Prologue

Christmas was where I first started breaking. I stood on the balcony, feeling the heat of the fireworks when she said something I never expected.

"Let's break up."

The sky brightened, almost glaring when she told me this. Robin was staring at us from below, looking all cool and mysterious as he sipped punch. Good guy. Always nice to everyone. He looked away when I caught his gaze.

Break up.

Break up.

Break up.

Break. Up. I twirled the words on my mind, testing the sounds and syllables for any hidden meaning. I didn't quite get what she said and asked her to explain what she meant.

"Let's stop this," she repeated. Once again, I felt Robin's attention on me. No, that was wrong. It wasn't directed towards me per se. His gaze just happened to pass over the side of my face. What he was really looking at, was her. Amaranth.

…ah. It all clicked right there. The missed calls. The last-minute cancels.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts.

It hurts, you know? What did they call this in Ninjas of Love? NTR? Reading and raging about it is one thing but on the receiving end? Crappy doesn't even begin to describe my feelings right now. The whole thing's pretty ironic since I loved the damn trilogy.

I laughed. The unexpectedness of it drew weird looks, but I didn't care.

Bittersweet.

But there was nothing sweet here. Just a bitterness that soured my heart to a clump. It felt like someone doused ice water over me and replaced warmth with a coldness befitting a corpse. While wounds can lead to some debilitating medical expenses, there is unfortunately no coverage in place for the damage done by somebody calling you a worthless sack of was a subtle 'fuck off' message somewhere, and I wasn't dense enough to not pick it up.

"…say something," she pleaded.

I sighed. Am I that ugly?

"Jaune."

"Goodbye."

I walked away.