“I love him,” I said. “I loved him before the accident. I’m not walking away because his legs don’t work.”
My mom’s eyes went flat. “Love doesn’t pay the bills. Love won’t lift him into a wheelchair. You have no idea what you’re signing up for.”
“I know enough,” I said. “I know he’d do it for me.”
She folded her hands. “Then this is your choice. If you stay with him, you do it without our support. Financial or otherwise.”
I stared at her. “You’d really cut off your only child for not dumping her injured boyfriend?”
My dad’s jaw clenched.
“We are not going to fund you throwing your life away.”
The fight went in circles.
I yelled. I cried. They stayed calm and cruel.
In the end, my mom said, “Him or us.”
My voice shook, but I said, “Him.”
The next day, my college fund was gone. The account had been emptied.
My dad handed me my documents.
“If you’re an adult,” he said, “be one.”
I lasted two more days in that house.
The silence hurt worse than their words.
So I packed a duffel bag. Clothes. A few books. My toothbrush.
I stood in my childhood room for a long moment, looking at the life I was walking away from.
Then I left.
His parents lived in a small, worn house that smelled like onions and laundry. His mom opened the door, saw the bag, and didn’t even ask.
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