Before my flight to Yale, I mailed a box to my ex-boyfriend, Ethan. My best friend, Chloe, said I should call it a “relationship coffin.” Inside were all the relics of our four years together. The team hoodie he’d given me, the debate trophy we had won, and the now-worthless certificate naming me a “fraternity sweetheart.” The delivery was set to arrive tonight. It would be delivered to his fraternity house during the celebration for him and his new girlfriend, Olivia—right at the peak of his triumph. … Just a few hours ago, we were in that same auditorium. I had been clinging to the hope that he was about to announce me as the next fraternity sweetheart. Instead, he gave the title to Olivia, a girl whose family name carried weight. I called out to him from the crowd. He looked down at me, his tone cold and dismissive. “You’re not like her, Ava.” “She was born into this world. You were never really one of us.” With a single sentence, he ground four years of my effort and devotion to dust. For him, I had given up my early application to Yale’s JD/MBA program. I had believed love could bridge the chasm between our worlds. It turned out that in his eyes, I was just another outsider trying to claw her way into a life she didn’t deserve. The laughter of the crowd was a deafening roar around me. But I didn’t cry. I just turned, walked out of the auditorium, and on my phone, I pressed the “submit” button I should have pressed months ago. Then I sent an email to the program’s sponsor, Julian Vance. “I’m ready.” Ethan probably thinks I’m back in my dorm room right now, sobbing my heart out. He’s wrong. By the time he opens that “coffin” in front of everyone, I’ll be thirty thousand feet in the air. He can keep his ridiculous little campus kingdom. I’m going to conquer a world of my own. … Ethan and Olivia made it official. On Instagram, he posted a photo of himself holding her on the balcony of a luxury off-campus apartment. The caption read: “The beginning of a new chapter.” He chose to post it on the day I was completely buried in finals. Maybe he was sure I wouldn’t have time to make a scene. Or maybe that was the point. The moment I saw the photo, my heart seized, a sharp, stabbing pain. But I didn’t immediately call him demanding answers, the way the old me would have. I just turned off my phone, took a deep breath, shoved the frantic pounding in my chest back down, and turned my attention to the mountain of case law in front of me. That evening, I ran into Olivia by the coffee cart in the library. She was holding an oat latte. When she saw me, her face feigned the perfect amount of surprise. “Ava, what a coincidence. Studying, too?” she asked, her tone suggesting a warmth that had never existed between us. I gave her a cool nod, uninterested in conversation. But she acted as if she hadn’t noticed my distance. Her eyes suddenly reddened, and her voice took on a wounded edge. “Ava, I know you’re still angry with Ethan. But you didn’t have to speak badly of me to Professor Boyle, did you? My term paper almost got flagged for ‘excessive citation.’” I just stared at her. “I’ve never mentioned your name to any professor.” “We’re both ambitious women, Ava,” she said with a sad smile, as if offering me a piece of sisterly advice. “There’s really no need for this, is there?” My default setting is blunt. And nothing infuriates me more than a blatant lie. “Olivia, stop making things up—” Before I could finish, the hand holding her coffee gave a theatrical tremble. The scalding latte spilled all over the brand-new Celine bag sitting beside her. “Ah! My bag!” she shrieked, the sound piercing the library’s silence. “Ava, you did that on purpose!” The sheer audacity of her performance stunned me into silence. My first instinct was to grab a napkin for her. But before my hand could even get clos......
