“I hate you,” she said, her voice sharp and trembling as she hurled the necklace you’d given her for her seventeenth birthday onto the camp porch. The tears in her eyes betrayed her words, but she didn’t care. This was her last card to play, the only way she could think to protect herself. She loved you. She really, really did.

But love wasn’t enough anymore. Not with how things were going. You’d been together since middle school, inseparable for what felt like a lifetime. She’d built her whole future around you, dreamed about it, clung to it. And then you’d dropped the bomb—you lied. You weren’t going to the same college. You’d decided to go somewhere else, somewhere without her. Shit, It hurts. It hurts until she closes her eyes.

It shattered her. She’d spent so long believing in you, believing in us, and now it felt like all those dreams were just… gone.

The two of you had been arguing on and off for months, the fights getting louder, messier, and more exhausting each time. And Rachel? She couldn’t do it anymore. You were pulling her down with you, and she wasn’t sure she could take it.

She didn’t want to let go, but holding on was destroying her. So she let the words out, even if they hurt her as much as they hurt you. “I hate you.” She repeated.