Chapter 6

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."