Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains (Victoria and Elijah) novel Chapter 115

Chapter 115

Chapter 115

Victoria’s POV

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The hallway outside the main hall was packed and incredibly loud. People were shouting, throwing crumpled scrap paper into the trash bins, and laughing like they’d just been let out of prison.

We were done. The final paper of the semester was officially sitting in a grading stack, and for the first time in weeks, my shoulders felt light.

“We actually made it,” Nova crowed, stumbling into me and wrapping her arms tightly around my neck.

I laughed, hugging her back just as hard, burying my face into her shoulder as the relief of the moment/settled over us.

“I still can’t believe it’s over,” I muttered into her jacket, pulling away to look at her. “No more libraries at three in the morning. No more coffee jitters.”

“Don’t remind me,” Nova groaned, a bright, exhausted smile spreading across her face. Right now, the only thing on my next-step checklist is sleeping for forty-eight hours straight. What about you?”

Before I could answer, a loud chime cut through the air between us. Nova reached into her denim jacket, sliding her phone

out.

I glanced down casually at the screen, and the name flashing across the glass made the festive atmosphere around us fade into the background.

Caleb.

Nova’s thumb hovered over the screen, her eyes darting up to meet mine. Uneasiness passed across her face, her shoulders tensing as she held her breath, waiting to see how I would react.

I couldn’t help but smile. Reaching out, I covered her hand with mine, gently squeezing her fingers.

“Nova, you don’t have to keep being weird about this. Seriously.”

She blinked, looking down at our joined hands.

“Tori…”

“I’ve moved on from Caleb,” I told her, my voice quiet but steady. “Right now, he’s just my best friend, and I don’t intend to ever pursue whatever we had-or whatever I wished we would have had.”

Nova forced a smile, sliding the phone back into her pocket without hitting accept.

She looked at me, a faint crease forming between her brows as we fell into step together, heading toward the exit doors.

“How is it so easy for you to just give up on something that lasted that long?”

I bit my lip, my palms rubbing against each other as I thought about how to put it into words.

We pushed through the heavy glass doors into the open courtyard.

“It wasn’t easy, Nova. Trust me. For a long time, I thought loving someone meant holding on through all the hurt and the silence, thinking that if I just cared enough, it would eventually fix things.”

We reached the edge of the stone walkway, the cool air hitting my face, and the words trailed off as my steps came to a stop.

Memories from the previous night came rushing back, flooding my mind so vividly I could almost feel the cold water on

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Chapter 115

my skin.

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I remembered the heavy downpour, the dark sky, and the shock of watching Elijah drop to his knees right there in the mud,” completely disregarding his pride, his expensive clothes, everything-just to lay his heart bare to me.

The raw, desperate confession he had poured out under the rain was still echoing in my ears.

I had read a passage somewhere once, a standard bit of literature everyone knew from First Corinthians. Love is kind, it is patient. It doesn’t envy, it doesn’t boast, it keeps no record of wrong……

Standing in that courtyard, it finally licked. That text wasn’t a description of what I had felt for Caleb.

Loving Caleb romantically had been a constant exercise in heartache, rejection, and a quiet, lingering sadness that always made me feel small.

But with Elijah… even through the mess of how we started, what we had built was patient. It was kind. It was a partnership that made me feel entirely seen.

I had fallen for Elijah a long time ago; I just hadn’t realized how deep I was until the threat of losing him forever had stared me right in the face.

I looked back at Nova, a genuine smile finally reaching my eyes.

“I realized I had it all backward. Loving Caleb always came with a lingering sort of sadness, but what I have with Elijah… it’s completely different. It’s safe. I’m not giving up on anything, Nova. I’m just choosing the person who actually showed up for me. Elijah is the one I love.”

My phone buzzed loudly in my bag, interrupting the moment. I pulled it out, seeing my mom’s contact photo illuminating

the screen.

“Go ahead,” Nova laughed, waving a hand toward the device. “I know that’s going to be a lengthy one.”

“Yeah, she’s probably been waiting by the screen all morning,” I joked. “Let’s catch up tomorrow to celebrate properly, yeah?”

Nova nodded with a bright smile, turning toward the dorm path as I pressed accept on the call and began heading toward the student parking lot.

The screen split, showing both my mom and my dad crowded into the frame of the video call, their faces practically glowing with excitement.

“There she is! Our college graduate!” my mom cheered, her voice crackling slightly through the speaker. “Oh, Tori, congratulations, baby! We are so proud of you!”

“We can’t wait for the official results to drop,” my dad added, leaning closer to the camera with a proud grin. “Your mother is already planning the graduation party. She’s telling everyone her daughter is going to be the valedictorian.”

I chuckled, shifting the phone to my other hand as I navigated the crowded sidewalk.

“Dad, please don’t start that rumor. I don’t think so. I’ll probably be second in place-the salutatorian-but definitely not the valedictorian.”

“Oh, be positive, Victoria,” my mom chided gently. “You’ve worked so hard.”

I just laughed it off, keeping the real reason to myself. Deep down, I knew the top spot belonged to Saanvi Agarwal, a brilliant girl from the mathematics department.

It had been a tight race between the two of us since freshman year, but during our third year, my feelings for Caleb had become so overwhelming and distracting that my grades had taken a slight dip.

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I knew that small margin had given Saanvi the edge, but there was no point in dampening my parents’ mood with the information.

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