Dianna didn't stop running until she was inside her bedroom with the door locked behind her. Her back slid down the smooth wood paneling until she was huddled on the floor, and only then did she let the sobs come.

His words echoed in her mind, a relentless, torturous loop. A mistake. It meant nothing. Take your money.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the vanity mirror across the room-eyes swollen, face blotchy and red. She looked pathetic. She felt pathetic. A fool who had built a castle of dreams on a foundation of nothing.

Her gaze fell on the desk. Lying there was a thick cream-colored envelope. The UCLA logo was embossed in the corner. An acceptance letter to a new life in a new city. A city far away from Santa Monica.

Until today, she had been hesitating. Holden was staying local for college, and a small, stupid part of her had held onto the fantasy that maybe, with time, things could be different.

That fantasy was now a pile of ash.

Staying here, in the same town, breathing the same air as him, felt like a prison sentence. Every corner, every street would be a reminder of her own stupidity.

A new feeling began to push through the grief-a cold, hard resolve. She stood up, her movements stiff, and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. Her reflection stared back, the sorrow in her eyes slowly being replaced by a steely emptiness.

She pulled a large suitcase out from under her bed and began to pack. Her motions were mechanical, detached. She folded sweaters, jeans, t-shirts. She left behind her yearbooks. She left behind the worn paperback she'd been reading at the beach house that night. She left behind a spiral notebook where, on the back page, she had practiced writing her first name with his last.

She packed only the future. The past was poison.

At the graduation ceremony a week later, she saw him from a distance, standing with his friends, laughing easily. He looked handsome and carefree, as if the scene in the alley had never happened. As if she didn't exist.

He never once looked in her direction.

It was the final confirmation she needed. He truly wanted her to disappear.

Fine, she thought, a bitter taste in her mouth. You got it.

She skipped all the graduation parties.The day after receiving her diploma, she said goodbye to her family and boarded a car to Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles sun was bright, a constant, cheerful glare that felt a world away from the misty mornings of Santa Monica. The UCLA campus was a bustling ecosystem of its own, and Dianna had carved out a quiet existence within it.

She was a senior now. Her hair was longer, her face had lost its teenage roundness, and a permanent look of calm composure had settled in her eyes. She had poured herself into her studies, into her part-time job at the campus library, into building a life that was orderly and predictable.

She had not been back to Santa Monica once. She had muted, blocked, and unfollowed anyone who might post a picture of Holden Barron. She had starved her memory of him until she believed he was gone.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, pulling her from her thoughts as she walked out of the Powell Library. The caller ID read Chloe Sullivan.

"Hey," Dianna answered, shifting her tote bag of books on her shoulder.

"Dianna! Where are you? Dinner plans have changed!" Chloe's voice was bubbly, laced with excitement.

"Changed? Why?"

"It's Ashley!" Chloe chirped, her tone dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Her new super-rich boyfriend is treating us. He upgraded the reservation to that crazy expensive place downtown. Aria!"

Dianna wasn't particularly interested in fancy restaurants or her roommate's mysterious boyfriends. "Okay. Just text me the address."

"You have to hurry! We're all dying to finally meet this guy. Ashley's been so secretive about him."

A small, tired smile touched Dianna's lips. "I'll be there soon."

She hung up and a moment later, a text with the address for Aria popped up on her screen. Her heart felt nothing. No excitement, no curiosity. It was just another dinner.

Back in her dorm room, she changed out of her jeans and into a simple black dress. She looked at herself in the mirror. The girl staring back was a stranger to the heartbroken teenager who had fled her hometown four years ago. The eyes were the same, but the desperate hopefulness was gone, replaced by a quiet guard.

She took a deep breath, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door. She took a car to that restaurant to have a dinner appointment, to face a memory she thought had been forever buried in the past