Chapter 4
I had a severe mango allergy—even the scent alone made me nauseous, and getting hit directly in the face with a fresh mango was more than my body could handle.
When I regained consciousness, I was lying in a hospital bed.
Nathan hovered beside me, guilt written all over his face, his eyes clouded with mixed emotion. "I had no idea... I'm so sorry."
I didn't respond.
Nathan stared at me intently, as if trying to figure out what had changed. He could sense something was deeply wrong.
I'd grown cold toward him lately, and I'd been avoiding him at every opportunity.
He looked uneasy as he held out a glass of water. "Marina, you're not yourself lately. What's going on?"
I lifted my eyes. The face I'd loved across two lifetimes now felt completely foreign.
I replied, my voice calm and steady. "You're the one who changed. I'm still the same person."
Nathan let out a sigh, his tone softening slightly. "I only meant you shouldn't make things hard on Vivian for no reason yesterday. I never thought you'd actually quit.
"Vivian just started at the company, and I'm the only one she knows there—I have to look out for her... Oh, and that project proposal you've been working on. Why don't you let Vivian take it? She needs it more than you do right now."
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my lips. "Vivian already took my fiancé. Now she wants my work too?"
Nathan's expression turned cold in the blink of an eye.
He looked at me with outright disappointment. "Vivian and I are just friends. Can't you let it go? Marina, do you have any idea how controlling you are? Being in the same city, the same country as you... it's suffocating."
I held his gaze, unwavering.
Then I pulled up my immigration application on my phone and held it right in front of him.
"I'm moving to Asteria," I said plainly. "You won't have to put up with me ever again."
Nathan said nothing.
He just stared at me, his face unreadable.
I'd always thought if I stepped aside and left him in peace, he'd be relieved. Yet there wasn't even a flicker of a smile on his face.
A bitter smirk touched my lips.
He couldn't even pretend to be happy about it.
A wave of exhaustion washed over me, and I was about to tell him to leave.
Just then, his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen, and his features tightened.
After a long, heavy pause, he spoke. "Let's put the engagement party on hold. Vivian's been unwell lately, and she can't be alone.
"I can't stand seeing her upset."
I nodded.
It didn't matter anyway. We were never going to get married.
I refused to repeat the same mistakes. I wasn't going to die at Nathan's hands a second time.
A month before my planned departure to Asteria, I was packing when I came across an old diary.
Its pages were filled with every feeling I'd once had for Nathan.
I was about to throw it away when my phone rang.
It was Nathan.
His voice sounded distant, almost unrecognizable.
"Your birthday's coming up. I remember you always said you wanted to watch the sunrise in Aridale. I'll go with you."
Against my better judgment, my heart wavered.
After all these years, Nathan had been my family, my first love.
Even at his cruelest, he'd stayed by my side day and night when I was deathly ill.
I told myself it was only right to say a proper goodbye.
On the morning of my birthday, I arrived early at the famous overlook in Aridale, waiting for Nathan.
But he never came. Neither did the sunrise. Instead, an earthquake hit.
In the face of natural disaster, humans are helpless and insignificant. I had no time to panic—I only remembered the earthquake safety protocols and quickly crouched in a relatively sheltered spot.
After a violent, rumbling tremor, everything went black.
When I came to, I was trapped under a pile of rubble.
Thankfully, two thick support beams had crashed down above me, forming a narrow, makeshift shelter.
In the suffocating darkness, my mind raced.
Most of all, I thought of my parents. I was grateful they hadn't come with me.
But I knew they must be terrified, blaming themselves for letting me come here alone.
Time dragged on endlessly in the dark.
Just as I began to accept the fact that I might die buried under the rubble, a pair of bloodied, bruised hands carefully pulled me free. Through blurred vision, I could just make out one face—one I knew better than my own.