Chapter 2

Dominic left me behind.

As the engine roared in the underground garage, I received a text message from him. "I'll be away for a while. Clear your things out of the house. I'll have someone change the locks in two weeks."

I didn't reply. I silently cleared away all traces of myself from the mansion where I'd lived for five years.

After a long while, my phone screen lit up again from a text. Dominic had probably met with the terrified Lily by now and was attempting to wrap up our ten-year relationship with some semblance of dignity.

"Call me if you need anything. We're still friends even if I couldn't commit to you."

I had loved Dominic for ten years, only to be casually dismissed as a friend.

…

That torrential rain continued for two full days. Westbrook was drenched in the downpour, leaving everything feeling cold and clammy.

I couldn't sleep and repeatedly got up in the middle of the night to click my lighter.

The year I got together with Dominic, he was just a broke troublemaker who couldn't pay rent and lived in a half-basement apartment.

Only the flame from the lighter provided illumination in the humid air. The small blaze ignited, then died, over and over.

Back then, the buzz-cut Dominic stared at me in my school uniform as he said, "Think carefully, Violet. A guy like me won't amount to much. I can't give you the future you want."

I was painfully innocent back then. I took off my rain-soaked sneakers and pushed my cold feet onto his chest. Dominic's body heat was like a torch through his thin tank top, gradually igniting my body.

With nothing but that tiny lighter flame illuminating us, I stubbornly nodded as I told him, "Dominic, I don't give a damn about my future. I only want you."

Dominic and I had lived on the edge together. During nights permeated with the smell of bandages and antiseptic, we'd do it repeatedly by pushing ourselves to the edge of consciousness before coming back.

Dominic once said that if he were to go clean and finally leave the underworld behind, the first thing he would do was marry me. Yet now that he was going straight, his first priority was cutting ties with me.

At 28 years old, I truly wasn't young anymore. I couldn't keep living recklessly. My family had even set me up with someone, and they were just waiting for me to make it official.