Until July *COMPLETED*

Chapter XXIX

"I-I love you, Briella".

She kept her gaze locked with his, frozen in place. "L-love?...".

With that, the wind increased in strength. It picked up the cherry blossom petals from the trees around them and caused them to twirl and fall all around both Briella and Ryan.

"Y-you love me?..." Briella asked. To which Ryan replied with a nod.

Instantly, her eyes swelled with tears, with a droplet managing to run down her cheek. Ryan noticed this and instantly, his eyes widened.

"B-but I told you! I-I don't want to be in love, not right now! I-I don't want to deal with any more heartbreak, Ryan!!". A pause. "I-I don't want to be abandoned again...". Briella ended her sentence with a pained sigh as her eyes lowered towards the ground. Slowly, she felt a lump grow in her throat. She tried to swallow it down, but it only struck back with even more pain.

Then, a hitch caused her attention to dart back to Ryan. She rose her gaze up to him and when she did...

"R-Ryan?...".

She saw the way his eyes swelled with tears. His tears threatened to escape and run down his face, but he didn't allow them to.

"Why?..." he whispered under his breath.

For some bizarre reason, his question sent a shock of pain through her heart. It only caused the lump in her throat to grow bigger. "W-what? Why what?...".

"Why do you think that just because he broke your heart, that just because he abandoned you, that we will all follow his steps and do the exact same?" He interrogated. "Why do you look at me like that?" he repeated after a few seconds of silence.

Then, while looking at Ryan, Briella's expression, which laid across her face, changed. For the first time, she asked herself 'W-why?... What's the real reason that I feel this way?...'.

Then, she remembered Nadia's words. 'What if Ryan is different?... I have never told you this about Dylan, but... I genuinely feel like Ryan is a good guy...'.

Just like Briella, Ryan too remembered something from months ago. Something that Briella herself told him. 'And that's what hurt, and still hurts me the most. The fact that he didn't have enough decency to break up with me face-to-face.'. He swallowed whatever was in his mouth before he thought to himself, 'I-I hope you know that I'd never do such a thing to you...'.

"I... I don't know..." Briella finally responded. From there, her eyes returned back to looking at the ground. "I don't know why I feel such a way, Ryan...". A pause. 'Just like Dylan last year, Ryan will be leaving me too. He'll be going to Uni, somewhere far from me and I am scared...'.

"I-I'm scared," she voiced.

"Scared?". A brief pause. "Scared of what, Briella?".

His question caused old memories to flow back to her. It only made the lump in her throat more painful. It only grew bigger and bigger.

Though she said goodbye to Dylan on that night of the talent show, the scars he left within her, that's what she'll carry with her forever.

"He... he left me with a promise, Ryan...". No name was needed for Ryan to connect who this 'he' was.

Her ex.

"He left me with a promise, a promise he didn't keep...". Tear by tear, they rolled down her face. "He said how we would work it all out. He made me believe that we will survive the worst. He made me believe how we'll make it through the storm. He... he made me believe his lies...". Then, with tears still in her eyes, she looked back at Ryan. She noticed the face of empathy stretched across his face. "So, I-I'm scared that if I believe another guy as much as I believed him... I'm only bound to get my heart broken once again...".