Chapter 2: Rejected

Flashback One Month Ago...

Thalia's POV

The rooftop bar was warm with low amber light, glowing like a hush between all the laughter and soft music around us. But I barely noticed any of it.

My heart was pounding too loud to hear anything else.

Alina had just stood from the table and excused herself, saying she needed to fix her lipstick. She left her drink half-full and her perfume lingering in the space between me and Kael like smoke that wouldn’t leave. I watched her disappear behind the restroom doors, then slowly turned my head toward him.

He looked peaceful. Effortlessly beautiful in the way only he could be. Leaning back, glass in hand, eyes reflecting the flickering skyline as if this night were like any other. As if I weren’t sitting across from him with my hands clenched beneath the table, trying to hold everything in.

I hadn’t planned to say anything. Not really.

But something about the way the night felt...how the wind whispered across the terrace, how the stars were blurred just enough to seem dreamlike...made it feel like time had paused just for a breath. Like the world had handed me this sliver of a moment and said that if not now, then never.

And so I reached for it.

“Kael...?” I said softly, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear me.

But he turned and looked at me, setting his glass down. “Yeah?”

I hesitated. My voice was caught somewhere between my chest and throat. “Have you ever loved someone quietly?”

He blinked, clearly taken aback. “What?”

“I mean,” I said, forcing the words to slow as I stared down at the lip of my glass, “loving someone in secret.”

There was a pause in between us. Kael tilted his head, trying to read something in my face. “What brought that on?”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then I looked up and met his eyes.

He didn’t know.

Of course he didn’t.

And I was about to ruin everything.

But I had been carrying this with me for far too long, and I was tired...tired of smiling through it, of pretending I wasn’t breaking a little more every time he looked at someone else like she was the sun.

“I’ve loved you for a long time,” I finally said. “Since high school.”

His expression froze with his drink still halfway to his lips before he set it down slowly. The silence between us stretched like a pulled thread.

I didn’t blame him. He couldn’t have seen it coming. We weren’t friends back then. Not really. I was just a girl in the background, always quiet, always watching. He was the boy everyone seemed to gravitate to. He was bright, untouchable, and golden. The type of boy girls wrote about in their journals.

And I did. For years.

He never noticed me. And I never expected him to.

Eventually, life pulled us in different directions. I thought he’d become just another memory I’d grow out of.

Then college came.

And with it was Alina.

Alina Lowe was bold, beautiful, and magnetic. She became my best friend, my sister in every way that mattered. She filled every space she walked into like she belonged there. And I was happy to stand beside her, to orbit around someone like that.

Until one night, she dragged me to a private dinner, excited to introduce me to a friend of hers.

And there he was.

Kael Vireaux was no longer just the boy I remembered, but the man he had become. A name in the papers. A billionaire. A CEO.

My first love.

He didn’t recognize me. Of course he didn’t. I had changed, and so had he. I never told him we had once shared the same high school halls. I never told him anything.

Until now.

But as his voice broke the quiet, so did my heart. “Thalia… I’m… I’m really sorry. I’ve been in love with Alina for years. We’ve been in a relationship for two months now and I really lo—”

“No,” I said quickly, waving my hands, trying to laugh it off even as my chest burned. “No, it’s okay. Really. I didn’t know. I wasn’t trying to—I just needed to say it. You know?”

I forced myself to smile wide and acted as if it didn't bother me at all. "I had to let it go. And it’s okay that you love Alina. I have no problem with that, honestly.”

My voice cracked a little, but I kept my smile stitched in place like a mask. It wasn’t a lie. I really did have no problem with Kael loving Alina.

But it didn’t make it hurt any less.

Then, as if on cue, I heard her voice again—soft and sweet.

“Hm? What about me?”

Alina stood beside the table, her smile gentle, unaware. Completely untouched by the wreckage inside my chest.

And of course she was.

How could I ever compete with someone like her?

Alina had always been radiant. Her pale blonde hair glowed under any light, falling like silk down her back. Her eyes were ice-blue... striking and luminous. She carried herself like a dream someone had written into existence. Men fell for her without effort. People listened when she spoke. Rooms turned when she walked in.

And me?

I was… simple and ordinary.

Plain brown hair that I usually wore in a bun. Eyes that didn’t shine in candlelight. Soft features, soft voice, soft everything. I wasn’t ugly...I knew that. But I was forgettable. I blended in too easily. I was the second glance that never came.

Next to her, I looked like the echo of her spotlight.

I didn’t have her confidence. Her glow. I didn’t have the kind of beauty that made men stare.

But I had loved Kael first.

Yet, none of it mattered now that I have been rejected. And it hurt. So bad.