Chapter 2Late-Blooming Love Is Too Late

I didn't snap out of my daze until the smell of burning food drifted from the kitchen.

A light rain had begun to fall outside.

I walked to the window and looked down, just in time to see Paul carefully shielding Sophia from the rain as he helped her into his car.

He treated her as if she were the most precious, fragile thing in the world.

The sight made me dizzy.

It seemed like only yesterday that he spoke of her with nothing but contempt.

Sophia had been Paul's protégé at the firm.

She had chased him for eight long years.

Even back in college, she was bold, declaring her love for him in any setting, regardless of who was around. She would wait for him outside his dorm every morning with breakfast. He never took it, but she was always there, a persistent annoyance he couldn't shake.

When he played basketball, her cheers were louder than mine, completely ignoring the stares of everyone around us.

People used to mock her for throwing herself at him only to be rejected.

She would just laugh it off, her voice ringing with conviction. "I love him. There's nothing shameful about that."

Her brazen attitude completely disregarded my existence as his actual girlfriend.

Back then, Paul would wrap his arm around my waist and sneer at her, "You have no shame."

That was the first time I ever saw Sophia cry.

Her eyes were red, but she forced a defiant smile as tears streamed down her face. The wind tousled her hair, giving her a look of broken beauty.

I remember Paul's fingers tightening on my waist.

At the time, I just thought he felt a flicker of guilt for making a young woman cry.

But looking back now, perhaps that was the moment his heart began to soften for her, a seed of pity and affection taking root.

I clutched my chest, a sharp pain radiating from its very core.

I couldn't understand how, in just a few short months, they could have become so close.

Could it really be true?

Could this world really be just a novel?

My gaze fell upon the book, still lying discarded on the floor.

I picked it up and started from the beginning, searching for clues.

The early parts of the story were indeed a perfect match to our shared history.

But it was the chapter detailing the shift in their relationship that made my blood run cold.

According to the book, on Sophia's 23rd birthday, she sent Paul a message.

She asked him to meet her at a hotel, her words brutally direct, a plea dripping with desperate hope.

[This is the fifth year I've been in love with you. I just want one dream to come true. Please, I'm begging you.]

Two hours later, Paul replied with a single word: [Okay.]

My entire body began to shake.

I remembered that day all too well. It was the day I was rear-ended in a car accident. The day I had a miscarriage and was rushed to the hospital.

I had called Paul over and over, but my calls went unanswered.

He showed up later, his eyes red with feigned remorse, explaining that he would spend the rest of his life making it up to me, healing the damage done to my body.

I never imagined the reason he didn't answer my calls was because he was keeping an appointment with her.

And his promises to be "better" weren't born of love; they were a hollow penance for his guilt.

By the time I reached the end of the book, I was sobbing, tears blurring the words on the page.

The immense grief was like a thousand arrows piercing my heart.

I don't know how long I cried before I finally fell into a restless, exhausted sleep.