The Broken Vow: He Promised Me Forever, But Gave Her His Life Chapter 1

For twenty years, we were childhood sweethearts. Everyone knew Declan loved me.

In college, this rebellious bad boy had three ribs broken in a street fight and didn't make a single sound.

But for me, he dropped to his knees in front of his attackers.

When his knees hit the pavement, he looked up and smiled at me:

"Don't cry, Harper. My life is yours. What's a little kneeling?"

But on the day of our engagement, I heard him say to another woman with my own ears:

"Baby, my life is yours."

And his "baby" wasn't me.

* * *

Everyone at our university knew Declan was a rebellious trust-fund kid. He was a cynical bad boy who played games with life, acting like nothing in the world mattered to him. The only exception was me. Whenever I was involved, he would lose his cool instantly.

I am Harper.

Everyone also knew that the campus beauty, Savannah, had silently loved Declan for seven years.

She once ran through a torrential downpour to bring him cold medicine, getting so sick she missed three days of classes.

She sneaked a hot plate into her dorm to cook soup for him, nearly getting expelled when she was caught.

She hid a sketchbook that someone eventually found. Every single page was filled with sketches of Declan.

Declan spacing out, Declan playing basketball, Declan getting water for his girlfriend...

Many people felt bad for her, pitying her seven years of unrequited love.

But Declan’s love for me was a universally acknowledged fact.

He had taken a knife for me. He had gotten on his knees for me. He had abandoned his reckless ways and studied relentlessly just to get into the same Ivy League school as me.

At the height of the rumors, people used to say Declan loved me more than his own life.

Once upon a time, I sentimentalized it and believed them.

The school’s untouchable rebel used to hold my hand, begging me to date him. "Harper, have a little mercy on me..."

The guy who was ruthless to his enemies couldn't bear to raise his voice at me. "Harper, don't cry, it's my fault. Please don't cry..."

He was arrogant and untamed, yet he swore a vicious oath right to my face: "Harper, if I ever betray you, I'll go straight to hell."

Twenty years of knowing and protecting each other.

I thought I knew every side of Declan.

I thought I was as familiar with him as the lines on my own left palm.

Until right now. I stood fifteen feet away, watching like an outsider as he violently defended another woman.

His fury looked distant and foreign.

He seemed to have lost all rationality. Gone was his usual cool demeanor; the veins on his knuckles popped, making him look like a wolf ready to tear someone apart.

"You dare touch what's mine?"

My breath hitched. My spine stiffened.

The person he was claiming as his own wasn't me.

A mean girl from a rival sorority was pinned against the wall, choking out a sob. "She did it to herself..."

Before she could finish, a lighter flared. Declan narrowed his eyes.

"Dec, he's new. He doesn't know about Harper's history," a guy named Chase said quickly.

Realizing that Declan was having a PTSD trigger, the guy hurriedly tried to apologize, snatching the cigarette out of the girl's hand.

But the look in Declan’s eyes was terrifyingly cold as he slowly approached the girl.

"I didn't mean to... It was her... she burned herself..." The girl was stammering, terrified by the sheer murder in his eyes.

Declan’s expression was deadly. He turned his head slightly to look at Savannah, his words sharp as knives.

"Do it back."

His tone was icy as he repeated, "However she bullied you, do it back."

All the sound in the alley seemed to vanish.

I stared blankly at Declan’s cruelty, instinctively wrapping my coat tighter around myself, yet I still felt freezing cold.

It was true that Declan had taken a knife for me.

It was also true that he had washed his hands of his violent past.

He had promised me he would never put himself in danger again, that he would never get involved in this kind of mess again.

But now, he was losing his mind for Savannah.

His handsome eyes were bloodshot as he glared at the girl.

"I'm backing you up. What are you afraid of?" he told Savannah.

Savannah kept her eyes lowered, not daring to look at him.

Her frail body trembled slightly, looking so fragile that a gust of wind could knock her over.

The collar of her shirt was torn, exposing her pale collarbone—and a fresh, glaring burn mark from a cigarette.

When my eyes landed on that mark, my chest stung violently, as if I had been burned myself.

My hand instinctively touched my chest. Over my own left breast, there were three distinct cigarette scars.

Declan stared intensely at that red burn mark, his voice trembling involuntarily.

"Do it back. Did you not hear me?"

"Declan..." Savannah whimpered softly. She gently tugged at his sleeve, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes.

Declan froze. A flash of profound heartache crossed his face.

For some reason, suppressed memories flooded my mind in chaotic fragments.

"Harper, does it hurt really bad?"

"Harper, I failed to protect you."

"Harper, please don't look like that. I'm so scared..."

A 17-year-old Declan holding me tightly, crying helplessly, his voice trembling beyond recognition.

After that day, Declan quit smoking.

More accurately, he physically couldn't smoke anymore. The doctors said it was PTSD.

To this day, he held a lit cigarette, slowly backing the mean girl into a corner.

His hands were shaking uncontrollably.

He was terrified.

"Declan!" the girl suddenly shrieked. "Don't you have a girlfriend? Everyone says you love her! What the hell are you doing standing up for this manipulative bitch?!"

"Your girlfriend..."

Declan's eyes snapped up, glaring at her with a murderous intensity.

The girl immediately shut her mouth, swallowing her next words.

She was shaking in fear, her eyes darting around frantically.

And then, she saw me.

Like a drowning woman spotting a lifeline, her eyes lit up with desperate joy. She screamed at the top of her lungs, "Call the cops! Call the cops for me!"

"Please, call the police..."

Everyone turned their heads.

The moment our eyes met, Declan froze.

He instinctively dropped the cigarette and hurried toward me in a panic.

"Harper..."

He looked down at me, his aggressive, sharp features instantly softening.

The intimidating aura vanished completely.

Just the sound of him saying my name made my throat tight.

Seeing my red eyes, Declan hesitated, then hurriedly pulled me into his arms.

"I'm so sorry, I'm sorry. I stood you up, didn't I?"

"I was going to come find you, but my phone rang."

"I don't know what happened to me, Harper."

"When I heard someone say, 'I'll burn you alive with this cigarette,' I completely lost it."

"I was so scared. I thought what happened back then was repeating itself."

"I don't know what came over me, all the blood just rushed to my head and I couldn't think straight. I was just so terrified..."

So that was it.

That was why Declan lost control.

Five years had passed.

That bullying incident was my nightmare, but it was an inescapable nightmare for Declan too.

Yet my heart still throbbed with a dull ache, like it had been smashed with a sledgehammer.

I looked up at him, my eyes burning.

"Didn't you promise me?"

Declan froze. His eyes instantly reddened, and he lowered his head like a dog that knew it had done wrong.

My voice trembled as I repeated,

"Did you forget what you promised me?"

After a long silence, he finally looked at me with bloodshot eyes.

"I don't think I can ever get over it, Harper."

"I failed to protect you back then."

"If I had to do it over again, I would never let that happen to you..."

The teenage boy unknowingly gripped my hand so tight my knuckles ached.

After that incident, Declan couldn't sleep well for a long time, constantly waking up in the middle of the night.

His mom told me he would toss and turn, wanting to call me in a panic, but afraid of waking me up.

He took me to see a therapist, but in the end, he was the one who needed the therapy.

Later, he took a burning cigarette and pressed it into his own chest three times, creating the exact same scars.

"Harper, whatever pain you went through, I have to feel it too."

"Harper, even if you don't blame me, I can't stop blaming myself."

I thought of his tearful eyes, his trembling hands, and the sleepless nights he spent tortured by guilt.

No matter what, I couldn't bring myself to blame him.

"It's in the past, Declan. It's all in the past..." I gently hugged him back.

"Harper... it will never happen again."

Declan buried his face in my neck, a scalding tear dropping onto my collarbone.

I should have believed him.

Declan had never broken a promise to me before.

But the unease in my heart lingered.

This was his first time breaking a rule.

His first time abandoning me.

His first time breaking our promise.

And it was all for Savannah.