Chapter 2

The second Mom and Sierra walked out the door, Aunt Clara made an excuse about needing to remodel the spare bedroom and told me to pack my bags for boarding school immediately.

Back when Mom was working as a live-in manager at the Vance estate, she had placed us with Aunt Clara, wiring her a monthly allowance for our room and board.

In the previous life, after I went with Mom to the Vance estate, Mom had increased that allowance so Aunt Clara would take extra good care of Sierra.

Sierra had lived comfortably under Aunt Clara's roof.

Now, though, it was painfully clear: Mom had completely cut off the financial support the moment she left me behind.

I didn't bother arguing. I packed my belongings and walked out the door.

Before heading to school, I had somewhere else to be.

Leaving Aunt Clara's house, I stopped by the local bank.

Every year on my birthday, Dad had quietly deposited a small sum into a private account.

Only the two of us ever knew about it.

I withdrew the cash, hopped on an intercity commuter train, and headed toward a secluded cemetery on the edge of the neighboring city.

A torrential downpour battered the ground that day. Bundled tightly in a plastic raincoat, I hid behind a sprawling oak tree and waited.

Just as the sky began to bruise into darkness, a sixteen-year-old Julian Vance came sprinting through the rain.

A squad of bodyguards in black suits scrambled after him, out of breath.

Julian was drenched to the bone. His sharp, dark eyes were frigid, but his stride was frantic and unyielding.

He threw himself down before a headstone, tearing wildly at the muddy weeds with his bare hands.

"Julian, with rain this heavy, it's definitely been washed away! Let's come back when the storm clears!"

Julian acted as if he couldn't hear a word.

He searched until every last drop of his energy was drained, his posture collapsing into pure, hollow despair. That was when I stepped out from behind the oak tree.

"Excuse me... are you looking for this?"

I pulled a silver pendant necklace from inside my coat.

Julian's eyes snapped wide, and he rushed over in three long strides.

Seeing him shivering and soaked through, I lifted my umbrella higher, tilting it over his head to shield him from the pouring rain.

Julian reached out with trembling fingers, taking the necklace. The cold tension in his brow instantly melted away.

"How... how did you get this?"

In our past life, after Julian and I got together, he once confessed that his greatest regret in life was losing the custom necklace he and his late mother had made together, back during the summer he turned sixteen.

So, I had come to this cemetery.

To heal his deepest regret, and to meet him all over again.

I hunched my shoulders slightly, giving him a shy smile.

"The runoff washed it down the pathway earlier, so I picked it up. Then I saw you frantically digging through the mud, so I figured it belonged to you."

"Thank you. This necklace means everything to me. What kind of reward do you want?"

Julian voiced his gratitude, but his tone was still coated in the icy detachment of an elite heir keeping the world at arm's length.

I shivered visibly, my teeth chattering. "Could you... buy me a hot bowl of instant ramen? I'm freezing, and I'm starving."

Julian blinked, utterly stunned, before he suddenly burst into laughter.

"Deal!"

Half an hour later, at my stubborn insistence, Julian Vance sat beside me in a cramped convenience store, eating the very first cup of instant ramen of his entire sheltered life.

"I had no idea instant ramen tasted this good."

Back in our past life, whenever we hung out alone, cup noodles were always his guilty pleasure.

After finishing, Julian asked for my contact info, insisting he wanted to properly thank me later.

I flashed him a bright smile and shook my head.

"If it's meant to be, our paths will cross again."

The second I turned my back to walk out the door, my eyes burned, and tears spilled down my cheeks.

I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around him, bury my face in his chest, and spill every single secret of our past life.

I wanted to scream that I had missed him so much I was losing my mind.

But if I did, he would just think I was insane.

I didn't exchange contact info with him because I knew his entire high school schedule like the back of my hand.

We would meet again.

And Julian would believe it was purely destiny—not a calculated setup.