He Chose Her, So I Left

The day I received my acceptance email from UCLA, I saw a photo on Instagram: my younger sister, Vivienne, kissing my boyfriend, Tomas, captioned "Kings Game Night." Tomas brushed it off—"I lost a game, so I had to kiss her." It wasn't the first time. A year ago, I'd watched my first love, Marco, kiss Vivienne too, and I fell apart so badly I bombed my SATs.

Back then, Tomas had torn up his own NYU acceptance letter in front of me and said, "Delphine, I've liked you since we were kids. We'll apply again next year." I truly believed he was different from Marco. But now he'd betrayed me with the same person.

Then his next words cut even deeper: "Oh, and I forgot to tell you. I'm not going to California anymore."