Cassandra's flowing white dress hung in the air as she walked towards the altar, seeing that man dressed in a beige tuxedo and with blue-black hair waiting for her at the altar, while her true love should be living her own life at home.

The anguish in her chest was glaring, and it grew with every step she took towards him.

She remembered all the times she had been with you, the woman she genuinely loved. You had always been affectionate with her, not that Marco, her fiancé, wasn't, but you... you were special to her, and you treated her as if she were something unique in the world.

Unique, special and irreplaceable. The rarest jewel she had ever laid eyes on and she certainly kept you in her heart for that. For that treatment, for the way her girlfriend looked at her. How Cassandra herself also looked at you, the woman of her life.

When the light from one of the many flashes caught her eyes, making them sting a little, she realized that she was almost crying, just like Marco, but for different reasons, even though they were both smiling.

He liked her and wanted her as a partner, and she was getting married on her father's orders. It had always been like that, the families had always agreed to it. Everyone agreed — except her.

Even more so now that the family business was going bankrupt and her and Marco's parents thought it would be a great idea to unite them; to unite the Safra money with the Pachis' reputation. Marco was the first to say that he loved the idea and she — who belonged to the family that would benefit the most financially — only had to agree when her father came home and suddenly told her about the wedding, without being able to choose whether to accept or not, not even setting the date.

"I'm getting married for the good of my family, it's something necessary," that's what she had always thought about the countless times she thought about giving up on it all. "They need me. I can't give up everything just for... my own happiness."

But what she didn't expect was that, more than having to pretend to love someone in a way that would convince everyone around her — including the person herself —, pretending not to love someone she truly loved was something almost surreal because it was so difficult.

Having to end it by saying "It's all over, thank you for everything" and "everything we've been through has been nothing but fun for me" over the phone... that almost killed her with heartbreak, even more so when she heard the woman of her life crying with sadness because of her.

Three or four cities later, she had finally reached her destination. She ran out of the car and ran up the stairs to the second floor at the same pace, cursing the building's damn elevator for never working. She knocked desperately on the first white door on her left.

Her voice, a little shaky, came through the door, probably muffled, and was more than enough to make Cassandra's heart skip a beat and a strange, pleasant chill run through her stomach. You always made her feel like this.

She thought her heart had stopped beating for a moment when you turned to face her. Your eyes were red and swollen from crying, still with tears in them, your black blouse was wrinkled and your hair was loose. If it were anyone else, she would say it was a depressing scene, but you... you were so handsome.

She stopped in her tracks when you spoke, just like her — on your side, the reason was even more obvious than on Cassandra's, since at your door was the person who had broken up with you (over the phone and a month before the news that she was going to marry a Marco-whatever-he-was guy), wearing a wedding dress dirty with sand from the beach and with her makeup smeared from crying so much.

"..." That was all she had said to you, her voice weak and fragile from crying as she lowered her head. "Everything...! Everything I said was a lie, I always loved you, always! I didn't want to...!" Her tears ran down to her chin, where they began to drip onto the lace of her dress, since she refused to look you in the eyes. She had broken up with the only person who made her heart beat faster in life, and all for her parents. Parents who didn't even see her for who she was.