If love was a business, then I was the most reckless investor in history.
While my friends were busy chasing sneakers, gaming trophies, and lifting weights for Instagram, I was pouring my entire savings of time, energy, and heart into one girl: Emily Carter.
Emily wasn't flashy. She didn't wear crop tops or do TikTok dances or flood her feed with selfies. But there was something about her like the quiet hum of a melody you didn't realize you loved until it stopped.
I met her on a Thursday afternoon, the kind of day where you expect absolutely nothing to happen. The sky outside was gray, the lecture hall half-empty, and I had just bombed a pop quiz in Microeconomics. I was still fuming when she walked in five minutes late, earbuds in, paint on her fingers, and not a care in the world.
She glanced around and, without a word, took the empty seat beside me.
Her perfume..vanilla and fresh pain..drifted toward me, and that was it.
Hooked.
That was three months ago.
"You've got it bad," Marcus said, balancing a basketball on one finger as we hung out by the gym.
"I don't have anything," I replied, though I couldn't help grinning like an idiot.
Jordan shook his head. "You're a simp, man. Full-blown."
"I'm not a simp," I argued, laughing. "I just… like her."
"You skipped out on practice and game night," Marcus pointed out. "To help her carry a sketchpad?"
"It was for her portfolio review," I said. "She forgot it at home."
Jordan raised a brow. "You sprinted three blocks in the rain for a girl who's not even your girlfriend?"
"She is now," I said quietly.
The look on their faces was priceless.
"No way," Marcus muttered. "You bagged Emily Carter?"
Jordan let out a low whistle. "Didn't see that one coming."
I shrugged, playing it cool. Inside, I was practically doing cartwheels.
The day she said yes still played in my head like a favorite song.
It was raining. We were walking under her umbrella, more like I was half-drenched and refusing to care. And she was rambling about how much she hated pop music but loved the sound of violins.
"Dylan," she said suddenly, her voice softer than I'd ever heard it.
"Yeah?"
"I think I like you."
I blinked. "Like… like me?"
She gave the smallest smile. "Yeah. I want to try this. You and me."
It was the kind of moment you don't come back from.
I updated her contact name that night: Emily with endearing emoji and the ring.
Later on, I posted a blurry photo of our shadows walking side by side. No faces..no tags.
Just the caption: Invested. All in.
The group chat lit up within minutes
Brian: "Wait. She agreed?"
Marcus: "Dylan cuffed the quiet girl? Hell froze."
Jordan: "Simp King activated."
But Brian's next message felt… different.
You should find out what she did back at Pine Hill High. Before you get too deep.
At first, I brushed it off. Everyone had a past. But the way he worded ...it got under my skin.
Emily was… different.
She didn't like parties. She never posted selfies. She once deleted her entire Instagram feed in a single day and said it "felt like clearing out ghosts."
But she made me laugh. She listened..really listened..when I talked. She once stayed up past midnight just to help me finish an assignment she knew nothing about.
One night, while we sat on the steps outside her dorm, I asked her what scared her the most.
"People who pretend to care," she whispered. "And people who do… but change their minds."
I didn't know what to say to that.
So I promised her I wouldn't.
But Brian kept digging. He wasn't letting it go.
"Dude, you really don't know her," he said one day, catching up to me outside the dining hall.
"I know enough," I replied, annoyed.
"Then ask her about Pine Hill. Go on, see what she says."
"I'm not interested in gossip."
He leaned in. "It's not gossip ..this is very much true."
That night, Emily and I sat on the roof of her apartment building, the city lights shimmering below us like constellations.
"They're all watching us," she murmured, lying back on the cool concrete. "Your friends Judging."
"Let them," I said. "They're wrong about you."
She turned her head toward me. "You think so?"
"I know so."
She gave me a look I couldn't quite read. "Don't promise things you can't keep."
"I'm not. I'm all in."
"You shouldn't be bothered by what my friends have got to say, I really don't care" "It is only you and you alone I care about most" I assured her.
Her eyes were beginning to look teary this time, as she slowly turned to look at me.
She started staring at me, as though she wanted me to see through her mind at that instant.
There was a little confusion on my face and expectance on hers.
So I stared back at her, like she was going to disappear before my eyes .
"Are you sure you okay," or you have got something to tell me?" I asked Emily.
She nodded like she wanted to say a yes but also shook her head in disagreement.
We talked softly and argued over some silly things as if we were still kids.
Emily's voice softened my thoughts, I was literally listening to her, like I was just hearing her voice for the first time in my
life.
"You know what? I asked Emily as I pulled her closer to myself, placed her hand on my chest and patted it softly like people would do when they're putting their toddlers to bed.
Her ears were both stood up to hear what I was about to tell her.
I promised her that, I will invest my time, heart, body and soul to be with her, love her and spend the rest of my life with her as long as we lived.
We both chuckled and grinned endlessly.
But the next day, I received one more message from Brian.
She's not who you think she is.