They Turned Down the Ivy League for Her
Lily · Completed · 6.3k Words
Introduction
In my last life, I informed their parents.
It worked. Their futures were saved, but they killed me for it.
"Let go of me!"
Hayes had my wrist in a death grip, dragging me toward the edge. Ezra stood behind him, hands in his pockets.
"If you hadn't interfered, Willow would still be alive."
"Now it's your turn."
Then I was falling from the stadium bleachers.
I opened my eyes. Decision Day again.
Chapter 1
On National College Decision Day, my two childhood best friends announced they were ditching the Ivy League to follow a scheming charity case to a garbage community college.
In my last life, I informed their parents.
It worked. Their futures were saved, but they killed me for it.
"Let go of me!"
Hayes had my wrist in a death grip, dragging me toward the edge. Ezra stood behind him, hands in his pockets.
"If you hadn't interfered, Willow would still be alive."
"Now it's your turn."
Then I was falling from the stadium bleachers.
I opened my eyes. Decision Day again.
"You guys, stop. You really don't have to do this for me."
Willow Danes's voice pulled me back.
"I mean it. I would never forgive myself if you two threw away everything just because of me." She had both hands raised, palms out, shaking her head.
"Blair, tell them. Tell them they're being crazy."
She turned to me,.
"They'll listen to you."
The senior study lounge at St. Jude Prep. Air conditioning humming. May 1st on the wall screen.
I was back again.
"Willow, relax. I just want to enjoy the attention. Can't exactly get that at some Ivy full of elites, can I?"
Hayes Calloway, star quarterback, Yale legacy admit, leaned back in his chair and tossed a lacrosse ball toward the ceiling.
"I'm confirming today. Done deal." He caught the ball without looking.
"She's right that we don't have to. We're choosing to. There's a difference." Ezra Whitmore, debate champion, student body president, pushed his glasses up.
He turned to Willow.
"Going to a community college with our credentials? That's the ultimate act of intellectual rebellion. We'd be legends."
Willow's eyes welled up.
"I just... I feel so guilty. You're both giving up so much."
She glanced at me, then quickly looked away. Her fingers twisted together in her lap.
"I wish all four of us could stay together. But I'd never ask anyone to give up something important for me."
She said it to no one in particular.
Hayes caught it anyway.
"Blair." He stopped tossing the ball. "You're coming with us, right?"
Ezra turned to me.
"Obviously she's coming. We've been a unit since freshman year."
Willow shook her head quickly.
"Guys, don't pressure her. If Blair wants to go to Harvard, that's her choice. I'd never want her to feel forced."
She looked down at her hands.
"I just hope she knows I'll miss her."
I stared at her.
Same face. Same routine.
The trembling lip, the wet eyes, the helpless little gestures that made Hayes puff up his chest and Ezra go soft around the edges.
Last time, I fell for it too.
I spent weeks begging, arguing, pulling up statistics, calling their parents.
And months later, when Willow killed herself over it, they pinned everything on me.
Hayes threw me off the top of the stadium bleachers with his own hands.
That bone-shattering pain, I still remember it.
I stood up and slid my iPad into my bag.
"I need to call my family's fund office. Harvard confirmation is due by end of day."
Willow's breath caught.
She reached toward me, then stopped herself.
"Of course." She smiled. Small, brave, rehearsed. "Go. You should."
She turned to the window.
"I'll be fine."
Hayes was on his feet before I reached the door.
His palm hit the doorframe. Six-foot-two, blocking the entire exit.
"That's it? You're just walking out?" He tilted his head toward Willow. "Look at her. She's trying to hold it together and you can't even be bothered to sit here for five more minutes?"
"We don't have all day for the princess routine, Blair. Give us a straight answer, are you in or not?"
Ezra appeared at his shoulder.
"Leave it, Hayes. She can't help it. Eighteen years of prep school programming. The Blair machine does what the family trust tells it to do. Independent thought isn't in the software."
Behind them, Willow wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
I looked at Hayes's hand on the doorframe.
Same hand. Same grip. Same angle as the bleachers.
A shiver crawled up my spine.
"Fine. You want a straight answer?"
I looked at Hayes. Then Ezra.
"Harvard is where I belong. That joke of a community college is all yours. Rot in it."
Willow's breath hitched.
"Is it because I'm poor?" Her voice broke.
She turned away, shoulders curling inward.
Ezra already had a tissue out. He pressed it into Willow's hand and rubbed her shoulder twice before turning back to me.
Hayes stepped forward.
"You're jealous. That's what this is. You can't handle that we chose Willow over you."
"I knew it. I knew she always looked down on me."
Willow covered her mouth with both hands. Tears spilled over her fingers.
Hayes's jaw tightened.
"Apologize. Right now. Or we're done."
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
The Princess's Revenge
Alpha Logan is an illegitimate son whose mother disappeared when he was 10 years old. He grew up suffering from humiliation and lacking maternal love.
Alpha Logan saves Valencia at Marcus's funeral, which seems to be destined by fate—part of the Moon Goddess's grand plan.
As Valencia accidentally discovers prophecies in Logan's mother's diary that seem to be related to her, the truth gradually surfaces. Valencia appears to be merely a tool in a princess's revenge plot. How will Logan and Valencia navigate their path amid the national war and pack politics?
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother
"What is wrong with me?
Why does being near him make my skin feel too tight, like I’m wearing a sweater two sizes too small?
It’s just newness, I tell myself firmly.
He’s my boyfirend’s brother.
This is Tyler’s family.
I’m not going to let one cold stare undo that.
**
As a ballet dancer, My life looks perfect—scholarship, starring role, sweet boyfriend Tyler. Until Tyler shows his true colors and his older brother, Asher, comes home.
Asher is a Navy veteran with battle scars and zero patience. He calls me "princess" like it's an insult. I can't stand him.
When My ankle injury forces her to recover at the family lake house, I‘m stuck with both brothers. What starts as mutual hatred slowly turns into something forbidden.
I'm falling for my boyfriend's brother.
**
I hate girls like her.
Entitled.
Delicate.
And still—
Still.
The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying to smile through the awkwardness, won’t leave me.
Neither does the memory of Tyler. Leaving her here without a second thought.
I shouldn’t care.
I don’t care.
It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.
It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.
I’m not here to rescue anyone.
Especially not her.
Especially not someone like her.
She’s not my problem.
And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one.
But when my eyes fell on her lips, I wanted her to be mine.
First Taste in a Century
But Lysander’s arrival spells disaster. In a clumsy accident, he doesn't just ruin dinner; he obliterates her state-of-the-art scientific instruments. With her life’s work destroyed and her synthetic supply cut off, the scent of his living blood overwhelms her engineered senses. Forced to break a century-long abstinence, she takes what she needs, only to find herself addicted not just to his taste, but to the man himself.
Using the equipment as a flimsy excuse to lure him back, Vivienne battles a terrifying new obsession. She craves his body despite believing he’s taken, despising her own weakness. Meanwhile, Lysander’s initial terror curdles into a forbidden fascination. Can a relationship survive when one person feels everything, and the other only hungers?
Mated To My Ruin: A Dragon's Debt
But the prince lied. The dragon she touched bound itself to her soul and now she is trapped in the vampire kingdom with a king who has waited centuries for her return. King Caelan remembers everything. The love she destroyed and the great war she started. The lives she burned to ash with the very dragon now living inside her.
She remembers nothing.
He wants her to suffer for crimes she cannot recall. She wants to survive long enough to save her sister. But the bond between them refuses to stay buried and the dragon has its own plans. When she turns twenty and her fae powers awaken, Nyx discovers the truth is far more twisted than centuries of hatred.
The prince who sent her was the one who destroyed her family. The king who hates her saved the only person she loves. And the past life she cannot remember might be the key to stopping another war.
This time she will not run. This time she will burn the world herself if that is what it takes.
The Dark Witch & The Alpha Book 2
The vampire queen (Ambrosia) and Pythia will become close and discover the true origins of their pasts. They rely on each other when their mates are not around. New family is discovered and it is time they all come together to face one of the toughest moments in the dark witches history.
Pawn of the Starless God
Instead, a god found me.
One moment, I was bleeding beneath the neon glow of the city, my life slipping through my fingers. The next, a glowing blue screen appeared before my eyes, offering me a choice that was never really a choice at all.
Accept the Summoner’s Mark. Or die.
Now I belong to the Death Game — a brutal cosmic system where ordinary people are turned into Players, thrown into impossible missions, and forced to survive horrors designed for the amusement of gods.
Every trial has rules.
Every monster has a weakness.
Every victory comes with a reward.
And every reward makes me less human.
My name is Nerissa Valehart, and I refuse to be anyone’s pawn.
But surviving the Game means trusting the one man everyone warns me to fear.
Veyren Ashford is ruthless, powerful, and dangerously beautiful — a veteran Player with blood on his hands and secrets in his soul. He says attachment will get me killed. He says love is a weakness the Game always punishes.
Yet when death comes for me, Veyren is the one standing between us.
In a world where gods gamble with mortal lives, monsters hunt from the shadows, and desire may be the deadliest weakness of all, I have only one goal:
Survive long enough to cross the board.
And make the Starless God regret choosing me..............
Game of Destiny
When Finlay finds her, she is living among humans. He is smitten by the stubborn wolf that refuse to acknowledge his existence. She may not be his mate, but he wants her to be a part of his pack, latent wolf or not.
Amie cant resist the Alpha that comes into her life and drags her back into pack life. Not only does she find herself happier than she has been in a long time, her wolf finally comes to her. Finlay isn't her mate, but he becomes her best friend. Together with the other top wolves in the pack, they work to create the best and strongest pack.
When it's time for the pack games, the event that decides the packs rank for the coming ten year, Amie needs to face her old pack. When she sees the man that rejected her for the first time in ten years, everything she thought she knew is turned around. Amie and Finlay need to adapt to the new reality and find a way forward for their pack. But will the curve ball split them apart?
Mated to Her Alpha Instructor
Weeks later, our new Alpha combat instructor walks in. Regis. The guy from the woods. His eyes lock on mine, and I know he recognizes me. Then the secret I've been hiding hits me like a punch: I'm pregnant.
He has an offer that binds us tighter than ever. Protection… or a cage? Whispers turn ugly, darkness closes in. Why am I the one without a wolf? Is he my salvation… or will he drag me to ruin?
Pregnant by My Husband's Rival Alpha
Those words should have destroyed me, but the truth was worse: I'd been used as a broodmare by the man who swore to love me, set up in a hotel room with a stranger because My husband Alexander Cross couldn't father children himself, and now I carried the secret babies of Damon Lester—the most powerful and dangerous Alpha in San Loris—while my own family replaced me with the daughter they'd always wanted. But when that same stranger's doctor appeared at my door, when twenty million dollars exchanged hands over a fake perfume bearing my secret identity, and when Damon's gray eyes locked onto mine with recognition I couldn't afford, I realized my carefully hidden life as the legendary perfumer Vera was colliding with a pregnancy that could cost me everything.
Could I protect my babies from the husband plotting my death, hide my true identity from the Alpha who's been hunting me for years, and reclaim the freedom I'd buried along with my dreams—even if it means standing alone against the wolves who see me as nothing more than a womb to be used and discarded?
The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.
I’m not even sure I want to.
Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.
She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.
The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.
I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.
I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.
3/ Rags and Ritches-
A PRINCESS IN DISGUISE; BOUND TO THE ENEMY KING
I fell to my knees, the cold marble digging into my skin. I had studied for years in the flickering candlelight, memorizing every herb and poison to pass the healer's exam. I wanted freedom. I wanted to save my mother from the servant's quarters. I placed second. I thought I had won my life back.
But the King didn't give me a badge of honor. He gave me a death sentence.
"Raven Thorne shall be wed to the King of Grok," he announced, his voice echoing in the silent hall. Princess Ellie, the woman who had tormented me for years, slapped her hands over her mouth to hide her cruel laughter. She was supposed to marry the Beast. Now, I was the lamb being sent to the slaughter in her place.
They say King Liam drinks the blood of his enemies. They say he is more monster than man. And now, I have to walk into his bedroom, wearing the Princess's silk gown, and pray he doesn't tear me apart.
I looked at the King, tears streaming down my face. "I'll do it," I whispered, my voice trembling. "But my mother must be safe."
I sold my body and soul to a monster to save her. But when the carriage door opened and I finally looked into the Beast's golden eyes, I realized the terrifying truth...
He wasn't a stranger. He was the man I met in the woods.
Goddess Of The Underworld
When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
