In my second year of college, I made a choice I thought was love. I dropped out and took every job I could find—waiting tables at cafés, tutoring at night, delivering flyers—anything to earn enough money so my boyfriend, Hung, could finish his PhD.
He had told me:
“You’re smart, but your family can’t afford this. I’ll study for both of us, then later we’ll have a life together.”
I believed him. I called it sacrifice.
For five long years, I lived on the bare minimum—instant noodles, crowded buses, sleepless nights—while sending every peso I earned to him. Tuition, rent, food… I carried his life on my shoulders. Friends said I was foolish. But seeing him grow, hearing about his successes, I convinced myself I had made the right choice.
Then came the day he defended his dissertation. I cried tears of joy… until the shock hit me. Hung was getting married. Not to me, but to Mai, the daughter of his mother’s best friend. A perfect match, wealthy, well-connected, and everything I wasn’t.
I called him, voice trembling:
“Is it true, Hung?”
There was silence. Then he said:
“I’m sorry. My parents chose. I can’t oppose them. You’re still young—you’ll find someone else.”
Still young? After five years of devotion, I felt like a stranger in my own life.
I went to the wedding—not to cause a scene, but to confront the truth. People whispered as I entered: “Isn’t that the girl who supported him all those years?” I ignored them. I carried a small white box.
As the bride and groom laughed beneath the sparkling lights, I stepped forward.
“My wedding gift,” I said clearly, placing the box before them.
The room fell silent. The bride’s hands shook as she opened it. Inside was a stack of receipts—every bank transfer, every tuition payment I had made over five years, all addressed to Hung. At the bottom lay a yellowed note in his handwriting:
“If you support me through school, I will marry you.”
Shock rippled through the hall. Whispers filled the air:
“She supported him all these years?”
“And he married someone else?”
“How cruel…”
Mai’s eyes filled with tears. She turned to Hung:
“Is this true?”
He stammered, unable to meet my gaze:
“That… that was the past…”
I laughed bitterly:
“The past? That past made you a PhD. And now, in the present, you deny me as if I never existed.”
Hung’s mother jumped up:
“Stop this! Don’t ruin the wedding!”
I looked at her, calm and unwavering:
“I’m not ruining anything. I’m simply returning what your family tried to erase. This is my gift: the truth.”
Mai ran out, sobbing. Hung chased her, leaving hundreds of stunned guests behind. The wedding collapsed in chaos.
I walked away into the pouring rain, head held high. My shoulders were soaked, but my heart felt lighter. I had lost years of my youth, but I had not lost myself.
By the next day, the story went viral. People called me “the girl who supported her boyfriend through his PhD only to be betrayed.” Some pitied me, some condemned him, and some admired my courage. I didn’t care. I had closed a bitter chapter and opened a new door.
That night, they trembled at the truth I revealed. And I? I trembled once, and then walked stronger than ever before.