Chapter 1

I met Kian Sterling when I was twelve, and finally got to be his girlfriend at eighteen. At twenty-two, I realized he might never have loved me. Ten years of devotion, and it turned out to be nothing but a joke.

The day we broke up, I, Sylvia Mercer, made up my mind to let go of all those romantic entanglements and start living for myself.

*****

I spent three months saving up my wages to afford a round-trip ticket to Kaelthyr. It was my first time leaving the country, all for Kian.

Today was Kian's twenty-third birthday, and it was also our fourth year of doing the whole long-distance thing. To surprise him, I hadn't told him I was coming.

Walking through this unfamiliar place, seeing Kaelthyr language everywhere and surrounded by foreign faces, I felt a little scared, but more excited at the thought of finally seeing Kian again.

I asked Kian's best friend for the address and time of the birthday party. Four hours to go before it kicked off.

Every time I walked past a bakery, I'd go in and ask if they'd let me bake a birthday cake myself. Finally, the owner of the fifth shop agreed to my request.

By the time I finished the cake, there was an hour left before the party started, but it would take me an hour and ten minutes to get from the bakery to the party place.

It was my first time riding the subway in Kaelthyr, and I ended up going past my stop. When I finally got to the party location, it had already been going for an hour.

To get inside, I needed a membership card, but I didn't have one. I waited outside for about ten minutes, thinking maybe I should call Kian and ask him to come get me.

Just then, a gorgeous blonde with blue eyes showed her membership card and brought me in. I managed to find Kian's private party room without any trouble.

"Kian is having some fun with Sylvia, right?" someone said.

I froze outside the door, clutching the cake I'd made for Kian. I forced myself to ignore the sting in my chest, pretending I hadn't heard a thing.

I was about to push the door open and surprise him. If Kian didn't care about me, why would he have agreed to be with me in the first place?

"Of course. Why else do you think Kian said yes to that small-town girl's confession?"

My hand froze on the doorknob.

"Why?"

"Because Kian lost a round of truth or dare. The dare was to say yes to whoever confessed to him next."

I couldn't stop the tears from falling. My heart felt like it was being pricked by a thousand needles.

When I was eighteen, the very first thing I did after getting my university acceptance letter was confess to Kian. He agreed instantly, and I really thought he liked me back.

But those four years I thought were happiness turned out to be nothing but someone else's game. After crossing thousands of miles, I finally had to admit it was all me, all along.

I turned around and walked away. I didn't have it in me to barge in and demand answers from Kian. I was already humiliated enough. Why made it worse?

"Excuse me, can I help you?" a uniformed staff member approached and asked.

At that moment, I couldn't get a single word out. All I wanted was to escape. I wandered the streets of Norvath in a daze, clutching the cake, and before I knew it, I was back at the airport.

My flight was originally booked for three days later, but now, all I wanted was to leave this country, the place that forced me to face the reality of my feelings.

I changed my ticket to the earliest flight back to Myriath. The homemade cake I brought ended up tossed in the trash.

While waiting for my flight, I couldn't stop thinking about all the moments I'd shared with Kian over the years.

When I was twelve, my mom gave my little brother an old, hand-me-down phone. I promised to eat all the veggies he hated every day, and in return, he'd let me use the phone for an hour.

After graduating from middle school, I finally got my own Facebook Messenger account. One day, feeling upset and needing someone to vent to, I typed in a random string of numbers and added the first person who came up as a friend.

For the next year, whenever my parents yelled at me or my classmates bullied me, I'd pour my heart out to this Facebook Messenger friend.

Bit by bit, I learned more about him. His name was Kian, he was a year older than me, a guy, and he lived in Myriath.

Slowly, I realized I was falling for Kian. He'd send me backpacks and notebooks my parents never bought for me, and snacks I'd never tasted before.

All of it was for me, completely mine, not hand-me-downs from my brother.

When I graduated from middle school, Kian gave me a phone, the very first one I ever owned. With my own phone, I didn't have to eat veggies I hated or help my brother out to earn an hour of screen time anymore.

Throughout high school, I kept messaging Kian, treating him as my emotional anchor in this world. I started working hard, hoping to get into Myriath University, the same city where Kian lived.

But Kian never told me he was planning to study abroad. I only found out when we made it official between us, but honestly, the happiness of finally being with him made me forget everything else.

I really thought I was like the heroine in those romance novels, where the girl's secret crush finally comes true.

I got into Myriath University, one of the top schools in the country, but my parents didn't want me to go.

They wanted me to stay in our small town, marry a local guy when I was old enough, and said it'd be better to have family nearby to help out.

I refused, and my parents blew up, kicking me out of the house. They said if I insisted on going to college, they wouldn't give me a single cent. I didn't beg them, and I didn't cry.

Honestly, I'd gotten used to this kind of thing. Ever since I was a kid, every summer and winter break was spent working. Back when I could barely read, I washed dishes for 100 dollars a month.

By high school, I was working in a factory from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., making 1,000 dollars a month. I could pay my own tuition, and nothing was going to stop me from getting to Myriath, where Kian lived.

I finally made it to Myriath University. But it wasn't until I got there that I realized Kian's family was loaded.

I thought getting into the best university in Myriath would bring us closer, but the truth was, there was an unbridgeable divide between us from the very start.

I was too young, too swept up in the thrill of finally getting together with my longtime crush to notice it.

During college, I lived in an apartment near Kian's school. Whenever he came back from Kaelthyr for vacation, we'd stay together, watch TV, eat meals, play video games, like any normal couple would.