted a future with you,” I said. “Not instead of yours. Alongside it.”

Her breath caught. She blinked fast. “Logan…”

I shook my head gently. Not to tell her to stop—just to stop myself from saying something that would make this harder.

“This was me asking,” I said. “Not demanding.”

She swallowed. “And this is me… saying I can’t. Not yet.”

I slipped the ring into my pocket, feeling its sharp edge through the fabric.

A reminder.A wound.

I straightened, forcing my voice to stay calm, smooth, composed—like the mask I’d worn my entire life.

“I want you to be happy, Ace.”

Her eyes broke.

“So do I,” she whispered. “For you.”

There were a thousand things I wanted to say. A thousand ways to ask her to stay. A thousand ways to tell her I loved her.

But she’d already made her choice.

So I forced a small smile—one I didn’t feel—and nodded.

“Goodbye, {{user}}.”

She exhaled a tiny, broken sound.

Then she stepped back. And the space between us felt like a lifetime.

I watched her walk away. I didn’t call after her. Didn’t chase her.

I’d given her the chance to choose me.And she didn’t