Julian heard me perfectly. His lips parted slightly, perhaps wanting to say something to make me stay or to argue back, but in the end, he just gave a sullen nod.
I stopped thinking about leaving. Meridia was my home, the home I had known since I was seventeen.
My memories from before I was seventeen were blurry. I only vaguely remembered a vibrant, open-hearted boy I met in high school. He loved to follow behind me and step on my shadow. Whenever I caught him, he would smile at me—a radiant smile that seemed capable of dispelling all the gloom in my life.
I hated going home, so I always walked very slowly after school. He would stroll lazily behind me, hands stuffed in his pockets. At first, he didn't talk to me, and I was too timid to strike up a conversation.
But one day, I thought
