Maureen's smugness was practically radiating off her.

After a few more rounds of the game, she lost again.

This time, the dare was to sit on a guy's lap and complete a designated task.

Without thinking, Maureen once again looked toward Sebastian.

Leona could no longer stay in that suffocating room. She suddenly stood up, whispered to a friend beside her, "I'm going to the restroom," and quickly fled the room.

Inside the restroom, she splashed cold water on her face over and over again, but her tears still flowed down uncontrollably. After what felt like an eternity, she finally managed to calm herself down. She decided to leave early and head home.

Just as she reached the corner of the hallway, she heard familiar voices from the terrace. It was Sebastian with his best friends.

"Seb." One of them spoke up.

"Didn't you go overboard earlier? I saw Leona's face turn so pale. Aren't you going to comfort her?"

Sebastian's voice was cold as he scoffed. "Comfort her? A few days later, she's going to break up with me again. Am I supposed to keep putting up with that?"

"Yeah… It's your fault. You spoiled her too much before, so she's always bringing that up. Maybe it's time to take this opportunity and teach her a lesson."

"That's true. When she gets to Northsea University and doesn't know anyone there, she'll definitely come crawling back to you. At that point, you can throw her a bone and make her beg to get back together with you. Having experienced that, I'm sure she'll never use breakups to threaten you again. It'll be a perfect plan."

Leona's blood seemed to freeze in her veins, and her limbs turned cold when she heard that.

To Sebastian, all the breakups she had initiated out of pain and disappointment were just "tantrums" that were "mere attempts to threaten him".

As for his idea of "teaching her a lesson", it was to publicly humiliate her by kissing another girl!

She silently turned and went downstairs alone.

The summer night breeze blew against her, yet it was cold enough to make her shiver.

As she walked, memories from the past replayed in her mind like a silent film.

There was a time when all it took was for her to furrow her brow, and he would instantly ask if she was okay.

Back then, when other girls gave him love letters, he would reject them and proudly come to her, saying, "Nana, I rejected another one today. Praise me."

She had long grown accustomed to his affection and the feeling of being cherished as his only treasure.

When had it all changed?

It all started when Maureen appeared.

He had broken his own principles for her and even repeatedly neglected Leona's feelings.

Leona wasn't blind to the way Maureen looked at him, nor was she oblivious to the way he treated Maureen differently. But she had clung to the last shred of hope by testing him with breakups and trying to hold onto him, only to be met with his annoyance and dismissal.

It dawned on her that when she was no longer his only priority, even her tears seemed to be an inconvenience.

Somehow, she found herself standing outside her apartment building. Her eyes locked on a familiar figure standing by the mailbox. It was the mailman.

It seemed her college acceptance letter had finally arrived.

She drew in a steadying breath and was about to move forward when she saw another familiar silhouette standing in front of the mailman.

It was Sebastian!

He was holding the letter clearly marked with the logo of Southsea University, and he was just about to open it…

Leona's heart skipped a beat. Almost instinctively, she stepped forward and snatched the letter from Sebastian's hand.

"What are you doing?"

Her voice trembled just slightly, but it was mostly cold and wary.

Sebastian's hand froze in mid-air as he was clearly taken aback by her sudden reaction.

Then his gaze turned icy. "The mailman said there was no one at your house. Your emergency contact is me, so he gave it to me to sign for you."

Emergency contact…

Leona's chest tightened, and a dull ache spread through her at that.

She had set him to be her emergency contact a long time ago. It was so long ago that she had almost forgotten about it. Back when he was her whole world, she had naturally entrusted such an important thing to him.

Leona lowered her gaze, hiding the turmoil in her eyes. "I forgot to change the emergency contact. I'll update it later."

She didn't look at him again and quickly grabbed a pen from a nearby table. With deliberate precision, she signed her name on the receipt—Leona Langham.

From now on, she would have nothing to do with him.

After signing, she turned to go home.

But then she heard Sebastian ask the mailman behind her, "Is this the only letter? There's no letter for me? We're going to the same university, so they should've arrived together."

The mailman confirmed, "Yes, this is the only one."

Sebastian furrowed his brow and called out to Leona, who had already taken a few steps away. "Leona, open yours and check. Maybe my letter is with yours."

Leona stopped, but she didn't turn around. Her voice was firm with no hesitation. "It's not here."

Her certainty caught Sebastian off guard, leaving him uneasy. "How can you be so sure?"

Leona took a deep breath, ready to reveal the decision she had kept buried for so long. Just as she was about to speak, Sebastian's phone rang.

It was Maureen.

As soon as he answered, Maureen's tearful voice came through. "Sebastian, where are you? I'm scared… I think someone's following me…"

Sebastian's expression instantly changed, his focus immediately shifting to Maureen. His voice was filled with the urgency and worry Leona used to hear so many times. "Don't be scared. Stay where you are and don't move. Send me your location. I'm coming now!"

Without sparing Leona another glance, he turned and quickly walked toward his car. He didn't even hear her quietly say, "I changed my college application, so we didn't apply to the same university."

Soon, the engine roared to life, and the car sped away.

Leona stood still, watching the car disappear into the night, and the last ripple of emotion in her heart finally faded into silence.

In the days that followed, Leona quietly made preparations for her journey.

Southsea University was a long way from here, so she knew she would need to start everything from scratch.

On the other hand, Sebastian's social media was unusually active.

Every day, she saw updates with photos and videos of him, and he always had Maureen by his side. They hiked together at sunrise, with Maureen resting her head on his shoulder as the clouds rolled beneath them. They went camping and sat by a bonfire, while Maureen fed him skewers of grilled food. They checked off countless popular tourist spots, posing for intimate photos at each landmark…

In every photo, Sebastian's gaze was relaxed, and his smile was warm.

Their classmates commented on his posts.

"Seb, is this official now?"

"Please be together forever!"

"Maureen, you're so cool to win Seb over!"

Leona swiped through the screen, looking at those vibrant but blinding images. A heaviness settled in her chest, like a rock weighing her down, but strangely, the sharp pain that had once taken her breath away did not arrive as expected.

This was what it felt like when her feelings had completely shut down.

The sun was shining brightly the day she went back to the school to pick up her documents.

As soon as she entered the gates, she saw Maureen, arm-in-arm with Sebastian, posing for photos in front of the bulletin board and making cute faces for the camera.

Sebastian still wore a slightly aloof expression as usual, but his lips were curved into a small smile as he went along with her antics.

Leona stood at a distance, and at that moment, she was flooded with memories of herself and Sebastian.

They had walked hand-in-hand down every tree-lined path in this very school. He had once pinned her against a wall for a secret kiss. They would spend hours lying on desks, making plans for the future, swearing to go to Northsea University together, and getting married after graduating from there…

Those beautiful moments seemed like a distant, blurry dream to her now.

Since Maureen appeared, everything had changed.

As for Leona and Sebastian, they no longer shared a future.

Leona quietly turned and walked away from them, heading toward the school's back garden.

There, an old banyan tree stood, its trunk once carved with Sebastian's name and hers, accompanied by a small heart.

It was during their first year of high school when Sebastian had pulled her close, carefully etching their names into the bark with a pocketknife. He said this meant they were carved into each other's lives forever.

Now, Leona took out the key she always carried, found the names, and started to scrape them away with force, little by little.

Just as she finished scraping and was preparing to leave, Maureen's playful voice and footsteps echoed from behind.

"Sebastian, come look! I heard that if we carve our names into trees in this grove, our future will be bright! Let's carve our names too, okay?"

Leona didn't turn around, but she could imagine Sebastian nodding in agreement.

Sure enough, she heard his deep voice. "Okay."

Then, she heard the faint scraping sound of a knife against the tree bark.

Right beside the tree where Leona had just removed their names, the two of them had chosen another one and carved the names "Sebastian" and "Maureen" side by side.

Leona kept her back to them, remaining silent.

After completing her task, she put the key back into her pocket and turned to leave.

But just as she reached the lake at the edge of the garden, Maureen caught up with her from behind.

"Leona, wait!" Maureen called out, holding a small hairpin in her hand.

"You dropped something."

Leona recognized it as the hairpin she had accidentally left behind earlier. She reached out to take it.

But Maureen withdrew her hand slightly, smiling with a mix of mockery and amusement. "Leona, from now on, the only person who will be with Sebastian is me. You'll never have the right to be with him again. I'll prove to you that in his heart, I'm a thousand, no, a million times more important than you."

Leona, tired of engaging in useless verbal battles, just wanted to take the hairpin and leave quickly.

"Give it back," she said, her tone dismissive.

Her complete disregard infuriated Maureen.

With a tight grip, Maureen yanked Leona's wrist, her voice rising in frustration. "What's with the act? Just because you two grew up together, does that make you so special? Do you even know what they say about childhood sweethearts being no match for fate? Sebastian and I are meant to be! You'll always just be a background figure in his life!"

"Let go!"

Leona's wrist ached, and she struggled to break free.

"I won't!"

The two girls tugged at each other by the lake. In their heated struggle, one of them slipped.

With two loud splashes, both of them fell into the water, the force of the impact sending waves splashing everywhere.

Leona knew how to swim, but the sudden shock of the cold lake water surrounding her body made her calves seize up.

She was cramping.

Her legs went numb, and her body started to sink uncontrollably. Water rushed into her nose as panic surged through her.

Just as she felt the darkness closing in, she saw Sebastian diving into the lake without hesitation.

In that moment, the small flame in her heart that was nearly extinguished weakly flickered to life.

But in the next instant, that flicker of hope was snuffed out as she watched him swim straight toward Maureen and grab her waist, pulling her to safety without sparing a single glance back at Leona.

While Sebastian helped Maureen back onto solid ground, she clung to his arm and coughed loudly. Then, in a deliberate tone, she shouted, "Sebastian, Leona is still in the water!"

Sebastian looked back at Leona, who was struggling in the water, barely holding on. His voice, cutting through the water, extinguished the last flicker of hope within her.

"We've broken up. She has nothing to do with me."