He Erased My Dream School For Her, I Already Had A Better One Chapter 09

He Erased My Dream School For Her, I Alraedy Had A Better One Chapter 09

I never expected to see Grant again in London. 

Then an email landed in my inbox. 

It was from him. 

After leaving Summit Tech, Grant had spent a year 

rebuilding his application and applied to college again the 

following cycle. 

He eventually enrolled at Bayview University. 

That semester, he had been accepted into a six–month 

exchange program between Bayview University and Imperial College London. 

I didn’t reply. 

I simply closed the page. 

A week later, Imperial hosted a joint academic symposium. 

I attended with my academic supervisor. 

The moment I walked into the conference hall, Grant made 

his way through the crowd and came straight toward me. 

He stepped directly into my path. 

My supervisor could tell that we knew each other. She quietly 

told me to contact her immediately if the conversation made 

me uncomfortable. 

Not wanting to disrupt the event, I nodded. 

A black velvet jewelry box rested in his palm. 

Ignoring the people passing around us, he dropped to one 

knee in front of me. 

He opened the box. 

Inside was a white crystal necklace. 

Clementine, I found the raw stone myself during a research 

trip to South America.” 

There isn’t another one like it in the world. I shaped and 

carved it by hand.” 

I made it for you and no one else.” 

He held the box toward me, determined to make me take it. 

I looked down at it without reaching out. 

Grant immediately panicked. 

*I know it bothered you that Nora had one that looked the same.” 

“Hers was an imitation. I never gave her anything real.” 

I felt nothing. 

So he had known exactly what was going on all along. 

But the explanation had come far too late. 

I remained calm. 

None of it was worth digging into anymore. 

Grant grew increasingly desperate. “Clementine, what do I 

have to do for you to forgive me?” 

I shook my head. 

“Grant, you know me. I never look back.” 

Something in him snapped. 

Right there in the formal conference hall, he completely lost control. 

His eyes were red as he screamed at me. 

Fine! You’re so above it all! You can always just walk away 

like none of it mattered!” 

*Did you forget how hard you worked because you wanted to 

go to Summit Tech with me?” 

“You loved me that much before. How can you just decide you 

don’t anymore?” 

I don’t believe you!” 

I watched him unravel and felt nothing but exhaustion. 

turned to leave. 

His voice suddenly rose even louder. 

“You stayed overseas and refused to come home! Is it because 

you fell for some guy over here?” 

“You’ve gotten so obsessed with life abroad that you’ve 

forgotten where you came from!” 

An overseas degree isn’t anything special. What is there here worth staying for?” 

Heads turned all around the room. 

I didn’t argue. 

I simply looked at the man in front of me, at once familiar 

and utterly unrecognizable. 

I could no longer see anything of the person I had once fallen for. 

Event staff quickly stepped in and escorted him out for disrupting the symposium. 

I later learned from my supervisor that Grant had repeatedly made inappropriate remarks during his exchange. His placement was terminated, and he was sent back to the United States. 

I never heard about him again. 

When I earned my doctorate, I turned down a lucrative job offer from NASA. 

I packed my things and returned to the United States with my parents. 

I joined a federal research placement initiative and took a 

post at a remote observatory deep in the desert Southwest. 

There, I joined a federal astrophysics research center and threw myself into the work. 

When I first arrived at Imperial, my parents reminded me again and again to devote myself to my studies and keep sharpening my skills. 

But no matter how far I went or how much I learned, they told me never to forget where I came from or where home was. 

Outside of work, I often took walks around the research center to unwind. 

One evening, I was taking my usual walk near the entrance when I noticed a thriving clementine tree. 

It looked a lot like the one that had grown outside my childhood home in Bayview. 

A colleague told me it was a variety the horticultural 

research team had spent years cultivating for desert conditions. 

Now even the arid desert Southwest could sustain clementine trees. 

I stood there quietly, looking up at the dense green canopy. 

Clementine trees looked delicate, the kind of thing you might expect to thrive only where the winters were mild and water was plentiful. 

But once their roots took hold, even harsh surroundings couldn’t stop them from growing. 

They adapted, reached for the sun, and kept going. 

People were no different. 

Every difficult stretch of the past could become something that strengthened us. 

Once you made it through the storms, there was a clear sky waiting on the other side. 

It was a sky that belonged to you alone. 

The End