Chapter 2

That night, I pulled an empty carton from my closet and began gathering the things Lorenzo had given me over the years.

Books, records, small charms from family trips, and the music box he had bought after my first eye surgery all went into a large carton. I packed each item carefully, then placed the birthday present I had prepared for him on top.

The next morning, I took the box to the Valenti estate.

Lorenzo’s mother, Aunt Victoria, opened the door.

“Serena, come in.” She took my hand and guided me through the foyer. “The sun is so strong today. Why did you come alone? You should have let us send a driver.”

“I wore my sunglasses.” I smiled. “And I know the way.”

Lorenzo called down from upstairs but did not come out.

“That boy has been shut in his room all morning,” Aunt Victoria complained. She glanced at the box in my arms. “Is all that for him?”

“Some of it is.”

She smiled as though she understood. “Go on upstairs. Tell the kitchen if you want anything.”

I carried the box to Lorenzo’s room and knocked.

Game sounds and several voices came from inside. Lorenzo wore a headset and stared intently at the screen. When he noticed me, he immediately removed one side of the headset.

His gaze dropped to the wrapped record on top of the box.

“You brought my birthday present already?” he asked. “It isn’t for a while. I could have come to your house for it.”

I did not explain that everything beneath it had once belonged to me.

Lorenzo took the box and placed it beside his shelves. He lifted the wrapped record from the top but did not open it.

Instead, he glanced toward the window, frowned, and crossed the room to pull the curtain closed.

“Sit over here.”

He adjusted the reclining chair until it rested at the angle I preferred, then took a bottle of chilled peach tea from the small refrigerator beside his desk.

He twisted the cap loose before putting it into my hand.

Only then did he return to his computer.

Bianca’s voice came through the headset almost immediately.

“Lorenzo, get back here. The minute you left, our entire team started losing.”

Lorenzo laughed. “I thought you said you could win without me.”

“Apparently, I was wrong,” Bianca admitted without embarrassment.

There was no deliberate intimacy in her voice. That almost made it worse. The rhythm between them was effortless, as though they had spent years speaking this way.

The game ended soon afterward, but their conversation continued. Maps and financial projections replaced the game on Lorenzo’s screen. They began discussing a youth foundation event, a Romano casino property, and a joint proposal involving both families.

I recognized some of the names, but the project itself was unfamiliar to me. It was a part of Lorenzo’s life he had never thought to share with me.

After several minutes, he looked over and seemed surprised to find me still sitting there.

“You really are trouble,” he muttered under his breath.

The words stung before he had even finished standing.

But Lorenzo removed his headset, came over, and took the tablet from the table beside me. He lowered the brightness, enlarged the text, and opened the latest novel by one of my favorite authors.

“I bought the digital edition because the printed version is too small for you,” he said, placing the tablet in my hands. “Give me twenty minutes. Then we’ll get lunch.”

He returned to his desk and put the headset back on. Soon, he was laughing with Bianca again.

I looked at the box near his shelves. He had not seen the gifts beneath the record. He did not know I had returned every piece of our past I could pack away.

Perhaps it was better that way.

I had not come to announce my departure and wait for him to persuade me to stay. I had only come to give back what no longer belonged in my future.

“I’m going home,” I said.

I thought he had not heard me.

But when I reached the door, his voice came from behind me.

“Serena.”

I stopped.

“You’re still planning to attend Westbridge, right?”

Westbridge was the university we had chosen together years ago. Until yesterday, I had never seriously considered going anywhere else.

Before I could answer, Lorenzo continued.

“My father finalized the apartment near campus. It’s close to the main buildings, so you won’t have to cross the whole campus after dark.”

He spoke as though everything had already been decided.

“I had the designer copy the layout of your bedroom at home. The switches and furniture will be in the same places, and your room faces away from the afternoon sun.” He paused. “So don’t apply for a dorm. You’ll stay with me.”

For one painful second, I imagined that apartment.

Two bedrooms. Familiar furniture. Lorenzo checking the lights before I entered a room. The two of us living together exactly as we had promised when we were children.

Then I remembered the way he had asked whether I needed to stand beside him for everything.

“I’m applying to Lakeview,” I said.

A sudden cry burst through his headset.

“Lorenzo!” Bianca exclaimed. “Look at the numbers they just sent. Something’s wrong with the casino proposal.”

He turned back to the screen immediately.

“What did they change?”

Bianca began explaining. Lorenzo leaned closer to the monitor, his full attention already absorbed by her words.

A few minutes later, he looked at me again.

“What did you say?”

I tightened my fingers around the handle of my cane.

“Nothing.”

I left his room and went downstairs.

As I sat by the entryway putting on my shoes, I heard someone upstairs ask Lorenzo about Westbridge.

“Westbridge?” Lorenzo gave a quiet sigh. “I wouldn’t choose it for myself. The weather is miserable.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Serena has wanted to go there for years.” Irritation crept into his voice. “If I choose somewhere else, both families will act as though I abandoned her. So I don’t have much choice, do I?”

Someone laughed. “Bianca applied there too. Maybe it won’t be such a sacrifice after all.”

More laughter followed.

Lorenzo did not answer.

My hand stilled against the edge of the shoe cabinet.

He had already bought an apartment and prepared a room for me. Yet when I was not there, he spoke as though attending the same university was another obligation forced upon him.

That was what made his kindness so painful.

He did everything a person in love might do, then described those same actions as duties he had never wanted.

The front door opened, and Aunt Victoria entered with several shopping bags.

“Serena, are you leaving already?” She handed the bags to a member of the household staff. “Stay for lunch. The kitchen made that lemon chicken you like, and we’re having a small family meal for Lorenzo before his birthday. Your father is coming too.”

I forced a smile. “No, thank you. I should go home and study.”

She did not insist. Instead, she called upstairs, “Lorenzo! Serena is leaving. The least you can do is come down and see her out.”

No answer came.

His conversation upstairs continued without pause.

I left the estate alone. Sunlight fell over me, warm enough to burn. I put on my sunglasses and followed the familiar route toward the gate.

The promise of Westbridge had once made both of us happy.

Somewhere along the way, it had become a chain Lorenzo believed he had to wear because of me.

I would not keep holding the other end.

Not long afterward, Lorenzo sent me a message on the night before an important exam.

I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.

I stared at the screen for a moment before replying.

You don’t have to. The family driver will take me.

The next morning, the driver dropped me at the academy. I declined the security officer’s offer to accompany me and crossed the campus alone.

It was the first important moment of my life that I faced without Lorenzo beside me.

Using the accessible map I had downloaded in advance, I found my exam room.

I had just turned toward the door when someone slammed into me from behind.

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