Chapter 2

2、

I acted as if I hadn't heard her. I just stared quietly at the scenery outside the window.

Seeing my silence, Bianca decided to ignore me too.

She focused all her attention on chatting with Zale, her voice getting louder by the second.

Zale leaned his head on her shoulder, wearing a sweet, triumphant smile.

"Bianca, do you remember the first time we met? You said you'd stay by my side forever."

Bianca smiled back.

"Of course I remember. That was my promise to your sister, and it's my promise to you."

The word "promise" hit me like a physical blow. I remembered her promises to me.

She told me she would love me for the rest of her life and would never let me suffer.

But in the last year, the person who had caused me the most pain was her.

Zale was the younger brother of Bianca's late comrade-in-arms.

The very first night she brought him home, he soaked his own bed with water and blamed me for it.

He told her I didn't want him there and was trying to drive him out.

I thought Bianca would see through such a pathetic trick instantly.

But I was wrong. She believed every word he said.

To punish me, she locked me out of the house and made me sit on the porch all night.

That was only the beginning.

Zale drove a wedge between us over and over again.

My faith in our relationship, which I thought was rock solid, crumbled every time Bianca chose him over me.

It turns out a promise is just a bunch of empty words.

And "forever" is actually a very short period of time.

I let out a soft, bitter laugh.

It was fine. In five days, I would be gone.

Long before the wedding, I had heard that the country needed volunteers for the remote mountain schools.

I was interested back then.

But I still had a tiny spark of hope for Bianca, so I hadn't applied.

Today, I finally woke up. I was done with her.

My world shouldn't revolve around a woman who didn't respect me.

I shouldn't let myself be trapped in this toxic cycle of petty drama.

I needed to do something meaningful, to carve out a new life for myself.

Thinking about the mountains, I actually felt a surge of excitement.

Even the gloom in my chest started to lift.

Zale, seeing that I wasn't reacting to them, suddenly spoke up.

"Kieran, you've been sitting there a while. You must be thirsty. I'll have Bianca get you some water!"

He looked at her with a pout.

"Bianca, could you be a sweetheart and get Kieran a cup of water?"

Bianca glanced at me, then walked away without saying a word.

When she came back, she held a plastic cup.

I looked at the water she held out and said softly, "No thanks."

Her face darkened immediately at my refusal.

"Kieran, don't be such an ungrateful prick!"

I scoffed. "I'm ungrateful?"

"What, are you going to force me to drink it if I'm not thirsty?"

In front of all the other patients, Bianca dumped the water straight onto my shirt.

"You're impossible to deal with!"

"Kieran, if you were even half as sweet as Zale, I wouldn't hate coming home so much."

A week before the wedding, because I didn't want Zale as my best man, Bianca moved into the barracks in a huff.

Because of that, we never actually went to the courthouse to sign the final papers.

Technically, we had a pending application, but we weren't legally married.

I had been crying about that just yesterday.

Now, I realized it was the biggest blessing of my life.