Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When I emerged from the restroom, the party was nearly over. Dylan took my hand and said goodbye to everyone. It was another autumn day—strikingly similar to the day we first met. But I knew he didn’t remember that day. All he remembered was Luna Parker.

Yet this was the life I’d chosen.

I still recalled the first time I’d met Luna Parker—at a sanatorium. My mother’s health was poor, relying on medication to stay alive, so I often spent entire days sitting on a bench in the courtyard: looking up at the sky, down at the grass. Surrounded by greenery, I never felt bored.

Then she’d walked into my line of sight—playful, lively, and light, like a fairy who’d fallen to earth.

"Wow! We look so much alike!" she’d exclaimed, her eyes wide like a Barbie doll. I smiled shyly, thinking: We don’t look alike at all. How could I compare to her? Even just standing there, doing nothing, she was the center of attention.

She told me she wasn’t feeling well and needed to rest there. She said she envied my good health.

"Look—my husband’s here to pick me up! I’ll be going now," she’d said.

Following her outstretched finger, I saw the man I’d been longing for day and night. Panicked, I lowered my head, turned around, and ran away. Behind me, I heard his steady voice and the sound of footsteps following. So the world really was that small—and people you knew really could cross paths again.

After that, I avoided Luna Parker. Even if we ran into each other at the sanatorium, I’d dart away. I envied her, resented her. I knew she was a kind girl, and my avoidance was irrational, but I couldn’t help it—I was in love with her husband, and that was unethical. I couldn’t hurt an innocent girl, so this was the only way.

Until one day, when Luna Parker told me she had late-stage pancreatic cancer. That she was going to die soon.