Chapter 3 I Was Never His Exception

After washing up, I lay down in bed when a message from Zavier came through.

The first thing he asked was, "Have you submitted your university application? You chose Alridge University, right?"

Zavier had dreamed of going to Cuenton City for as long as I could remember. He had even declared that he would attend no university other than Quixen University. However, just a month before the exam, he had suddenly changed his mind, insisting that he would never leave home and listing the local Alridge University as his first choice.

At the time, I could not help asking him why.

He hesitated for a long while before finally giving me an answer. "That's because Cynthia's scores were too low on her last few mock exams. She has a better chance of getting accepted if she applies to a local university."

At that moment, I could hardly believe what I was hearing. "Did you actually give up on your own dream just so you could attend the same university as her?"

Zavier sounded completely unconcerned as he replied, "It's just a university. How could that possibly be more important than Cynthia?"

Hearing his words, I suddenly felt like laughing.

Back when I first learned that Zavier's dream school was Quixen University, I had been so anxious that I could barely eat or sleep for days. At the time, my grades were only good enough to get me into an average university. A prestigious school like Quixen University was something I would not even have dared dream of.

However, because I wanted to keep being Zavier's classmate, I forced myself to study with everything I had. Day and night, I worked through practice questions and memorized vocabulary. When the results came out, and I saw my grades on the screen, I cried from sheer joy.

Yet for the sake of continuing to take care of Cynthia, he had abandoned his dream without a second thought. At the same time, he had abandoned his promise to me just as easily.

Suppressing the bitterness in my heart, I asked him another question. "In that case, why did you insist that I apply to Alridge University with you?"

Before he answered, countless possibilities ran through my mind. I thought he could not bear to be separated from me, or maybe he was worried about me going somewhere far away alone.

While I was in thought, Zavier suddenly gave a meaningful chuckle. Then, he replied, "Flowers have always needed leaves to make them look more beautiful. Cynthia is the flower, and you're the leaf. Without you beside her to make her stand out, wouldn't Cynthia lose some of her brilliance?"

His words struck my heart like a sledgehammer. The pain was so sharp that I could not stop myself from trembling.

The idea that I was merely a leaf meant to accentuate the beautiful flower had been the nightmare haunting me since the day I was born. Everyone around me, including my own family, had used that same reasoning to belittle me while praising Cynthia.

Only Zavier had ever told me, "You are who you are. No matter how ordinary you may be, you'll always be different in my eyes."

I had believed him. Naively, I had thought I would always be the one exception in his heart—until he met Cynthia.

From that moment on, the gentle gaze that had once followed me everywhere never left her again.

I closed my eyes and forced down the bitterness rising inside me.

"If there's nothing else, I'm going to sleep." Without waiting for his response, I hung up.

I was about to turn off the light when I looked up and saw Cynthia standing in the doorway with a glass of milk.

"Yesenia, can I come in?"

I nodded.

Then, she walked over and handed me the milk.

"Oh, right. We're taking a family portrait tomorrow. Make sure you don't oversleep again!" With that, she winked playfully at me, then got up and left.

At first, I wanted to tell her I was not going. But when the words reached my lips, I swallowed them back.

When we were little, Cynthia had been frail and sickly. In order to devote more of their time and energy to caring for her, Mom and Dad had sent me to live with Grandma in the countryside. They were always too busy to visit me, but during holidays, they would mail me a family portrait.

In every photo, Cynthia stood in the center, surrounded by Mom, Dad, and Gordon, smiling blissfully.

While I envied her, taking a family portrait together with them gradually became something I desperately longed for. After I eventually moved back home, I should have had countless opportunities to fulfill that wish.

Strangely, however, every time the day of the family portrait arrived, I, someone who had always kept a regular sleep schedule, would somehow oversleep. No matter how loudly Mom and Dad pounded on my bedroom door, I would not react at all.

After it happened several times, they completely lost patience and stopped waiting for me.

Even though I had now made up my mind to leave, I still did not want to leave behind any regrets.

To make sure I would not miss it this time, I set three alarms and turned their volumes all the way up. Although I normally went to bed at ten, that night I turned off the lights and closed my eyes before nine.

I never expected history to repeat itself.