Chapter 3: First Love, Last Innocence

For the high school admissions process, I ranked first in our class and got into Silver Hollow High on a scholarship for their magnet program. Savannah scored a few points lower and ended up in the same class as me.

The day the results came in, my mom baked a sheet cake and stuck a candle in the middle. Savannah dropped by, and we celebrated like kids, grinning over plastic cups of orange soda. Travis clapped me on the back and said, “Told you so.”

Travis scored terribly, but his family had money, so they paid a $6,000 “donation,” and he got in too.

No one said it out loud, but we all knew the game was rigged. Money opened doors, even when brains couldn’t. Travis shrugged it off—“Whatever gets me in the door,” he said, tossing the receipt on the kitchen counter.

Only Marcus, whose grades were average and whose family couldn’t afford tuition, went to regular public school.

Marcus packed up his gaming console, gave me a fist bump at the bus stop, and said, “Catch you online tonight.” He promised to keep in touch, but I knew how fast friends drifted apart.

Starting high school, I was over the moon, feeling like the future was full of hope.

Everything felt new—new textbooks, new lockers, new rules. I woke up early, heart pounding with anticipation. For once, it seemed like nothing could go wrong.

Savannah and I were in the same class, and without Travis or Marcus around, it was just us. I felt it was fate—I couldn’t miss this chance.

It was like the universe had finally given me a window. Every morning, I’d spot Savannah in homeroom, her hair spilling over her shoulders, her notebooks stacked just so. Maybe this time, things would be different.

I set a goal: make Savannah my girlfriend by the end of the semester.

I wrote it in my journal, circled it three times. Every day, I tried to find excuses to talk to her, offer help with homework, share a laugh at lunch. The hope was almost painful in its intensity.

But I never expected that after Travis and Marcus left, a new guy would show up—Cameron.

He had a way of drawing people in—clean-cut, lacrosse jacket slung over a chair, a polite smile. His shoes were always clean, his backpack never scuffed. Teachers liked him, and so did everyone else.

He was a rich kid from town. His grandfather ran a gas station in the south. He was tall, soft-spoken, and always gentle, with button-downs instead of hoodies.

In less than a semester, Cameron and Savannah were inseparable. I was left out.

I watched them from across the cafeteria, fork paused above my tray, soda going flat. They finished each other’s sentences, shared inside jokes, walked home together under the streetlights while I trailed behind, wishing I had the nerve to speak up.

They were lovey-dovey in class, under the moonlight and the oak trees.

It was like something out of a movie, the kind of romance you read about but never live. Sometimes I’d spot them by the football bleachers, the marching band practicing in the distance.

And me? Like a raccoon, jumping around in a pumpkin patch—completely out of place.

I skulked through fall, past flyers for haunted hayrides and OSU pumpkin decals in shop windows, stumbling over my own jokes, feeling more costume than person.

At first, I kept trying to squeeze in between them.

I over-offered help, laughed too loud, joined their study group, showed up at every event. I cringed at myself, but I couldn’t stop.

Later, after being a third wheel for too long, I gave up.

I started skipping group outings, staying late at the library. The ache settled in, familiar and persistent.

Yeah, I lost it. More than once, I wanted to report their puppy love to the homeroom teacher.

Our school had a no-PDA policy, and I stood outside the teacher’s door with my fists clenched, imagining detention slips. I never went in.

When it came time to choose between arts and sciences, Travis picked the STEM track. Cameron, Savannah, and I all chose humanities—AP Lit & Art.

Their relationship took off like a rocket, while my mood crashed like a spent booster.

I moped through class, scribbling angry poems in the margins of my textbooks. Every smile between them felt like a jab.

I went to see Travis. He took a swig of Jack Daniel’s from a cheap glass and said, “You and me with Savannah? No way. She sees me as a brother, and you as a little brother.”

He leaned back in his chair, bottle in hand, eyes glassy but honest. The truth cut deeper than I expected.

I understood, but I didn’t want to believe it.

It was easier to cling to fantasies than face reality. My pride bruised, but my hope still flickered, stubborn as ever.

My youth was over.

I closed my notebook and deleted a draft text I’d never send. It felt melodramatic, but the pain was real. I marked the end of childhood not by a birthday, but by the way Savannah looked past me.

Then came the night that changed all our lives—a night where the truth was never clear.

It started like any other, but ended with secrets none of us could ever fully unravel. We were kids forced to grow up fast, shoved into adulthood by choices that couldn’t be undone.

I remember it vividly. The countdown to the SAT on the whiteboard read “30.” During evening study hall, there were two empty seats in class.

The fluorescent flickered, the dry-erase squeaked, pencils tapped in a slow dread drum. My eyes kept darting to the vacant desks.

The next day, Cameron came back for first period, but Savannah didn’t show up until third period.

Her hair was mussed, her eyes hollow. She wouldn’t look at anyone, just slid into her seat and stared at her notebook as if it could save her.

After that, Savannah grew withdrawn and silent, not paying attention in class, not talking to anyone, spending whole days with her head on her desk, or just staring blankly at the speckled tile floor.

She wore her hood up, sleeves pulled over her hands, ignoring her buzzing phone. Even teachers started to notice, but nobody asked questions.

Cameron started avoiding her too.

He sat at the back, headphones on, pretending not to care. Their story, once so bright, faded into rumors and silence.

Ten days before the SAT, a serious campus violence incident happened.

It hit the school like a thunderclap. Parents stormed the office, police walked the halls. Whispers spread faster than truth.

After evening study, Cameron was ambushed in a camera blind spot, thrown in a sack, and beaten with bricks. He ended up in the hospital.

What happened next still chills me. I won’t glorify it—the burlap scrape, the thud that ended a future, and the awful quiet after.

The school launched a full investigation. The next day, Travis texted me first, said he was going in; he walked to the principal’s office and turned himself in. Security escorted him out while the principal’s scowl followed, and by lunch his mother had been called.

He was expelled on the spot.

His locker was emptied, his name erased from attendance sheets. For a minute, it felt like the world stopped spinning.

That year, neither Cameron nor Travis took the SAT.

Their futures rewrote themselves overnight. I watched, helpless, as doors slammed shut.

Marcus, Savannah, and I did. I got into a bachelor’s program; they both got into community colleges.

We sat in the gym, clutching acceptance letters, doing math on tuition installments while the bookstore’s sticker shock loomed.

As for Travis, since he dropped out before the exam, his family tore into him, kicked him out, and he had to fend for himself.

He packed a duffel bag, eyes burning with defiance. I offered him a ride to the bus station, but he waved me off. “I got this,” he said.

After that, life hit fast-forward. Everything happened so quickly, I barely had time to catch my breath.

College acceptance, first jobs, heartbreaks—days blurred into years, leaving behind only snapshots. Sometimes, I wondered how we’d managed to survive.

Savannah spent a month at community college, then suddenly dropped out. Travis rushed back from out of town, and the two of them held a wedding dinner back home.

It was framed as a private ceremony—church basement potluck vibes, closer to a backyard barbecue than a formal wedding. Savannah wore a simple dress, her eyes clear and determined. No one said much, but the tension was thick as winter fog.

They weren’t old enough for a marriage license yet, so they just had the dinner.

Everyone raised plastic cups in a toast, pretending not to notice the missing paperwork. Family said it was for commitment, not the state.

I was baffled—how did Savannah, who’d been so into Cameron just months ago, suddenly marry Travis?

I searched for answers in every conversation, every sideways glance. It didn’t add up, but I didn’t dare push too hard.

After thinking it over, I figured: Travis fought for her, she was moved, and agreed to marry him.

It was a neat story, the kind you tell yourself to make sense of things. But the truth rarely fits so cleanly.

But only I knew the real story.

The secret was heavy, locked away in the corners of my memory. I carried it alone, unsure what to do with it.

After Savannah came back, I asked her what happened that night.

I found her outside the grocery store, fiddling with her phone. I asked, “Are you okay?” She looked past me, her silence sharp as glass.

She ignored me. I asked around, and Travis told me Cameron kissed Savannah on his birthday, she got mad and stayed in the dorm for two classes to cool off before returning to class.

It was the version everyone accepted, but it never felt quite right. Something was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

So, I waited for Cameron in a surveillance blind spot and beat him up.

The rage simmered until it boiled over. I didn’t remember how many times I swung, only the blood on my knuckles and the adrenaline roaring in my ears.

I was the one who attacked Cameron, but Travis took the fall for me.

He found me in the restroom after, wiped the blood from my shirt, and said, “I’ll handle it.” He always did.

Fate always demands a trade: I got to take the SAT, but I lost Savannah.

I paid for my future with someone else’s pain. Some nights, I wondered if it was worth the price.

For a long time, I thought that was the truth.

The guilt stuck with me, shaping my choices in ways I couldn’t explain. I kept silent, even when I wanted to confess.

But what happened later made me wonder if Travis had lied to me about that night.

The past had a way of unraveling itself, piece by piece. Doubt seeped in, coloring every memory.