Sweet Romance11 min read
"Tonight the Moon Is Beautiful" — A College Love Story
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I remember the first message like a bruise that refused to fade.
"Thanks for the invite. I loved him," I typed into my feed and hit send.
"?" He replied in two seconds. "You weren't saying that in bed last night."
I looked at the blue bubble and stared until the whole dorm felt dizzy.
01
"We were dared," he said later, like it was a small, stupid thing. "Someone shouted pick a type. I lifted my eyes and pointed."
"You pointed at me?" I asked.
"Yeah. Just you," Phoenix said, voice thick with sleep and something softer.
It was our hundredth day since the break.
I had too much to drink. I had not planned to stay. Yet I woke up with my face pressed into his shirt and the world very loud.
"Why are you screaming?" he mumbled, turning. "Not like you to shout."
"I—" I pushed my foot hard and he fell off the bed.
He grabbed my ankle and pulled me with him. I rolled once and landed against his chest, heart pounding like a drum.
"Not satisfied yet?" he asked from above, lazy as a cat.
"You haven't had enough, have you?" I shot back with what little courage the wine left me.
He smiled, that sleepy, infuriating smile, and pulled me down again. "Let me touch a little more?"
"Touch my foot," I said. "You wish."
I tried to get up. He caught my wrist.
"Stay," he said, flat and sure. "Don't run."
Outside the door, someone hooted. The dorm was awake and loud. I pretended I hadn't heard a thing and bolted when silence came.
02
Jenny was waiting on the landing when I came in.
"Where did you go, Kinsley?" she whispered, her voice half laugh, half knife.
"My toilet broke," I lied immediately.
"Are you sure?" she asked again with a look that made me want to shrink.
I looked in the mirror and nearly fainted. Lipstick smeared, hair a mess, posture guilty. Jenny planted a chair and put her hands on her knees.
"Tell the truth," she said. "Did you sleep with that man?" She used the word like a trap.
I sat down hard. "Tell me who to stab."
03
The coach bus felt like a stage.
He walked past me, gave me a small paper box—motion-sickness pills—then a look that felt like a private joke. Another senior, a kind face from the department, came with a second box and I nearly laughed at the absurdity of catching two hands at once.
Phoenix leaned close, pinched my cheek, and said, "You broke up with me for this kind of guy?"
"What, 'cause he offers pills?" I said.
"You should get your eyes checked," he murmured, smiling as if he owned the sun.
Someone two rows back shouted. A picture clicked. The school forum lit up.
"Post a gram," he whispered later. "Announce it."
"No way. I will never," I said.
He posted anyway. "I'm Phoenix Cardenas, and I'm declaring Kinsley Olsson mine," the message said, blunt as a confession.
Through the glass, I watched the world I thought I knew tilt.
04
I hit back in the only way that felt safe.
"Thanks for the invite. I loved him," I wrote.
He answered in two seconds: "Last night you didn't say that in bed."
I tried to delete the chat after, but the screenshot of me—hair messy, lipstick smeared—landed on the wall with a thousand comments.
Who had time to hate someone so fiercely? Apparently, they did.
05
Phoenix was not a stalker, but he was not blameless. He liked to be dramatic. He liked to be seen. We had broken because he had been careless, and because I had found messages that hurt—messages that read "baby, want to play?" on a night when his phone was lit up and mine was not.
We walked small circles around each other, explaining, denying, blaming time like a cheap magician.
"Why did you not text me?" he asked that night under the streetlamp.
"You didn't ask," I said.
"Because you had someone else," he said, low.
"I didn't. I promise I didn't."
He looked at me like he doubted not because of me but because his own heart was dangerous.
06
He apologized in small, steady ways. He bought the things I liked for no reason. He sent five red packets in the class group, boom—money that smelled of attention.
"Why do you do that?" I said once. "Paying people to like me won't make them mean less."
"It's not paying," he said. "It's candy. For the group. I like the group."
I didn't argue. I unblocked him. He texted like a boy who had learned to be a man.
"Wake up," he wrote at three a.m. "Tell me you're alive."
"Stop," I said. "You'll ruin the myth."
He laughed, voice warm. "I don't care about being a myth. I care about you."
07
"Tonight the moon is beautiful," I once texted him, braver than my hands had any right to be. It was a silly line I threw like a pebble.
"Come downstairs," he replied with a photo of the moon over the campus lamp.
I went. He waited under the tree in a black coat, hands in pockets, looking for all the world like a poem.
"Been a while," he said.
"You're early," I said.
"I always wait," he said, and his eyes were bright like a dare.
08
We walked the track in silence for a bit. The night smelled like cold grass and something like possibility. He held my gloved hand and did something like counting heartbeats.
"Do you want me back?" he asked suddenly.
"Maybe," I said.
"Choose." He sounded both impatient and terrified.
"I choose not to be easy," I said. "Make me a chase I won't want to stop."
He grinned. "I'll chase you like I never learned to breathe any other way."
09
The campus watched us like a small sport, then like a soap opera, then like two real people.
We were real. He brought me to games, made a show of small gallantries, and still did stupid things—like picking fights with boys he thought were rivals.
"Do you remember the night I thought you left me for someone?" he asked one night, hands warm around my waist.
"I do," I said.
"I stared until the place closed," he said. "I dug through a trash bag to find the ring. It took forever. I thought I could not lose it."
"You kept the ring?" I asked.
"I hid it," he admitted. "I was afraid you'd throw it away."
"And you found it?" I asked.
He looked like a boy holding a secret. "I found it," he said. "I wanted you to put it back on."
10
"I won't," I said. "Not yet."
He kissed me until the stars blurred and told me then and again that he wanted to try.
"We'll take it slow," I said.
"How slow?" he asked.
"As slow as you need to learn not to hurt me," I said.
He kissed me again and promised to learn. He did not promise never to be flawed.
11
The day of the big game, I went to the stands like a small champion.
"Bring me water," I whispered into his ear as he warmed up. "That's my best help."
He winked. "I'll bring you a trophy."
He fought like a beast. We lost by eight in the end, but he had fought. He limped with a grin and the whole crowd cheered like gods of sport.
"You're bright on that court," I told him.
"And you're brighter," he murmured, and kissed me in front of the whole bench.
12
After the game, people circled. Song—Harrison Dixon—walked by, smiled, and the crowd laughed.
"Did you throw the game?" I teased him later when a small joke was needed.
"Not too obvious," Harrison said, and sipped water with a look like he was joking and maybe not.
Then friends began to crowd. Jenny, his friends Blas Downs and Fernando Downs, Jonas Cornelius, Vaughn Ahmad—they all pushed toward us with a cake.
It was a cake shaped like a trophy. It was hollow. Phoenix smiled his small smile.
"Open it," he said and handed me a fork.
I split the cake and a flood of warm chocolate flooded out like lava.
"That's your prize," he said.
"What about the ring?" I asked, thinking of the first ring and the trash can.
He laughed, then got quiet and reached into his pocket. He pulled a blue velvet box from somewhere and went down on one knee between friends and the basketball team and the girls from class.
"Kinsley," he said. "Will you marry me?"
I had the strange sensation of my knees shaking, though I was sitting. The world held its breath.
13
At that same moment, a woman in the crowd, face sharp with small cruelty, stood and started to speak.
"Why would you want her?" Bianca Pavlov called out, loud enough to be heard by half the stands. "She—"
"Wait," I said, feeling my stomach fall to my toes. Bianca had been the first to whisper the insults when the screenshots came out. She had laughed and shared the posts.
Phoenix stood, the ring halting in his hand. "Bianca?" he said.
Bianca smirked. "I just thought people should know who he was with. Who he really likes."
14
I did not want a fight. I wanted the night to keep soft. But the room emptied into a ring of bright eyes. People leaned in like hungry birds.
"Hold on," Phoenix said. He did not move toward her like a threat. He moved like a tide. "You haven't been very honest, have you?"
"What?" Bianca said, eyes flashing. "I'm telling the truth."
"Which truth?" he asked. He turned to the crowd and he said, voice steady and something like iron, "Everyone who has read the forum knows the smear. Everyone has their own stories. But the one thing I owe is the truth."
Bianca's face changed then. The smirk faltered. "You can't—"
"Do you remember the post you made," Phoenix asked, "about Kinsley? The name you used? The screenshots you edited?"
Bianca looked around. Someone in the crowd had their phone out. Another had printed copies. A classmate stepped forward—Judith Brooks—holding a thread of group messages.
"Here," Judith said, holding the paper up. "Here is the original. And here is the edited version. See the cut? See how the message was moved?"
Bianca's color drained. "That's—it's not—"
"You're a third year," Phoenix said softly. "Not a saint. But you are a person who chose to cut and paste to make a story. You chose to make a woman a joke."
"No one said—" Bianca started, voice thin.
15
The crowd's mood shifted. Phones stopped being playthings and became judges. Voices that had laughed before now edged toward disgust.
"You edited screenshots for likes?" someone called.
"You took money for clicks, didn't you?" another asked. "You spread a rumor and laughed about it at lunch!"
Bianca swallowed. The ring in Phoenix's hand looked heavy and small.
"People will remember what you did," Jenny said, stepping in front of me like a shield. "You ruined someone's nights. You screamed 'ugly' into a million mouths."
I felt dizzy, like walking across a high bridge.
Bianca tried to laugh it off. "I—it's a prank," she said. "Everyone does this."
"Everyone does not spend the time to hurt someone for fun," said Blas, flat.
Bianca's eyes flashed with anger, then fear, then shock. She looked like someone pretending to be sure for too long.
16
"Do you want to apologize?" Phoenix asked quietly. "Here. Say it."
Bianca opened her mouth and closed it. The crowd leaned in.
"Sorry," she said finally, but it sounded like a note rather than an apology.
"Say—say who you are sorry to." Phoenix pushed.
"I'm sorry to Kinsley," Bianca said, but her voice broke on the last word. "I didn't mean—"
"That's not enough," Phoenix said. "You used my name to build your own likes. You took a real person's life and made a game. People trash a person on a screen like it means nothing, but it does."
Bianca's face crumpled. The bravado leaked out like air.
17
A dozen voices rose at once—some sharp, some pained.
"You humiliated her," Judith said. "You made people feel safe to say awful things."
"I saw her tear up," a freshman called. "And I shared it because it was funny."
Bianca started to stammer pleas. She said, "They made me do it. They said—"
An audience member, Jonas, stepped forward. He held his phone high and opened the forum on camera.
"Here," he said, "are the messages you sent to get people to repost. Promises of cash and screenshots." He read them out loud. "Pay five bucks for repost. DM for proof. Edit to make fun."
The crowd whispered like wind. Bianca's cheeks burned.
18
"This is someone you hurt," Phoenix said, and the words fell like hammers. "Not a character. Not a joke."
Bianca's bravado finally cracked. She started to cry, ugly and wet. "I didn't think," she sobbed. "I didn't think. I—"
The crowd's reaction was not simple. Some shook heads. Some took pictures. Some, older and quieter, looked ashamed for being part of it.
"It's not enough to cry," Judith said. "Do something about it. Fix it."
Bianca looked like she weighed the words and found them heavy.
"I will," she said finally. "I'll post corrections. I'll delete. I'll—"
19
"Post that now," Phoenix said. "Delete the posts and post the truth. Apologize publicly, not a whisper in a group, not to save your own name."
Bianca raised her head. The phone in her hand shook. She stared at the glass and finally typed, her fingers trembling.
"To Kinsley Olsson: I posted edited screenshots and spread lies. I am sorry."
She hit send. It was small and late. The forum sang with reaction. Some applauded. Some kept typing accusations. Some said she would never be forgiven.
"Now publicly tell everyone why you did it," Judith said. "Own the motive."
Bianca's face was a pale sheet. She opened her mouth and closed it. Then, in a small voice, she said, "I wanted to be seen. I thought if I could make someone fall, I'd look better."
People murmured. The hush drenched the place.
20
"You will do community service," Phoenix said. "You will come to the women's support group we started and help clean up the mess you made. You will go to campus PR and ask them to restore the posts and to un-ban Kinsley's name."
Bianca blinked. "You'll make me?"
"No," Phoenix said. "I will make sure the school knows what you did. I will stand with Kinsley as she decides. But I will not let this go as a laugh."
A few students recorded and the video went up within minutes. People argued in comments. Some said it was too harsh. Some said it was overdue.
Bianca begged, pleaded. She tried to hold onto any excuse. She showed an ugly mix of denial and regret. The crowd watched her shrink from power to pitiful.
21
Around us, faces shifted. Some reached for my hand. Others looked at Bianca like she was a lesson in bedside manners for cruelty.
"People will see how you used them," Blas said quietly. "That's punishment."
Bianca kept saying "I'm sorry" as if saying a word could stitch the torn quiet back into place.
"Do you understand the damage?" Phoenix asked.
"I do," she said, and this time the words were thin but true.
The crowd did not deliver a punishment like a jury. It gave her something perhaps worse: the mirror of her own smallness held up for everyone. Her followers shrank. Her likes dropped. People walked away. She stood with her apology and the knowledge of what she had finally broken.
22
Afterwards, the night felt odd and raw. I picked chocolate from my palm and tasted it as if testing whether everything was ruined or saved.
"You okay?" Phoenix asked, voice small.
"Yes," I said.
"No, like really okay," he pressed, and wrapped me in an arm like a promise.
"I am," I uttered. "Because you saw it. Because people saw it."
He kissed the top of my head. "I am not perfect," he said. "But I will not let someone hurt you and walk away."
23
We didn't make Bianca the villain of some revenge fantasy. She was a student who made a mistake and paid for it in the currency of social shame and responsibility. She cried, she apologized publicly, and she was left with fewer followers and a weight of guilt. The crowd's reaction was not a lynching—it was a public unmasking. That unmasking stung worse than anything she had ever done.
24
Later, Phoenix rose in front of our friends and asked the question again—this time with no fake cake trick, this time with a ring that trembled like a small bird.
"Kinsley," he said, breathless and brave. "Will you marry me?"
I laughed then cried and said yes.
"Say it," he insisted.
"I will," I said and meant it with a steadiness that surprised me. "I will. I will marry you. I will live with you. I will keep you honest."
He laughed, pockets trembling, and pulled me in. Friends cheered. Jenny squealed. Blas pretended to faint. The whole campus seemed to hold its breath and then let out a long, lazy cheer.
25
We kept living small days after. He still mailed candies into the group. I still asked him to do the boring things he hated. He cleaned his contacts like he promised. He learned that loving someone meant not just feeling but remembering how the smallest things hurt.
"Do you remember the first text?" he asked one night, lying against me.
"The moon?" I said.
"Yeah. The moon," he said. "It was a good lie. It made me come down that night and stand like an idiot."
"I like your kind of idiot," I said.
He kissed me, then folded me into his warmth, and the moon watched us from above like something that kept secrets.
26
Time did what time does. Exams came, the basketball team had wins and losses, and people moved on to more dramatic news. But we kept holding hands and saying small truths.
We even ended up on the court later, where Harrison winked and offered a playful jab about a match.
"You threw it," I teased Harrison.
"Maybe," he said, grinning. "But only because you wanted the drama."
Phoenix laughed and tapped my nose. "I'll play fair next time," he promised.
"You better," I said.
27
The proposal itself turned into a memory that hung on like a favorite song. Phoenix still trembled when he spoke of that night. He still looked at me like I had stolen the moon.
On quiet nights, when wind brushed the campus trees, he would whisper, "Tonight the moon is beautiful," and I would smile.
We promised no grand promises that could be reused in some other tale.
We promised simply to show up.
"Tonight the moon is beautiful," I say sometimes when the night is clear, and he smiles, because for us it is a secret and a home.
The End
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