Lost Love Never Returns

Leona's heart skipped a beat. Almost instinctively, she stepped forward and snatched the letter from Sebastian's hand.

"What are you doing?"

Her voice trembled just slightly, but it was mostly cold and wary.

Sebastian's hand froze in mid-air as he was clearly taken aback by her sudden reaction.

Then his gaze turned icy. "The mailman said there was no one at your house. Your emergency contact is me, so he gave it to me to sign for you."

Emergency contact…

Leona's chest tightened, and a dull ache spread through her at that.

She had set him to be her emergency contact a long time ago. It was so long ago that she had almost forgotten about it. Back when he was her whole world, she had naturally entrusted such an important thing to him.

Leona lowered her gaze, hiding the turmoil in her eyes. "I forgot to change the emergency contact. I'll update it later."

She didn't look at him again and quickly grabbed a pen from a nearby table. With deliberate precision, she signed her name on the receipt—Leona Langham.

From now on, she would have nothing to do with him.

After signing, she turned to go home.

But then she heard Sebastian ask the mailman behind her, "Is this the only letter? There's no letter for me? We're going to the same university, so they should've arrived together."

The mailman confirmed, "Yes, this is the only one."

Sebastian furrowed his brow and called out to Leona, who had already taken a few steps away. "Leona, open yours and check. Maybe my letter is with yours."

Leona stopped, but she didn't turn around. Her voice was firm with no hesitation. "It's not here."

Her certainty caught Sebastian off guard, leaving him uneasy. "How can you be so sure?"

Leona took a deep breath, ready to reveal the decision she had kept buried for so long. Just as she was about to speak, Sebastian's phone rang.

It was Maureen.

As soon as he answered, Maureen's tearful voice came through. "Sebastian, where are you? I'm scared… I think someone's following me…"

Sebastian's expression instantly changed, his focus immediately shifting to Maureen. His voice was filled with the urgency and worry Leona used to hear so many times. "Don't be scared. Stay where you are and don't move. Send me your location. I'm coming now!"

Without sparing Leona another glance, he turned and quickly walked toward his car. He didn't even hear her quietly say, "I changed my college application, so we didn't apply to the same university."

Soon, the engine roared to life, and the car sped away.

Leona stood still, watching the car disappear into the night, and the last ripple of emotion in her heart finally faded into silence.

In the days that followed, Leona quietly made preparations for her journey.

Southsea University was a long way from here, so she knew she would need to start everything from scratch.

On the other hand, Sebastian's social media was unusually active.

Every day, she saw updates with photos and videos of him, and he always had Maureen by his side. They hiked together at sunrise, with Maureen resting her head on his shoulder as the clouds rolled beneath them. They went camping and sat by a bonfire, while Maureen fed him skewers of grilled food. They checked off countless popular tourist spots, posing for intimate photos at each landmark…

In every photo, Sebastian's gaze was relaxed, and his smile was warm.

Their classmates commented on his posts.

"Seb, is this official now?"

"Please be together forever!"

"Maureen, you're so cool to win Seb over!"

Leona swiped through the screen, looking at those vibrant but blinding images. A heaviness settled in her chest, like a rock weighing her down, but strangely, the sharp pain that had once taken her breath away did not arrive as expected.

This was what it felt like when her feelings had completely shut down.

The sun was shining brightly the day she went back to the school to pick up her documents.

As soon as she entered the gates, she saw Maureen, arm-in-arm with Sebastian, posing for photos in front of the bulletin board and making cute faces for the camera.

Sebastian still wore a slightly aloof expression as usual, but his lips were curved into a small smile as he went along with her antics.

Leona stood at a distance, and at that moment, she was flooded with memories of herself and Sebastian.

They had walked hand-in-hand down every tree-lined path in this very school. He had once pinned her against a wall for a secret kiss. They would spend hours lying on desks, making plans for the future, swearing to go to Northsea University together, and getting married after graduating from there…

Those beautiful moments seemed like a distant, blurry dream to her now.

Since Maureen appeared, everything had changed.

As for Leona and Sebastian, they no longer shared a future.