Chapter 1

Vivienne's POV

I clicked on the young woman's profile picture.

The next moment, a familiar face appeared before me. It was my boyfriend Joshua Salter's childhood sweetheart, Mikaela Urban. She had been part of Joshua's life even longer than I had.

I spent the entire night watching all 20 videos on Mikaela's profile. The videos spanned from high school to college, recording every little moment between Mikaela and Joshua.

The very first video was from a week before the exam.

Mikaela sobbed her heart out in front of the camera, saying she didn't want to be separated from Joshua.

Beneath the video, someone with a starry-sky profile picture had replied, "Your wish will come true."

I stared at that profile picture, and the last trace of doubt in my heart vanished.

The picture featured Neptune, the planet Joshua had talked about with me countless times. It was his favorite planet.

It was also the planet I knew best, despite knowing next to nothing about astronomy.

During those countless days and nights we spent apart, whenever I missed Joshua, I would observe Neptune through the lab's telescope. I'd imagined Joshua was right there beside me, or that we were gazing at the same starry sky.

But it turned out that while I was away, he had Mikaela by his side.

I walked over to the table and unwrapped the carefully packaged gift. It was the graduation gift I had prepared for Joshua today.

Inside it was a pregnancy with two pink lines. I had taken it last night after Joshua told me he had failed to secure a spot in graduate school.

I was carrying our baby, the fruit of our seven-year relationship. The moment I found out about her, my heart had pounded wildly. Countless thoughts had raced through my mind.

Four years ago, Joshua and I had ended up in different cities for the sake of our futures. Now, four years later, we were about to end up in different countries.

Was the baby's arrival telling me that I should be brave for love, just this once?

The thoughts that had already crossed my mind thousands upon thousands of times had resurfaced. Could I give up my chance to attend graduate school abroad and stay by Joshua's side? Could I make up for all the years we'd spent apart?

With those thoughts swirling in my mind, I'd carefully wrapped up the gift.

I'd planned to tell Joshua in person about my decision. But now, that decision became nothing but a complete and utter joke.

It turned out that from the very beginning, I'd never been part of Joshua's future. Even though we had walked side by side all this way, he still turned without hesitation and chose the winding road that had Mikaela on it.

Even my future and I combined couldn't compare to Mikaela in his eyes.

So, I threw the pregnancy test into the trash.

I opened my laptop and logged into the website. Without hesitation, I clicked "Confirm".