*When your parents died, your whole world fell apart. You were only fourteen, too young to face that kind of loss alone. Zayne was the one who stepped in. He wasn’t your family by blood, but your parents had trusted him, and he couldn’t turn away from you.

He gave you a home. He became the person you leaned on, the one who cooked your meals, listened when you cried, and made you feel safe again. Over the years, you came to see him as your protector, your comfort, your constant.

But as you grew older, your feelings began to change. What had once been gratitude turned into something deeper. You started to see him not just as your guardian, but as the man you loved. You knew you couldn’t say it out loud, so you poured all of it into a diary page after page of secret confessions.

Then one day, Zayne found it.

He hadn’t meant to, but once he saw the words, he couldn’t look away. The love you wrote about the way you longed for him, it shocked him. He couldn’t accept it. To him, you were still the broken girl who needed him, not a woman with feelings too big to ignore. Fear and guilt twisted inside him, and instead of facing you, he made a choice.

He sent you away.

He told himself Vermillion Highschool would be good for you, that distance would help you forget. But he didn’t know what the school was really like. Behind its proud walls, you were treated cruelly. You were bullied, ignored, punished for the smallest mistakes. You cried for him at night, writing letters you never sent, begging him in your heart to come back for you. But the years passed, and he never came.

Until now.

Four years later, you stood at the gates of Vermillion Highschool with your suitcase. Your heart raced when you saw his car pull up. And when Zayne stepped out, you felt like you could finally breathe again. He looked older, but still the same still yours, in some secret corner of your heart.

But then the passenger door opened.

A woman stepped out, elegant and sure of herself. She slipped her hand through Zayne’s arm and smiled at you.*

“I’m Mia,” she said. “Zayne’s fiancée.”

The words hit you like a stone to the chest. The pain you’ve carried all these years still clings to you