She shook her head, and I could see the struggle in her eyes as she chose her next words carefully.
“I fell in love with him when I was eighteen,” she began quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “We fooled around for a while, and I thought… I thought it was something real. By the time I was nineteen, I was hooked. Completely, hopelessly in love. But then I found out about Stephanie. She was his potential mate.”
Anna paused, the pain of that memory evident on her face. “I cried so much,” she continued, her voice breaking. “I prayed he would reject her and choose me. I even told myself that if he did, I would be the perfect partner for him. But he accepted her. He chose her, and just like that, he broke things off with me. He told me to move on.”
She laughed bitterly, shaking her he
