POV: CHASE
The morning sun hit the Columbia campus like it was trying too hard. Gold light, perfect temperature, that whole postcard thing that made everything look like destiny instead of just another Tuesday in May. I stood outside Vivian's dorm building, the ring box burning a hole in my jacket pocket, rehearsing the same speech I'd been practicing for three weeks.
"Vivian, I know this seems fast, but when you know, you know. We've built something real here. I want to build everything else with you."
God, that sounded stupid. I ran my hand through my hair for the hundredth time, checking my watch. Seven-thirty in the morning. She'd be awake. Vivian was always awake early on important days, running through her plans, color-coding her schedule, being perfect at everything.
That was the thing about Vivian Ashford. She made perfection look easy when I knew how hard she worked for it. Four years of watching her, studying with her, falling for her one late-night library session at a time. She was the only person who'd ever made me want to be better instead of just richer or more successful or whatever the hell I was supposed to want.
I touched the ring box again. Simple gold band, small diamond. It had cost me three months of tutoring money and every saved dollar from my research assistant job. It wasn't much. But it was honest. It was mine, earned without my father's money or my family's name. The name she didn't even know.
My stomach twisted. I should have told her. Four years, and I'd never told her who I really was. The "family rule" about keeping my identity secret until graduation had seemed reasonable when I was eighteen. Now, standing here about to propose, it felt like a lie of omission big enough to choke on.
But today, after graduation, everyone would know anyway. Dominic had made that clear. The announcement was scheduled for this afternoon. "Chase Sterling, heir to Sterling Industries, graduates Columbia today." Cameras, press, the whole circus.
I wanted to tell her first. Wanted her to hear it from me, ring on her finger, future locked in before the money complicated everything.
I climbed the stairs to her floor, nodded at a few early-rising students who looked half-dead from last night's parties. Vivian's door was at the end of the hall. I knocked, soft at first, then louder.
She opened it, already dressed in her cap and gown, hair perfect, makeup flawless. She looked like she'd stepped out of a catalog for successful graduates who had their entire lives figured out.
"Chase." She smiled, surprised. "What are you doing here? We're supposed to meet at the ceremony."
"I know. I just needed to talk to you first." My voice came out rougher than I intended.
She stepped back, letting me in. Her roommate's side of the room was empty, thank God. Just us.
"Is everything okay?" She touched my arm, concern crossing her face.
I pulled out the ring box. Might as well just do it. No perfect speech was going to make this easier.
"Vivian." I opened the box. "Marry me."
She went completely still. Not the good kind of still. The kind of still that meant every muscle in her body had just locked up in panic.
"Chase, what..."
"I love you. I've loved you since that stupid philosophy project sophomore year when you argued with me about Kant for three hours straight. I want to marry you. I want to build a life with you. I know I'm not, I don't have much right now, but I'm going to work hard, and I'll give you everything you deserve. Just say yes."
The silence stretched too long.
Vivian looked at the ring, then at me, then back at the ring. Her face was doing that thing where she was calculating, thinking, running through scenarios. I knew that look. I'd seen it a thousand times when she was deciding between auditions or weighing career moves.
"Chase, I can't."
The words hit like cold water.
"You can't?"
"I'm sorry. This is just, it's not the right time." She was choosing her words carefully, the way she did when she was performing instead of being real. "We're about to graduate. We have our whole lives ahead of us. Marriage is, it's too much right now."
"Too much." I repeated it, trying to understand. "We've been together for two years. We've talked about the future."
"Talking about it and doing it are different things." She wrapped her arms around herself, not looking at me. "I have auditions lined up in LA. You're going to be working in New York. Long distance is hard enough without, without this complication."
"Complication." The word tasted bitter. "That's what I am to you?"
"That's not what I meant." Her voice got sharper, defensive. "Chase, be realistic. We're twenty-four years old. We're broke. You work two jobs just to pay rent. I'm barely scraping by. Getting married right now would be financial suicide."
There it was. The truth underneath the careful words.
"So it's about money."
"It's about being smart." She finally looked at me, and her eyes were hard. "I've been poor, Chase. I know what it's like to struggle, to watch my parents fight over bills, to feel like I'm drowning. I won't go back to that. I worked too hard to get here."
"I'm not asking you to be poor. I'm asking you to marry me."
"And I'm saying no." Her voice was ice now, that cold control she used when she needed to be cruel to survive. "I won't tie myself to a nobody who can barely afford a ring."
The words hung in the air between us like a slap.
I stared at her, this woman I'd loved for two years, who I thought knew me better than anyone. She was looking at me like I was a bad investment. Like I was a mistake she was smart enough not to make.
"A nobody." I heard myself say it, voice flat.
"I didn't mean it like that."
"Yeah, you did."
I closed the ring box. Stood there like an idiot, holding it, my whole future crumbling in a dorm room that smelled like her perfume and my own stupidity.
"I should go." I turned toward the door.
"Chase, wait, I'm sorry, that came out wrong, I just—"
I walked out. She didn't follow.
The hallway was no longer empty. Her roommate, Jessica something, was standing three feet from Vivian's door, eyes wide, phone in her hand. She'd heard everything.
"Oh my God, I was just coming back, I didn't mean to—"
I walked past her without a word, down the stairs, out of the building, into the too-perfect sunshine that now felt like it was mocking me.
My phone buzzed. Ethan.
"Dude, where are you? Ceremony starts in an hour."
I didn't answer. Just kept walking across campus, past groups of graduates taking photos with their families, past professors in their regalia, past everything that was supposed to be celebrating this day.
I found a bench near the library, sat down, pulled out the ring again. Stared at it. Three months of work. Every dollar saved. For a woman who thought I was nobody.
The thing was, in a few hours, she'd know the truth. She'd know exactly who I was. And then what? Would she regret it? Would she come crawling back?
The thought made me sick. And angry. And something else, something cold settling in my chest like frost.
My phone kept buzzing. Ethan again. Then Sienna. Then unknown numbers, probably other friends.
I watched students walk past. Some of them glanced at me, then away, then huddled together whispering. Jessica had done her job. The gossip was already spreading.
"Did you hear?"
"Chase Sterling proposed to Vivian Ashford and she rejected him."
"She said he was a nobody."
"Poor guy."
"I heard the ring was pathetic."
The whispers followed me as I finally stood, pocketed the ring, and started walking toward the ceremony venue. I had to be there. Dominic was expecting me. The announcement was scheduled. My whole life was about to change whether I wanted it to or not.
I passed a group of girls I recognized from my economics classes. They stopped talking when they saw me, then started up again the second I passed.
"So embarrassing."
"In front of her roommate too."
"Vivian Ashford is such a bitch."
"I mean, she's not wrong though. What does he have to offer?"
Everything, I thought. I could offer her everything. But she didn't know that. Because I'd lied. Or not lied, exactly. Just omitted. The same thing, in the end.
I made it to my seat in the graduates' section just as the ceremony was starting. Ethan found me, slid in next to me.
"Where the hell were you? You look like death."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. What happened?"
I didn't answer. Just stared straight ahead at the stage where Vivian was about to give the valedictorian speech. Of course she was valedictorian. Perfect grades, perfect everything.
Except she'd just destroyed me, and in about two hours, she'd realize exactly how badly she'd miscalculated.
The cold feeling in my chest was spreading. My hands felt like ice. My reflection in my phone screen looked wrong somehow, eyes darker than they should be.
I touched the ring in my pocket one last time.
Then I let it go.
Something in me let go with it.