Chapter 1

Back in middle school, I liked a woman in my class. Her name was Alana Jeffers, and she lived in the same village I did. Our village was called Stonebrook. Back then, if we wanted to go to school, we had to walk down the mountain to the town below. I had always been the quiet type. I hated talking to women. My heart raced, and my face burned red every time I tried. So even though Alana and I walked the same path to school for years, I never had a real conversation with her. If I ran into her on the road, I pretended I didn't see her and sped up like a coward. I was too nervous to even say hello. I liked her from the bottom of my heart, but that feeling stayed locked up in a dark corner I never opened. In school, I was the kind of person nobody noticed. My grades were bad, my looks were ordinary, and I barely had any friends. But Alana was the opposite. She was pretty, smart, and always near the top of the class. We were like two parallel lines that never met. Although we stayed in the same village, we were from different worlds. I thought that crush would fade after graduation. I thought it would turn into a quiet memory and disappear. I was wrong. On the day of our graduation party, everything in my life shifted because of her. Back then, graduation parties weren't held in restaurants like they were now. We just decorated the classroom a little and pooled some money to buy fruits, snacks, and a few beers. It counted as our last gathering at school. After two bottles of beer, my head was spinning, and somehow I got braver. I didn't know what got into me, but I actually wanted to confess my feelings to Alana while I was still drunk, thinking maybe she liked me too. I remember she looked especially beautiful that day. Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and she was wearing a fitted white T-shirt. The faint curve of her figure under the fabric was impossibly captivating. Fueled by liquid courage, I walked over to her and called her name. "Alana." It was the first time I had ever called her name to her face like that. She turned with a confused expression and asked, "Luca, what is it?" The truth was that even with alcohol in my system, I was still a complete coward. I was extremely nervous, especially when she turned and looked straight at me. My mind went blank, and I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Forget confessing; I couldn't even speak properly. In my panic, I blurted out the first excuse that came to mind. "Oh… N-Nothing, really. It's just my granduncle's birthday this Saturday, so could you tell your dad to come a bit earlier to help out?" She didn't find anything strange about my request. She just agreed to it. My face burned like it was on fire. I turned around and bolted back to my seat. Sweat soaked my back, and my heart was pounding all the way up to my throat. Back then, I felt like the biggest loser alive. I couldn't even talk to her properly, so what made me think I could confess my love? While I was still drowning in regret over my pathetic display, a lazy, swaggering voice suddenly rang out from not far away. "Alana, be my girlfriend!" The one who had spoken was Freddy Ford. He was from our village too, and he was also the boss of our class. Since he knew a lot of street punks, his word carried a lot of weight in our grade. Although Freddy and I were the same age and from the same village, we never hung out growing up. I was terrified of him. Every time I saw him, I would take a detour to avoid him. He had extorted my pocket money more than once. I never expected he liked Alana too and had the guts to confess to her openly after drinking. The whole class started cheering, especially his little gang. They whistled, shouted dirty jokes, told Alana to accept him, and some even yelled for them to kiss. Alana looked startled and froze in her seat. Panic was written all over her face. Under everyone's goading, Freddy ignored her resistance and actually lunged forward to grab her face and kiss her. I saw her struggling, but it was useless. Even with so many classmates around, not a single person stepped up to stop his ridiculous behavior. At that moment, a surge of anger shot straight to my head. I didn't even know where the courage had come from. Before I realized it, I had already charged forward and shouted at him. "Freddy, stop!" The noisy classroom instantly fell silent. Dozens of eyes were suddenly glued on me. Freddy turned his head toward me. His expression was a mixture of surprise and viciousness. "Luca, what did you say?" "I-I said you shouldn't do that." "You're lecturing me? The hell with you…" He didn't let me finish. He just slapped me hard across the face. Normally, even if Freddy hit me, I wouldn't dare say a word. However, something in me snapped that day. Maybe it was anger, humiliation, or even stupidity, but I actually kicked him back. What followed was, of course, a full-on beating by Freddy and his gang. I couldn't tell how many people were hitting me. Fists were landing everywhere, like rain. While Freddy was kicking me, he kept cursing, calling me a useless piece of trash who stuck his nose where it didn't belong. He swore that once we left school, he would get his guys from the streets to cripple me. In the chaos, I didn't know whose desk I had reached toward, but I somehow grabbed a compass—the sharp metal kind. My mind went blank. It felt like my body was moving on instinct. I swung my hand forward. A scream tore through the room. Something warm splattered on my hand. I froze, and when I looked down, terror flooded through me. The compass had pierced straight into Freddy's eye. That afternoon, the police took me away. Later, medical assessments confirmed that I had completely ruptured Freddy's left eyeball, leaving him with a level-seven permanent disability. Back then, my family was considered quite well-off in the village. My parents were hardworking. Dad had been running small construction jobs outside, which helped us save a decent amount of money. However, to settle the incident, not only did my family pay all of Freddy's medical bills, but they also gave the Ford family a huge compensation, almost wiping out everything we had. Even so, I was still sentenced to three years in prison for intentional injury. After I was locked up, my parents visited me regularly. Every time they came, I could see they looked older than the last time. Looking at them tore me up inside. I felt as though knives were carving into me from within. And from beginning to end, not once did Alana visit me. She didn't even show up at my court hearing. I couldn't even describe what I was feeling. There was disappointment and even resentment, because no matter how I looked at it, I had ended up in this mess because of her. I asked my parents about her a few times, but whenever her name came up, Dad's face would darken with anger, and the conversation would end. In my second year in prison, my mother passed away from stomach cancer. She had always had stomach issues. With proper care, it wouldn't have turned into anything serious. However, after what happened to me, she lost her appetite completely. She stopped eating, her condition deteriorated, and the illness spiraled into cancer. Dad said her final days were agonizing. She starved to death. When she died, she weighed less than 60 pounds. Her mind was already slipping, but even in her final moments, she kept whispering my name. She was buried in Greenridge, on our family's tiny piece of land. It was a spot she had chosen herself. She said if she rested there, she would be able to see the road I would come home on. That night, I curled up in the corner of the cell and cried until morning. I had never hated myself so much in my entire life. If I hadn't acted impulsively or interfered, would she still be alive? Would my family still be whole? A year later, I completed my sentence. The day I walked out, Dad came to pick me up. He looked even older. His back was bent like a bow. On the motorcycle ride back to the village, he stayed quiet for a long time. Then, suddenly, he spoke. "Alana is getting married." I froze for a second, unable to process what he had just said. "She's marrying Freddy," Dad said softly. "It's the same Freddy you blinded."