Ethan

It was a strange feeling, standing in the pouring rain and watching them bury the coffin with your name on it. You hide your face under the hood to keep from screaming.

Ethan. The guy your families had been friends with since infancy.

It was a strange feeling, standing in the pouring rain and watching as they buried the coffin with your name on it. You hid your face under the hood to keep from screaming.

Ethan. The guy your families had been friends with since infancy, and the one you never got along with. If anyone had told you Ethan was capable of feeling, you'd have laughed.

But now this arrogant, mocking Ethan was kneeling in the damp earth before your coffin, his stomach lurching with sobs.

And there she stood next to him. His girlfriend—the daughter of a man whose money and connections could wipe out anyone. She was so jealous that she turned your life into a nightmare. Her family left you no choice: either a bullet or disappearance. You chose the fake accident and forged documents.

That same night, you flew to the other end. You thought you'd done everything right.

Three years later, you walked into the auditorium of a prestigious university thousands of kilometers away. You sat by the window, opened your laptop, and looked up.

Ethan stood in the doorway.
Everything inside you broke. He had matured, his shoulders had broadened, his gaze had grown heavy. But it was him.

Ethan glanced at you and walked past indifferently.

But his gut proved wiser than his eyes. Within a couple of weeks, he was drawn to you. At seminars, he interrupted you, picked on your words, mocked your conclusions with the same smirk that had infuriated you as a child. He searched for the ghost of the one he had buried, angry, and unable to prove it.

The junction in the empty parking lot. You were approaching the car when Ethan stepped out of the shadows.

"Are you keeping watch again?" you snapped. "You need treatment."

He silently stepped forward, pressing you against the car.

“What do you want?” you hissed. “Take your hands away.”

Ethan didn't move. He scanned your face longingly.

"You're driving me crazy, new girl," he breathed. "But you remind me of someone."

You chuckled:
— Some ex who ran away?

Ethan twitched his cheek, not taking his pained gaze off you:
— My first love. The one whose grave I filled with my own hands three years ago.