Chapter 2

2

My relationship with Logan was never about romance.

In high school, we attended classes by day and skipped evening study sessions to hand out flyers, earning just enough for the next day's meals.

Once the flyers were gone, we huddled together in the hospital hallway outside his mother's ward, doing our homework under the dim fluorescent lights.

I was great at literature but struggled with math, while he was the exact opposite.

To keep from waking the patients, we wrote everything down on scrap paper.

Over three years of high school, we filled five whole notebooks, and we ended up with the exact same SAT score.

On the day scores came out, his mother was too weak to eat.

As I fed her soup, she held my hand, her eyes welling with tears.

"Janie, if you and Logan don't get into the same college, will you still come see me?"

"Even if you fall for another boy later, it doesn't matter. Just come back and be my daughter, okay?"

"Janie, I really can't bear to lose you."

Logan walked in carrying fresh laundry, looking utterly helpless as he saw us crying together.

"At worst, we'll do long distance. We're getting married the second we graduate anyway."

"We're spending our entire lives together, no matter what."

Later in college, I moved out of the orphanage system, and his mother was discharged to recover at home.

Logan felt too ashamed to take any more handouts from neighbors, so he and I applied for student loans together.

College gave us more time to work part-time jobs.

I took two jobs, and he took three.

Because we were in different departments, our only time together was the late-night walk back to the dorms, leaning against each other and dreaming about the future.

We made a promise to compete for the fully funded study abroad exchange program in our junior year.

We planned to spend our senior year in Europe, and get married right after graduation.

To secure that hopeful future, we studied relentlessly, worked constantly, and saved every penny.

Yet right when we had saved enough for the trip, fate played a cruel joke on us.

Logan's mother took a turn for the worse and ended up in the ICU.

Every cent we had saved went straight into her medical bills, and we borrowed heavily from anyone willing to lend, yet it still wasn't enough.

Her condition was unstable, so Logan had to keep watch outside the ICU day and night, unable to leave.

I skipped every single class, working around the clock and sleeping barely three hours a night, sending every dollar I made directly to him.

During that time, neither of us had the energy to talk about the future.

Our chat history consisted only of critical condition notices from the hospital and my daily bank transfers.

The future felt impossibly distant when just surviving the present was draining the life out of us.

Thankfully, his mother finally stabilized right before the exchange program roster was finalized.

The suffocating tension that had gripped us for six months suddenly vanished.

Logan rushed back from the hospital, I quit two of my side jobs, and we crammed like madmen to sit for the qualifying exams together.

When the results were posted, our test scores were once again identical.

However, having missed an entire semester of classes, our attendance scores were both zero.

Logan appealed on the grounds of caring for his sick mother, but I had no ground to stand on.

All the professors and deans knew I had skipped class simply to earn cash.

Filial piety triumphed over perceived greed, and I was disqualified.

The spot was handed to the third-place student.

Logan was so furious that he stormed into the dean's office, trying to prove that all my work had been done to save his mother.

Yet the roster was already locked, and nothing could be changed.

Clenching his fists, Logan declared that if I couldn't go, he wouldn't go either.

But that exchange was his lifelong dream.

He wanted to study international business so he could launch a startup back home and give his mother and me a comfortable life.

Fighting back my tears, I grabbed his collar and warned him that if he dared to stay, I would break up with him on the spot.

He broke down in tears, holding me tightly as he swore an oath.

"Janie, wait for me. I swear I will come back successful, marry you, and build you a real home."

"If I ever betray you, may I die a gruesome death!"

Hearing this, Nina was already sobbing uncontrollably into her tissues.

"That's heartbreaking. That is just too cruel."

"But why didn't you get married in the end? Did something happen to him abroad?"

I shook my head with calm detachment.

"He fell in love with another girl."

Nina's sobs cut off instantly.

She wiped her tears and balled her fists in pure rage.

"Then he should have just dropped dead over there!"

I suppose the universe is simply unfair.

Every time I thought I was finally getting a family, life threw another wall in front of me.

On the day the exchange roster was posted, the third-place student was cheering loudly in front of the bulletin board.

When she turned around, our eyes met.

"Janie!"

"Sheila?"

Before I could process what was happening, Sheila leaped forward to hug me.

She accidentally knocked over the thermos of hot cocoa Logan had brewed to console me.

Just like that, the only two exchange students from our university crossed paths.