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The sun was already dipping low, casting long, golden streaks across the Brighton Wisdom Garden. It was a place of quiet, old beauty—stone benches mossy with age and towering green willows whose leaves rustled like secrets.
At 4 PM, the air still held the day's warmth, but shadows were beginning to stretch, mirroring the tension between the two teenagers seated on a cool, carved stone bench.
Selina, dressed in a soft, white cotton dress perfect for the late afternoon, was hunched over her phone, scrolling through impossibly glamorous cocktail dresses. She was preparing for Raina's 18th birthday party tomorrow night, a massive event that everyone would talk about for weeks.
Next to her, Han, handsome and quiet, leaned back, his simple dark t-shirt making him look like a shadow against the bright background. Without looking, he reached out and gently twirled a single strand of Selina's long, dark hair around his finger.
Selina's breath hitched. That simple touch, that gentle, almost casual gesture, sent a dizzying swarm of butterflies through her stomach. She was completely smitten with her fiancé, Han, even if their relationship sometimes felt complicated and too mature for their age.
"Okay, you have to be honest," Selina said, putting her phone down and turning her bright, hopeful face toward him. "I sent you the link for your suit. It's midnight blue velvet. Do you like it?"
The moment she mentioned Raina's name, the casual ease in Han's posture evaporated. His jaw tightened, and his face hardened like cold marble. He nodded slowly, his eyes distant.
"It's fine," he murmured, dropping her hair. "But I won't be going to her party."
Selina gasped, the shock pulling her lips apart. "What? Han, are you serious? Raina is your bestie. Since you were little kids, you've been inseparable. What is going on?"
He turned away completely, his profile cold. "Don't ask me anything about it, Selina. Just drop it."
A wave of hurt and disappointment washed over her. "First, Ronnie ghosts us, forgets our entire friendship, and now you're doing the same thing?" She paused, gathering her thoughts."What even happened to Ronnie? "
Han's head snapped back. His expression was genuinely confused. "What happened to Ronnie?"
"Oh, you don't know?" Selina scoffed, feeling frustrated. "Because of that girl, Lara, he totally broke things off with Raina. He won't even look at her in the halls. It's pathetic."
Han looked disturbed, but he stayed silent.
Selina's voice softened, becoming fiercely persuasive. "Please, Han. You have to come with me tomorrow. Of course, you do. I'm your fiancé. Do you want me to walk in alone?"
She dropped her gaze, and her voice became thin with deep, aching emotion. "Last year… last year we were all together. Raina, Ronnie, Jake, you, me. Look at us now. Everything is broken. Everything has changed. We're separated." She lifted her eyes, worry shining in their depths.
Han looked at her, saw her distress, and frowned. He felt a stab of worry for her, but the unspoken reason for his avoidance of Raina's party kept his lips sealed. He only managed a low, non-committal sound.
The Restless Boyfriend
Meanwhile, in a bustling, pastel-colored café downtown, the air was thick with the sweet aroma of cocoa and frosting.
Lara and Ronnie were sharing a towering red velvet dessert. Ronnie, usually charismatic and loud, was distracted, his gaze continually flicking down to his smartphone, checking for a message that never appeared. He was agitated, a whirlwind of nervous energy hidden beneath a forced smile.
Lara, delicate and observant, noticed immediately. She grabbed his forearm gently.
Ronnie jumped, instantly plastering a wide, fake smile on his face. "What, babe? What do you need? More cake? A donut? Tell me."
"Nothing," she said softly, her concerned look replacing her smile. She knew him too well. "What is happening with you? You look so upset."
Ronnie chuckled nervously and touched her hair. "I'm fine, seriously. I'm just waiting for a message."
"From Raina, right?" Lara asked. Her voice held no malice, only genuine care.
Ronnie's forced smile instantly disappeared. He nodded and dropped his head, staring at the crumbs on the table.
"I know tomorrow is her birthday," Lara continued quietly. "Did she not invite you yet?"
Ronnie gave a hollow little laugh. "She hasn't. She's avoiding me. Purposely." His eyes, normally playful, were worried and tight.
"Is something wrong between you guys? Did you fight?" Lara pressed.
Ronnie froze. He couldn't tell Lara the truth—that he fought with Raina, his childhood friend, because Raina had warned him away from Lara. If Lara knew the real reason for their split, he thought, she wouldn't be his girlfriend anymore.Because he was the one of reason for her accident, It was a heavy, terrifying secret he carried for the sake of their fragile, new love.
"What are you thinking about?" Lara asked, pulling him back to reality. "Why won't you answer me?"
Ronnie snapped out of his thoughts. "Nothing," he said, forcing a cheerful tone. He picked up his fork, the smile back in place.
Lara watched him, her brow furrowed. Ronnie was hiding something major from her, and she felt a chilling certainty that whatever it was, it had something to do with the intense, complicated history between him and Raina.
The Vengeance Planner
It was deep night in Gabriella's house. The kind of night where the outside world seemed to disappear, leaving only the blue glow of a screen.
Gabriella sat hunched over her laptop in her room, illuminated only by the display. A small, black pendrive was inserted into the USB port. On the screen, a video played, and she watched it again, and again, and again. Her eyes were locked, desperately searching for something missing, something misunderstood.
The video was blurry, shaky footage of Raina—the beautiful, untouchable Raina—chasing her friend, Kevin. And then, Raina was holding a small, silver object, and the screen shook violently as she appeared to be cutting Kevin's wrist.
Kevin, her friend. Kevin, who no longer existed.
Gabriella shut the laptop with a decisive snap.
"What really happened to you, Kevin?" she whispered into the silence of her room, her voice thick with pain and rage. "Who killed you? And why were you so in love with Raina? How can someone love a killer?"
She paced her room, running a hand through her short, cropped hair.
"Am I wrong? Am I mistaking her for a killer?" The video was damning, but the official case file was clear: Kevin had committed suicide. "But the video shows she chased you madly and cut your wrist…"
Gabriella stopped in the center of the room. "If Raina didn't kill you… then who did?" She was drowning in the sea of her own dark thoughts.
Suddenly, her phone rang, the sharp sound dragging her back to reality. She snatched it from the couch.
"Hello. Who is this?"
"Who? You didn't save my number yet?" A voice on the other end teased.
Gabriella looked at the screen. It read: Bestie Dona.
"Dona, sorry! I was completely lost in thought," Gabriella said, trying to sound normal.
"Lost in thought, or lost in your revenge plan?" Dona's voice was warm but knowing. "Girl, you need to prove you saved my number."
They quickly exchanged proof, and then Dona's voice returned, light and breezy. "Anyway, I forgot. Tomorrow is Raina's birthday. She invited me. Did she invite you?"
Gabriella's eyebrows raised in cynical amusement. "She didn't. And I highly doubt she will. How could she invite her enemy?"
Dona chuckled. "Yeah, you're probably right." Her voice dropped, suddenly sounding much deeper and colder. "She even tried to kill you, Gabriella. You have to be careful."
"You too," Gabriella warned. "She would go to any extreme if she wanted to."
"Yes, I know. I'll be careful. Now, wait—before I hang up. How old is Kevin?"
"What? Why are you asking that?"
"Just tell me the age he would be now."
"He would be twenty years old," Gabriella replied.
"Oh, so he's two years older than you. Did you call him 'brother'?"
"No, we called each other by name. Stop, why are you suddenly so curious about him, Dona?"
"No, no, I just noticed something," Dona said smoothly. "When you tried to open Kevin's personal computer, I saw that Raina and Kevin have the same year of birth. Before that, I thought Kevin was your age." She gave a small, light laugh.
Gabriella rolled her eyes, finding the conversation irritating. "Okay, bye, I gotta get to bed."
"Bye!" Dona replied, and the line went dead.
Gabriella stared at her phone, still irritated, before shaking her head. The same birth year? It was a weird, meaningless detail. She slid the laptop back onto the desk.
The Queen's Grief
In the luxurious, sweeping dimensions of Raina's grand bedroom, the light was low and ambient, reflecting off the polished hardwood floor.
Raina, clad in a sleek black silk nightgown, was scrolling through photos on her tablet. The previous year's birthday party. She smiled faintly when she saw the group photo: Her, Selina, Han, Jake, and Ronnie. They were all standing shoulder-to-shoulder, smiling so brightly their faces seemed to glow with pure, unfiltered happiness.
"Is friendship also fake?" she whispered, the question echoing the emptiness in the vast room. "Like my love?"
She swiped the screen. Her thumb stopped abruptly on a different picture. It was a photo of her and Kevin, her boyfriend, taken last year. His arm was around her, and they were laughing into the camera.
"I hadn't thought about the fact that you won't be with me in this birthday," she whispered, her voice cracking.
A single, brilliant, glistening teardrop escaped her eye and slid down her cheek, landing on the cold glass of the tablet screen, right over Kevin's smiling face.
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To be Continued.....
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