Chapter 1
Years after breaking up with Rodney Aguirre, I watched an interview with him.
He had grown far more mature and reserved, poised and dignified in every way.
Gone was the boy who had stood before me all those years ago, grinning bright as the sun, with that silly, lovesick look plastered on his face.
At the end of the interview, the host asked him in a low voice about his love life.
He shook his head and smiled faintly. "I'm not married."
I washed an apple, and my mind drifted back to the day he had broken up with me.
He had told me that he was entering an arranged marriage.
*****
Every few years, the story of Rodney and me would blow up online all over again.
This time, it was because Rodney was being interviewed as the head of the Aguirre Group.
Estelle Hopper, the hostess, asked with a gentle smile, "Mr. Aguirre, a lot of viewers online want to ask, how do you balance your family and your career?"
The man sitting across from her was no longer young. Wrinkles lined his once-handsome face, and anyone meeting him for the first time would be struck by his commanding presence.
Rodney replied calmly, "I don't need to. I'm not married. The company is my family."
His voice was gentle and mellow, like a well-aged liquor.
"But from what I understand, haven't you been married before?" Estelle asked gently.
Rodney's gaze suddenly went distant. The camera cut to the screen at just the right moment, showing a photo of a couple.
It was a picture of a couple taken in the snow.
In the photo, the girl was dressed in a puffy white coat and a red hat. Her expression was calm, but she gave the camera a gentle smile.
The handsome young man standing behind her, holding up two bunny ears over her head with a bright grin, was Rodney, more than ten years younger.
The comments in the live stream were blowing up.
Someone commented: [Is this Mr. Aguirre's first love? They look so perfect together.]
Another echoed: [Wow, he's so different now. Who knew he could smile that sweetly?]
A third commented: [Ugh, they were such a perfect couple, but it ended in a bad breakup. Why did they get divorced?]
I dropped my gaze.
I was his first love, but I wasn't the one he married.
That short marriage of his had nothing to do with me.
*****
Rodney and I met and fell in love at school.
It was a cliché story. I was a scholarship student at an elite private academy, relying on the full tuition stipend to support myself and my grandmother.
Meanwhile, Rodney was the golden boy. Even in a school full of rich kids, he was at the very top.
And on top of that, he was drop-dead gorgeous and aced every class.
No one thought our relationship would last when we got together.
My roommate once said to me, full of worry. "Katelyn, be careful. I'm afraid this is just some rich guy's game."
My hand paused mid-write, and my pen slipped outside the lines.
I was quiet for a moment, then wiped the mark away and said, "It's fine. I know what I'm doing."
We stayed together through high school, college, and my exchange program abroad.
We didn't just stay together. We became the legendary, perfect couple that everyone in our friend group talked about.
He posted on social media all the time. For our high school graduation trip, he didn't go to Borovia with his friends. He came back to my hometown with me.
There was a photo of him holding a chicken, his face smeared with dirt but grinning like a fool, and it blew up all over our feeds.
His friend texted him, sighing, [Man, you used to be so stuck up and full of yourself. And now look at you. You're totally head over heels.]
Rodney laughed and replied: [Get lost. Yeah, I fell for her, and I did it with my whole heart. So what?]
When I went abroad in my final year of college, he flew out to see me every week.
The moment he saw me, he actually started crying.
I cupped his face and asked, "What's wrong?"
His eyes were red, and his voice was thick with emotion. "Kathy, you've lost so much weight. It breaks my heart."
My chest felt tight and warm, a sharp aching sadness spreading through me.
He was the kind of rich kid who never had to do chores, but for me, he learned how to cook from scratch.
I loved Italian food, so he would drive four hours round trip to the supermarket to buy ingredients and cook it for me.
When he saw me finish every last bite, he'd grin proudly. "Not bad for your boyfriend's cooking, huh?"
He had a real talent for cooking. Or rather, he had a talent for everything he put his mind to.
He started working at his family's company as early as his sophomore year.
And by the time I came back from Avalon, he had turned into the reserved heir of the Aguirre family in front of everyone else.
But around me, he was still the same clingy, whiny boyfriend I had always known.
The stack of tickets from his flights to Avalon grew thicker and thicker.
The night I came back, he didn't hold back at all.